Older Than They Think/Literature: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

* The phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" was famously used by Newton to Hooke (1676): ''"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."'', but actually it dates back to the 12 century, when John of Salisbury wrote

** While we're on the subject, the 1986 horror movie ''Troll'' -- no connection to ''[[Troll 2]]'' -- contains a young boy named Harry Potter (played by Noah "[[The Neverending Story (film)|Atreyu]]" Hathaway) who enters a world of magic, befriends a witch, and fights a troll. This is [[Name's the Same|probably a coincidence]], though. Rowling has explicitly said as much (regardless of what you may have heard) and stranger coincidences of exactly the same sort have happened. Excellent further reading on the matter would be the story behind the name "Eleanor Rigby" in ''The Beatles Anthology''.

** An isolated castle containing a magic school, with a forest nearby? A protagonist who has no prior knowledge of the magical world? A rival who comes from a leading magical family? A hook-nosed Potions teacher who favours the rival and despises the protagonist? A kindly, grey-haired Head who is fond of the protagonist? Classes in Charms and broomstick riding? Yep, that's Jill Murphy's ''[[The Worst Witch]]'', six volumes published 1974, '80, '82, '93, 2005, 2007.

** There actually are people who think Rowling invented house elves, hippogriffs, or the concept of familiars.

** Many people think that ''[[Wizard's Hall]]'' by Jane Yolen was ripped-off of ''[[Harry Potter]]'' despite being written six years earlier. Yes it has a wizard's school as its main setting, but the characters are much weirder... in only the best ways.

** An episode of ''QI'' (with Daniel Radcliffe himself guest starring!) showed that several of Rowling's proper names can be traced back to real English words. "Hagrid" comes from "hag-ridden," to have dreams about witches and witchcraft. "Dumbledore" is an Old English word for a bumblebee. And "muggle" was originally jazz slang for marijuana! And it was most certainly not from "The Legend of Rah and the Muggles."

** The character was originally introduced as Cohen the Barbarian, quite possibly a play-on of ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]''.

** Some fans thought that Inigo Skimmer of ''The Fifth Elephant'' was a reference to/parody of Inigo Montoya of ''[[The Princess Bride (novel)|The Princess Bride]]'', as both are [[Career Killers]]. Pratchett corrected this, pointing out that Inigo is an old name and that if he was thinking of anyone, he probably got the name from [[wikipedia:Inigo Jones|Inigo Jones]].

* Film novelizations have existed [[The Master Mystery|since the 1920s]].

** And novelizations of plays go back still further.

** Incidentally, the example of Witch-king is itself inspired by [[Shakespeare]]'s ''Macbeth'', in which a prophecy states that [[Birnam Wood to Dunsinane|no man born of woman]] would ever kill Macbeth -- as it turns out, the guy who kills him was delivered via Caesarean, and thus technically not "born" of woman. Tolkien felt that Shakespeare had missed an opportunity, and so had a woman (and a non-human male) fulfill his version of the prophecy.

** Another instance of Tolkien writing something as a specific modification of Shakespeare (and, specifically, Macbeth) is the Ents. Tolkien got all excited while watching the play after the witches predict that ''Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be/until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/Shall come against him.'' When the great twist turned out to be "men with leaves in their hats", he angrily returned home and decided that ''he'' would write a story about walking trees, ''thank you very much''.

** Indeed, Holmes is heard at one point to belittle the Dupin stories, presumably as a backhanded homage to Poe by Arthur Conan Doyle.

** Some believe Poe could have been inspired by [[Voltaire]]'s ''Zadig'' (1747), who does detective-like work.

* Gibson himself almost had this writ large; while writing ''[[Neuromancer]]'', he went to see ''[[Blade Runner]]'' and was in tears by the end, because there was his entire milieu, on screen and before he was even done! He was very relieved when the movie tanked...

* The [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]] trope page once claimed that "All that glitters is not gold" is a misquote of Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice'', which has the line "All that ''glisters'' is not gold." Actually, the line didn't originate with Shakespeare. Both Chaucer and Cervantes used variations on it. The first version using "glitters" appears in John Dryden's 1687 poem The Hind and the Panther. When Shakespeare wrote ''The Merchant of Venice'', the line was already a well-worn cliché (which is why the next line of the couplet is "often have you heard that told"), so there's no real reason his version should be considered authoritative.

