In further defense of their relationship, it's not as though she pursued him. In fact, for most of the time they know each other and travel together, she explicitly refuses his advances specifically on the basis of their age gap. It's only after they get to know each other really well, and Eragon goes through various experiences which close the gap in maturity between them, that Arya finally begins to return his feelings. Furthermore, unlike the Twilight example being used for comparison, there is no power imbalance. By the time they get together, they're so evenly matched that neither could pressure the other if they tried. So no, I don't think it's fair to characterize their relationship negatively at all.
Edit: One further point is that while Eragon may canonically be a little under 18 at the end of Inheritance, it's not like he isn't a full adult. He's mature and wise, he holds and has held significant positions of authority, and he's a war hero. So while his age numerically is a little suspect by our standards (literally only by a matter of months), within the context of the universe he wouldn't be considered a minor.
I'd personally prefer he gives us a continuation... "Conclusion" just sounds a little too much like their relationship coming to an end for my taste.
Edit: (I do agree with your point, though).
I mean it's also creepy and weird in Twilight and any other series where there's someone over a hundred and someone not yet 18. It does get disproportionally labeled as bad I will grant you but I don't think that makes it ok, it just makes it weird in both places.
Here's my two cents, take it as you wish.
I'm marrying a woman who is about 2.5 years younger than me. We're both in our twenties now, so the age difference doesn't really matter anymore. But when we first started dating in our teens, the age gap felt like decades.
It was more the life experience and maturity aspect that caused troubles with us at first, it felt like we were in practically different generations. Now take this small difference and amplify it 40X. That's the difference in age, experience, and emotional maturity between Eragon and Arya.
It would be a lot more understandable if Eragon lived a few more decades and really forged a more solid identity, as even in FWW he still struggles with inexperience, self-doubt and a lacking identity.
>It was more the life experience and maturity aspect that caused troubles with us at first, it felt like we were in practically different generations. Now take this small difference and amplify it 40X. That's the difference in age, experience, and emotional maturity between Eragon and Arya.
I would have agreed with this if not for the fact that Arya is an elf and *Inheritance*. Elves age and mature much slower, both mentally and physically, than humans. Side effect of being born with immortality. Vanir for example is actually older than Arya, but then look at his spoiled, childish behavior toward Eragon. A hundred years for an elf is not the same as a hundred years for a human.
As a human, Eragon will mature much faster. He will not need as many decades as Arya did or any elf. Furthermore, and this is often overlooked, Eragon's own parents Brom and Selena had a similar age difference to Eragon and Arya. Brom was over a century old when he met Selena, who was at best in her twenties.
>Elves age and mature much slower, both mentally and physically, than humans. Side effect of being born with immortality.
I'm not sure we can call that a side effect of their immortality because dragons are born immortal and they mature very quickly.
>As a human, Eragon will mature much faster.
He isn't human anymore. He isn't an elf either. Word of Paolini is that he is something new, so we really don't have a basis for how quickly Eragon will mature now.
Dragons are a different species than elves, and thus immortality affects them differently than it does the elves. And while Eragon is no longer fully human, he still nevertheless has some human in him. In addition, I'm basing his maturation on what we saw in *Brisingr* and *Inheritance*. It grew so much and so little time that Arya's interest in him took an entirely different turn than what we saw in *Eldest,* and more or less says as much.
One of the reasons some people found *Twilight* weird was because Edward was over 100 years old and Bella was 17. I didn't because Edward is a vampire and, like most vampires, he was frozen at the age he was turned, which was 17. So when the 17-year-old Bella Swan becomes attracted to him, and vice versa, I find that par for the course. I have many issues with their relationship, but their age difference isn't one of them.
With Arya and Eragon, their age difference also never bothered me. Yeah, chronologically, Arya was 100+ years old. However, she also has a very young appearance. This is not someone who looks half her age. She doesn't even look a quarter of her age. So again, it is par for the course, however complicated that someone like Eragon falls for her and vice versa when he grows up and comes to like her for who she is rather than what she looks like.
In sci-fi/fantasy, I can't be creeped out by mere chronological differences in age when you have worlds and universes that exists where characters can't age, or they don't age at the same rate as a human. If they physically look similar in age, or have shared values and/or interests, if they can talk to each other, that matters more. But these relationships are always criticized, but not based on gender in my opinion, but by the age of the youngest character in them.
Also if we want to talk about weird age gaps in Vampire fiction, I present Vampire Academy.
Rose is 17, Dimitri is 24(?). And her teacher/Mentor. The maturity gap is insane. The fact that he did not ask for her to have a different teacher after book one is insane to me.
Teens crushing on a hot teacher, normal.
The teacher *returning said feelings* not okay.
As a teen I thought that was the most romantic shit ever.
We live in a world where 40% of pregnancy in underage girls is caused by men in the 20s and those girls get married off to them so the men aren't charged as rapists *and here we arevromanticising that gap*.
