Episode 199: Stories influenced by Tolkien

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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re wrapping up our summer of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series by unpacking some stories that have some creative ties to Tolkien’s work or take inspiration from some of the same sources he used.

We start off this conversation, by sharing the definition of the word derivative and dig into the nuance of what this means for creativity. Last week we talked about how just by interacting with books, films, and stories we are influenced by them. In fact, storytelling in general has a lot of common elements that show up again and again.

Our take is that there is no black and white clear delineation when it comes to talking about stealing someone’s ideas and being inspired by them - there are laws, but they can be vague. So, we acknowledge that this is complex - plagiarism is clearly wrong, but where is the line between inspiration and taking something that doesn’t belong to you. We note that it’s important to remember that stories should be from each of our unique perspectives, thoughts, and voices. And we shouldn’t take credit for someone else’s work. Asking the question of ourselves if we’re crossing that line is important, and getting honest and digging into and acknowledging influences in the story acknowledgements can be a good place to start.

This brought us to a conversation about similarities in the Harry Potter series, Percy Jackson series, and LOTR series. One of the things we found during our research for this conversation is that author Rick Riordan has a page on his website that discusses his influences and whether or not his Percy Jackson series was influenced by Harry Potter. It’s an introspective and thoughtful look at this topic, Greek Mythology influences, and genre norms and we’d highly recommend it.

We also feel this discussion helps remind us of the importance of not judging whether or not a story is derivative, using its surface level features. After all, favorite tropes and genre specific expectations are some of the reasons we are drawn to certain types of stories.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode. Exploring aspects of influences and inspirations from LOTR, Greek Mythology, Norse Mythology, Beowulf, and High Fantasy in other art - as well as the idea of retellings, using common tropes, and using elements from and homages to works we love. Those topics include stories inspired by:

  • Greek mythology - books like Harry Potter series and the Percy Jackson series

  • High fantasy, world building, dragons, languages, and lore - The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks, The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, Game of Thrones series by J. R. R. Martin, and Uprooted by Noami Novik

  • FairyTale, Myth, and Classic Example Retellings and Homages - The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, The People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen, Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hudge

  • Epic Quest and Impossible Task Stories - Spin the Dawn and Unravel the Dusk by Elizabeth Lim

  • Found Family and Smushing Unlike Characters Together (like Legolas and Gimli) - Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

This was a fun episode for us to do and we hope that it helps bring additional depth to the conversation of whether or not a work should be considered derivative and that it challenges the false narrative of truly original ideas.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore opens by sharing a definition for the term derivative. Here is that definition as well as the source:

  • “(Typically of an artist or work of art) imitative of the work of another person, and usually disapproved of for that reason”

The Verbivore mentions a page on author Rick Riordan’s website that discusses his influences and wether or not his Percy Jackson series was influenced by Harry Potter. Here is alink to that page.

In this episode, the Verbivore references back to several TED-Ed videos in this conversation which were also part of last week’s podcast episode. They are:

Books and Movies Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman