Ender's Game Author chews out Rowling
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Reganne22 — 15 years ago(April 11, 2010 09:11 AM)
I know this comment was made 2 years ago but I just had to address how absolutely ridiculous it is. lol
The guys who make advertisements for Coke get paid and Coke's not theirs.
Yeah, they get paid by the people who own COKE to advertise their product for them. Much like how WB pay people to make Harry Potter advertisements to promote the movies, or how Bloomsbury/Scholastic pay people to make posters and advertisements to promote the Harry Potter books. This situation is in no way comparable to a guy selling a book using Rowling's characters, world and occasionally her own words. -
febarbieheadsfree — 17 years ago(May 06, 2008 06:33 PM)
And he was the only one? There are many Harry POtter sites. Does that mean they all deserve money? No way. They didn't create the information therefore they should not get money for something that's not theirs.
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northoftheriver — 17 years ago(May 12, 2008 02:59 PM)
Here here Orson Scott Card!!!
He's a fabulous writer and JKR has stolen ideas from him and Tolkein and The Bible and
The list is endless.
A reference book is not theft.
There is only one who is worthy of worship and I haven't met Her yet. NOTR -
febarbieheadsfree — 17 years ago(May 12, 2008 10:37 PM)
You can't steal from the Bible, c'mon. If that were true, the Golden Compass, Narnia, as well as LotR would be considered stolen information. There's a basic story idea and each author branched off it.
That's not stealing, it's creating.
The reference book is more like a "take things from J.K. Rowling and not credit her, while also plotting out the futures of her characters and keeping all the money they didn't earn for themselves" -
northoftheriver — 17 years ago(May 13, 2008 02:06 AM)
C'mon. I realize that you can't steal from the Bible. My point is that there is no totally original creation, especially the Harry Potter books. It's an original story but draws on many literary sources.
If I adhered to your argument every reference book would be stealing, which they are not. SVA did not make claims that his work was original. He just categorized JKR's books. That is not stealing. Her argument in my view is baseless. She did not manage to overwhelmingly convince the judge and rightfully so.
There is only one who is worthy of worship and I haven't met Her yet. NOTR -
zoltan42 — 17 years ago(May 13, 2008 04:28 AM)
"If I adhered to your argument every reference book would be stealing, which they are not. SVA did not make claims that his work was original."
Immaterial. While all instances of plagiarism are copyright violations, all copyright violations are not instances of plagiarism. The WB/JKR stance is that the bulk of the proposed book is lifted word for word from her books. Even if it is all cited correctly and attributed to her, it can still be copyright violations. If it's 100% paraphrased or 100% word for word from her books it would be easy to make a decision. It's the middle ground where things are murky. There has been no clear standard you can't cross, e.g., 40% or 50%.
Also, material must be cited correctly, with MLA standards as the general format, such as citing the exact page and chapter and using quotation marks to punctuate material taken directly from the cited work. The only thing we really have to go in is the Lexicon si1ebcte, and a scan shows it does not follow MLA. He cites chapters but not pages, which is not sufficient. Quotation marks are almost non-existent. If IF the book is indeed simply a print version of material from the site, then he does not cite material correctly.
"He just categorized JKR's books. That is not stealing. Her argument in my view is baseless."
It depends on how it was categorized. If it's all or almost all in his own words, then, yes, her suit is baseless.
"She did not manage to overwhelmingly convince the judge and rightfully so."
Neither did he.
Cheney-Voldemort '08 -
febarbieheadsfree — 17 years ago(May 13, 2008 08:24 AM)
First she stole from the Bible, then you say you can't steal from it that would be kind of confusing if I didn't understand what you meant. I just can't see how her book series is considered stolen material. C'mon.
Other reference books go off predictions of the later books or. Van Ark is just making a world of something that's not his. Doesn't help that he barely cites his work (that's from a document I read a while back) -
HarryFreakinPotter — 17 years ago(May 13, 2008 12:26 PM)
Honestly, for a guy who claims to have all this "respect" he sure does a lot of bitching about something he clearly hasn't researched properly, may I remind people that the author with the "Larry Potter" character in her book only added "and the Muggles" to the title of her novel after JKR success so she could sue Jo for plaigarism(sp?).
