LOTR Ripoff

[Menelvagor]

I'm sorry Crickhollow! At least one of them survived.

I think you meant to post that in the 'my plant's name is Pippin' thread tough.

That's so sad!

[Magicshrivve]

I hate Harry PotterI hate Harry PotterI hate Harry PotterI hate Harry PotterI hate Harry Potter

[Elf Girl]

And why might that be?

[Wulažg]

Because it's silly and therefore evil. See the "I'm writing an essay on relativism" thread. Not that I hate Harry Potter. And Tolkien took a vast amount of stuff from Northern European legend etc. Just look at the Angerthas, it is a modified actual Nordic(I think I don't remember) runescript. It's so much fun reading Beowulf(with original test) and comparing it to Tolkien. In Old whatever it is, "orku" is "troll". and soforth. It's fascinating.

[Tar-Elendil]

ive been away for a couple days so i havent posted...im sorry but it is fixed into my mind that harry potter is the worst piece of writing ever..

[Elfhelm]

Even worse than the poetry of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England?

[Occasionally Jay]

....whoever's calling "Harry Potter" the worst piece of writing ever hasn't read half the flack at fanfiction.net. ESPECIALLY in the Lord of the Rings section.

Go ahead. Look up Mithril, and try to read it. I dare you.

[Tar-Elendil]

lol..

[Ñólendil]

The dementors are not the Nazgul. The dementors have real skin, real flesh and blood. You could see their faces if they weren't covered up by hoods. They just have one large sucking hole in their face they use to take your soul. When they get near you, everyone gets cold and thinks horribly depressing thoughts, unlike the Nazgul who inspire unreasoning terror. And there are many, many dementors, they aren't the elite undead warriors of some Dark Lord.

Also Strider and Sirius have strikeingly similar roles (shadowy guy in bree/convict and murderer turn out to be gaurdian figures), the Mirror of Galadriel vs. the Mirror of Arised, and Saruman and Wormtail are both the sidekick mini-baddie and both of them have a white/silver hand.

There's absolutely nothing original or exclusive to Tolkien about a shabby looking bad man that turns out to be good. Anyway Aragorn wasn't a "bree/convict". He was a Ranger, and Rangers look shifty. They were not well-liked in Bree, that's the end of it. Sirius Black was accused of out-right murder and treachery. The Mirror of Galadriel is nothing like the Mirror of Erised (not Arised). The Mirror of Erised is the Mirror of Desire ("Erised" backwards), it shows us our deepest desire. Hence Harry sees his dead relatives in the Mirror. The Mirror, also, looks nothing like Galadriel's mirror. It is of glass, not water, and is a tall, actual mirror. Saruman, too, does not resemble Wormtail. Saruman was not a sidekick mini-baddie. He was a traitor to both Sauron and the Order and Council. He served only himself and he was a mighty man who almost crushed the nation of Rohan, and would have if the Fellowship had never arrived (to rouse the Ents, Theoden and restore Eomer). Wormtail was a traitor and only avoided Voldemort (who he did not betray) for fear. He served Voldemort and can hardly be considered a "mini baddie". He's a pitiful, weak little thing, more like Gollum than Saruman. Gollum or Wormtongue, come to thing of it. And I'm sure the names are coincedental, "Wormtail" was called so because of the animal he was capable of turning into.

Wormtail's new silver hand he got has nothing to do with Saruman. The idea was borrowed by J. K. Rowling from Celtic Mythology. Read Silver Hand by Stephen Lawhead, it's the second book in his Song of Albion Trilogy, which is all about the Otherworld of the Celtic Mythos. Saruman merely has a White Hand as his sigil, I don't know why.

[Tar-Elendil]

i never said dementors WERE the Nazgûl..but very similar to them.. inspiring fear, wearing black robes, etc..and as was pointed out earlier, there a a few characters similar to ones in LoTR..aye, every author's ideas are inspired from other places, but this is a little bit too near, or atleast I think so..you can look at it the same way in the beginning of the silmarillion...it seems alot like the bible and Morgoth being Lucifer and Ilúvatar being God

[Ñólendil]

I didn't use "are" literally. I know you don't think they're meant to be exactly the same. I'm suggesting the dementors have zilch to do with the Nazgul in general.

Of course the Ainulindale resembles the Bible. Tolkien was a Catholic and so, essentially, is his mythology.

[Tar-Elendil]

zilch? zilch? sheesh..open your eyes man!

[Menelvagor]

Originally posted by Ñólendil

There's absolutely nothing original or exclusive to Tolkien about a shabby looking bad man that turns out to be good. Anyway Aragorn wasn't a "bree/convict". He was a Ranger, and Rangers look shifty. They were not well-liked in Bree, that's the end of it. Sirius Black was accused of out-right murder and treachery. The Mirror of Galadriel is nothing like the Mirror of Erised (not Arised). The Mirror of Erised is the Mirror of Desire ("Erised" backwards), it shows us our deepest desire. Hence Harry sees his dead relatives in the Mirror. The Mirror, also, looks nothing like Galadriel's mirror. It is of glass, not water, and is a tall, actual mirror. Saruman, too, does not resemble Wormtail. Saruman was not a sidekick mini-baddie. He was a traitor to both Sauron and the Order and Council. He served only himself and he was a mighty man who almost crushed the nation of Rohan, and would have if the Fellowship had never arrived (to rouse the Ents, Theoden and restore Eomer). Wormtail was a traitor and only avoided Voldemort (who he did not betray) for fear. He served Voldemort and can hardly be considered a "mini baddie". He's a pitiful, weak little thing, more like Gollum than Saruman. Gollum or Wormtongue, come to thing of it. And I'm sure the names are coincedental, "Wormtail" was called so because of the animal he was capable of turning into.