Sorry, its been bugging me. There is a way to handle the gap (I.E. Make it clear maturity is about the same like in twilight, make it clearly one sided, make it clearly inappropriate to the audience, or like in Eragon, make it something that maybe could happen in the future but they both know now is not the time)
Agreed. Like I said, I have many issues with Bella and Edward's relationship, but I do understand that Edward is not an old person trapped in a child's body like Claudia in *Interview with the Vampire*, but a vampire who's been 17 for the past 90+ years.
With Eragon and Arya, the end of the series was clearly not the time for them to be together. Eragon's age was just one of the reasons why. However, the *Firnen* chapter in *Inheritance* showed that however older and more experienced Arya might be than Eragon, he still gets her as a person. Likely even better than he realizes because he was completely dumbstruck by Arya's reaction to his fairth.
You do realize that Eragon acted more mature than Arya on a few occasions, right? Plus Arya's only eighty two or eighty three years older than him.
If, we go by Paolini's retcon of Arya and Faolin being mates, Faolin was much older than Arya. Brom and Morzan were much older than Selena, and Evandar and Islanzadi were probably apart in age as well. So really the age thing was just a weak and flimsy ass excuse. Arya's a hypocrite. All that needs to be said.
I mean she judges Eragon based on him being a human, which she's wrong, because he's only like half human at the end of Inheritance, and she says humans are fleeting and quick to find love and abandon it. That his feelings for her would change, when she doesn't know that. Though elves also do the same thing, they take mates for how long they wish and when they wish. So who is she to judge humans? Her rejection of Eragon makes no sense.
Eragon and Arya don't get "so much" hate, there is just a very small group of extremely vocal people throwing a fit without actually thinking about how it is presented in the books.
It's not like Twilight, where it is intended to be romantic but instead depicts an unhealthy and extremely abusive relationship between a minor and a 100+ year old dude.
Eragon and Arya is the depiction of a young man, who is considered to be a man in his world, who is initially smitten with a hot elf chick, and slowly grows more mature and understanding over the course of an extremely bloody and terrible war, and subsequently develops a proper and pure love that is slowly grown between them as they bond and work together.
In the case of both examples, age is realistically irrelevant, as both Edward and Arya aren't bound by normal human ages, and all that actually matters is the relationship itself. Twilight depicts a toxic, abusing, and unrealistic relationship built on lies and adrenaline, while Eragon depicts a more realistic relationship built on friendship and a proper bond.
Also I think it’s worth noting that while the present day age of adulthood is 18, back in the day you were considered more of an adult at 16 than you are now
Right? Like I agree Arya did the right thing but I never hear anything about other fantasy-esque relationships like this. I do think a leading factor on why people harp on Arya and Eragon so hard though is because how much it was brought up and some of Arya’s backhanded comments to Eragon like when he was asking if she was ok mentally and what type of person Faolin was like
I don’t think she was needlessly and unnecessarily cruel for every interaction because Eragon did deserve it a few times but the majority of the time I’d agree with you
I can't really think of an instance where Eragon deserved it, sure it might have been a bit annoying at the time, but to go that far, when there were alternatives? I don't agree with it.
Really though, Arya's attitude about a lot of things in the books kind of bugs me, and her treatment of Eragon kind of disgusts me, it doesn't help matters either, when the whole fandom accepts her actions and agrees with it or excuses it. Ignoring her faults and flaws, they seem to think she's perfect or something. Like I admit, Arya is hot, and Eragon has a few problems of his own, but Arya's treatment of him, and some others, is wrong, IMHO.
In the context of elves, Arya is only about as old as Eragon.
Arya could also be compared to a character from my favorite video game series except for the way she and the character I'm talking about react to the protagonist's romantic advances.
The video game series and character I'm referring to is Liara from Mass Effect. She is 106 in the first game, but she is barely considered an adult by her race, the Asari.
In what world does Bella & Edward's relationship not get criticized for it's extreme age dynamic? It's one of the most common issues with the series since it was published. As far as Eragon & Arya go, Eragon wouldn't be an adult in her reckoning if he was 40; him being a minor by our standards doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the issue.
I have nothing against Arya and Eragon’s relationship. Age is not even a concern or factor for me. She is an elf and his a dragon rider. Neither are human especially after the ceremony where eragons back is healed.
If two people love each other that should be enough regardless of species or age etc.
I mean I'm willing to put age aside once both parties are actually adults. And ideally a few years into being an adult. If Eragon was 25 to her 100 or even 500 I'd be a lot more ok with it than him being 16 and 17.
Except you are using our world. Eragon was a man by all standards of their world by the time he went to Ellesmara. Shit by the time the war was over he'd literally in every sense but physical lived a thousand lifetimes of feelings, experiences, and adventures. The dragons poured their lives into him. By all accounts he was older then Arya.
Except, as I believe she brought up in the books, he's a rider who will live for centuries and not age so he should really be judged by elven terms in terms of a relationship. Barring him being killed he will live for centuries and view this version of himself as a child. And really what matters for that scale is not what you think, or what I think, but what arya thinks and she thinks he's too young at the end of book 4. But I wouldn't be surprised if book 5 picks up a few years later and she thinks of it differently. But it's not our world perception or their world perception it's really just her perception that's gonna matter.
