404 replies to this topic

[Grack21]

Lady Octarina, on 08 March 2012 - 06:13 PM, said:

Could be; I remember that about Alan Rickman knowing something about Snape's past too. But the thing is, there's barely any indication of it in the first six books, apart from his worst memory scene, that could be understood in a variety of ways, or his larger than life hatred of James Potter (that really isn't any different from his hatred of Sirius).

Oh I'm not saying it was particular well done, just that she didn't pull it out of her butt at the last minute.

[Lothor Apple Eater]

felice, on 08 March 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

So Harry Potter is a watered-down version or retelling of what, exactly? If there's not an obvious single primary source as "inspiration", it's clearly not derivative in the same way. The sheer number of wildly different sources Rowling has been accused of plagiarising is evidence of a fair degree of originality (in the sense of drawing on a wide range of influences and putting them together in new ways).

I see what you're saying.  But I think you can be unoriginal and yet copy from many different sources.  Take World of Warcraft, which uses the Tolkien races but has a D&D sensibility and uses a quest system like Baldur's Gate.  Christopher Paolini, likewise, used elements that had been found in LOTR, Pern, and most of all Star Wars to create his cycle.

None other than Terry Pratchett mocked her for her claims that she was doing something new.  I'm not saying that every writer needs to be China Mieville or Jeffrey Ford, but her writing borrows from an awful lot of sources, and it doesn't do much that's very new.

[Grack21]

Hah. Warcraft = Warhammer. Warcraft 1 was even a Warhammer game before they lost the license.

[felice]

So you're saying World of Warcraft is a D&D ripoff; Baldur's Gate is a D&D game and D&D uses the Tolkien races, so it's all down to D&D. But there's no "most of all" for Harry Potter, just a few incidental details that are reminiscent of a diverse bunch of other stories, or the broadest overarching themes shared by entire genres. And there's no such thing as entirely new, just drawing on less widely used inspiration (eg Mieville's Catacae are just Ents with a different type of plant, and Khepri are just clones of the Egyptian god).

[Lothor Apple Eater]

Grack21, on 08 March 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

Hah. Warcraft = Warhammer. Warcraft 1 was even a Warhammer game before they lost the license.

I played the first two Warcrafts (never the World of though) and I didn't know that. It does make sense though.

@Felice
If the setting of Hogwarts seems as just as original to you as New Crobuzon, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.  Which is, I suppose, what we've been doing all along.