Older Than They Think/Literature: Difference between revisions

 

* 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

* 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 (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' universe are seemingly random, ordinary items in which the [[Big Bad]] has hidden part of his soul - permanently destroying him is impossible unless you first destroy all seven of these items. The idea goes back to the concept of the Lich (undead, skeletal magician of vast power) and his [[Soul Jar|phylactery]] from [[Dungeons and Dragons]], and ''that'' presumably goes back to ''Russian folklore'' and the character of Koschei the Deathless (an undead, skeletal magician of vast power), who hid his soul in a needle, and put the needle in an egg, and the egg in a bird, and the bird in a hare, and the hare in a bear, etc. etc, Russian-doll style. This is even found in [[Classical Mythology]] with characters such as Meleager (not the ''[[Heroic Age]]'' one) whose life was linked to a brand : when the brand was consumed by fire, Meleager died.

* ''[[Don Quixote]]'':

** [[In-Universe]]: This is only one of the [[Common Fan Fallacies]] Alonso Quixano falls into in Part I, Chapter I: [[Weird Al Effect|Bernardo del Carpio]] is one of Alonso Quixano favorite knights, because he found the way to defeat [[Nigh Invulnerable|Roland]] the enchanted: instead of attacking him with a sword, [[Combat Pragmatist|Bernardo]] simply strangled Roland... Cool, isn’t it? But not as cool as the first time this tale was told, [[Unreliable Narrator|as our narrator]] remind us, [[Classical Mythology|when Hercules]] strangled Anteus, the son of Gaia, in his arms, making this trick [[Older Than Feudalism]]. Seeing that ''[[Don Quixote]]'' was written in 1605, the observation of fans falling for this common fan fallacy is itself [[Older Than They Think]].

* Some people accused ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' of mocking ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'s'' beautiful sexy vampires with the White Court, which are...beautiful sexy vampires that actually feed on emotions, including lust. This of course leaves out that the first appearance of a White Court vampire was in ''Grave Peril'', which came out several years ''before'' the first ''Twilight'' book.

* 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.