Say what? You are the one is being “judgmental and condescending” by popping into a thread discussing the fantasy genre to proclaim it to be “junk.”
That’s threadcrapping and it’s not much appreciated here.
Most people here have at least a BA, many have Master’s and JD’s as well, so your claims to be better educated don’t fly well, either. In any event, your degree has no relevance to the cogency of your argument.
As somebody who spent a large portion of my childhood puttering about the juvenile section of the local library, I can attest that books about wizard schools were hardly uncommon. They were particularly prevalent in British children’s literature, for some reason. Check out most books by Diana Wynne Jones (whose work I hated, incidentally) for a good example.
Holy shit, you’re a dick. Just amazing. I knew that elitism like this existed but before you came along I didn’t know literary elitism came this harsh. I’ve only seen musical elitism reach your level. Please, do us all a favor, shut the hell up.
On the OP’s topic, I think you shouldn’t really blame them for not running “a 5 second search”. People don’t read HP and then do searches to see if every noun in an original. Of course, if they insist they are right and you are wrong when you try to correct them, sure, they suck. It’s just, if someone assumes hippogriffs were invented by Rowling and that there is no need for a search, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
Well, I did assume that hippogriffs were invented by JKR, didn’t bother to search. But I would have done before emailing someone to ask about it!
OTOH, if I’d picked hippogriff as an example (I’m damn sure SOME things were invented by JKR) and was wrong, then I’d say that’s more excusable… so much depends on content.
This is why I hate fantasy. So much complicated backstory that adds nothing to the story (for me). I much prefer Rowling’s wizard school, where it’s just like the school I went to, except with different subjects and moving staircases. Leaves more time for story and characters and all that good stuff without having to worry about silly names for everything and weird administrative structures.
Flippin’ 'eck, I’d have expected someone with a degree in literature at least to have heard of Ariosto and Orlando Furioso.
Maybe even E. R. Eddison, who also features hippogriffs. (And who is on my bookshelves, along with Ursula Le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, William Shakespeare, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others, in various proportions. Not to mention a number of books on heraldry, which also talk about flippin’ hippogriffs.)
My point? You don’t have to be a nerd to know what a hippogriff is. Or a Harry Potter fan. (Nothing against Harry Potter, but I haven’t read any. Yet.)
Oh, please. We all know ZZ Top invented that.
I choked on my cough drop, thank you very much. Ack, menthol.
Skutir, if I might offer a word to the wise: back off and cool down. Jump in on some other thread that fancies you. It’s easy to get buried in a pile-on in the Pit. Just let it go, and continue to participate elsewhere. If you acquit yourself well, most people will forget about this thread in time.
To compare your behavior to something not related to literature, it would be as if a thread on Buddhism suddenly had a western missionary post his opinion that most of Buddhism was crap. Or, to characterize the frustration of the OP in a way that’s clearer to you, it would be as if someone only read Shakespeare and asked if ol’ Bill had invented Zeus. It’s no wonder you’re on the defense.
Feel free to throw around your credentials. However, I have witnessed Bigger Credential Smackdown on this board and it’s not a thing you want to happen to you. 
Regarding the OP: Yeah, kind of a shame about those folks, but I almost envy their pleasant surprise if they ever pursue other fantasy reading. She has neatly encapsulated fantasy and horror and magic mythos into one book as a primer for an entire world of literature. If those people ever pick up other books—or heck, see other movies—they’ll realize that Rowling was only consolidating the myths, not creating them. To me, that’d be a fun revelation.
Let me refine my earlier question: Had anyone previously done done a wizard school book that is also a coming-of-age story like Harry Potter?
I don’t remember how old Ged is in A Wizard of Earthsea, but it certainly has the feel of a coming-of-age story. It’s been fifteen years since I read it; can anyone who’s read it more recently back me up or shoot me down?
I think it’s fair to call it a coming-of-age story, but if I remember correctly (and it’s been at least a decade since I’ve read it!) the majority of the story takes place outside the wizard’s school. The Harry Potter series is unusual, possibly even unique, in that the wizard’s school is the focus and primary setting.
