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Examples of [[{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]] in [[{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] include:
* 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
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* The expression "bust a cap" for "shoot" dates back to at least 1879: ''Andersonville'', John McElroy, p. 510. It was first used in a crime drama no later than 1932. (An episode of the radio series "Police Headquarters".)
* The Horcruxes from the ''[[Harry Potter (
** ''The Golden Bough'' lists several examples of ''external soul'', few of them coming from ''Arabian Nights'' (containing stories from early medieval period).
* A double literary example: J.K. Rowling is often asked (often enough for it to be in her official FAQ) whether she took the character of Nicholas Flamel in ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Philosopher's Stone'' from ''[[The Da Vinci Code]]''. In fact, Flamel was a ''real life historical figure'', a philosopher from the 14th century rumored to have created a philosopher's stone and gained immortality. Additionally, ''Philosopher's Stone'' came out in 1997 (with the movie version coming out in 2001), while ''Da Vinci Code'' wasn't published until 2003.
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*** It certainly helps that as far as personality goes, Harry and Stibbons have almost nothing in common, as well as the fact that Stibbons is in his mid-twenties, as opposed to the teenaged Harry.
**** He was presumably a teenager in his first appearance in ''Moving Pictures'', where he's a student preparing to sit for his final exams. Of course, he's also a very minor character in that book.
** 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 (
** 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.
** Many of Rowling's elements also appear in Eleanor Estes' ''[[The Witch Family]]'', first published in 1960, and especially in [[Ursula K.
** There actually are people who think Rowling invented house elves, hippogriffs, or the concept of familiars.
*** There are doubtless people as well who think that ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]'' invented hippogryphs. They go back at least as far as the early sixteenth century. See (ironically enough) the [[Newer Than They Think]] page for more on this.
*** Funnily enough, the concept of familiars in the [[
** A really pathetic example is [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/6674 here]. Unbeknownst to most, J. K. Rowling put Biblical scripture on the tombstones in ''Deathly Hallows''. And now that website is citing J. K. Rowling as the author of a line spoken by Jesus.
** Many people think that ''[[
** 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."
* Some people seem to think that [[Diane Duane]]'s ''[[Young Wizards]]'' books are ripoffs of ''[[Harry Potter]]'', when actually Diane Duane began publishing her books in the early '80s. The only thing they have in common is "ordinary kid becomes a wizard and fights evil", but the reprints of the books have often been marketed as "something to read after you've finished ''Harry Potter''." Duane has actually stated on her blog that she avoids reading the ''Harry Potter'' books in case anyone accuses her of ripping off Rowling's ideas for her latest books. The same has happened with the works of [[Diana Wynne Jones]], [[Susan Cooper]], and other young adult fantasy authors whose books went out of print for a while but experienced a resurgence in popularity after ''Harry Potter'' became a big hit, even though their books existed ''decades'' before Rowling began writing.
** One of the most nonsensical plagiarism allegations '''ever''' must surely be [[The Legend of Rah and
*** Not to mention being unaware that "Muggles" is a character in [[Carol Kendall]]'s ''[[The Gammage Cup]]'', from 1959.
** Rowling has also been
* Bizarrely, even ''[[Discworld]]'' itself has given us an example of this with the character of Genghis Cohen. Now, obviously, that's a reference to Genghis ''Khan'', but most Pratchett fans don't know that "Genghis Cohen" is also the name of a philatelist in ''[[The Crying of Lot 49]]''.
** 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 (
** Terry also got a bit sarcastic with people commenting on ''[[
* Film novelizations have existed [[The Master Mystery|since the 1920s]].
** And novelizations of plays go back still further.
* This has been a problem with ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'': people whose only exposure to work is the films have said that there were a lot of cliché elements (such as the Witch-king [[No Man of Woman Born|being
** 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''.
** The idea of a ring that grants invisibility while the user inevitably becomes corrupt was used 2000 years earlier by Plato in ''[[The Republic (
** All the Dwarves' names in ''[[The Hobbit]]'' were taken straight from a list in ''The Elder Edda'', a collection of Icelandic poetry dating from the 11th century. And Gandalf's, too.