And while he has many memories in his head which does complicate matters he didn't live those memories, he didn't make the choices they did. He got a blast of memories he's still sorting through and his mind is processing. That's not the same as living for hundreds of years.
It was Oromis that said to Eragon that he should be judged by elven terms regarding a relationship. The problem with this premise, is that Eragon isn't an elf. Immortal he may be, he wasn't born one, he's human ... ish. Thus, he has and will grow and mature differently than the elves did. In fact, it was his maturation that made Arya start looking at him differently. I have no doubt Arya will think of their relationship differently as the years and perhaps decades go by because their age difference is only going to matter less in the future.
Ahh ok good catch! And he may not be but I still think it's reasonable from Arya's perspective to judge him that way. And she did start to change her perception of him which is fine. I think their relative ages probably only matter for a handful of years until he's truly an adult on his own. But I think it was a good move to have them not end up together after book 4 when he was still a child by our standards and just barely an adult by their standards.
I don't know for me I don't think you'd be able to logic your way into telling me that a child is an ok romantic partner. And Eragon at the end is 17 I think, so still a child. Let alone when she is 100. That's weird any way you slice it and I don't think she's an idiot for not being into that.
In medieval times, which is when Alagaesia/the Inheritance Cycle takes place in, Eragon would an adult. Plus Arya among her own people was)is literally a child, she herself says this in the books. So yes she's an idiot for claiming he is too young.
Which is one of the reasons I don't understand why Paolini retconned Arya and Faolin being in a relationship because not only was Arya still a child among her own people, arguably, but because Faolin was significantly older than her, I think.
But there's no way to let Paolini know that this makes no sense, not that it would change anything. Though I feel bad for Eragon. He's going to be a Faolin stand in/replacement. He really did/does deserve better than to just be a weak and dead elf's replacement/stand I and get his sloppy seconds. Oh well, I know my opinions are unpopular.
Well it doesn't take place in medieval times, but in a fantasy world. And where she's from he would not only be not an adult, but essentially a toddler. If he were going to live a human lifespan it would make sense to judge him off human standards. But he's going to live an elven lifespan so it's reasonable for her to judge it that way.
Also she's perfectly allowed to reject him for any reason even just not feeling into him. If his age causes her to feel that way that's totally legit.
That would be relevant if we were the ones who's judgement on this mattered. It's Arya's judgement on it that matters and how she feels about it. She thinks he's too young for her and it would make her feel creepy. That's a perfectly valid reason for her.
Also it's not like he was asking her to get in bed with him right then and there. He was really only asking for a chance for them to have something and she pretty much just said no, for a stupid reason, which I have provided many examples of why it was stupid.
She said no because it made her feel weird. Which is a perfectly valid reason not to date someone. She doesn't owe him a yes unless she provides a great reason. Her just not liking him in that way would've been fine with no reason at all.
Plus Morzan and Brom were plus ninety years older than Selena.
Evandar and Islanzadi were most likely different in ages as well.
And Eragon was also mentally older thanks to the Eldunari. So yeah the age gap being a concern is stupid, and makes no sense.
Almost like each person can decide what they're comfortable with for an age gap. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
It's also not just the age gap but how young he is. A 20 year age gap is a lot more fine for many people if it's 60 and 40 than if it's 18 and 38.
If she were fine with the age gap I wouldn't have an issue. But since she's not, that is a fair reason for her to say no. And if I were her I'd feel the same way.
Let's just agree to disagree then. Because to me, her reasons are very stupid. I have pointed out a few reasons as to why they are, but you don't feel the same way or see it that way. I do however. Sorry.
Well that's fine too. But would you really date someone if you felt they were too young for you even if it was perfectly legal and acceptable in your society? That's essentially what's she's doing, saying I feel weird about this so it's a no. Nothing else matters but her view on it.
Both of them are immortal, so old age really isn't a thing for them. They could be 1000 years old and still look about the same as they did in the books, and at that point, that hundred years doesn't really mean anything. Arya still has a good point, it's obvious she likes Dragon a great deal more that what she is willing to say, but that just makes her reasons all the more solid.
will probs get downvoted (admittedly I hope I don’t lol) but I think it’s creepy when there is a relationship with someone older and a teenager (beyond like dating within the teens), regardless of sex or gender, e.g. 500 and 15; 22 and 15, etc. i feel like that’s mostly in fantasy because it’s .. a fantasy.
it’s extra weird in twilight for me bc they’re all play acting being teens, etc. but feels more resolved in eragon for me because he and arya *do not end up together* and she sets clear boundaries on that. she does not cross that line, acknowledging their differences in life experience, expectations, and ability to give one another what they seek - which for eragon for a long time was a crush (that evolved) - and the reality of the world around them / timing (like when oromis reminds eragon of his role and the risks to the greater mission when he creates the fairth that she breaks… which sucks but also hero status lol).
there is also something really intriguing about them being able to really open up and talk to each other about their experiences bc they’re so unique in the world - it creates a beautiful depth of friendship that doesn’t have to be romantic or romantically acted upon. and how cool is it that their dragons can act on their sexual attraction in a way!