The funny thing(to me, and I apologize if someone pointed this out and I didn’t notice it) is that hippogriffs sound to me like an idea rather than an expression. If they are an idea, they are not copyrightable and it doesn’t matter whether Rowling was the first to imagine them or not. Expressions are copyrightable, so using hippogriffs that look and act too much like hers could be a problem, but only if they look and act like hers in ways that are not intrinsic to the idea. (example, one could write a book about a kid going to wizard school, that’s an idea. A Wizard school with houses called Ravensclaw and Griffendor, etc. would be expression and be copyrightable. (unless there is greater significance to those names than I think there is. And besides, anyone taking advice only from me on copyright is silly)) There is much greater flexibility granted to the written word than there is to visual images.
English Lit majors aren’t nerds themselves?
Could of fooled me.
I like the “working at Barnes and Nobles” comment though, LOL.
Most certainly.
Err, and the titles and authors would be . . .?
skutir writes:
> Stanislaw Lem was kicked out of the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer’s guild
> because he went into a harangue at a conference and said most of the stuff
> being published under that label was crap.
No. Please don’t post about things that you don’t know much about. Up to 1976, Lem had been an honorary member of the SFRA. He had for years said things about how most SF was crap. He was hardly the first person to say that. Theodore Sturgeon said at a conference about 1960 that 90% of SF was crap, but then 90% of everything was crap. Lem had annoyed some members of SFRA, and they voted to pull his honorary membership. They then offered him a regular membership. He declined. See here:
http://www.cyberiad.info/english/faq/faq.htm#sfwa
I know lots of longtime (say, at least 10 years) SF fans. They all admit that 90% of SF is crap. They all admit that 90% of everything is crap. Many of them have read a lot of literature in general, so they know what they are talking about. Don’t judge SF fans by a couple of teenagers you know who read their first SF a couple of years ago.
There was Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch series, which was made into an HBO TV series years before Rowling started in on Harry Potter. I’m sure there are others. It’s not a dramatically original idea, by any means. But what is, these days?
In support of the OP, while I certainly don’t expect hippogriffs to be common knowledge to any casual reader of sf, it should be obvious from context that it’s not an original idea. Pretty much everything else in Harry Potter comes from other fantasy or mythological sources, so why would anyone think the hippogriff is an exception, unless they also think that centaurs, basilisks, phoenixes, or what have you are also original to Harry Potter?
I also think, generally, that there’s very little that’s worth reading in the fantasy genre. However, seeing as I only have a lowly BA in literature, I’m forced to concede that that is simply my humble opinion, and not objective fact. But once I finish (or, indeed, start) grad school, watch out, world!
The thing about hippogriffs is, they’re a double impossibility.
They’re a cross between a horse and a griffon*. Which is impossible because griffons are mythical beasts, and can’t breed with horses. But it’s also impossible because griffons are notorious for eating horses, not breeding with them, so even if there were such a thing as a griffon, a hippogriff would still be impossible. I’m told (this is the Pit, I don’t need fucking cites. Having said that, it could be referenced in Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings.) that “breeding horses with griffons” is a metaphor for an impossible undertaking.
So, by involving hippogriffs in Orlando Furioso, Ariosto is actually underlining the fantastical nature of his text.
What J. K. Rowling is doing with them is anybody’s guess, I told you I haven’t read any Harry Potter.
*Griffin, gryphon, however you want to spell it, they’re imaginary monsters not bloody proofreaders, they’re not going to complain.
Well, depending on how they’re portrayed, hippogriffs (despite the name) may not even be a crossbreed of horse and griffon, but rather of horse and eagle. I’ve seen representations with leonine forepaws, and I’ve seen representations with talons. The taloned ones would seem not to require any intervention of actual griffons.
Charmed Life. Check it, G.
From a review:
(there were plenty more, but it has been a while since I could check out a pile of books in the kid’s section without being embarassed)
I can’t for the life of me figure out why Harry Potter has eclipsed all books of this particular genre. It’s pretty well standard. I guess it is all just a matter of luck.