While Eragon was an origin story and a quest novel, Eldest is more of a bildungsroman. The story picks up moments after it ended in Eragon, where we find that our eponymous hero has the wisdom and foresight to realize that up to this point he has survived on raw potential. He needs training.

Eragon finds this tutelage with the Elves in their clandestine pine-forest kingdom, under the instruction of a secret colleague mentor whose main contribution to his student ends up being the basic principles of a moral life: with power comes responsibility; with knowledge comes a necessary loss; compassion begets compassion; everything has a cost. True love, above all, endures. Some enemies must be stopped, no matter what the cost.

It is with plot elements like Eragon's time with the Elves that Paolini's repetitiveness seems the most unfortunate. So many stories before have told of Elves and the humans that interact with them. Do we need another story about an ancient race of forest-dwelling immortals possessed of centuries' worth of knowledge and wisdom and yet apparently lacking the will or energy to use their powers for the benefit of the other races? For that matter, do we need more dwarves? One wonders if Mr. Paolini ever feels trapped by his decision to set his tale in such a traditional fantasy world.

In another example of copycatting, Paolini works in a story thread about Eragon's cousin Roran, a hard-nosed youth with a somewhat inexplicable grudge against Eragon for allegedly starting his troubles who turns into a reluctant leader of his village, all of whom are now on the run from the evil Empire. The trouble is, Roran's character is a dead ringer for Perrin Aybara, Robert Jordan's blacksmith turned populist leader who has a similarly rousing effect on his home village in The Shadow Rising, Book Four of Jordan's sprawling Wheel of Time saga. Like Perrin, Paolini's Roran finds that he has a natural (though unexpected) talent for leadership and a stubborn attachment to the bygone village idyll in which he grew up that results in his decision to defend it against seemingly insurmountable odds. Like Perrin, he awakes a surprising toughness in his brethren and leads them out of their seclusion into the affairs of the larger world. He even carries a hammer. While Paolini undoubtedly intended this plotline to ground his story with a more human element, it comes off as too derivative, a bit too contrived. Roran's reunion with Eragon does give a small thrill: the author's decision to effectively replace Murtagh's best-friend character with the Eragon's almost-forgotten Roran is satisfactory in a predictable way. 

Mr. Paolini does bring more stylistic maturity and a better coherence of theme to this second novel. Conviction seems to be a theme in Eldest, for example. The main characters find to a man that it is this trait that is most important to their struggles, be they life, love, or war.  In the universe of the Inheritance Cycle (as in any, one might add), conviction is belief in oneself and the determination to realize the goals that belief implies.

Despite a general improvement in his writing and the genuine feeling that lies behind his main character's journey, Mr. Paolini often handles Eragon's moral journey clumsily. Dialogue is a challenge at points; characters say things that no real person would ever say, epic medieval setting or not. Ethical quandaries (and, particularly, Eragon's personal struggle with them) are presented head-on, with no proverbial padding between the moral message and the way it is portrayed. 

Eragon's emotions are also often disturbingly immature--his anger at the discovery of magic's darker uses and costs is instant and babyish, the frustration of a ten-year-old who isn't getting what he wants. This lies in contrast to a generally apt portrayal of teenage angst over the opposite sex. Eragon's obsession with the elf-maiden Arya is as fervent and ridiculous and naive as real adolescent infatuation can be. If I didn't think that they probably end up together, I'd have more respect for the author's decision to create a rift between them.

Ultimately, Eldest suffers from a lack of emotional complexity. But it is, after all, fiction intended for young adults. Its simplicity and passion make it a fun read for those who have not yet become inured to the classic epic motifs it reuses, but the adult reader might find that it falls a bit flat.