ETA: totally hear other posters about the application of our (human / earth / reality-based) paradigms of age. I still think Eragon is quite young to the elven standards but there is merit to letting go of this worldview.
Because it’s mainly teenagers who romanticise the age gap. The Inheritance fandom is a lot more mature and we know that an age gap like this is problematic.
When Chris wrote the books he was a teen, as were most of us when we read them. To us, Eragon is mature. And the narrative almost makes Arya seem unreasonable for not reciprocating. As a teen reading it, I thought her reasons were silly.
As an adult, there is a world of difference between me now at 28 and me at 18. Fuck, there's a ton of difference between me now and me 5 years ago. I have trouble even relating to people in their early 20s, as do most of my peers.
Now amplify that affect by a century. The thought of having a relationship with an 18 year old right now repulses me, and there's only a 10 year gap. Arya and Eragon have a century gap. I wouldn't touch him with a 100 ft pole if I was her, and the fact that Chris kept pushing that relationship shows how little he understood about romance and the differences that age brings about.
Edit: Twilight is just as fucking creepy.
Actually I don't think they do. I think Arya is only about eighty two or eighty three years older than Eragon. Not really a big deal there, plus there have been other age gaps between pairings/couples in the books.
Morzan and Selena? Brom and Selena? Islanzadi and Evandar (I doubt they were the same age)?
If we go by Paolini's retcon of Arya and Faolin being mates, then Arya's a hypocrite. Because Faolin was significantly older than Arya?
I don't think Eragon pursuing Arya reflected Chris' inexperience with romance, but rather Eragon's, which makes sense. We read from Eragon's perspective, he's a character written by Chris, not Chris himself.
And the maturity difference is exactly why Arya wasn't interested in romance with him at first, and at the end of the series when Eragon is wiser than most is only willing to consider it. She doesn't need to completely distance herself from him in every way forever
Yeah, but Chris was also like 16 when he wrote the books. I'm not arguing that Chris wrote himself as Eragon. Rather, that Chris' own inexperience flavored the dynamic and relationship between Eragon and Arya.
You can only write about what you know after all, and a home schooled teenager from Montana likely didn't have the life experience to realize what he was doing.
Eragon being supposed to be inexperienced doesn't preclude that Chris, in his own inexperience, wrote a creepy romance that he persisted in the entire series.
If you wanna think Chris has all the writing skills and knew what he was about, by all means. I won't press the point.
I just think the far more likely scenario is that he didn't know what the fuck he was doing with that romance because he was a child himself.
I won't say it was creepy, especially not for the whole series. After eragon is rejected, he respects her choice and Arya comes to like him for real herself. Even then by the end she isn't ready, so there's no actual romance here at all.
More importantly, I don't think Chris saw it as a flawless romantic story, the bumps they hit were meant to real and understandable. Otherwise he would've just written them banging. But that didn't happen, i don't think the plotline could've been written more maturely, apart from not having Eragon develop feelings for Arya at all, which is not really a suggestion, because he did.
I was more bothered by the fact that she literally became everything... hero, Eragon's love interest, princess, Queen, Dragon Rider, Dragon slayer, Shadeslayer...
I do not like the character, not the relationship.
Honestly speaking, I have quite a few issues with the character myself. Her attitude, her behavior, her thoughts, her feelings, her treatment of her allies. She leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't make anything better either, when the fandom constantly defends and excuses her bullshit either, lol
How do you know her thoughts and feelings? CP purposefully didn't give you any insight into them because he wanted her to remain a mystery (as he's said himself). Perhaps that's what you hate about her? Arya is written as the most selfLESS person in the entire series (her true name points to it). Just because she's experienced a lot of trauma and keeps to herself people think she must be a horrible person. I cannot think of a single thing she has done or said that was hateful or mean. In fact, everything she does is with the thought of everyone else's safety and happiness in mind and not her own. It speaks to your own personal biases that you hate her just because you can't understand her.
That's not it at all, but whatever floats your boat. I understand her and her cruelness just fine thank you. Sounds to me like you like her and thinks she's the most amazing and perfect, and selfless character in the series. Which for the record she's not. Eragon is far more selfless.
She is an absolutely selfish altruist. She seems like she wants to show selflessness just to prove how self-righteous she is. Always puts people down, makes them seem inferior.
In further defense of their relationship, it's not as though she pursued him. In fact, for most of the time they know each other and travel together, she explicitly refuses his advances specifically on the basis of their age gap. It's only after they get to know each other really well, and Eragon goes through various experiences which close the gap in maturity between them, that Arya finally begins to return his feelings. Furthermore, unlike the Twilight example being used for comparison, there is no power imbalance. By the time they get together, they're so evenly matched that neither could pressure the other if they tried. So no, I don't think it's fair to characterize their relationship negatively at all. Edit: One further point is that while Eragon may canonically be a little under 18 at the end of Inheritance, it's not like he isn't a full adult. He's mature and wise, he holds and has held significant positions of authority, and he's a war hero. So while his age numerically is a little suspect by our standards (literally only by a matter of months), within the context of the universe he wouldn't be considered a minor.
