Older Than They Think/Literature: Difference between revisions

** Many of Rowling's elements also appear in Eleanor Estes' ''[[The Witch Family]]'', first published in 1960, and especially in [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]'s ''[[Earthsea Trilogy|A Wizard of Earth SeaEarthsea]]'', first published in 1968.

*** 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 [[Potter Verse]] is largely [[Fanon]]. While several characters own pets which have evident magical powers or at least [[Amplified Animal Aptitude]], nowhere in the books are they called "familiars" nor do they seem to have any particular significance in wizardingWizarding culture. As far as the books are concerned, Hedwig, for example, is just a pet and not some kind of mythical animal companion as fanfictionfan fiction would have you believe.

** 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.

* 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 the Muggles|Nancy Stouffer's]] claim that the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series is ripped off from her ''[[The Legend of Rah and the Muggles]]'' because, amongstamong other things, "both works take place in fantasy settings". Presumably, Stouffer has never heard of ''[[The Hobbit]]'', the entire ''[[Narnia]]'' series, or ''[[Gulliver's Travels|Gullivers Travels]]'', to name but a few examples. My ([[The Sixties|'60s]]) childhood was filled with many more, most of which were long-established even back then.

*** Not to mention being unaware that "Muggles" is a character in [[Carol Kendall]]'s ''[[The Gammage Cup]]'', from 1959.

** Rowling has also been aaccusedaccused by rabid fantasy fans of "stealing" the idea of the Invisibility Cloak from Tolkien's Ring; they're clearly unaware that the idea of a magic ring, cloak, Tarnhelm or whatever is a staple of the folklore of many lands, and that Tolkien didn't ''invent'' this idea any more than Wagner did when he used it about a century before Tolkien.

* 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]]''.

* 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 propheciedprophesied not to be killed by a man]], thus getting offed by Éowyn), not realizing that a great many of those elements [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|became clichéd due to the influence]] of the original novels on later works.