** Tolkien was a professor of Old English, and much (and arguably, most) of his inspiration came originally from Anglo-Saxon poetry and culture. Apart from the obvious linguistic influences, the Ents, for example, were heavily influenced by the prosopoeic narrator of ''[[
* Today, [[Sherlock Holmes]] is easily more well-known than [[Edgar Allan Poe|C. Auguste Dupin]], despite that Dupin was the first detective of his kind who solved crimes simply with his own superbrain, more swiftly and easily than the police department who would only very grudgingly come to him for help, who [[Celibate Hero|never had a love interest]], and whose stories were told by his [[Sidekick]].
** 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.
* Yet another ''[[Discworld]]'' example: When a witch and a wizard dueled in ''[[
* 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.
* As it turns out, [[Homer]]'s ''Iliad'' may well be the oldest example of the expression "to bite the dust", rather than the western movies and the song by [[Queen]] that people generally associate with the expression.
* 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].
** Which is, of course, a reference to [[The Bible]]: In the "Tower of Babel" story, people are punished by God, and start speaking different languages. The Babel Fish from ''[[The
** Also on ''Hitchhiker's'', some people have accused North London estate agents [http://www.hotblackdesiato.co.uk/ Hotblack Desiato] of having stolen their name from ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to
* Laputa the [[Floating Continent]] is not from an [[Laputa: Castle in
* Let it be known that when the [[Lewis Carroll]]'s poem ''[[Alice in Wonderland
* The character name "[[Name's the Same|James Bond]]" first appeared in the [[
** Fleming said that he took the name from the author of ''Birds of the West Indes'', a book which he kept on his cocktail table at his house in Jamaica, where many of the Bond novels were written. The book is still in print.
** Historical [[Real Life]] example: perhaps the most well known of the few American survivors of The Alamo (who made it because he was a messenger sent away to tell of what was going on, and therefore wasn't there for the carnage) was named James Bond.
* It's flatly astonishing how many people think Bram Stoker invented vampires with ''[[Dracula]]''. While less well-known, James Malcolm Rymer's ''[[
** Vampires whose bodies are largely composed of sparkly minerals? Check. Abusive vampire/human love affairs with nonstop bed-breaking sex? Check. Improvised cesarian section on a human who's impregnated with an unprecedented vampire offspring? Check. Actually a good novel? Check ... '''if''' it's ''The Stress Of Her Regard'' (1989) by Tim Powers, and not [[Twilight (
** There are probably many [[Harry Potter]] fans who think that [[
** For that matter, the [[Hate Dumb]] that blames Stephanie Meyers (and before her, [[Anne Rice]]) for "ruining" vampires by turning them into brooding sexpots. Varney hated his vampiric nature so much that {{spoiler|he decided to fling himself in a volcano at the end}}, and both Stoker and LeFanu's ''Carmilla'' used the vampire as metaphors for dangerous sexuality. This stuff is as old as the gothic horror tradition, folks.
*** Aristocratic, jaded vampire socialite who likes to seduce and use people of both sexes? Look no further that Ruthven created by John Polidori, physician of Lord Byron (who Ruthven is based on).
* Many people have criticised the new ''[[Sherlock Holmes (
* Thoughtcrime is usually associated with ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', written in 1949. While Orwell may or may not have read it, the idea of punishing treasonous thoughts and encouraging people to report on their neighbours acting suspiciously was proposed as a serious rulership strategy in ''[[
* Many, many ''[[
* 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 [[
* [[The Book of the Named]] predates ''[[
** Not to mention [[
* 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.
* People have accused the [[Dragonriders of Pern]] of being a rip-off of the [[
* Younger fans of Suzanne Collins' ''The Hunger Games'' don't always seem to be aware of the existence of earlier dystopian [[Deadly Game]] stories like ''The Running Man'' and ''Battle Royale.''
* ''[[
** [[In
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* Some people accused ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' of mocking ''[[Twilight (
* 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.
* And then there are fictional works just plain foreshadowing real events, with varying degrees of accuracy. ''Titanic'' appears in literature well before [[Titanic|the 1997 James Cameron film]] and well before [[The Edwardian Era]], in ''Futility: or the Wreck of the Titan'' in 1894.
* 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.
** In 1740, '''''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded''''' by Samuel Richardson inspired many fan-made sequels thanks to the early copyright laws weren’t easily enforced at the time.
*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?
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