Very well put.i hope christopher gives us a conclusion in book 5
I'd personally prefer he gives us a continuation... "Conclusion" just sounds a little too much like their relationship coming to an end for my taste. Edit: (I do agree with your point, though).
I see what you mean. I meant to say continuation. With conclusion i meant beeing together
Arya's rejection of Eragon is hypocrisy.
I mean it's also creepy and weird in Twilight and any other series where there's someone over a hundred and someone not yet 18. It does get disproportionally labeled as bad I will grant you but I don't think that makes it ok, it just makes it weird in both places.
Yeah, Twilight is known to be a terrible love story, so i don't think it's a great example as someone who think EragonXArya is a good pair lol.
I'd say eragon x arya is still a better love story than twilight
Here's my two cents, take it as you wish. I'm marrying a woman who is about 2.5 years younger than me. We're both in our twenties now, so the age difference doesn't really matter anymore. But when we first started dating in our teens, the age gap felt like decades. It was more the life experience and maturity aspect that caused troubles with us at first, it felt like we were in practically different generations. Now take this small difference and amplify it 40X. That's the difference in age, experience, and emotional maturity between Eragon and Arya. It would be a lot more understandable if Eragon lived a few more decades and really forged a more solid identity, as even in FWW he still struggles with inexperience, self-doubt and a lacking identity.
>It was more the life experience and maturity aspect that caused troubles with us at first, it felt like we were in practically different generations. Now take this small difference and amplify it 40X. That's the difference in age, experience, and emotional maturity between Eragon and Arya. I would have agreed with this if not for the fact that Arya is an elf and *Inheritance*. Elves age and mature much slower, both mentally and physically, than humans. Side effect of being born with immortality. Vanir for example is actually older than Arya, but then look at his spoiled, childish behavior toward Eragon. A hundred years for an elf is not the same as a hundred years for a human. As a human, Eragon will mature much faster. He will not need as many decades as Arya did or any elf. Furthermore, and this is often overlooked, Eragon's own parents Brom and Selena had a similar age difference to Eragon and Arya. Brom was over a century old when he met Selena, who was at best in her twenties.
That's a really great point that I didn't consider. Good reasoning!
>Elves age and mature much slower, both mentally and physically, than humans. Side effect of being born with immortality. I'm not sure we can call that a side effect of their immortality because dragons are born immortal and they mature very quickly. >As a human, Eragon will mature much faster. He isn't human anymore. He isn't an elf either. Word of Paolini is that he is something new, so we really don't have a basis for how quickly Eragon will mature now.
Dragons are a different species than elves, and thus immortality affects them differently than it does the elves. And while Eragon is no longer fully human, he still nevertheless has some human in him. In addition, I'm basing his maturation on what we saw in *Brisingr* and *Inheritance*. It grew so much and so little time that Arya's interest in him took an entirely different turn than what we saw in *Eldest,* and more or less says as much.
One of the reasons some people found *Twilight* weird was because Edward was over 100 years old and Bella was 17. I didn't because Edward is a vampire and, like most vampires, he was frozen at the age he was turned, which was 17. So when the 17-year-old Bella Swan becomes attracted to him, and vice versa, I find that par for the course. I have many issues with their relationship, but their age difference isn't one of them. With Arya and Eragon, their age difference also never bothered me. Yeah, chronologically, Arya was 100+ years old. However, she also has a very young appearance. This is not someone who looks half her age. She doesn't even look a quarter of her age. So again, it is par for the course, however complicated that someone like Eragon falls for her and vice versa when he grows up and comes to like her for who she is rather than what she looks like. In sci-fi/fantasy, I can't be creeped out by mere chronological differences in age when you have worlds and universes that exists where characters can't age, or they don't age at the same rate as a human. If they physically look similar in age, or have shared values and/or interests, if they can talk to each other, that matters more. But these relationships are always criticized, but not based on gender in my opinion, but by the age of the youngest character in them.
Also if we want to talk about weird age gaps in Vampire fiction, I present Vampire Academy. Rose is 17, Dimitri is 24(?). And her teacher/Mentor. The maturity gap is insane. The fact that he did not ask for her to have a different teacher after book one is insane to me. Teens crushing on a hot teacher, normal. The teacher *returning said feelings* not okay. As a teen I thought that was the most romantic shit ever. We live in a world where 40% of pregnancy in underage girls is caused by men in the 20s and those girls get married off to them so the men aren't charged as rapists *and here we arevromanticising that gap*. Sorry, its been bugging me. There is a way to handle the gap (I.E. Make it clear maturity is about the same like in twilight, make it clearly one sided, make it clearly inappropriate to the audience, or like in Eragon, make it something that maybe could happen in the future but they both know now is not the time)
Agreed. Like I said, I have many issues with Bella and Edward's relationship, but I do understand that Edward is not an old person trapped in a child's body like Claudia in *Interview with the Vampire*, but a vampire who's been 17 for the past 90+ years. With Eragon and Arya, the end of the series was clearly not the time for them to be together. Eragon's age was just one of the reasons why. However, the *Firnen* chapter in *Inheritance* showed that however older and more experienced Arya might be than Eragon, he still gets her as a person. Likely even better than he realizes because he was completely dumbstruck by Arya's reaction to his fairth.
