Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-25012056-20180331224848/@comment-33185350-20180403233259

I haven’t read Eragon so I can’t say for sure, however I don’t really have a whole lot of respect for people who just copy Tolkien’s ideas for a generic man-elf-dwarf-orc based fantasy world. None of them seem to come even close to Tolkien and they aren’t original.

Star Wars was actually not really an original plot to begin with, much of its storyline was based of the general mythological plotline known as the “Hero’s Journey.”

Generally it’s a sequence of events, the most general of which being the hero being forced to leave their comfortable home and go on a journey doing important things and becoming a better person before returning home. Like how Bilbo got swept up on the journey with the Dwarves and had to leave his comfortable home, and at the end came back a different person. Or Frodo had no choice but to leave the Shire and at the end returned (though greatly changed as well). Also you see Luke forced to leave his not-so-homely planet of Tatooine and go on adventures in space (to return-ish in an unnecessarily long and annoying sequence in Return of the Jedi... a bit different from the normal story).

That being said, there’s a way to make the hero’s journey into a good story while still being original, entertaining, and unique, as both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were. Though I can’t say as to whether Eragon accomplished that.

Here’s Wikipedia’s article on the Hero’s journey for more information and details: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

I recommend you check it out, you will find many of the plot lines in almost every famous story.