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Accusing Paolini of "stealing" dragonriding from Mcaffrey made me dump all the limited credibility this post had for me. I love both series and have the capacit

Accusing Paolini of "stealing" dragonriding from Mcaffrey made me dump all the limited credibility this post had for me. I love both series and have the capacity to comprehend very few ideas spontaneously appear in a vacuum without external influence. There were also a large number of dragonriding stories written in between Dragonquest and Eragon. Did they steal from Anne, too? Is the omnipresence of elves and dwarves in modern fantasy all theft from Tolkien? Did Anne steal dragons from $GeneralEuropeanMythology? Did she steal the idea of colonizing other planets from early scifi writers? Did she steal the idea of aliens causing a galactic war early scifi writers? Dumb take, bad opinion. All writing is derivative. The tone of Pern and the tone of Inheritance are substantively different.

DropInIn 3y ago
" Is the omnipresence of elves and dwarves in modern fantasy all theft from Tolkien?" In the form they seem to all take? Yea, it really kinda is... at best it's appropriation. This isn't even a question for those who studied the topics is it? Here's a link from a quick Google that goes over the topics. https://jamestkelly.com/8-ways-tolkien-changed-modern-fantasy-forever/ https://jamestkelly.com/8-ways-tolkien-changed-modern-fantas... Tolkienesque elves and dwarves are only superficially similar to those mythological creatures which inspired them, with the subsequent prevailing forms used throughout fantasy being clearly derivative if not outright copies of his work (or as close as possible without violation of IP). Your whole position seems to be born of the same "dumb take" behavior you're supposedly decrying, no?
- thefurdrake 3y ago
  > Your whole position seems to be born of the same "dumb take" behavior you're supposedly decrying, no? It's not stealing, so no. Figure it out. Writers synthesize ideas based on the ones they already experienced and their own personality. To suggest that yes, it is stealing, is to have a fundamental misconception about the function of the creative process.
  - DropInIn 3y ago
    Notice I said "at best it's appropriation"? The form is explicitly that defined by tolkien, with so many elements not found in the traditional forms and elements missing that are found in the traditional forms to be viewed as explicitly copied from Tolkien. Your position is like saying that it wouldn't be any form of IP theft to use all the elements of Diablo IP including names, culture, historical features and other aspects so long as it wasn't actually in the world of Diablo... and I'm pretty sure the IP law is settled on that matter, isn't it?
    - thefurdrake 3y ago
      Hmm. Yeah, I thought about this a bit more. There are definitely cases where I've seen elves ripped off so thoroughly that it was clear the author put zero thought into them as a race/species, lifting them straight out of Rivendel. That's obviously not cool. However, I don't think most instances of elves as Tall Fair Folk hit that bar of being straight-up lifted. I don't see very many instances of "names, culture, historical features" being taken from Middle Earth, and that would OBVIOUSLY be unacceptable. > I'm pretty sure the IP law is settled on that matter, isn't it? Yeah, it sure is! The owners of the Tolkien empire are quite active about pursuing litigation against those who infringe upon their rights. They even win a lot of cases! However, I've yet to hear of a storm of litigation sweeping through the fantasy writing industry involving them going after theft of species in peoples' stories. I'd be super, super interested to see some cases where this has happened, if you believe it's been settled some other way.
      - DropInIn 3y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_in_Middle-earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_in_Middle-earth Elves were not tall folk, that came from an interpretation of icelandic folklore where he lumped that variant in with Giants... in almost all traditional lore elves were either diminutive like Gnomes or were at most the dame size as humans. Many other features are also from specific variants that he amalgamated in but most would not consider to be in the "main" folklore. I had a longer response but accidentally refreshed the page and have no interest in typing that much again on my phone. As for cases, DnD changed thier "races" in response to violations raised in court iirc. They pushed right to the line as close as possible and that was long before we reached modern IP law which is exceedingly more stringent than back in the 80s, right?

DropInIn 3y ago

" Is the omnipresence of elves and dwarves in modern fantasy all theft from Tolkien?" In the form they seem to all take? Yea, it really kinda is... at best it's appropriation. This isn't even a question for those who studied the topics is it? Here's a link from a quick Google that goes over the topics. https://jamestkelly.com/8-ways-tolkien-changed-modern-fantasy-forever/ https://jamestkelly.com/8-ways-tolkien-changed-modern-fantas... Tolkienesque elves and dwarves are only superficially similar to those mythological creatures which inspired them, with the subsequent prevailing forms used throughout fantasy being clearly derivative if not outright copies of his work (or as close as possible without violation of IP). Your whole position seems to be born of the same "dumb take" behavior you're supposedly decrying, no?

thefurdrake 3y ago
> Your whole position seems to be born of the same "dumb take" behavior you're supposedly decrying, no? It's not stealing, so no. Figure it out. Writers synthesize ideas based on the ones they already experienced and their own personality. To suggest that yes, it is stealing, is to have a fundamental misconception about the function of the creative process.
- DropInIn 3y ago
  Notice I said "at best it's appropriation"? The form is explicitly that defined by tolkien, with so many elements not found in the traditional forms and elements missing that are found in the traditional forms to be viewed as explicitly copied from Tolkien. Your position is like saying that it wouldn't be any form of IP theft to use all the elements of Diablo IP including names, culture, historical features and other aspects so long as it wasn't actually in the world of Diablo... and I'm pretty sure the IP law is settled on that matter, isn't it?
  - thefurdrake 3y ago
    Hmm. Yeah, I thought about this a bit more. There are definitely cases where I've seen elves ripped off so thoroughly that it was clear the author put zero thought into them as a race/species, lifting them straight out of Rivendel. That's obviously not cool. However, I don't think most instances of elves as Tall Fair Folk hit that bar of being straight-up lifted. I don't see very many instances of "names, culture, historical features" being taken from Middle Earth, and that would OBVIOUSLY be unacceptable. > I'm pretty sure the IP law is settled on that matter, isn't it? Yeah, it sure is! The owners of the Tolkien empire are quite active about pursuing litigation against those who infringe upon their rights. They even win a lot of cases! However, I've yet to hear of a storm of litigation sweeping through the fantasy writing industry involving them going after theft of species in peoples' stories. I'd be super, super interested to see some cases where this has happened, if you believe it's been settled some other way.
    - DropInIn 3y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_in_Middle-earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_in_Middle-earth Elves were not tall folk, that came from an interpretation of icelandic folklore where he lumped that variant in with Giants... in almost all traditional lore elves were either diminutive like Gnomes or were at most the dame size as humans. Many other features are also from specific variants that he amalgamated in but most would not consider to be in the "main" folklore. I had a longer response but accidentally refreshed the page and have no interest in typing that much again on my phone. As for cases, DnD changed thier "races" in response to violations raised in court iirc. They pushed right to the line as close as possible and that was long before we reached modern IP law which is exceedingly more stringent than back in the 80s, right?