Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonist
I actually read HP right after I read LOTR, and was struck by many of the similarities:
1. Both feature a "dark lord" regaining his power.
2. Both feature a group of "small" people on a quest against the "dark lord."
3. LOTR has a ring, through which the "dark lord" communicates with the hero. Harry Potter has the scar, which does the same thing.
4. Both have a "helpful wizard" main character - Gandalf in LOTR, Dumbledore in HP.
5. The Dementors in HP have some pretty obvious similarities to the Nazgul from LOTR.
I am sure there are many others, but you get the point.
As I said, I really liked the HP books, and I do think JKR is a very good writer.
I just find it ironic, that she is so overly protective of the IP rights to her characters, when there is at least some derivative material in her own work.
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Erm... are you familiar with Joseph Campbell's
Hero with a Thousand Faces? And do you know the term
bildungsroman?
I'd give you #4, except that the backstories are so different (Gandalf is a Maiar sent to Middle Earth, Dumbledore is an ordinary human/wizard who has made a
lot of mistakes in his life) and Gandalf comes back from the dead, but Dumbledore doesn't. I'd say both authors are borrowing the trope from King Arthur legends. I didn't really find the dementors (a separate species of beings that prey upon human emotions) at all similar to the Nazgul (a fixed number of fallen Men).
You can find these sorts of comparisons
all over the internet, but really, I think the strongest similarity is simply that they are both fantasy series that changed a generation. I read a lot of fantasy, including stories that don't end up on "bestseller" lists, and you could make a list like this comparing nearly any two books in the genre-- yet Garth Nix'
Abhorsen series is easily distinguished from Susan Cooper's
Dark is Rising series or from Ursula Le Guin's
Earthsea series.
In short, I don't think Rowling's writing is especially derivative of any single author, including Tolkien, but I do agree with the opinion that she is over-protective of "her" IP. Then again, I favor shorter copyright periods (e.g. 40 years after publication) in part precisely because after a period of time, ideas from a new work percolate through the culture and are no longer distinguishable.
Edit to add: I suppose part of the reason I feel this way is that after LOTR was published, there were quite a few "quest" fantasy stories published that were so clearly derivative, e.g. Terry Brooks'
Sword of Shanara (the first book, not where he went with the rest of the series so much). Compared to those blatant imitations, I just can't see the Harry Potter stories as being that similar.