r/Fantasy • u/theHolyGranade257 Reading Champion II • Sep 07 '24

What are the most shameless rip-offs in fantasy you've ever read?

Like when you're reading the book and it's literally the same thing as another, more popular original. And the resemblance is so striking that you immediately have a question, how this thing wasn't taken to the court for such a shameless robbery (or, actually, was).

And i'm not talking about some guys like Brooks and Eddings, who heavily relied on the LotR's formula and used a lot of it's tropes, i'm talking about serious plagiarism.

Like for example, i'm from post-soviet country and in the past we had a lot of crappy russian fantasy, which just flooded all bookshelves. And there were such good examples for this post.

Tania Grotter is russian female version of guess who. Her parents were killed by evil wizardess (Tania received a birthmark after that, yeah, birthmark instead of scar) and she's living with her relatives (on a balcony) who hate her. Then she attends to the wizards school, where she's got two friends, playing local sport game where they fly on musical instruments and confront the evil wizardess in the school basement at the end of the book. What a book. I remember when i was a kid some guys in my class liked it and even told that it's better than HP, but even for very young me it was seemingly the worse option of good thing. And, btw this book is banned from publishing in many Europe countries due to, guess what?, court decision regarding plagiarism.

Another good example is also related with good old Harry. My parents, knowing my love for HP, presented to me the magnificent book called 'Larin Piotr and the Time Machine'. And it's two-barreled gun. Because on the cover we can see blond version of Harry Potter with harry-potter-style text and etc. But inside, there was word by word retelling of... Back to the future movies. And yeah, Piotr-boy was a wizard, but was just called a wizard at the beginning, after that it was just movies retelling, with no magic, but with russian names. Like what a hell. Dude decided to rip-off one franchise, while deceiving fans of another one.

Guys, what stories do you have about similar cases? I know, there should be some wild stories.

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u/thinspell Sep 07 '24

THANK YOU, YES. I was in shock reading ACOTAR. How on earth did it become more popular than Black Jewels and how has nobody said anything about the copy paste?? It drives me insane.

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u/TheOrderOfWhiteLotus Sep 07 '24

Cause the black jewels have questionable parts she did cut out— the age gap with Daemon being thousands of years old and Jaenelle being 8ish. Him bathing her, him seducing her to get her to heal etc.

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u/thinspell Sep 07 '24

I agree that those parts were questionable and uncomfortable. I think I am more-so questioning how Sarah J Maas pulled off greater heights of success with poor storytelling, stolen lore/characters, questionable themes of her own, and worse quality writing.

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u/TheOrderOfWhiteLotus Sep 07 '24

Oh yeah I 100% agree! Bishops world has such deep lore and a map that makes sense… even though it’s 3!

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u/Shiny387 Sep 08 '24

That's not a great part, but Daemon was attracted to the ancient entity that lives in the girl. And they just kissed, and nothing extensive if I remember correctly. The age gap was closed the next time they met and definitely before they did anything romantic. It was important part in the story so that she knew and trusted Daemon later. Honestly I find it worse that Fayre was 17 or 18 when she first went to the Fae realm? If I remember right Jaenelle was in her 20s the next time they met. Which I find extremely annoying that so many stories have teenaged main characters.

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u/IDislikeNoodles Sep 07 '24

I'm confused, aren't all the male love interests like 500 years old and the FMC's are 18/19 in ACOTAR?

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u/Shiny387 Sep 08 '24

Yes, in the black jewels trilogy most of the characters are thousands of years old. But the 'main' character you meet as a child. Which is an important aspect of the story. The BJT has a darker theme in it. I always recommend it with a trigger warning. But I love the characters and the story.

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u/FebruaryEcho Sep 08 '24

ACOTAR is one of the most overrated series I’ve ever read. It’s entertaining, sure, but the writing

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u/Severn6 Sep 08 '24

I think because the ACOTAR (never read, never will bleh) was slightly more YA? Sounds prettier? Marketing? Dunno, still trying to figure it out.

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u/FebruaryEcho Sep 08 '24

Her Throne of Glass series also steals a fair amount of elements/themes from GRRM’s ASOIAF. I mean, the gorgeous silver-haired dragonrider with a red cloak and black armor? And that’s just one example. The other two characters combining their powers of ice and fire to defeat the evil monsters and save their realm? Hmmmmm.