History OlderThanTheyThink / Literature

* Many people seem to think that ''Literature/VampireAcademy'' is a rip-off of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' mixed with ''Literature/HarryPotter'' when in reality Richelle Mead came up with the idea for and began writing the series before ''Twilight'' became popular.

*** On a similar note, a small but curious group of fans also seem to believe that ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'' was written parodying ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', despite the fact that ''Carpe Jugulum'' was published over ten years earlier, and the vampire tropes it parodies are drawn from Stoker, his contemporaries, and the various twentieth-century film interpretations of his character, with nary a sparkle in sight. Vlad is a jab at modern "cool" vampires, but from the days when that meant [[Literature/TheVampireChronicles Lestat]] and possibly ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade''.

** Vampires whose bodies are largely composed of sparkly minerals? Check. Abusive vampire/human love affairs with nonstop bed-breaking sex? Check. Improvised Caesarean section on a human who's impregnated with an unprecedented vampire offspring? Check ... '''if''' it's ''Literature/TheStressOfHerRegard'' (1989) by Tim Powers, and not ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''.

** For that matter, the hatedom that blames Creator/StephenieMeyer (and before her, Creator/AnneRice) for "ruining" vampires by turning them into brooding sexpots. Varney hated his vampiric nature so much that [[spoiler: he decided to fling himself in a volcano at the end]], and both Stoker's ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' and Le Fanu's ''Literature/{{Carmilla}}'' used the vampire as metaphors for dangerous sexuality. This stuff is as old as the gothic horror tradition, folks.

** As for werewolf romances, these did not begin with ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. There was a book written by J.R. Black called ''Guess Who's Dating a Werewolf?'', which dates back to 1998.

** A trilogy of BDSM romance novels that start life as a kinky re-imagining of a well-known fantasy story, written by a ''New York Times'' bestselling author known for her love of romantic vampire fiction. Are we talking about E.L. James' ''Fifty Shades of Grey'', or Creator/AnneRice's ''Sleeping Beauty''? Yes, before ''Fifty Shades of Grey'' came along, Anne Rice was one of the most popular writers of BDSM fiction in America, and many BDSM enthusiasts credited her ''Sleeping Beauty'' trilogy with getting them interested in the subculture. Somewhat amusingly, Rice is otherwise best known for ''Literature/TheVampireChronicles'', while ''Fifty Shades'' famously started life as a fanfic of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''.

* Some people accused ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' of mocking ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'s'' beautiful sexy vampires with the White Court, which are... beautiful sexy vampires that actually feed on emotions, including lust. This leaves out that the first appearance of a White Court vampire was in ''Literature/GravePeril'', which came out several years ''before'' the first ''Twilight'' book.

* ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'': ''Literature/IntruderInTheDust'', a 1948 Creator/WilliamFaulkner novel with a 1949 film adaptation, is another story told from the perspective of a child who is related to a white CrusadingLawyer (albeit far less crusading than Atticus, at least in that particular Faulkner book) defending an IdealHero black man who has been wrongfully accused of a crime against the only member of an unpopular backwoods family to try and make something of themselves. Furthermore, both stories [[spoiler:have the real culprit be another member of that family]] and feature a lynch mob that is stopped through unconventional ShamingTheMob methods.----

* The Horcruxes from the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' universe are seemingly random, ordinary items in which the BigBad has hidden part of his soul -- permanently destroying him is impossible unless you first destroy all seven of these items. The idea goes back to the concept of the Lich (undead, skeletal magician of vast power) and his [[SoulJar phylactery]] from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', and ''that'' presumably goes back to ''Russian folklore'' and the character of Koschei the Deathless (an undead, skeletal magician of vast power), who hid his soul in a needle, and put the needle in an egg, and the egg in a bird, and the bird in a hare, and the hare in a bear, etc. etc, Russian-doll style. This is even found in Myth/ClassicalMythology with characters such as Meleager (not the ''Anime/HeroicAge'' one) whose life was linked to a wooden brand: when the brand was consumed by fire, Meleager died.

** The ''Harry Potter'' series is often accused of being a rip-off of the ''{{Literature/Greyfriars}}'' series (Billy Bunter et al); but Creator/GeorgeOrwell pointed out in his essay on the Greyfriars stories that some people in ''his'' time likewise believed those to be ripped-off from the ''Stalky & Co.'' stories, which in turn could be said to be descended from Literature/TomBrownsSchooldays. In fact, just about the only resemblance these four have to one another is that they are all boarding-school stories.