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QuibblerofDoom — 17 years ago(May 23, 2008 05:50 AM)
April 20 2008 The Mail on Sunday Page 47
J. K. Rowling
AN ARTICLE in last week's Mail on Sunday said that Warner Bros had begun a legal battle with a film director who claims to have devised an earlier version of Harry potter. There is no such legal battle. We accept that J. K. Rowling is the sole creat1c84or of her Harry Potter character and that there are no material similarities between her books and the film mentioned. -
QuibblerofDoom — 17 years ago(May 14, 2008 07:21 AM)
I know Thumbelina112233 you would think he would have checked to see the outcome of the infamous Nancy Stouffer v JK Rowling case?
As for JKR "copying" JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, I am a fan of both of them however their stuff wasn't all that original either, they "copied" people like William Morris and his work The Well at the World's End. Fantasy didn't start with these two you know. -
bivil — 17 years ago(June 26, 2008 04:17 PM)
Honestly, for a guy who claims to have all this "respect" he sure does a lot of bitching about something he clearly hasn't researched properly, may I remind people that the author with the "Larry Potter" character in her book only added "and the Muggles" to the title of her novel after JKR success so she could sue Jo for plaigarism(sp1c84?).
Speaking of proper research, Orson Scott Card isn't claiming "to have all this 'respect.'" And speaking of proper research again, Nancy K. Stouffer didn't write
Larry Potter and the Muggles
. The characters were in separate stories, which is a fact that you, Card, and most of the world seem unable to get straight. By the way, I realize that you're on a first-name basis with Rowling and must therefore be a close personal friend, but do your best to step back and get a clearer perspective. That's the advice Jackie Derrida used to give me. -
Grizzly_McThornbristle — 17 years ago(July 28, 2008 07:16 PM)
One cannot begin to discuss the literary meritis of Orson Scott Card; he has none. He is not a writer to be praised within literary circles, to put it nicelyhe is not a great writer (albeit better than Rowling). For him to write of "subliterature" is, to my mind, ironic. Card churns out those formulaic fantasy/sci-fi novels that you can find loaded on the shelves in any bookstore.
I can name various authors in just the sci-fi/fantasy field who make Card look like an amatuer (which, really, isn't too difficult). For example: Ray Bradbury, John Crowley, Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, Peter Beagle, and the list goes on.
He mentions the plot line that Rowling supposedly "stole" from him. That is probably the most common of plot lines to be found in genre fiction.
The Worst Witch
by Jill Murphy is much more similar to
Harry Potter
than is
Ender's Game
. And (I believe)
The Worst Witch
was published eleven years before
Ender's Game
. Can I therefore make the argument that Card "stole" from Murphy? Or from tons of other books published before
Ender's Game
in the fantasy/sci-fi genre?
Rowling is not that talented, although I found her books fun (which isn't saying much). Orson Scott Card isn't a huge talent either (although, as mentioned before, more talented than Rowling). If a similar argument is made by Cormac McCarthy or Neil Gaiman or John Crowley or Gene Wolfe, then I will listen. But Scott writes the same formulaic "subliterature" of which he speaks (or, as is true in this case, writes).
Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.- Neil Gaiman
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Grizzly_McThornbristle — 17 years ago(August 01, 2008 12:26 PM)
Charls Dickens was a hack who simply wanted to sell some books.
Your opinion. Although many scholars and critics will happily disagree with you. Dickens' language is beautiful. His characters are some of the best in the literature of any languagepurposefully exagerrated to illustrate human nature and emotion. His fictions are some of the deepest ever written. And he is one thousand times the writer Card will ever be.
I would not be as fast as you to criticize Orson Scott Card and race to the defence of Joanne Rowling.
You're right about one thing: I
am
criticizing Card; but I'm hardly defending Rowling. She has liberally borrowed from books before her:
The Sword in the Stone
,
The Worst Witch
,
Wizard's Hall
, and
The Secret of Platform 13
, to name a few.
