I feel like everything’s already been written. Like every story I think of is just some simple variation of something already done: Mary Potter, Lord of the Necklaces, Planet Fights…

So when people compare things like, “Harry Potter is just a version of Lord of the Rings!”

Well, yes, it is, and no, it’s not. J.K. Rowling has said that she was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien, and that’s probably while Dumbledore reminds us of a special Grey Wizard. However, Rowling’s voice is much different than Tolkien’s. Tolkien lavishly uses his pages with no brake; sentences can roam on and on until one forgets even the subject of them, only to fade into yet another sentence and to eventually pause, giving the reader time to breathe and think about what they just read. Rowling, however, is more blunt. Sharper, shorter, and clearer when saying that the wall was made of stone. It didn’t mean comfort, it meant stone, cold, hard, stone that leads down to the Slytherin common room.

And I guess that’s how this society is able to grind on. It’s our voices, not our stories, that keep people interested. It’s how the things are presented, not what’s being shown. Almost everyone has seen a puppy before, that’s nothing new. However, when a puppy looks at the camera a certain way, tilts its head just a little bit, or has an adorable hat on… Well that’s something completely different!

 

I just amazes me how many times this comes up in every day life. From books to music, mimicking someone else’s work (but in your own voice) seems to be very dominant in our culture. Retweeting, reblogging…

And I mean to say that that’s okay. It’s from other people’s ideas that we get our own; we stand upon the shoulders of giants, only to see where we’re heading.