Eragon as a Sociopath

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Wait, we're criticising the guy for copying Tolkien, then complaining because he's not following Tolkien's moral code?

Seems obvious to me that this Eragon guy's all about taking names. Let him be; it's refreshing.

[Mnemosyne]

I think the problem that I have with Paolini's approach is not so much that he presents a different moral code from Tolkien as that it appears so far that Eragon's actions have no consequences which one might expect from what he's done. Sometimes, especially if you're in a position of power, you can get away for a time with doing things poorly, especially if your world operates out of a mindset of "the end justifies the means." However, looking at real life, if the means involve doing something that could be remotely construed as morally wrong, after the End happens and all is well some of those things will come back to bite you in the butt. (Just look at the debate still surrounding the bombing of Nagasaki.)

There are plenty of better fantasy books out there that operate off a different moral setting from Tolkien--His Dark Materials and especially A Wizard of Earthsea come to mind. Even Harry Potter's stress on ingenuity, intelligence, and luck instead of plain old hard work differs in this respect. What makes them better than the Eragon books is not that they're closer to Tolkien, but that they still follow the internal laws of reality: actions have consequences, and minor characters are actual people, never plot devices to be discarded by the wayside when the protagonist or the author has no more use for them. (Well, except for JKR's killing spree in Book 7.)