* The first use of a ruined Statue of Liberty wasn't ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'', but the novel ''The Last American'' by John Ames Mitchell, published in 1889 -- only six years after the statue was complete.

* Some people think that the movie ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' ripped off the name "Babel Fish" from the [http://babelfish.altavista.com website].

* Guess what I'm describing here: years after a world-changing event, a mysterious group causes humankind to evolve into a single entity, with sides of Apocalyptic imagery. I'm describing [[Childhood's End]], a 1953 novel by Arthur C. Clarke, which Hideaki Anno admitted was an inspiration for [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]].

* [[The Book of the Named]] predates ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' by about twenty years, though it has the disadvantage of having been almost entirely out of print from the mid nineties until recently. While most fans of the latter who get around to reading the former pick up on the differences very quickly, that hasn't stopped some who [[Did Not Do the Research]] from crying foul against Clare Bell.

* David Gerrold had to get clearance for the original [[Star Trek]] episode ''The Trouble with Tribbles'' (1967), from [[Robert Heinlein]], whose 1952 novel ''The Rolling Stones'' had a quickly reproducing Martian species known as 'flatcats.' Heinlein pointed out that the idea had been used much earlier, in ''Pigs is Pigs'' by Ellis Parker Butler. "A story about guinea pigs, beaurocracy [sic] and multiplication. First published in the September 1905 issue of American Magazine."

* [[Isaac Asimov]] [[Trope Codifier|popularised]] the idea of robots which by their design are incapable of harming humans (in sharp contrast to the usual clichéd depiction of robots as mechanical Frankenstein's-monsters), but there was at least one earlier depiction of such robots, in the [[Adam Link]] stories of Eando Binder.

* Speaking of ''[[Twilight]]'', lord help you if you're an author who wrote a [[Young Adult]] [[Paranormal Romance]] before Stephenie Meyer published hers. Fans and detractors alike tend to dismiss these novels as ripoffs. This hasn't been entirely bad, as some teen paranormal series written in the 90s got rereleased in an attempt [[Follow the Leader|to cash in on the growing vampire trend.]] The most notable example is ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' by LJ Smith, which was rereleased in 2007, as well as receiving a reboot and a TV adaptation in 2009.

* Many people think that Plato was the first to use the word "Atlantis". While most historians agree that Plato created the legend of the lost island of Atlantis, which first appeared in the dialogue ''Timaeus'', there was a book called ''Atlantis'' that predates the dialogue by about one hundred years. Only fragments remain of this book, which was written by Hellanicus, and there is no evidence that this book had anything to do with the legend of a lost civilization.

* Bumping into anything done by [[Rudyard Kipling]] is unavoidable even if you're not reading people as strongly influenced as [[Robert A. Heinlein]]. [[Tractor Beam]]? ''As Easy as ABC'' -- for that matter, one of the first Sci Fi as we know it, ''and'' the articulate re-introduction of [[Mundane Fantastic]] as an approach outside of mythology and its derivatives. ''[[More Deadly Than the Male]]'' -- [[Trope Namer]]. [[Stiff Upper Lip]], one of [[Trope Codifier|Trope Codifiers]]. [[The Vamp]] -- probably the [[Trope Namer]] (''The Vampire''). [[POV Sequel]]? Among the first known outside of Japan. [[Steampunk]]? Was predicted in the last few lines of ''The King''. [[Troll|Trolling]]? He got more advanced variations from XX century [[Trickster]] arsenal described (''Stalky'' series) and actively used them. Use of [[The Raj]] setting? Mostly have to either follow or dispute with him.

* [[Fanfic| Fan Fiction]] goes far back long before the Internet. In fact, the practice is [[Older Than Print]] when a poem called '''Troilus and Criseyde''' by Geoffrey Chaucer came out in 1380s inspired Robert Henryson to write The Testament of Cresseid.

*Aelfric's ''Colloquy on the Occupations'', a poem for Anglo-Saxon schoolboys has people from different occupations describing their jobs to a class. Sound familiar anyone?