The Eldunari, Fírnen & the end.
I guess this is also to do with the ending and the Vault of Souls, but I'd like to share my thoughts on Inheritance.
When first beginning the book I thought it odd that the dragon on the front was green, as I had no idea who it was at that point. I cannot remember if the colour of Galbatorix's eggs were disclosed, but once the vault of souls had been discovered to exist, I began thinking about what it could contain that would aid Eragon. I settled upon 2 theories, of which one would have made for a slightly more epic ending than was delivered, and both centre around Fírnen.
Theory 1: Help
Obviously we had no knowledge of the eggs or Eldunari before the Vault was opened, but I was somewhat close with my prediction. I concluded it probably contained something to help them steal the final dragon egg from Galbatorix. If it had, and they had succeeded in stealing the egg, Fírnen could've hatched for Arya before the final battle, but he couldn't fight in due to him and his rider being so young and inexperienced. I was slightly disappointed when Galbatorix was killed and I realised there was still 0 mention of the dragon on the cover.
Theory 2: A different kind of help
My second theory was one I really believed in, and if true, setup a delicious final battle. Summed up, I hoped the Vault would contain a final rider and dragon, older than every other in Alagaesia, the green dragon on the cover. Eragon and co would fly with this pairing to confront Galbatorix and Murtagh in a final battle culminating with shruiken killing the green dragon, only after being severely wounded, then Murtagh turning on Galbatorix and he and Thorn being killed too by Shruiken, before Eragon finally conquered them.
Obviously there will probably be flaws in my musings, but I just wanted to share my thoughts during reading Inheritance.
Posted Jan 11, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC
I think we knew that one of the eggs was green from earlier, but I'm not sure.
Yeah I know for sure that it was told to us that the remaining egg was green. So ya it was well known that the green dragon on the cover was going to be from the final egg that Galbatorix. To be honest I don't think I would have liked theory two. For one it would have been similar to the ending of the third book when the gold dragon dies. For two the victory would have been motivated by revenge for galbatorix killing this imaginary green dragon and for killing murtagh, and shit I've seen that story in too many movies to count. I love the way the book ended, I usually don't find myself trying to make predictions like this, and instead just enjoy the book.
Yeah I'm not trying to bash the original ending, it's good enough for me, and I didn't really try to make the predictions, they just sort of came to my mind while thinking about the story.