Christopher Paolini recently participated in a rather long video interview for Amazon Germany totaling over 40 minutes! The video interview was released in nine parts and is recorded in English (with German subtitles). Christopher is asked a number of interesting questions for which he provided some intriguing answers, offering a new insight into his own life, behind-the-scenes information on the Cycle, and more. We’ve compiled a list of highlights from the interview and have all nine parts available after the jump!
Highlights from the German Amazon interview:
- Visiting Berlin (where the interview was shot), inspiration from the sights and music. Christopher was heavily influenced by many of German’s most famous classical musicians
- Italy is discussed — the Paolini family’s origins and the series’ success in Italy.
- Italy is home to the world’s only published Eragon spoof novel, entitled “Erasol”
- The influence of Japanese in both the names and languages throughout the cycle is discussed.
- Christopher remarks that “Kevin” was always a placeholder name before coming up with “Eragon”
- Oddly enough, some international publishers choose to call the Inheritance Cycle the “Eragon series”, using the proper book names as subtitles
- “Eldest” was a problematic book title for some foreign language book publishers, as those languages (such as French) do not have a translation equivalent to the word “Eldest” in their language
- The interviewer remarks that money as an issue disappeared as the story progressed; we frequently see money-related issues at the start of Eragon, and come Brisingr, money is never mentioned at all. Christopher remarks that this is due to Eragon’s changing role within Alagaesia… from poor farm boy to Dragon Rider, ambassador to the dwarves, and guest of the elves
- The series has heavily reflected Christopher’s own life and personal journey
- Christopher’s childhood pets (who both sadly passed away last year) heavily influenced the way he saw and wrote Saphira
- Both of Christopher’s parents were once pilots. Christopher’s grandfather owns a small planes airport
- If Christopher could choose one super power, it’d be the ability to fly
- Christopher truly enjoys “forcing” his characters to solve issues and misunderstandings by talking them out rather than holding grudges and ignoring problems at hand
- Christopher dislikes what he sees as racism in fantasy
- Christopher thinks that Galbatorix truly believes that he is a good man and that the decisions he has made are the right decisions
- Brom and Roran are both based on Christopher’s father Kenneth
- Christopher and his sister Angela just finished collaborating on a writing project, which Christopher says “is a big secret”
- Saphira is Christopher’s favorite character in the series
You can watch all nine parts in the embedded Youtube clips below. We highly recommend watching the interview to hear and understand Christopher’s answers!
