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Tolkien Takeoffs?
http://arwen-undomiel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=10243
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Author:  Meldawen [ August 14th, 2006, 11:35 am ]
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I think of it more as homage paid to Tolkien. I don't really consider that copying.

Author:  Gilraen Ringeril [ August 14th, 2006, 4:42 pm ]
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Well, I've never read or heard of the Tolkien Beastiary thing, so I wouldn't know about the Dumbledore thing. But if it was a creature for Tolkien, then it's QUITE different for Rowling! I really don't think Rowling just went and purposely copied the names. And I never thought of the Whomping Willow and Ents as even close to the same. The only thing special about the willow is that it whips people. The Ents are practically people.

Author:  Dark, Queen of Angmar [ August 15th, 2006, 6:23 pm ]
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i can see your point of view as her NOT copying him. But to me, she copied, her books are fantastic no doubt but that doesen't mean that she didn't copy. perhaps she did, maybe she didn't

Author:  Gilraen Ringeril [ August 15th, 2006, 8:55 pm ]
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The world will never know whether she's a copier or not....it will be an endless debate :P

Author:  Aredhel Ar-Feiniel [ August 15th, 2006, 9:02 pm ]
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yeah .. well i suppose the only thing really different about it is that harry potter is modern

Author:  Dark, Queen of Angmar [ August 16th, 2006, 1:03 pm ]
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yeah...with...electrical things... and modern clothes...and...people...lol no

Author:  Alatáriël Telemnar [ March 22nd, 2013, 4:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

Tolkien created the best Fantasy so many must have been inspired by him. I don't mind Harry Potter or Eragone ...

Author:  johnny&orlifan6422 [ June 22nd, 2013, 5:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

Definitely agree about the Shannara series. *Nods* I read The Sword of Shannara a while back, and encountered so many, IMO, almost blatant similarities to LOTR that I didn't read any more of the books in that series. I gravitated towards the more unique series in the Shannara 'verse, instead, like the Voyage of The Jerle Shannara trilogy.

Author:  Alatáriël Telemnar [ March 18th, 2014, 7:01 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

I must ALWAYS add Harry Potter. Rowling is not my favorite author at all but I love Harry Potter; it's inspired by Tolkien and might took off some stuff but still Rowling is just driving me mad with all her creating other fictional authors to get published under there names and other blah blah. She always want to get back the attention of the readers and if she wants so, she must write us a new great novel.

Author:  johnny&orlifan6422 [ March 20th, 2014, 12:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

*Looks at date of my original post* It's been awhile since I've visited here :p. Anyway, I thought of some other books that seem to have been inspired by Tolkien's work (though I was sure I'd mentioned them in my original post): a lot of the ones R.A. Salvatore has written, but his Icewind Dale trilogy in particular. The books in it seem almost like a continuation of LOTR, as in they take place many, many years after the end of ROTK. I mean, the world Salvatore has built includes Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Hobbits (though they're referred to as Halflings instead, and there's really only one who's important to any extent, and even then, he only appears in a book and a half of the above-mentioned trilogy), Wizards, and all the other creatures & beings in the LOTR 'verse! Where Salvatore differs from Tolkien the most is what race many of his novels focus on. It's elves in this case, specifically Dark Elves. And they aren't Tolkien's Dark Elves, either— they're a form that, after being driven underground following a long-ago war between Dark and Light Elves, has since evolved (or de-evolved, depending on one's view of them, as they're extremely aggressive, cruel, and violent) to live exclusively underground.

The main character most of the novels revolve around is a dark elf named Drizz't Do'Urden who's sworn off his people & elected to try and make a life for himself above ground, because he's the complete opposite of most of his fellow dark elves. He's a bit of an anti-hero, at least at the beginning, but as his story progresses, he becomes less & less of an anti-hero, and more of a "true" one. I've only read the trilogy that chronicles his journey to become an above-ground dweller and the one I mentioned above, but all six books are very good, and I definitely recommend reading them :yes:.

Author:  lembas [ March 20th, 2014, 5:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

Sooo I watched "Thor" with my brother the other day and he said that the writers at Marvel must have been Tolkien fans because there was so much that was similar to LotR- and while yes there is they haven't ripped it off.

Tolkien ripped off them.

OK not Marvel, but Norse Mythology. Tolkien drew a lot of his inspiration from literature, myths and legends. The last march of the ents was his alternate ending to Macbeth, he openly admitted to taking Sauron as he is in LotR from a villain in a book called "The Black Douglas" and Gandalf is incredibly similar to Odin. But Tolkien took these "copied" ideas and made the modern fantasy genre- he pretty much wrote the rule book that most of the fantasy novels since have followed.

I guess I don't find it surprising a lot of authors have followed his example, books like Fifty Shades of Grey have proved that authors don't need to be creative or original to be hugely popular. I also think fantasy is a pretty restrictive genre- as you always need certain tropes for a book or film to be fantasy- like if you wrote a story about a guy called Bob who lived in a non magical world it's not a fantasy! :)

And just to add, because I think it's interesting :) V
Quote:
One of the main characters in HP is Dumbledore, yet in "A Tolkien Beastirary(sp)" There is a but called a Dumbledor, don't tell me thats not copying

A Dumbledor is 18th Century term for Bumblebee- both Tolkien and JKR are fans of Old English and odd outdated terms so it's actually more than likely a coincidence. A "Dumbledore" was also a word to describe a Village Idiot, Thomas Hardy uses the word this way- I'm sure JKR chose this word for irony as Dumbledore is the smartest greatest wizard who ever lived.

Author:  Randiriel2003 [ June 14th, 2014, 11:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

Definatly Harry Potter, it's a bad rip-off of LotR. When I saw HP I was really angry.

Author:  Erin Lunaire [ July 7th, 2014, 3:00 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Tolkien Takeoffs?

I find this subject amusing. Because Tolkien not only wrote the story, but also wrote about every being, plant and word ever existed in Middle Earth. It would be impossible for anyone to write anything, without it coming close to what he has written.

Also, along with what Lembas said, Tolkien wasn't even original with some of the names of his characters. Including Gandalf and almost all of the dwarves, Tolkien took their names out of an old Norse poem. Read this, once you get down to the part of the poem, where it counts the dwarves, you'll be surprised on how many familiar names you see.

Also, I've read the Harry Potter books at least 10 times a piece (except Prisoner of Azkaban, which was my fave I read that a lot more), seen all the films. I found no references to The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings at all.

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