Did Christopher Paolini "borrow" from YW books?

[lightjedi6]

I have read all the paolini books, on the 6th of the young wizard books and have read alot of star wars (original and extended universe, I will need to actually read some more of it sometime, after my brother picked it up I found anime then manga [not cus of YW, before them], and all the harry potters just to boot)
So I have been exposed to quite a few different angles and I think that alot of paolini's work looks like he borrowed from all 3 and probably from more than just them, I think he probably should have developed his plotline a little bit more so as to be more original, but as it came out even with the "borrowing" or in some cases it feels a bit more like blatant stealing... when it comes right down to it almost no one is "original" some are more original than others, but mostly its just someone taking something then twisting and adding or removing, perhaps not so popular or as well defined as star wars it wasn't a completely original theme, so I am able to treat each of the series as a completely (for the most part...) separate entities and enjoy each one individually, I eagerly await the releases of both the 4th book in the inheritance cycle aswell as the 9th book of the young wizards series: a wizard of wars. I still dont know if I will be able to wait for them to come onto audio book before I "read" (rather listen) to them, audio books were the best invention since the written language.

Each of the story lines is original enough for me to have enjoyed (ing) them all very much, I am someone who tries wholeheartedly not to re: watch, listen, or read ANYTHING, its a waste of time, but there are sometimes when (like when a good movie i have already seen is airing on tv) something will come up and i watch it but it ticks me off since i like original each time, yet I didnt feel anyt repetitiveness within the stories, my biggest annoyance comes in the YW series were each book is a standalone (the thing i find more annoying is in the wheel of times series [which i prolly wont ever read] were the story line is continued through the generations, i dont like that, i prefer a pretty much set "set" of main characters, although it didnt fit too badly with the star wars series.) although I enjoy a set of main characters, I believe that recurring minor or support characters is good too, with the YW it feels that the characters that get dropped from book to book and some of the sub story lines are dropped is a bit much, and I dont fully agree with nearly every book having a death of a pretty strong support character, it feels like the final harry potter book all over again (i hated it and loved it at the same moment). although I think all these things are part of the "character" of the stories overall, i dont think its totally needed, I like how paolini keeps each of the individual storylines continuing, eventhough some reviews believed that this "jumping around" was bad i think it was rather good.

Sorry if some of this went off topic, when I get started it sort of runs around for awhile.

[illiriam]

Yeah, I understand that all authors will inevitably reuse ideas that have come up before. I guess I should have focused more on the shared elements between the stories rather than on the borrowing principle.
But the correlation between Eragon, Star Wars and TLOTR is just insane.
Not saying that I didn't like the books. I loved them, I bought Brisinger as soon as it came out. But, in that first story at least, it just seemed to be such a strong relationship between ideas and the language that I found it hard to believe it was just a passing coincidence.
And yes, the second and third books in CP's cycle are more divergent from other works. I feel like he needed something to get him started, which was Eragon, and then he really came into his own, with his own ideas and themes.
I don't really see much in common with Tamora Pierce though...
I had another idea, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was now. Statistics has destroyed my thinking capabilities... I'll come back if I can think of it.

Note: I like the idea about them being third cousins. That is a great way to put it!

[lightjedi6]

Yeah, I understand that all authors will inevitably reuse ideas that have come up before. I guess I should have focused more on the shared elements between the stories rather than on the borrowing principle.
But the correlation between Eragon, Star Wars and TLOTR is just insane.
Not saying that I didn't like the books. I loved them, I bought Brisinger as soon as it came out. But, in that first story at least, it just seemed to be such a strong relationship between ideas and the language that I found it hard to believe it was just a passing coincidence.
And yes, the second and third books in CP's cycle are more divergent from other works. I feel like he needed something to get him started, which was Eragon, and then he really came into his own, with his own ideas and themes.
I don't really see much in common with Tamora Pierce though...
I had another idea, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was now. Statistics has destroyed my thinking capabilities... I'll come back if I can think of it.

Note: I like the idea about them being third cousins. That is a great way to put it!

your question wasnt a bad one, it was honest, and my simple answer is, yes, it feels like he did quite a bit of borrowing but Instead of thinking of it as a bad or negative just think of it as throwing together a bunch of leftovers and adding a little bit of original spicing then cook it up, although you can feel the old its something good in its own way, I am able to read each of the series nearly unbiased, I totally love the references to star wars and stuff in the YW series but something that feels VERY off is the fact that in the story were only 2 years or so has passed, the technologies went from the 80s at break neck speed to 2000.

will prolly edit.

[illiriam]

oh. Totally remembered what I was going to say. (Would've made it an edit, but it got kinda long...) Slightly off topic, but goes along with how all authors will reuse ideas in their writing.
Pretty much most of the great movie classics can be traced back to one of Shakespeare's plays. My high school English teacher gave us a list of the major ones where the connection is really obvious, but the only one that pops into my head is 10 Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew), which is one of my favorite movies.
Its very rare to get a brand new idea, its more likely that someone, somewhere, has come up with the idea already, and probably even got it published.
And a lot of the themes and plot devices used today are ones that have proven to be popular and effective in grabbing readers' attention. But sometimes it can be more than that, which is where you get authors suing others for stealing their work.
It's just that a lot of the elements in Eragon seemed to come almost directly from other sources, and while it may be unlikely that the Elves language came directly from the Speech, they certainly do have aspects in common, and may have an ancestor that they share. lol.
Which ties into the third cousin idea which I think is brilliant. Thank you for that by the way.
And sorry if this rambled. Its been a long couple of days, plus its late, and my brain forms silly and incoherent sentences when I get tired....

[Wolf]

I forget who said it, but back on page one, someone said that they knew the entire Star Wars plot because of reading Paolini's book, and they thought, "wow, this guy really needs to get his own plotline."

Now, I've haven't gotten around to reading Eragon yet, but I hear it's very good, and I'm not about to bash a book I haven't even read yet. (okay, *coughcoughtwlightcough*) But the first thing that really comes to mind is to compare this to music.

Bands and lesser-known people have these legal battles all the time. I forget the name of the guy, but there's this B/C-list singer who tried to sue Coldplay because their song Viva la Vida sounded a HECK of a lot like one of HIS songs. Now, his is a guitar rift, and needless to say, when you play the two together, you kinda wish Coldplay had added that guitar part to the song.

As a writer, I have to reluctantly admit that maybe there can only be so many variations on an idea. My own story is probably a rip-off of three different things: it's a space adventure, a romance, a time-travel epic... so if ya wanna throw any movies or books like that out there, I probably did riff some of those things.

It does sound like he kinda super ripped DD and Tolkien off, though. Combined the two with his own idea. I've had other books I've thought this about-- has anyone looked at the publishing date of Eragon vs SYWtbaW?