Not So Different/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Not So Different in Literature include:

  • Murtagh does this to Eragon at the end of the second book of the Inheritance Cycle. The only thing Eragon can come up with is along the lines of "I don't have scars on my back."
    • In the third book, Eragon occasionally notes how he needs to hold off on actions that would make him like Glabatorix. He doesn't really succeed, but nobody seems to notice this...
    • This is also Gallbatorix's favorite tactic.
  • Near the end of Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad, Granny Weatherwax has a Not So Different moment with her sister, Lily, who has become a Knight Templar "good" witch and the de facto ruler of Genua. Granny expresses aloud the fact that she's felt the same urges to use her powers, but never gave in to them. Earlier, Nanny and Magrat had noticed Lily saying "If you don't have respect, you don't have anything", which is a more grammatically correct version of Granny's Catch Phrase "If you ain't got respect, you ain't got nothing." Granny gives the audience a hint of her potential evil side when Lily states that she was doing a needed duty, and Granny is extremely upset that Lily apparently didn't have any fun being evil.
    • Not only is she annoyed that Lily didn't have fun, she is annoyed that Lily is a pathetic villain (at least in her opinion). Throughout the novel, Granny and Nanny Ogg note at various points that if Granny turned evil she would be so good at it that every evil witch that had come before her would pale in comparison. Fortunately, she subscribes to witchy ethics, and feels that because her sister ran off to be evil, she "had to be the good one" to balance things out. With Granny Weatherwax 'balance' tends to be leaning in her favor.
    • Subverted in Small Gods, when Brutha momentarily raises his hand as if to slap Vorbis, who calmly turns his cheek to receive the blow. Brutha hesitates, then lowers his hand, and says "I'm not like you". This really makes Vorbis—a Knight Templar who's been smugly regarding himself as a Messianic Archetype for years, and just got outclassed—pissed off.
    • The good version occurs in I Shall Wear Midnight, when Tiffany learns that, while she was resenting the fact that fairy tale heroines were all blonde and blue-eyed, while brown-eyed brunettes were just milkmaids, and therefore deciding to be the witch, Leticia was resenting the fact that being blonde and blue-eyed made her a fairytale princess, and therefore she couldn't be a witch. It was even the same fairy-tale book.
  • In Good Omens, made quite clear that Heaven and Hell are Not So Different. Demons in the book are former angels after all, and have the same feathery wings, albeit somewhat better groomed.
  • In The Lord of the Rings, Sam wonders of the dead Southron soldier "whether he was really evil at heart, and what lies or threats had driven him on this march so long from his home, and whether he would have rather stayed there in peace."
    • A speech given to Faramir in film, but omitted from the theatrical movie, presumably because it was felt to be Too Soon after 9/11.
    • Even when the Free People’s (Elves, dwarves, hobbits, ents and good men) have We ARE Struggling Together! and the Orks, nazgul, trolls and evil men have an Enemy Civil War, both sides knew that any of their enemies will destroy them ruthlessly, Gorbag tell this to Shagrat in the second book and Frodo tells this to Sam in the third (see Meaningful Echo).
    • The Silmarillion and supporting materials mention that the Ainur Aule and Sauron were very similar in the beginning, both being interested in artifices and engineering and both being impatient that the Children of Iluvatar (Elves and Men) had not yet awoken. The difference is that when both were given a chance to repent, Aule did so and Sauron did not.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire gives us this gem, from Sandor Clegane to the Brotherhood Without Banners: "A Knight's a sword with a horse. The rest, the vows and the sacred oils and The Lady's favours, they're silk ribbons tied 'round the sword. Maybe the Sword's prettier with ribbons hanging of it, but it'll kill you just as dead. Well, bugger your ribbons, and shove your swords up your arses. I'm the same as you. The only difference is, I don't lie about what I am. So, kill me, but don't call me a murderer while you stand there telling each other your shit don't stink. You hear me?"
  • An uneasy dynamic between Harry Potter and Voldemort, made most explicit in the second book. They have similar appearances (at least with Voldemort's past self), abilities, passions, disregard for rules (although Harry's father James was also shown to have a similar disregard for the rules in his youth, so it may have also been from his father as well), and histories. As well, some of Voldemort's power was transferred to Harry at the beginning of the first book, and at the end of the fourth book, Voldemort transfers some of Harry's motherly protection to him.
    • This trope is very nearly mentioned by name in Deathly Hallows, when Harry finally sees all of the parallels between himself, Voldemort, and Severus Snape.
    • Justified, however, in that Harry has had a piece of Lord Voldemort's SOUL resident inside his body ever since he was a year old.
  • Nearly every Animorphs book explores this theme, with the Animorphs worrying that they are becoming too ruthless, too willing to do anything they have to in order to win their war. And they compare themselves to the Yeerks, who are paragons of ruthlessness. The characters face many morally ambiguous situations, which either dispel or (perhaps more often) confirm these doubts. Some Yeerk characters have made "not so different" arguments to the Animorphs, especially Karen/Aftran, Taylor, and the human villain David.
    • In "The Message" Cassie feels that it's wrong to morph a dolphin - an animal that's intelligent. She raises the question of how morphing is different then what the Yeerks do.