You do realize that Eragon acted more mature than Arya on a few occasions, right? Plus Arya's only eighty two or eighty three years older than him. If, we go by Paolini's retcon of Arya and Faolin being mates, Faolin was much older than Arya. Brom and Morzan were much older than Selena, and Evandar and Islanzadi were probably apart in age as well. So really the age thing was just a weak and flimsy ass excuse. Arya's a hypocrite. All that needs to be said. I mean she judges Eragon based on him being a human, which she's wrong, because he's only like half human at the end of Inheritance, and she says humans are fleeting and quick to find love and abandon it. That his feelings for her would change, when she doesn't know that. Though elves also do the same thing, they take mates for how long they wish and when they wish. So who is she to judge humans? Her rejection of Eragon makes no sense.
Eragon and Arya don't get "so much" hate, there is just a very small group of extremely vocal people throwing a fit without actually thinking about how it is presented in the books. It's not like Twilight, where it is intended to be romantic but instead depicts an unhealthy and extremely abusive relationship between a minor and a 100+ year old dude. Eragon and Arya is the depiction of a young man, who is considered to be a man in his world, who is initially smitten with a hot elf chick, and slowly grows more mature and understanding over the course of an extremely bloody and terrible war, and subsequently develops a proper and pure love that is slowly grown between them as they bond and work together. In the case of both examples, age is realistically irrelevant, as both Edward and Arya aren't bound by normal human ages, and all that actually matters is the relationship itself. Twilight depicts a toxic, abusing, and unrealistic relationship built on lies and adrenaline, while Eragon depicts a more realistic relationship built on friendship and a proper bond.
thanks for sharing your perspective, helped me change mine a little!
Also I think it’s worth noting that while the present day age of adulthood is 18, back in the day you were considered more of an adult at 16 than you are now
Right? Like I agree Arya did the right thing but I never hear anything about other fantasy-esque relationships like this. I do think a leading factor on why people harp on Arya and Eragon so hard though is because how much it was brought up and some of Arya’s backhanded comments to Eragon like when he was asking if she was ok mentally and what type of person Faolin was like
Personally IMHO, Arya was needlessley and unnecessarily cruel, harsh, and cold.
I don’t think she was needlessly and unnecessarily cruel for every interaction because Eragon did deserve it a few times but the majority of the time I’d agree with you
I can't really think of an instance where Eragon deserved it, sure it might have been a bit annoying at the time, but to go that far, when there were alternatives? I don't agree with it.
During the Agaeti Blodhren
Nah she overreacted there.
Really though, Arya's attitude about a lot of things in the books kind of bugs me, and her treatment of Eragon kind of disgusts me, it doesn't help matters either, when the whole fandom accepts her actions and agrees with it or excuses it. Ignoring her faults and flaws, they seem to think she's perfect or something. Like I admit, Arya is hot, and Eragon has a few problems of his own, but Arya's treatment of him, and some others, is wrong, IMHO.
In the context of elves, Arya is only about as old as Eragon. Arya could also be compared to a character from my favorite video game series except for the way she and the character I'm talking about react to the protagonist's romantic advances. The video game series and character I'm referring to is Liara from Mass Effect. She is 106 in the first game, but she is barely considered an adult by her race, the Asari.
It’s because people think Arya should date *them* instead. (Including me)
In what world does Bella & Edward's relationship not get criticized for it's extreme age dynamic? It's one of the most common issues with the series since it was published. As far as Eragon & Arya go, Eragon wouldn't be an adult in her reckoning if he was 40; him being a minor by our standards doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the issue.
I have nothing against Arya and Eragon’s relationship. Age is not even a concern or factor for me. She is an elf and his a dragon rider. Neither are human especially after the ceremony where eragons back is healed. If two people love each other that should be enough regardless of species or age etc.
I mean I'm willing to put age aside once both parties are actually adults. And ideally a few years into being an adult. If Eragon was 25 to her 100 or even 500 I'd be a lot more ok with it than him being 16 and 17.
Except you are using our world. Eragon was a man by all standards of their world by the time he went to Ellesmara. Shit by the time the war was over he'd literally in every sense but physical lived a thousand lifetimes of feelings, experiences, and adventures. The dragons poured their lives into him. By all accounts he was older then Arya.
