Experiencing quick popularity, the book was soon turned into a feature film and video game. Parents need to know that Eragon is the first book in a four-part fantasy series called The Inheritance Cycle that first made waves due to the young age of its author, Christopher Paolini. One instance of next-day hangovers from alcohol.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Main characters drink beer or mead a few times. A minor character smokes once from a long-stemmed pipe. Get started CloseĪ main character regularly smokes 'cardus weed' out of a pipe, blowing smoke rings and large clouds. Several of the heroes have dead and/or murdered parents in their backstories.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide. Two important characters die of injuries. Monsters called Urgals get the brunt of the gore: They're beheaded, torn apart by dragon teeth, scalded by pitch, set aflame by magic, and have skulls cleaved open, 'mixing brains with metal and bone.' But heroes get hurt, too - whipped, branded, tortured, poisoned, forcibly sedated, broken bones, skin torn off legs, minds invaded without consent, captured by villains, and someone is stabbed with a thrown knife. Some disabled characters are pitiable, like beggars mentioned in passing who are blind or 'deformed.'Ĭharacters in a war-torn land hunt for food with bow and arrow a ravaged town has 'mountains of bodies,' including one that's topped with a spear 'impaling the white body of a baby.' A religious following is said to 'drink human blood and make flesh offerings' their priests lacking body parts that were sacrificed (not described in detail). Casual ableism: Villains are 'mad,' exhibit aspects of albinism ('very pale with red eyes'), are bald. Disabilities are naturally worked into the book's world through facial differences, body scars, a dwarf in a positive (if clichéd) role.

And Arya has an important role as a mysterious, magic-wielding elf - though she spends most of the book as a love interest/damsel in distress who's imprisoned, tortured, poisoned, and beaten before getting rescued (twice) and is unconscious for much of the story. Female stereotypes abound: They're homemakers, healers, dead mothers, a fortune-telling witch, or an unhappy wife who 'wants the usual: a good home, happy children.' That said, the dragon Saphira is female.

Two positive characters, one in a supporting and one in a minor role, have skin 'the color of oiled ebony.' An elf with 'midnight black hair' and 'angled eyes' is described by Eragon as having an 'exotic look.' All other characters are described with Euro-centric features (pale complexions, blond hair, etc.).

Eragon book