"It will be strange morphing something so intelligent," Rachel said.
"Yes," I agreed. "Strange, and . . . wrong, somehow. I felt a twisting in my stomach. "How is doing this any different than what the Yeerks do?"
Rachel looked surprised. "Yeerks take over humans," she said. "Besides, they don't morph, they infest. We don't take over the actual animal, we just copy his DNA pattern, create a totally new animal, and then - "
"And then control the new animal," I said.
"It's not the same," Rachel insisted. But she looked troubled.
"It's something I'll have to think about," I said. "It's kind of been bothering me."

  • Fevre Dream, Damon Julian saying the "We are not so different" to Abner Marsh. Abner actually agrees with him, but still refuses to Julian's We Can Rule Together.
  • In the later books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaires are almost paralyzed a few times from the idea that by lying and wearing disguises everywhere, they're starting to become like Olaf and his gang. This particularly surfaces in The Grim Grotto, wherein they discover one of the gang - the Hook-Handed Man - is in fact the older brother of one of their newest friends, driven to villainy by his tragic past. He himself explains it:

"People aren't either wicked or noble," the hook-handed man said. "They're like chef's salad, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."

  • As the Baudelaires slowly became more wary of their 'villainous' deeds over the course of the plot, Olaf and his associates were gradually either killed off or - especially in the case of Olaf himself, in his final moments - found to have a hidden 'human' side. Asked about the subject, the author (Daniel Handler) commented:

"It's sad, isn't it? I think the Baudelaires are getting older, and one of the sad facts about getting older is that you've always thought of yourself and people you know as righteous and true and the people you dislike as evil. The older you get the more muddy that water becomes."

  • The Big Bad of The Thief of Always tries to pull this on the hero, pointing out that although the Big Bad was a soul-stealing monstrosity, the Hero remorselessly killed the Big Bad's minions, who weren't willfully evil, at least one of whom wasn't hostile, and who were thoroughly convincing and seemingly "real", despite actually being dust given life with illusion. The hero doesn't so much counter it as just shrug it off and continue trying to take down the Big Bad—because, well, the Big Bad is a soul-stealing monstrosity who, despite his valid points, is not the least bit sympathetic and who absolutely has to be destroyed.
    • Hood is correct in this assessment; they've both stolen things that make a person what they are — things that should never be taken by anyone. Hood has stolen the souls of the children lured to his Holiday House, while Harvey has stolen the lives of Hood's illusory minions. The difference comes in why they did it — Harvey did it to lure out Hood so he could defeat him and save the children trapped there, while Hood has merely done it to extend his warped existence and feed his unholy hunger. The book is showing that the difference between heroism and villainy sometimes isn't in what you do, but why you do it. Not the sort of thing you tend to see in a children's book.
  • R A Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden is Not So Different from villain Artemis Entreri. This is actually pointed out by Drizzt's Love Interest Cattie-Brie, and as the series continues Artemis becomes more and more sympathetic; pointing this out to him may be a bad idea, however.
  • Ratha of The Book of the Named bit and crippled her cub, Thistle-chaser. Years later, Thistle-chaser comes back for revenge against Ratha. A small cub tries to defend her, and Thistle-chaser knocks it out of the way. Ratha tells Thistle-chaser that she is no different than herself, since Thistle-chaser got between her and her true target.
  • Jenny and Julian, from L. J. Smith's The Forbidden Game trilogy, could be said to fit this trope. There's a part of the seemingly-timid Jenny which likes danger and challenge, and a part of Julian that is surprisingly different from the others of his 'family,' and seems to long for things that don't fit his projected personality. If brought up in the same place, they might've been uncannily similar people.
  • Zhi Zhong in the Conqueror books occasionally catches himself admiring Genghis Khan's ambition and tactical prowess, comparing his enemy to himself. Jelaudin later ponders on how his father used tactics very similar to Genghis in his own wars.
  • Used as a theme in Neil Gaiman short story A Study In Emerald, which is a crossover between Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu Mythos. (And no, I'm not kidding). Here there is a detective who lives on Baker Street and is aided by his housemate/war veteran friend. Said detective investigates crimes, often at the behest of Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Only at the very end of the story does it become increasingly clear that the detective is in fact Professor James Moriarty, (and that the war veteran is Moriarty's right hand man Colonel Sebastian Moran) while the criminals/rebels being hunted are Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
  • In Simon Spurrier's Warhammer 40,000 Night Lords novel Lord of the Night, Mira realizes this about her and Saheel on her own. Indeed, reflecting on how similar their personalities were led her to consider that the Imperium had not treated her well. She still resisted in their climatic confrontation -- but not forever. Considering the Imperium, whether this is corrupting her is an open question.
  • In Red Dragon, deranged-but-brilliant serial killer Hannibal Lecter loves to tweak FBI profiler Will Graham with this idea whenever they interact, face-to-face or through mail. It isn't clear how much of it Lecter himself believes, but that disturbing knack he has for empathizing with and thinking like the psychopaths he chases is oh-so-much-fun to play with!
  • Warrior Cats: The majority of the plot for the second half of The New Prophecy is about how similar Brambleclaw is to Hawkfrost and how they are, in turn, like their father. Firestar has also been compared to Tigerstar (since they are both somewhat ambitious) and Scourge (Since they are unknowingly related, and the author's note at the beginning of Rise of Scourge talks about how the author wanted to take a character born with the same gifts as Firestar and give him a more negative upbringing).
  • In Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novel Death Masks, Ortega offers to turn Dresden into a vampire rather than kill him in a duel, claiming they are not so different. Dresden fishes until he establishes that Ortega preys on children and cites it as a difference.
    • At one point another villain, Nicodemus, actually says "We are not so very different, you and I..." to Harry. That said, Harry's response on how they aren't is pretty accurate.
    • In relation to his family this is Thomas' greatest fear. One short story shows exactly why, overexertion causes him to rape his enemy to death in order to quiet his Hunger.
  • In John le Carr? Smiley's People, the ostensibly retired British spy George Smiley finally gets a chance to beat the Soviet spymaster Karla, using the knowledge of a mentally ill daughter hidden in an institution in Switzerland against him. He succeeds, forcing Karla to defect and tell everything he knows to the Brits. But he gains no satisfaction in the end, because he feels he has finally gone over the line and become as ruthless as Karla to beat him.
  • In the X Wing Series, Kirtan Loor is left behind on Coruscant when the Empire leaves it, recently infected with a nasty plague, to the New Republic. He's instructed to make things difficult for the New Republic, and he does this with gusto, using agents and explosives to make people balance dying of the Krytos virus with being blown up at a health center. Vorru is sent to hunt him down, but instead of bringing him to justice he uses Loor to further his own ends, giving him targets to take out. One of them is a school. When Loor protests, Vorru mocks him. Loor is already preventing children from being treated; just because it's the Krytos virus and not him who is killing them makes no difference. Loor agrees because Vorru will kill him otherwise, but thinks, We are not as far apart as I would like to think, but neither are we as close as Vorru thinks.
  • In CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape occasionally discusses this with a Perspective Flip: Because great villains need great virtues to be effective villains, there's Hell to pay if their Tempter accidentally has one end up in the Enemy's camp.
  • In C.S. Goto's Blood Ravens trilogy, Ahriman says this to Gabriel, who looks at the corpses and declares they are nothing alike because he searches for knowledge only in the Emperor's service.
  • Thursday Next, and her Evil Twin Thursday1-4 in First Amongst Sequels.

Thursday: I'm going to erase you and, what's more, enjoy it.
Thursday1-4: Then I was wrong. We are alike.

Simon: I have hated too. We are the same, he and I. "I'm sorry. You should not have suffered so."

  • Magic: The Gathering novels: the second book of the Invasion cycle, Planeshift, has Urza and Yawgmoth, Gerrard Capashen and Crovax, and Phyrxians and Metathran.
  • In John C. Wright's The Golden Transcendence, the Silent Oecume agents try this on Phaethon who sees through it. (They complain that AI's don't obey orders. Phaethon wonders why they didn't just fire them and hire new ones—and knows it's because they enslaved them.) Both Phaethon and Helion have this reaction more than once to Atkins, which neither finds entirely pleasant, but they have to admit it's accurate.
  • In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Slithering Shadow", Thalis tries this on Conan: letting Thog wander and take people is not so different from Human Sacrifice. Since neither Conan's nor his companion Natala's people practice human sacrifice, they are not convinced.
  • In Allison Croggon's fantasy series The Books of Pellinor, the main character Mearad is constantly wondering whether she is good or evil at heart because of the similarities between her and the Big Bad, Sharma- The Nameless One.
  • The whole point of Animal Farm. In the story, the farm animals kick the humans out and take over their farm. They establish a set of rules to keep them from associating with humans. (among the rules were no sleeping in beds, no wearing clothes, no drinking, no walking on hind legs, etc.) Napoleon, a pig, is more concerned about the welfare of himself and his fellow pigs than the other animals. Over time, the pigs start indulging in more and more human luxuries, and mannerisms, all while continuing to exploit the other animals, until the famous end scene where Benjamin the donkey sees the pigs drinking and hanging out with men, and he's unable to tell the difference between the pigs and the men. The whole story was symbolism for how author George Orwell interpreted Communist Russia: the leaders just exploited the workers for their own gain, effectively making them the same as the aristocratic upper class communism sought to overthrow.
  • In The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara The Morgawr hits his former apprentice, the Isle Witch with this, noting that she is every bit as dark, twisted and ruthless as he is. The Isle Witch acknowledges his point, admitting the only difference between them is that she regrets what she is and would change it if she could, while The Morgawr regrets nothing.
  • In Aquasilva Trilogy, the main character Cathan and his arch enemy Sarhaddon end in the same side of the trench. They were both trying to avoid a bloody war, albeit with different motivations. Cathan wanted to destroy the Domain altogether and Sarhaddon, being a part of said Domain, fears that a new war would be the downfall for his organization. In the end, Sarhaddon was right.
  • Technic History: Humans and Meresians are both warlike conquerors and have a similar history. Oddly enough Ythrians while highly capable of violence and not disinclined toward feuding are less this way. The same territorial hunger needed to support a fully carnivorous species while it might be thought to make them into conquerors, in fact keeps them from having enough structure in their social organization to form more military force then needed for defence.
  • In the later volumes of Honor Harrington there is a Zig Zag. Solarian oligarchs analyze Manticorans by reference to their own motives which is to rather sloppily plunder weaker peoples and leave nothing of compensating value that might interfere with quickly getting a cushy retirement. The twist is that sometimes Manties do look similar at first glance: they do gather clients and come to think of it can be arrogant at times if not as much as Solarians. But they at least really do want to cooperate with their clients for a long term and not just plunder them.
  • In Vorkosigan Saga Ivan and his wife are actually reassured that his marriage to a Jacksonian will go over better in opinion then feared. Falling in love with the princess of a dynasty that had lost a feud is the sort of thing Barrayarans all know from stories.
  • In The King of Ys series by Poul Anderson a Mithrist Roman soldier muses about the similarities between Mithrism(a popular Roman religion)and Christianity because both accepted all economic and political classes equally. Then rather prophetically subverts it by wondering about the fact that Christianity also accepts women(which of course composes half the Empire most of whom have kinfolk among the other half as well).
  • In Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the cobra Nag seems to be getting to this when Rikki first meets him, claiming that they're both predators and that his preying on birds is little different than a mongoose preying on snake eggs. However, he's lying, trying to distract Rikki so Nagina can ambush him from behind.
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