Kippur's Paolini report
Better update.
I went to the Once upon a time panel with authors Lynn Flewelling, Christopher Paolini, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Megan Whalen Turner and Brent Weeks.
The first question put to the panel was, "Can an everyman character be in epic fantasy or does it require epic characters?"
The general consensus was that you can. And in fact it helped the readers relate to the characters and stories. There were two dissenters on this, one was Paolini, the other I didn't get the name of. They said that they liked the larger than life characters because they can do all sorts of neat things. Because they are awesome and super-powered. And that is awesome.
And then she went on to say that they called that sort of character a Mary Sue and she didn't see anything wrong with that.
The question was passed to Paolini where upon he declared, "If that's your definition of a Mary Sue, then I guess that makes Eragon one!" Hah Hah. The other panelists looked a bit uncomfortable at that sort of thing. The whole Super-Powered awesome characters are AWESOME bit.
Some (I don't remember who) said that nobles and kings are hard to relate because they're rich and noble and who here is a king?
This I don't believe. I think if you're a good enough writer you can write an interesting rich and noble character. They have the same problems as everyone else does, if not more because they can have the issues of ruling people.
Then they started talking about chosen ones and the idea of Destiny. Paolini did admit that Eragon was a chosen one. But he also said that he was trying to play with the idea of destiny and prophecy by having someone learn that they were going to do something and then killing themselves so that they wouldn't. I don't remember that. But whatever.
TI think it was Brandon Weeks who said that following the Hero's Journey so strictly to the letter, like Lucas did in Star Wars Prequels wasn't a good idea because you ended up shoehorning things into there that didn't always make sense. Things like heroes should have a virgin birth so... Ankain was made from midiclorens. Paolini had a confused look on his face when this was said.
He is aware of fan fiction and slash fic. He also admits to faking in his languages. His final piece of advice on languages was that "apostrophes are fun!"
Right then.
When he saw that my Eragon book was all full of notes and sticky tags he wanted to know why this was. I admitted to be doing some critical work on his books. He was interested and flattered. I was coy, not actually saying I thought they were bad.
Later, today, I actually had a conversation with him where upon I asked about the lack of Galby and he said he was trying to do an, "Orson Wells" (I think) where you hear about the bad guy a lot but don't see him until the very end. He promises that we will actually see Galby in book four. As for the picture of Galby in the guide to Alagesia, he said that someone else was supposed to draw it, but they couldn't do it, so they were going to use a picture of the Ra'zac. He said no, to let him do it, and he stayed up all night drawing it.
I'll take that as a fairly reasonable answer. Though I do worry that even as a bad sketch he looks like a typical Evil Dude.
He said that no, he didn't think Eragon was a Mary Sue. And we started talking about what Mary Sues were before he had to go off to do an interview. He did ask for my card though. Which I gave to him.
We'll see if anything happens. XD
I went to the Once upon a time panel with authors Lynn Flewelling, Christopher Paolini, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Megan Whalen Turner and Brent Weeks.
The first question put to the panel was, "Can an everyman character be in epic fantasy or does it require epic characters?"
The general consensus was that you can. And in fact it helped the readers relate to the characters and stories. There were two dissenters on this, one was Paolini, the other I didn't get the name of. They said that they liked the larger than life characters because they can do all sorts of neat things. Because they are awesome and super-powered. And that is awesome.
And then she went on to say that they called that sort of character a Mary Sue and she didn't see anything wrong with that.
The question was passed to Paolini where upon he declared, "If that's your definition of a Mary Sue, then I guess that makes Eragon one!" Hah Hah. The other panelists looked a bit uncomfortable at that sort of thing. The whole Super-Powered awesome characters are AWESOME bit.
Some (I don't remember who) said that nobles and kings are hard to relate because they're rich and noble and who here is a king?
This I don't believe. I think if you're a good enough writer you can write an interesting rich and noble character. They have the same problems as everyone else does, if not more because they can have the issues of ruling people.
Then they started talking about chosen ones and the idea of Destiny. Paolini did admit that Eragon was a chosen one. But he also said that he was trying to play with the idea of destiny and prophecy by having someone learn that they were going to do something and then killing themselves so that they wouldn't. I don't remember that. But whatever.
TI think it was Brandon Weeks who said that following the Hero's Journey so strictly to the letter, like Lucas did in Star Wars Prequels wasn't a good idea because you ended up shoehorning things into there that didn't always make sense. Things like heroes should have a virgin birth so... Ankain was made from midiclorens. Paolini had a confused look on his face when this was said.
He is aware of fan fiction and slash fic. He also admits to faking in his languages. His final piece of advice on languages was that "apostrophes are fun!"
Right then.
When he saw that my Eragon book was all full of notes and sticky tags he wanted to know why this was. I admitted to be doing some critical work on his books. He was interested and flattered. I was coy, not actually saying I thought they were bad.
Later, today, I actually had a conversation with him where upon I asked about the lack of Galby and he said he was trying to do an, "Orson Wells" (I think) where you hear about the bad guy a lot but don't see him until the very end. He promises that we will actually see Galby in book four. As for the picture of Galby in the guide to Alagesia, he said that someone else was supposed to draw it, but they couldn't do it, so they were going to use a picture of the Ra'zac. He said no, to let him do it, and he stayed up all night drawing it.
I'll take that as a fairly reasonable answer. Though I do worry that even as a bad sketch he looks like a typical Evil Dude.
He said that no, he didn't think Eragon was a Mary Sue. And we started talking about what Mary Sues were before he had to go off to do an interview. He did ask for my card though. Which I gave to him.
We'll see if anything happens. XD