* A lot of people believe that WesternAnimation/BugsBunny was the first fictional bunny character seen eating a carrot. Peter Rabbit created by English author Creator/BeatrixPotter and, while not the first fictional rabbit character seen eating a carrot, is was also one of the earliest uses of the stereotype of rabbits in general being associated with carrots as their favorite food, 39 years prior to Bugs Bunny creation. Peter Rabbit is also one of the earliest known rabbit characters to use the RascallyRabbit trope.

* ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'': ''Literature/IntruderInTheDust'', a 1948 Creator/WilliamFaulkner novel with a 1949 film adaptation, is another story told from the perspective of a child who is related to a white CrusadingLawyer (albeit far less crusading than Atticus, at least in that particular Faulkner book) defending an IdealHero black man who has been wrongfully accused of a crime against the only member of an unpopular backwoods family to try and make something of themselves. Furthermore, both stories [[spoiler:have the real culprit be another member of that family]] and feature a lynch mob that is stopped through unconventional ShamingTheMob methods.
----

* This has been a problem with ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'': people whose only exposure to this work is the films have said that there were a lot of cliché elements (such as the Witch-king [[NoManOfWomanBorn being prophecied not to be killed by a man]], thus getting offed by Éowyn), not realizing that a great many of those elements [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny became clichéd due to the influence]] of the original novels on later works.

** The Illyrians bear striking similarities to the Eyriens from Anne Bishop's ''Literature/BlackJewels'' series, which began publication in 1998. Even their names sound slightly similar. The Eyriens are a LongLived ProudWarriorRace of WingedHumanoids who live in a mountainous region; men are raised as soldiers in war camps while women are forbidden from becoming warriors and from even touching weapons. Physically, they tend to have tanned skin and dark hair, and their wings are black and bat-like. Sound familiar?

* The BeamMeUpScotty trope page once claimed that "All that glitters is not gold" is a misquote of Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice'', which has the line "All that ''glisters'' is not gold." Actually, the line didn't originate with Shakespeare. Both Chaucer and Cervantes used variations on it. The first version using "glitters" appears in John Dryden's 1687 poem The Hind and the Panther. When Shakespeare wrote ''The Merchant of Venice'', the line was already a well-worn cliché (which is why the next line of the couplet is "often have you heard that told"), so there's no real reason his version should be considered authoritative. Also, it's not from the Book of Proverbs in the Bible, as is sometimes claimed. Tolkien made it seem new and enchanting simply by turning it around -- "All is not gold that glitters" -- and is sometimes credited with its creation also.
* As it turns out, Creator/{{Homer}}'s ''Literature/TheIliad'' may well be the oldest example of the expression "to bite the dust", rather than the western movies and the song by Queen that people generally associate with the expression. However, it was the King James Bible (first published in 1611) that first translated the original Greek wording into English.

** George R.R. Martin often gets praise for the "originality" of his CrapsackWorld, when many times he is just lifting aspects of life in the real Middle Ages verbatim (the Siege of King's Landing, for example, borrows heavily from the different historical sieges of Constantinople). To give credit where it is due, there are just so many epic fantasy novels that are blatant rip-offs of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' or [[TheThemeParkVersion heavily stereotypical]] Victorian novels (like ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}'' or the plethora of "updated" Arthurian retellings) that an author who actually draws inspiration from various identifiable historical episodes from across Europe (and even existing differing takes on the people involved) and then knits them together into a new sweater actually ''does'' feel like a breath of fresh air.
** Jaime Lannister's famous line "There are no men like me" as a response to a character talking about "men like you" is a quotation from BigBad Servalan in ''Series/BlakesSeven''. Except in her case it was "There are no women like me".

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmastra Brahmastra]], a magical weapon of immense power that could completely obliterate its target with a single shot, but as a consequence, would wipe out all life in a vast radius of the attack, rendering the area a barren wasteland and causing all bystanders to become sterilised. Sounds like a FantasticNuke, right? Well, it ''could'' be...if it didn't come from Myth/HinduMythology's ancient Sanskrit scriptures that predate the Manhattan Project by millennia.
** Appropriately, Oppenheimer quoted the book of Hindu scripture when the Manhattan Project first tested the atomic bomb. Many people also assume that he was the source of the quote, making this a double example.
*** And, if fringe theorists are to be believed, the Brahmastra was actually a nuke, making nuclear weapons an example of this too!

-->''"He thought more of [[CombatPragmatist Bernardo del Carpio]] because at [[Literature/TheSongOfRoland Roncesvalles]] he slew [[NighInvulnerable Roland]] in spite [[AWizardDidIt of enchantments]], availing himself of [[OlderThanFeudalism the artifice of]] [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms.]]"''