[ SECRET POST #2889 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2889 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #413.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. http://i.imgur.com/f0sPamR.jpg

[ariakas]

Lol I think just about every aspiring fantasy writer has written a Tolkien ripoff or two, the only difference is that Brooks' got published.

[(Anonymous)]

That's a pretty big difference, though. If I sit at home and write a screenplay where all the characters and plot have been stolen from The Avengers, that's one thing. It was for my own amusement, I'm not making any money off it. But if I make this screenplay into a movie, it's a big blockbuster and I make a bunch of money off it and it makes my career, that's pretty shitty of me.

But that wouldn't happen, because Disney/Marvel would sue my ass off. Brooks was lucky, he managed to rip off Tolkien, build his career on that ripoff and as far as I know, he's never had to face any legal repercussions for the theft.

[misslucyjane]

Neil Gaiman once said (in a Q&A in a reading, so I'm not sure if this is written anywhere) that writing is like a pot of stew, and when you're a young writer you ladle things out; as you get older and more experienced, you start ladling things in.

So, yeah. I'm pretty forgiving of writers who are just starting out and imitate their heroes. They're still learning.

(Plus, most modern high fantasy is a ripoff of Tolkein. He pretty much founded the genre.)

[a_potato]

I came here to say something similar to this.

To add: it's pretty common for beginning writers to copy the stories that they like and that have inspired them. I recall Stephen King saying that the first story he ever wrote was nearly a word-for-word replication of a baseball novel he'd enjoyed.

Of course, most of those stories don't get published.

Still, like you said, a lot of high fantasy rips off Tolkien. He set the standard, and a lot of writers are loath to deviate from it (although that seems to be slowly changing).

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair, The Sword of Shannara is more than just derivative versions of Tolkien's characters, it's also Tolkien's plot. The parallels are glaringly obvious and Terry Brooks got heavy criticism at the time of its publication from reviewers and people in the fantasy genre.

+ 1

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this.

It's hard to find generic fantasy that *isn't* influenced by Tolkein these days, tbh.

[(Anonymous)]

The last line of this is so funny because one of the ways to guarantee you get published these days is to rip off something popular.

[(Anonymous)]

It's definitely a rip-off, but Brooks lucked out considering he was the FIRST author to take the template of Tolkien, cut out all the backstory and world-building, and simply make it a fantasy-action story. Back in the 1970s, that was a huge deal.

[(Anonymous)]

I would have thought most Brooks fans did realise that? Shannara is pretty much what everyone first thinks of when people say 'Tolkien rip-off' or 'formula high fantasy'. The fans just like it anyway.

Also, I had way more of a crush on Allannon than I had on Gandalf. But then, my favourite Shannara books are Wishsong and First King, not Sword.

I've never finished the series either, but that's mainly because I can't keep up with the canon-welding. Shannara for me means First King, first trilogy, then the Heritage tetralogy. Anything after that is just too much to keep up with. I also like Knight of the Word, but that's a separate universe still in my head.

[visp]

It was a pretty shit ripoff - I mean even by Medieval-Fantasy-Tolkien-Ripoff standards.

[siofrabunnies]

Pretty much any high-fantasy rips off Tolkien by necessity, since he kind of defined the genre. I've not read Brooks, so I can't see just how similar he wrote it, though.

[elaminator]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Brooks ripped it off obviously enough that I realized he was ripping it off, and I never notice these things.

Pretty much

[(Anonymous)]

When I was reading Sword of Shannara as a gullible little preteen and realizing "hey, this is a lot like Lord of the Rings!", I identified Menion Leah as more of a Merry/Pippin analogue -- he was already a friend. I can see the Aragorn rationale, too, but I think Balinor was also part Aragorn, since iirc he went on to rule himself, not be somebody's steward.

For those who haven't read it, it's not just the characters. It's the story structure.
--Hero and sidekick are in small town, are informed of dire epic thing.
--Tense travel to point of temporary safety where meet up with additional friend(s).
--More eventful travel to wonderful city inhabited by fantasy race, where there is a council about how to deal with dire epic thing.
--Small group is formed to deal with epic thing! including all the Fellowship character analogues OP described.
--Travel some more in danger, eventually split up in an unplanned fashion.
--I'm not positive, but I think they even thought wise magician guy was dead for a while.
--Hero has to travel almost alone into heart of evil power to deal with dire epic thing.
--Rest of scattered group deals with ongoing war.
--I think when all hope seems lost, hero deals with dire epic thing and evil crumbles? Whoohoo.
--Then human kingdom enters new era of peace and prosperity, etc.

[cushlamochree]

In all fairness to Brooks, after Sword of Shannara, he got much less blatant about it, and turns it into its own thing. He knocks off the thing from Swords of Shannara where it's literally a paint-by-numbers Tolkien.

Also in fairness to Brooks, he's not the worst Tolkien ripoff artist in fantasy - that would pretty much have to be Dennis McKiernan.

But those are both pretty weak defenses tbh

"But everybody rips off Tolkien!"

[(Anonymous)]

Er, no they don't. Even if they did, what kind of lame excuse is that?

[dethtoll]

Fantasy ripping off Tolkein? Someone ring the fucking papers.

[(Anonymous)]

LotR basically invented the whole modern High Fantasy Genre, most books pay homage to it in some way even today, and of course the closer you get in time to the genre originator the more faithfully you have to follow its tropes and characterisations. It needed a lot of Tolkien ripoffs for their to be enough material and fans thereof to give authors enough room to start playing with it and going in different directions. Brooks' is just a product of his time.

[likeadeuce]

Does OP think fans DON'T KNOW?

[(Anonymous)]

It's been a loooong time since I read those books (and just the first three or four in the series.) But to be fair, Shannara is hardly the only fantasy series with a bad case of Tolkienitis.

From what I can remember of Allanon, for example, he was a far less direct and blatant rip-off of Gandalf than, say, Fizban/Zifnab, Elminster the Sage, or even Albus Dumbledore.

[(Anonymous)]

The series improves a lot after the first book, so I'm willing to cut him some slack.

[caerbannog]

I really need to re-read the Shannara series. I'm quite enjoying Armageddon's Children (about a third through it) but I spend an awful lot of time wondering how much of the original Shannara world reflects this prequel.

(Because from page 2 I've been ?!!?! I had no idea)

_{And nothing to comment on your secret because I don't care. Most of those types are basically tropes these days...}

[(Anonymous)]

Well, yes, OP. It's pretty shameless early on.

And I'm not sure he ever really stopped. While it wasn't as blatant, reading The Black Unicorn after having read Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn was... let's just say I got some deja vu.

Meat pies and meatloafs

[(Anonymous)]

Comparing LOTR and Shannara was like comparing meat pies and meatloaf to me.

Obviously, there's a resemblance, but it's clearly a genre thing, IMO.