Wormtail's new silver hand he got has nothing to do with Saruman. The idea was borrowed by J. K. Rowling from Celtic Mythology. Read Silver Hand by Stephen Lawhead, it's the second book in his Song of Albion Trilogy, which is all about the

Otherworld of the Celtic Mythos. Saruman merely has a White Hand as his sigil, I don't know why. [/B]

Woah, Nolendil! I was actually agreeing with your point of view. I was trying to show some of the superficial similarities between the two to prove that it's not a ripoff, there are just some roles/scenarios that are classic to the fantasy genre.

[Radagast The Brown]

i never said dementors WERE the Nazgûl..but very similar to them.. inspiring fear, wearing black robes, etc..and as was pointed out earlier, there a a few characters similar to ones in LoTR..aye, every author's ideas are inspired from other places, but this is a little bit too near, or atleast I think so..you can look at it the same way in the beginning of the silmarillion...it seems alot like the bible and Morgoth being Lucifer and Ilúvatar being God

I think you're wrong, atleast in part of the things:
the dementors DO not smilar to the Nazgul...NO! Harry Potter isn't so original but it didn't inspire from LOTR! it can't be because of this information.

[Occasionally Jay]

Dark capes and fear have been the penchant of evil since the greek vampires.

You might as well argue that Harry Potter is based on "Scream".

[Glorious Glorfindel]

oh dearrr god, u think harry potter is bad and evil e.t.c? have you even SEEN vogon poetry? it deludes you all. never read vogon poetry, it is more evil than evil. in fact, it is so evil, it is EVIL EVIL!!!

[samwise of the shire]

ive been away for a couple days so i havent posted...im sorry but it is fixed into my mind that harry potter is the worst piece of writing ever..

I have read only a couple of books that I have liked LESS than Harry Potter. I mean I liked HP's plot and stuff like that but as time wore on I began noticing how rebellious and willing to break the rules Harry and his friends are, and how lax the adults are in punishing them. I mean I think Snape was the best teacher in the whole school. And there's another thing. Snape wanted to see Harry punished for doing wrong things if only to get him out of the school. Yet it was JUST and right for him to want that. And so Rowling made the just like a bad guy. I dont like that.
And there are ALOT of things similar in HP to The Hobbit. Take Hagrid and Beorn. Big,tall,black bearded, addicted to animals living on the edge of an evil forest guys. Or perhaps the cave troll. The Forbidden Forest and Mirkwood...Albus Dumbledoor and Gandalf...George and Fred and Merry and Pippin (JUST KIDDING!) etc.
Sam

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

I know I'm kinda repeating others here, but. . .

See, there's this nice thing called archetypes. Example: Dumbledore is fits the wise old mentor/wizard archetype, as does Gandalf. This type of character shows up in a LOT of stories and myths from all around the world. (Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars, for example). So although Dumbledore is very similiar to Gandalf, J.K. did not copy him...he fits a sort of...formula, if you will, for the wise old mentor-person. Although she might have got the idea from Hobbit, (which I kind of doubt) Tolkien's Gandalf is not entirely originial either, as has been pointed out. As for the Nazgul and the Dementors, they also have their archetype--the evil scary bad guys. Although they are indeed very similiar, I don't think it's a rip-off of Tolkien's writing--it's just a kind of figure that shows up in multiple stories/myths. Y'know, the evil scary ghosts. Yeah, I know I'm going on and on and not saying anything useful. Oh well, I'll go now. But first...I like the Harry Potter books. THey're fun. THey're not exactly the best writing, and there are definitely flaws, but it's not all bad!

[Entlover]

Originally posted by samwise of the shire

as time wore on I began noticing how rebellious and willing to break the rules Harry and his friends are, and how lax the adults are in punishing them.
Sam

__________________________________________________ __
Very perceptive, Samwise. you always manage to hit the nail on the head. That's the objection that a lot of people have to the ethics in Harry Potter.
But I have to agree with Eruviel: they're fun to read. Rowling is a good storyteller. Nowhere in Tolkien's league, however.

I'm reading his Letters. Did you know Strider was originally named Trotter? I think that's hilarious. And Fredegar was Hamilcar.

[JenniferTook]

This may be biased as an EXTREME fan of HP and was so before I ever read LOTR, but I will try my best. Basically, I agree that Tolkien influenced a TON of modern fantasy. The Gandalf archetype is seen absolutely everywhere (Disney's version of The Sword in the Stone comes to mind...). While I do agree that there is similarities between the two, that is hardly surprising. Both use a story of unlikely heros, good vs. evil and testing of character. The Dementers may look like the Nazgul, but there are big differences. Dementers were "born" that way and have the ability to suck one's soul through their mouth. That's not very Nazgully. You could go on with all the similarities, but I believe the only thing Rowling really borrowed from Tolkien was the standard he set when he wrote the novels long before her birth.

Jennifer

----That and Tolkien himself had MANY influences he drew from. Beowulf anyone? It was the man's second Bible!