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Older Than They Think/Literature: Difference between revisions
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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 (Film)|Atreyu]]" Hathaway) who enters a world of magic, befriends a witch, and fights a troll. This is [[
** 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. [[Le Guin]]'s ''[[A Wizard of Earth Sea]]'', first published in 1968.
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* Yet another ''[[Discworld]]'' example: When a witch and a wizard dueled in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Equal Rites|Equal Rites]]'' by [[Shapeshifter Showdown|transforming]] into various things, each countering the other's form, some thought they recognized it as a reference to T.H. White's take on the [[King Arthur]] mythos, ''[[The Once and Future King]]''. However, Terry pointed out that it was a much older folkloric theme; another well-known version appears in the song "The Two Magicians".
* 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 Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' is named as such, because it translates speech telepathically from any language, thus eliminating that particular effect.
** 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
* Laputa the [[Floating Continent]] is not from an [[Castle in The Sky|anime movie]], nor is it from ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]''. It's from ''[[Gullivers Travels|Gulliver's Travels]]''.
* Let it be known that when the [[Lewis Carroll]]'s poem ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Literature)|Jabberwocky]]'' mentions "his vorpal sword", it is not a reference to ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''.
* The character name "[[
** 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.
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*** 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 (Film)|Sherlock Holmes]]'' film for its depiction of a boxing and flirting [[Sherlock Holmes]], seemingly ignoring the fact that in the original books, he did all of those things and more.
* Thoughtcrime is usually associated with ''[[Nineteen Eighty
* Many, many ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' fans seem to think that the concept of [[Puppeteer Parasite]] originated from the series. Examples can be found on this very wiki. The fact that it is a [[Characteristic Trope]] certainly isn't helping matters.
* 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 [[Childhoods End]], a 1953 novel by Arthur C. Clarke, which Hideaki Anno admitted was an inspiration for [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]].
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