Where Rowling claims to be the source and fountainhead of her works, without any reservation or respect for the influences from otther writers who might have impacted her development. She claims to write in a vaccuum. Card calls her out on such hackery.
That is a blatant lie. Rowling has frequently mentioned influences on her work: Rowling claimed that Merlin in T.H. White's
The Sword in the Stone
was where she got her idea for Dumbledore. In an interview with
The Scotsman
she mentions how Elizabeth Goudge's
Little White Horse
influenced her:
"[
The Little White Horse
] had perhaps more than any other book . . . a direct influence on the Harry Potter books. The author always included details of what her characters were eating and I remember liking that. You may have noticed that I always list the food being eaten at Hogwarts."
Rowling also described Wart (Arthur) from
The Sword in the Stone
as "Harry's spiritual ancestor." (There was also a pet da0owl in
The Sword in the Stone
, which may ring a bell.)
She said this about the wardrobe in the first
Narnia
book:
"I found myself thinking about the wardrobe route to Narnia when Harry is told he has to hurl himself at a barrier in Kings Cross Station - it dissolves and he's on platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and there's the train for Hogwarts."
She has recognized Dorothy L. Sayers as influencing her as well. She says it is because of Sayers that she wanted to make the
Harry Potter
books detective-type novelswith Red Herrings and such.
She recognized Shakespeare's
Macbeth
as influencing the prophecy in the HP books: In
Macbeth
the witches warn the title character of Duncan, and therefore Macbeth goes on to kill Duncan. In Rowling's books, Voldemort hear's a prophecy saying that a boy born on July 31 (Harry Potter) will more or less defeat him; so he sets out to kill Harry. This event is the catalyst for the entire series; as Macbeth hearing the witches' prophecy is the catalyst for the entire play. She
has
recognized this linkin an interview and on her own website.
These are a few examples. So to say that she doesn't recognize any of her influences (a la, the "vaccuum" comment) is just plain wrong.
On what do you base this opinion? Some of those very writers on that list will name Card among their influences.
I've read Card's work, and I've read their work. Their work is considerably better. That is what I base that opinion on. Also I know of none of those writers claiming card as an influence.
You don't see the Tolkien estate suing Gaiman because he puts orcs and trolls in his stories.
Which Gaiman story has orcs in it? And trolls were around long before Tolkien was conceived: Norse Mythology.
I also believe that you fail to recognize the quality of literature that Ender's Game represents.
Oh,
Ender's Game
is a good book. But it is not a classic piece of literature. It is a fun story that kept me turning pages, but there is nothing of importance being said in the narrativenot like Dickens and Joyce and Faulkner and Hemingway and sci-fi's very own Gene Wolfe (who isn't just one of the best sci-fi writers alive, but one of the best writers alive, in or out of genre). Card's book is one of the better sci-fi books, but nothing that will endure, nor to be mentioned when speaking of a "canon of Western literature."
I wouldn't plagiarize, but like any good lawyer will tell you, ideas can never be copyrighted.
Very true. I found this quote by Eva Ibbotson (author of
The Secret of Platfrom 13
) when asked whether Rowling plagiarized her work, and if a lawsuit would be necessary:
"I would like to shake her by the hand. I think we all borrow from each other as writers."
Ideas are thrown around literature all the time, be it from mythology (which everyone admits is free to be borrowed from), to writers of the antiquity (Homer being the most prominent example), to Victorian writers (it is here that I will mention that pesky Dickens again), to Modernists (Joyce, probably the greatest of English-language writers), to the Southern Gothic (the great Faulkner), to Hemingway (who did more to change the American prose-style2000 than any other author), to Post-Modernists (Pynchon and Vonnegut), and to the less critically-recogni -
aelmai — 17 years ago(August 01, 2008 02:26 PM)
I have to say that I completely agree with Orson Scott Card's comments about Dumbledore's sexuality. People call JK Rowling's decision to reveal Dumbledore's homosexuality 'brave', but I think it was pretty weak to only announce it after everyone had bought her books.
'Right, the shop is closed, everybody get out! Back on the streets, you time-wasting bastards!'