Eragon vs Rey: Essentials to making a powerful and adept young warrior · 1:08am May 11th, 2018
Hello this is Evowizard here. I know I did a comparison with Rey before in another blog here and if you want, you can go check it out with all the points I made there. I might just gloss over some of the points on Rey because I made them clear in the other blog. Well the reason I wanted to do this blog is that I recently picked up the first Eragon book to read it again since I enjoyed it all those years ago. It doesn't hold up as well as I'd have hoped, but it's still serviceable. What struck me of interest was how Eragon was treated in the book and why it reminded me of Rey and how she was handled.
Most notably, it's about Bloodline and Failure. Oh yes, I went into this in a way with her compared to Mozart but I believe another comparison is order because of their powers and what they have to go through because of them. How the story treats them and what they have to go through. I think Eragon is a good candidate to show how Rey could have been better written.
The thing that we have to start with is the level of training each of them receive in their respective stories. You see, both Eragon and Rey find out about their powers later on in their lives. Eragon is of course younger, in his teens, while Rey is... I think a young adult? Older teen? Around that age. Not a whole lot older then Eragon, but still. Eragon has to figure out how to fight and use magic, with the same given to Rey to an extent, more so with her force. However, that's where the differences really start to be apparent.
(Spoilers for those who have not read Eragon.)
Eragon, from the start, is shown to be a novice when it comes to swordfights. He is not an expert and has a long way to go. In fact, his master, Brom, basically beats him in every fight they concur and he doesn't even start to get the better of him until much later on in the story. Eragon has to work extremely hard, every single day to get good with a sword. A weapon he has had no prior training with to even begin to get anywhere. The only weapon Eragon is naturally good with is his bow and that's because he has to routinely hunt for his food. Even then, he is shown to struggle and that's just against other men or the Urgals that come against him. Not to mention the Shade.
Now Rey is shown to be alright in close combat with a staff. Not an expert but knows her way around it well enough. That is not an issue when it comes to her character, but when she is given a blaster later on in the movie... she is able to hit someone well enough. Thankfully it's a stormtrooper so he didn't even bother with cover or anything of the sorts. The issue I have with this is that Rey, apart from slightly fidgeting with the damn thing, still managed to get a kill with a blaster, a weapon that she has no prior experience with, without really earning it. Eragon was skilled with a bow, not a sword, and it is the bow that earned him his first kill coupled with his magic. Thematically, Rey should have missed as a trained soldier wouldn't have been so easy to hit with her skills, showing that she's not very good with the weapon. I'd go one step further with her skills with a lightsaber.
The reason why her skills with it are horrendous in a narrative stance is that Rey is skilled with a staff. It is a long, hefty, weapon of choice that requires you to use both hands in some cases. A lightsaber is a small, light, blade of plasma. It has a different weight. It has a different style to how you use it effectively. Different weapon types have their advantages and disadvantages. Fate Stay Night has these as examples.
And if I recall, it is even slightly mentioned in the Bane Sith book about these different styles of lightsabers and strengths and weaknesses. That being said, Rey being great in a weapon and style that she has never been shown to use without any prior training combined with her first real kill being that of a weapon, again, she has no training with is terrible. If she had no prior training, Rey should have been given a staff or lance like weapon that would fit better with her motif. Something Eragon continues to have throughout the books as his weapon of choice is always his bow and then his sword. His original fighting style continues to play a part of his battles. Rey's does not.
Then we get to the time spent in this training. Eragon, as mentioned before, was given intense training over several weeks/months by a former Rider himself. A incredibly skilled and formidable opponent. Again and again we are shown this training and referenced to it before the master's ultimate demise.
Rey, to what we were given, barely has any of that time. Possibly a few days, a week at most. Two if I'm being generous and that's also combined that we barely see any real genuine training with her. We don't get the feeling that she's really progressing. She is static. She is great and she does it on her own without proper guidance. That's great and all, BUT IT MUST BE BLOODY EARNED!!!! You have to EARN your powers. You have to earn your skills. We as the audience should be privy to your advancement if we want to connect with you. Rey, you simply bloody fail in this regard.
And then we get to powers, and oh boy, yeah this is a flop on Star Wars's case.
You see, both protagonists are not aware of their own powers until they stumble upon it in their stories. In the case of Eragon, he stumbles upon his magic about a third, if less, into the story. The thing is that his magic takes a toll on his body. He actually passes out. He suffers because the magic he uses can only be performed if he's strong enough to actually use it. Throughout the book, he has to test himself with his magic. He has to find out his limitations and because of that, he often suffers and find drawbacks to his power. Oh yes, he does eventually grow stronger or find ways around this problem with additional magical stores, but these are earned. Everything about his progress was steady and showed his development as a character. As he grew into a strong and confident battler, so did his magical skills.
Rey doesn't really come into her powers until late in the movie. There she's able to use force abilities we don't really find in padawans and this is coming from someone with NO training whatsover. She just does it... because the plot says so. Okay. None of this is earned. Her capabilities aren't really explored nor does she develop with them. Even her force 'training' is basically amounting to nothing. None of her powers, which are so incredible by Jedi standards at least with her level of time and training aren't anything impressive because the audience has no connection to them.
Then we come to an important bit with bloodline. You see, when it comes to people with fantastical powers, bloodlines are very important. Unless this is X-Men where fantastical people are just born of random people but whatever. This is for fantasy.
Now with Eragon, it is shown and stated that he is extremely gifted when it comes to magic. He is able to perform it quicker then Brom has seen other Riders do and do some things and progress in a manner faster then others before him. In a way, this is similar to how skilled Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender was since both characters were pressed for time and had to force their way through much trial and effort to gain powers that would usually take years to acquire. To top this all off, one of the reasons for this is because Brom is his father. Brom, who was an adept RIDER, and magic user in his own right and his own mother who was said to be very skilled in her own right. Eragon is gifted partially because of his bloodline and their adept abilities passed down to him.
This is essential when it comes to young and quickly powerful characters. If you give a character a strong magical potential, there must be a reason for this. They can't just be 'special'. That's boring.
Like how Rey has no real bloodline and her parents were nobodies.......................... Star Wars, go home. Go home and stand in a corner. That is lazy, boring trite. It doesn't make me engaged in her past. It takes away from who she is because her past was part of her original character. And who knows, maybe they'll retcon this with saying she's lying. I don't know, but a nobody with no bloodline just having this much potential? That is a no go when it comes to trying to make a relatable and thematically pleasing character we are supposed to watch grow over the course of three movies.
Lastly is a very important feature to characters. THEY MUST FAIL. To show a character has grown, changed, and has to get better a character must fail at some point in their journey. It's how we as the audience can be pumped to see them get better, improve, and kick some ass when the going gets tough.
Eragon fails plenty of times in his first book, many of which are his fault. He gets overconfident because of his new abilities. He fails at magical tricks until he gets better and strong. He gets captured several times and he has to get help in order to break free. He has to run away from fights. He has opponents that can knock him silly because he isn't strong enough. Eragon fails so much in his first outing but through it all, he gets back up and tries again. He actually gets to learn from all these failures and grow. We the audience get to cheer him on, hoping that he won't fail again and hoping he gets better when he fails.
Rey does not fail. Not in the same way. She is captured only once and that was mostly due to bad writing. She had no reason to run into a forest when we know she has to come back to get off the planet. Any real obstacle she can use her force abilities to get out of. She's able to fend off and basically win her first real lightsaber fight and even the 'I'm not the Emperor' Emperor is taken out by someone else. None of her victories feel all that earned because she didn't really get to fail and get better in order to make these feel real. She does not fail and she does not have anything to learn from.
In conclusion, Eragon is a much better realized protagonist because of his shortcomings and how hard he had to fight. How his bloodline and training made him the strong being that he is. Rey is a shadow of that.
Hope you all enjoyed this blog well enough. Just something I wanted to get off my chest. Until next time, take care.
That's a really good point. Rey is why the montage was created; a bunch of montages of her training things would have improved her character immensely.
4858399
True. It doesn't help that the movie only gives her a small window to do all this training in so she is somehow able to do this all extremely quickly without any reason.
4858403 Yeah, that's a problem. Since that whole movie was basically a copy of "A New Hope," they should have had an old hermit living near Rey that routinely teaches her how to swing a light blade, fix and fly vehicles, speak weird languages, etc, and that old hermit turns out to be a reclusive Jedi.
Like the way they explained how Luke, a farmboy was able to be a great pilot in the first movie. "I use to shoot wampa rats smaller than that exhaust port."
4858408
In all honesty, I would use The Phantom Menace as a good example of how to establish these skills. I mean, the pod race wasn't just to gain his freedom. It actually plays a part in the finale and explains effectively how Anakin can be so good with a ship.