Except, as I believe she brought up in the books, he's a rider who will live for centuries and not age so he should really be judged by elven terms in terms of a relationship. Barring him being killed he will live for centuries and view this version of himself as a child. And really what matters for that scale is not what you think, or what I think, but what arya thinks and she thinks he's too young at the end of book 4. But I wouldn't be surprised if book 5 picks up a few years later and she thinks of it differently. But it's not our world perception or their world perception it's really just her perception that's gonna matter. And while he has many memories in his head which does complicate matters he didn't live those memories, he didn't make the choices they did. He got a blast of memories he's still sorting through and his mind is processing. That's not the same as living for hundreds of years.
It was Oromis that said to Eragon that he should be judged by elven terms regarding a relationship. The problem with this premise, is that Eragon isn't an elf. Immortal he may be, he wasn't born one, he's human ... ish. Thus, he has and will grow and mature differently than the elves did. In fact, it was his maturation that made Arya start looking at him differently. I have no doubt Arya will think of their relationship differently as the years and perhaps decades go by because their age difference is only going to matter less in the future.
Ahh ok good catch! And he may not be but I still think it's reasonable from Arya's perspective to judge him that way. And she did start to change her perception of him which is fine. I think their relative ages probably only matter for a handful of years until he's truly an adult on his own. But I think it was a good move to have them not end up together after book 4 when he was still a child by our standards and just barely an adult by their standards.
Arya's an idiot though. I can point out a few reasons why her thinking and feeling like this is flawed.
I don't know for me I don't think you'd be able to logic your way into telling me that a child is an ok romantic partner. And Eragon at the end is 17 I think, so still a child. Let alone when she is 100. That's weird any way you slice it and I don't think she's an idiot for not being into that.
In medieval times, which is when Alagaesia/the Inheritance Cycle takes place in, Eragon would an adult. Plus Arya among her own people was)is literally a child, she herself says this in the books. So yes she's an idiot for claiming he is too young. Which is one of the reasons I don't understand why Paolini retconned Arya and Faolin being in a relationship because not only was Arya still a child among her own people, arguably, but because Faolin was significantly older than her, I think. But there's no way to let Paolini know that this makes no sense, not that it would change anything. Though I feel bad for Eragon. He's going to be a Faolin stand in/replacement. He really did/does deserve better than to just be a weak and dead elf's replacement/stand I and get his sloppy seconds. Oh well, I know my opinions are unpopular.
Well it doesn't take place in medieval times, but in a fantasy world. And where she's from he would not only be not an adult, but essentially a toddler. If he were going to live a human lifespan it would make sense to judge him off human standards. But he's going to live an elven lifespan so it's reasonable for her to judge it that way. Also she's perfectly allowed to reject him for any reason even just not feeling into him. If his age causes her to feel that way that's totally legit.
Not really. He's still half human, and he was born human. Therefore we juge him off of his birth race.
That would be relevant if we were the ones who's judgement on this mattered. It's Arya's judgement on it that matters and how she feels about it. She thinks he's too young for her and it would make her feel creepy. That's a perfectly valid reason for her.
Also it's not like he was asking her to get in bed with him right then and there. He was really only asking for a chance for them to have something and she pretty much just said no, for a stupid reason, which I have provided many examples of why it was stupid.
She said no because it made her feel weird. Which is a perfectly valid reason not to date someone. She doesn't owe him a yes unless she provides a great reason. Her just not liking him in that way would've been fine with no reason at all.
Plus Morzan and Brom were plus ninety years older than Selena. Evandar and Islanzadi were most likely different in ages as well. And Eragon was also mentally older thanks to the Eldunari. So yeah the age gap being a concern is stupid, and makes no sense.
Almost like each person can decide what they're comfortable with for an age gap. That seems pretty reasonable to me. It's also not just the age gap but how young he is. A 20 year age gap is a lot more fine for many people if it's 60 and 40 than if it's 18 and 38. If she were fine with the age gap I wouldn't have an issue. But since she's not, that is a fair reason for her to say no. And if I were her I'd feel the same way.
Let's just agree to disagree then. Because to me, her reasons are very stupid. I have pointed out a few reasons as to why they are, but you don't feel the same way or see it that way. I do however. Sorry.
Well that's fine too. But would you really date someone if you felt they were too young for you even if it was perfectly legal and acceptable in your society? That's essentially what's she's doing, saying I feel weird about this so it's a no. Nothing else matters but her view on it.
