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grav_ityAs I expected (and feared), TWoP posted a thread about how reality TV shows would be improved if they incorporated elements of The Hunger Games. Some day, I will learn my lesson with this website, I promise. ;)
Anyway, in the comments of the post, someone commented rather harshly about Suzanne Collins having "cribbed" her ideas from Battle Royale, and how it was so obvious, and that it would be better if she just admitted it. I was already aware that Battle Royale existed (when I recced the books to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
speedy_leen, she got her roommates to read it by saying that they were similar), but the comment made me angry, so I did some more research.
Collins claims to have had the idea based on the myth of Theseus, wherein Athens is required to send 14 children ("children") to Crete every year so that the Minotaur can eat them. It makes sense when extended through the book. In Battle Royale, the "death match" is a form of social control. In The Hunger Games, it's the enforcement of abject terror and misery. I think that difference is small, but it's also key.
In any case, I do believe that it's entirely possible for Collins to have written the entire thing without ever having heard of Battle Royale. For starters, BR was only translated into English in 2003. The Hunger Games was first published in 2008, but she was probably working on it for longer than that.
Let me give you some personal examples. When I wrote the first draft of "The Stone Thief", I called the city Valdemaar. On December 1st, I found out that Valdemar is actually a country written about my Mercedes Lackey. I've read some of ML's stuff, but not those books. And when I typed Valdemaar the first time, I just threw letters on the keyboard until I saw something I liked! Similarly, I have thought of my "untitled wing!fic" as "Knife" from the very beginning. When I wrote the short story, I thought the name was too obvious, but now that it's novel-sized, it works out. I didn't meetrj_anderson until months later.
There's also a chance that one of Collins's test readers had read/heard of Battle Royale and mentioned it to her, and then she purposefully stayed away from it. I have yet to read Tamora Pierce's "Melting Stones" because I am currently writing books about people who do magic with stone. I've signed that book out of the library THREE TIMES and talked myself out of it on each occasion.
I suppose my point is this: there is a somewhat limited pool of ideas out there, and most of them come from older myths and legends anyway. It's the plotting and the character arc that make the story, and these are two areas in which Suzanne Collins excelled. No one writes in a vacuum, but it is possible to create a vacuum around you on purpose when you're writing. I'm about as unprofessional as it gets, but when I am writing I a) stop watching Legend of the Seeker (on account of it being fantasy), and b) stop reading Tamora Pierce (WHICH IS HARD TO DO!). Mostly, I just wish people would THINK before they talk about stuff on the internet.
Anyway, in the comments of the post, someone commented rather harshly about Suzanne Collins having "cribbed" her ideas from Battle Royale, and how it was so obvious, and that it would be better if she just admitted it. I was already aware that Battle Royale existed (when I recced the books to
speedy_leen, she got her roommates to read it by saying that they were similar), but the comment made me angry, so I did some more research.Collins claims to have had the idea based on the myth of Theseus, wherein Athens is required to send 14 children ("children") to Crete every year so that the Minotaur can eat them. It makes sense when extended through the book. In Battle Royale, the "death match" is a form of social control. In The Hunger Games, it's the enforcement of abject terror and misery. I think that difference is small, but it's also key.
In any case, I do believe that it's entirely possible for Collins to have written the entire thing without ever having heard of Battle Royale. For starters, BR was only translated into English in 2003. The Hunger Games was first published in 2008, but she was probably working on it for longer than that.
Let me give you some personal examples. When I wrote the first draft of "The Stone Thief", I called the city Valdemaar. On December 1st, I found out that Valdemar is actually a country written about my Mercedes Lackey. I've read some of ML's stuff, but not those books. And when I typed Valdemaar the first time, I just threw letters on the keyboard until I saw something I liked! Similarly, I have thought of my "untitled wing!fic" as "Knife" from the very beginning. When I wrote the short story, I thought the name was too obvious, but now that it's novel-sized, it works out. I didn't meet
rj_anderson until months later.There's also a chance that one of Collins's test readers had read/heard of Battle Royale and mentioned it to her, and then she purposefully stayed away from it. I have yet to read Tamora Pierce's "Melting Stones" because I am currently writing books about people who do magic with stone. I've signed that book out of the library THREE TIMES and talked myself out of it on each occasion.
I suppose my point is this: there is a somewhat limited pool of ideas out there, and most of them come from older myths and legends anyway. It's the plotting and the character arc that make the story, and these are two areas in which Suzanne Collins excelled. No one writes in a vacuum, but it is possible to create a vacuum around you on purpose when you're writing. I'm about as unprofessional as it gets, but when I am writing I a) stop watching Legend of the Seeker (on account of it being fantasy), and b) stop reading Tamora Pierce (WHICH IS HARD TO DO!). Mostly, I just wish people would THINK before they talk about stuff on the internet.
