Harry Potter

[nitafan211]

Ok ill start listing,
<LI>Dumblador/ Gandalf both very powerful wizards.
<LI>Farmer Maggot has a bloodhound named Fang, Hagid does also
<LI>Gollum/Dobby
<LI>Harry has to destroy the Sorccers stone, Frodo the Ring

I havent read it in a while and I don't own it so when I check it out from the library I will make a better list.

[db_pr]

Oh yeah. Oh, on MuggleNet there was an extended list of the likeness between thsoe two. The Nazgul also puts heavy fear into anyone close to it, just like the Dark Riders.

[Agent M]

Oh... Does it help to eat chocolate around the Nazgul?

[Kathy Li]

Ah, so athelas is the Elvish for chocolate! ("Here, Eowyn, have some of Kingsfoil's Finest Bittersweet, it really helps!")

[Agent M]

*snort* Uh oh... Poot!!! Stupid one liners... *grumble*

[Kathy Li]

Just change the subject after your one liner.

Like, the ONLY reasons I plan on getting the RoK extended cut DVD is because I know they actually shot the Halls of Healing sequence with Aragorn using the athelas on Eowyn, Faramir, and Merry, and the courting of Eowyn and Faramir. (and, now watch this, this is the tricky part. Getting Back on Topic): and I really hope that WB figures out they could milk a ton of money by giving us an extended cut of Prisoner of Azkaban. Assuming Cuaron shot footage of missing bits from the book and edited them out for time.

[Try this at home!]

[drea]

Ha ha ha!

Now then: Comparing fiction seems like a silly pastime. I was of the impression that Harry Potter was a ripoff from a different book series in the 1970s. However, since none of the people I know that claim that have coughed up a title, I won't cling to that claim very fiercely.

And since every single book written since LOTR, which was based off of Beowulf, which was written during the ninth century-ish, has been taken from its predecessors. It has to. Otherwise we'd all still be reading stupid fairy tales.

Harry Potter amuses me, makes me sad, and makes a lot of kids read that would be reading otherwise. In that respect, it is way worth it. Literacy, dudes. That's important. Even if they aren't reading Kafka.

[Aurora]

...I don't see all that many similarities between the two, other than what's to be expected- I mean, both books follow quite closely the Quest-Journey pattern (pays attention in English class). And besides.... the main difference

LOTR BORED ME.
Harry Potter didn't.

There's a whole slew of books you could say are rip offs of LOTR. Because they all follow the Quest-Journey pattern.

[Peter Murray]

The Nazgul are indeed very like the Dark Riders. For a start, there are nine of them, both groups appear in Lord of the Rings...


I don't think it's true to compare Harry destroying the Philosopher's Stone to Frodo destroying the Ring. Frodo knew that was what he was doing, but Harry was trying to save the Stone, not destroy it.

Having powerful wizards in two books does not make either book a rip-off. Or would you call High Wizardry a rip-off of Lord of the Rings because Dairine is a powerful wizard? Of course, she doesn't have a beard.
If I've got a beard (look at the avatar!), does that make me a rip-off of Gandalf or Dumbledore?

I don't really see murderous Gollum who reforms as being at all like subservient Dobby who gains his freedom. Gollum's a degenerate hobbit; Dobby was never a human wizard.

I keep wondering if Kat is Earwen intentionally, or because she misheard the name Eowyn in LotR .

I'm hoping that Cuaron shot lots of scenes and then found they were overrunning badly, and that there's loads of deleted PoA scenes.

[Kathy Li]

Yes, but how many people have actually read the stupid fairytales in their Grimm form, rather than the Disney-hand-me-down-from-Perrault & Co.? How many people know about Cinderella's golden slipper and cutting off the heel and toe of the stepsisters and the prince seeing the blood-filled slipper? (I swear, people were gasping when I saw Into the Woods, not being aware that's how the story goes..., let alone the brilliant Freudian analysis Betelheim did on "Jack in the Beanstalk.")

And for that matter, how many people know that Dorothy was a blonde, had silver slippers, and that Munchkins aren't any shorter than anybody else? Also that the Emerald City was only green because everybody wore green-tinted glasses?

Sure, the Tolkien tree of fantasy inheritance is big and thriving and many many generations of branches by now, but it's not the only tree out there. I doubt you could claim fantasy authors of pre-and-concurrent-with-Tolkien times, such as E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake, Thorne Smith, James Branch Cabell, Ernest Bramah, H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, or Hope Mirrlees were feeding off Tolkien.

And even the ones we know were in direct contact with Tolkein (fellow Inklings C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams) chose vastly different visions by which to tell stories of the fantastical.

Fantasy does not begin and end with Tolkien and the Tolkienesque. It's much wider than that. That modern writers today feel he's some obstacle to be surmounted/avoided is kind of sad. I like (Back on Topic) that JK Rowling is confident enough to do what she pleases. I think she's created an original work, building perhaps on familiar fantasy memes, but putting her own twist and tone on them. Sure, I could point out half a dozen parallels between Harry Potter and, oh, say, Timothy Hunter, but they're not the same, and got there by parallel evolution, not one based on the other.

I had a point to make. Lost it--too much fun rambling. Sorry.

[Peter Murray]

Well, Munchkins are shorter than non-Oz people, but just about everyone in any part of Oz is roughly Dorothy's height anyway.

Fritz Leiber's copying of LotR with his Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series was particularly inspired - I forget how many stories in that series he'd published before LotR came out...

Hmmm, LotR/H.P. Lovecraft crossovers... I think I wish now I hadn't thought of that.

One thing Tolkien rejected was the "frame". You know, like the four Pevensey children moving from our world to Narnia via the wardrobe. LotR is set entirely within his world, with no reference to ours. Harry Potter is set entirely on one planet, one dimension, whatever, but still uses a "frame" to move him from the Muggle "world" to the wizarding "world".

And I want to see a Gaiman fangirl say that Hunter and Potter aren't connected... oh, wait, I just did.

[Kathy Li]

And I want to see a Gaiman fangirl say that Hunter and Potter aren't connected... oh, wait, I just did.

Snort. To quote from Gaiman himself, if she'd copied from Books of Magic, she'd have changed all the obvious similarities.

Haven't seen the Conan Doyle/Lovecraft anthology, have you?

[Kat]

Peter, to answer your two questions, I havn't seen the film and I'm not planning to but I think Gary Oldman was the wronge choice due to being to old (Sirius is in his early 30s) and not actully looking anything like JKR described him.
My name Earwen means sea lover. Although I like the name Eowyn, I don't think it would suit me as it means she who loves horses.
I'm just wondering, is your avie based on Dilbert?

[Gryphon]

Hehe. I love Dilbert. Evil Director of Human Resources... *shakes head*

I know I'm gonna see the film. I have to see it for myself! But I'd rather read the next book. meh. I wish JKR wouldn't take so long! But it's not like it's all her fault. Ah well.

[nitafan211]

I watched the movie the day it came out. It's pretty good, but since they have a diffrent director for it, you can tell where Chris Columbus (director) would have done something diffrent. It's a very diffrent style. Chris is still a producer for the movies. The first two movies were more for the family, the third is more for older kids and for the people who are really following the movies/books.