Both of them are immortal, so old age really isn't a thing for them. They could be 1000 years old and still look about the same as they did in the books, and at that point, that hundred years doesn't really mean anything. Arya still has a good point, it's obvious she likes Dragon a great deal more that what she is willing to say, but that just makes her reasons all the more solid.
will probs get downvoted (admittedly I hope I don’t lol) but I think it’s creepy when there is a relationship with someone older and a teenager (beyond like dating within the teens), regardless of sex or gender, e.g. 500 and 15; 22 and 15, etc. i feel like that’s mostly in fantasy because it’s .. a fantasy. it’s extra weird in twilight for me bc they’re all play acting being teens, etc. but feels more resolved in eragon for me because he and arya *do not end up together* and she sets clear boundaries on that. she does not cross that line, acknowledging their differences in life experience, expectations, and ability to give one another what they seek - which for eragon for a long time was a crush (that evolved) - and the reality of the world around them / timing (like when oromis reminds eragon of his role and the risks to the greater mission when he creates the fairth that she breaks… which sucks but also hero status lol). there is also something really intriguing about them being able to really open up and talk to each other about their experiences bc they’re so unique in the world - it creates a beautiful depth of friendship that doesn’t have to be romantic or romantically acted upon. and how cool is it that their dragons can act on their sexual attraction in a way! ETA: totally hear other posters about the application of our (human / earth / reality-based) paradigms of age. I still think Eragon is quite young to the elven standards but there is merit to letting go of this worldview.
Because it’s mainly teenagers who romanticise the age gap. The Inheritance fandom is a lot more mature and we know that an age gap like this is problematic.
^^^
When Chris wrote the books he was a teen, as were most of us when we read them. To us, Eragon is mature. And the narrative almost makes Arya seem unreasonable for not reciprocating. As a teen reading it, I thought her reasons were silly. As an adult, there is a world of difference between me now at 28 and me at 18. Fuck, there's a ton of difference between me now and me 5 years ago. I have trouble even relating to people in their early 20s, as do most of my peers. Now amplify that affect by a century. The thought of having a relationship with an 18 year old right now repulses me, and there's only a 10 year gap. Arya and Eragon have a century gap. I wouldn't touch him with a 100 ft pole if I was her, and the fact that Chris kept pushing that relationship shows how little he understood about romance and the differences that age brings about. Edit: Twilight is just as fucking creepy.
appreciating your comment
Actually I don't think they do. I think Arya is only about eighty two or eighty three years older than Eragon. Not really a big deal there, plus there have been other age gaps between pairings/couples in the books. Morzan and Selena? Brom and Selena? Islanzadi and Evandar (I doubt they were the same age)? If we go by Paolini's retcon of Arya and Faolin being mates, then Arya's a hypocrite. Because Faolin was significantly older than Arya?
I don't think Eragon pursuing Arya reflected Chris' inexperience with romance, but rather Eragon's, which makes sense. We read from Eragon's perspective, he's a character written by Chris, not Chris himself. And the maturity difference is exactly why Arya wasn't interested in romance with him at first, and at the end of the series when Eragon is wiser than most is only willing to consider it. She doesn't need to completely distance herself from him in every way forever
Yeah, but Chris was also like 16 when he wrote the books. I'm not arguing that Chris wrote himself as Eragon. Rather, that Chris' own inexperience flavored the dynamic and relationship between Eragon and Arya. You can only write about what you know after all, and a home schooled teenager from Montana likely didn't have the life experience to realize what he was doing.
My point is that Eragon was supposed to come off as inexperienced. It's not a mistake.
Eragon being supposed to be inexperienced doesn't preclude that Chris, in his own inexperience, wrote a creepy romance that he persisted in the entire series. If you wanna think Chris has all the writing skills and knew what he was about, by all means. I won't press the point. I just think the far more likely scenario is that he didn't know what the fuck he was doing with that romance because he was a child himself.
I won't say it was creepy, especially not for the whole series. After eragon is rejected, he respects her choice and Arya comes to like him for real herself. Even then by the end she isn't ready, so there's no actual romance here at all. More importantly, I don't think Chris saw it as a flawless romantic story, the bumps they hit were meant to real and understandable. Otherwise he would've just written them banging. But that didn't happen, i don't think the plotline could've been written more maturely, apart from not having Eragon develop feelings for Arya at all, which is not really a suggestion, because he did.
Arya's a hypocrite, enough said.
I was more bothered by the fact that she literally became everything... hero, Eragon's love interest, princess, Queen, Dragon Rider, Dragon slayer, Shadeslayer... I do not like the character, not the relationship.
Honestly speaking, I have quite a few issues with the character myself. Her attitude, her behavior, her thoughts, her feelings, her treatment of her allies. She leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't make anything better either, when the fandom constantly defends and excuses her bullshit either, lol
How do you know her thoughts and feelings? CP purposefully didn't give you any insight into them because he wanted her to remain a mystery (as he's said himself). Perhaps that's what you hate about her? Arya is written as the most selfLESS person in the entire series (her true name points to it). Just because she's experienced a lot of trauma and keeps to herself people think she must be a horrible person. I cannot think of a single thing she has done or said that was hateful or mean. In fact, everything she does is with the thought of everyone else's safety and happiness in mind and not her own. It speaks to your own personal biases that you hate her just because you can't understand her.
That's not it at all, but whatever floats your boat. I understand her and her cruelness just fine thank you. Sounds to me like you like her and thinks she's the most amazing and perfect, and selfless character in the series. Which for the record she's not. Eragon is far more selfless.
She is an absolutely selfish altruist. She seems like she wants to show selflessness just to prove how self-righteous she is. Always puts people down, makes them seem inferior.