I have been perusing wiki lately and i noticed that there is no list of things that exist purley in fiction. Im interested in creating a list of things that exist only in realistic fiction such as Derwatt Paintings in the Ripley books, or pieces of music that only exist in a certain novel, things of that nature. let me begin:
A list of “all fictional things which could, theoretically, exist” would probably take up far too much space, or would be too devoid of information.
I believe, also, that you would not be allowed to post paragraphs of description taken straight out of the books in the way you’ve done. Try quoting a couple of words or a phrase instead.
Just as an aside, the prose in these books is terrible. I’ll have to remember not to bother reading them.
No no no, things that are fictional, lets say in a novel or movie, that have been talked about. Not anything in particular. And of course the more detail the better. See above.
(I like the idea of Patricia Highsmiths writing, i agree it wasent written in its full potential.)
The Necronomicon
In 1927, Lovecraft wrote a brief pseudo-history of the Necronomicon that was published in 1938, after his death, as A History of The Necronomicon. According to this account, the book was originally called Al Azif, a word that Lovecraft claimed was an Arabic word that referred to “that nocturnal sound (made by insects) supposed to be the howling of daemons”.
In the History, Alhazred is said to have been a “half-crazed Muslim” who worshipped the Lovecraftian entities Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. He is described as being from Sanaa in Yemen, and as visiting the ruins of Babylon, the “subterranean secrets” of Memphis and the Empty Quarter of Arabia (where he discovered the “nameless city” below Irem). In his last years, he lived in Damascus, where he wrote Al Azif before his sudden and mysterious death in 738.
In subsequent years, Lovecraft wrote, the Azif “gained considerable, though surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age.” In 950, it was translated into Greek and given the title Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas, a fictional scholar from Constantinople. This version “impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts” before being “suppressed and burnt” in 1050 by Patriarch Michael (a historical figure who died in 1059).
After this attempted suppression, the work was “only heard of furtively” until it was translated from Greek into Latin by Olaus Wormius. (Lovecraft gives the date of this edition as 1228, though the real-life Danish scholar Olaus Wormius lived from 1588 to 1624.) Both the Latin and Greek text, the History relates, were banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, though Latin editions were apparently published in 15th century Germany and 17th century Spain. A Greek edition was printed in Italy in the first half of the 16th century.
The Elizabethan magician John Dee (1527-c. 1609) allegedly translated the book—presumably into English—but Lovecraft wrote that this version was never printed and only fragments survive. (The connection between Dee and the Necronomicon was suggested by Lovecraft’s friend Frank Belknap Long).
According to Lovecraft, the Arabic version of Al Azif had already disappeared by the time the Greek version was banned in 1050 (though he cites “a vague account of a secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the current century” that “later perished in fire”). The Greek version, he writes, has not been reported “since the burning of a certain Salem man’s library in 1692”–an apparent reference to the Salem witch trials.
What, you mean like Marley 0.38s and Heron sedans and the like? the lis would be damned near endless.
I have started the endless list, lets get a big one going. DONT FORGET THE DETAIL!
Ingen Ltd
InGen (or International Genetics Technologies) is a fictional genetic engineering company in the book and movie Jurassic Park and its sequels. It is based in Palo Alto, California.
InGen had two headquarters: one in Europe and one in Palo Alto. Palo Alto was where most of their research took place.
The company pioneered a technique to use DNA extracted from ancient mosquitoes trapped in solid amber to produce cloned, living dinosaurs.
InGen was founded by billionaire John Hammond around 1983 with mostly Japanese contributions. In 1985 Hammond started to design and construct “Jurassic Park”, a zoo-like tourist attraction on the island of Isla Nublar off Costa Rica. “Jurassic Park” would be the first zoo in the history of the world to have living, breathing dinosaurs as the attractions. In addition, Hammond created a research facility on “Site B” (featured in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III).
The slogan of InGen says “We make the future”.
Although Hammond was the leading man behind InGen, the real “brains” of the project was a man named Norman Atherton, who had died before Hammond started the company due to terminal cancer. He was replaced by his best student, Henry Wu.
According to the The Lost World, InGen broke down after the incident in Isla Nublar of 1993 (movie version, and 1989 in the novel), where the dinosaurs escaped, causing several deaths.
Why are you copying and pasting entire sections from actual Wikipedia articles on here?
That’s still a *hell * of a lot of things. You’ve got items going into double digits just from one book series; it would be silly to write a page listing all those fictional things.
Look at the site; they split it up. Here’s the page of “Lists of lists of fictional things”. They don’t just have one page for everything; it’s in sections (and giving it a brief look, they don’t have all the lists of fictional things on there anyway).
If you just want to write a page on “Derwatt’s Paintings in the Ripley Series”, that might work (as long as people think it’s notable enough).
Well, i was actually trying to get people started. Also, i needed some info for a college essay and i thought it would be a fun topic. Guess not.
BUMP
The Necronomicon and genetic engineering of dinosaurs for a college essay?
Nice to see they’re keeping standards up at ol’ Evil U.
Lol, im doing my thesis on symbolism.
Is there much symbolism in string theory?
See as its mostly philosophical, yah, i guess there is. Its everywhere man, everywhere…OooooOOOOooooOOOOooooo
Skull Island
Skull Island was an island in the South Pacific. Its main physical features are Skull Mountain and a giant wall, meant to keep in the large ape-god known as Kong. In 1933, Kong was captured by filmmaker Carl Denham and brought to New York City as part of a stage show. Kong escaped and plunged to his death atop the Empire State Building. Later that year, Denham returned to Skull Island after being sued by many New Yorkers for Kong-related damage, as he had heard of a mysterious treasure. Taking the treasure caused Skull Island to sink into the ocean. Other creatures which inhabited Skull Island included various dinosaurs, and an albino gorilla Denham believed was Kong’s son, who sacrificed his life to save Denham.
Tom Ripley, please do not post copyrighted material on the SDMB. Quoting Wikipedia is okay as long as you attribute your source (this is explained in their FAQ concerning their use of “copyleft”). Quoting long passages from Patricia Highsmith, however, is not okay; you can post short passages (usually a few lines) and can link to the rest if need be. You’ll also need to give your source for those passages so that the other Dopers won’t think you wrote them.
Tom, look, we’re glad to have you here, but I think you’re under a couple of misapprehensions. One moderator, Skip, has already set you straight on copying material from other sources: it’s not permitted.
See Board Rules about posting ahd Forum Rules about posting.
Two other factors to consider:
(1) Most of our members will not be very interested in helping with a homework assignment. There are a few exceptions, but the general feeling is that a person should do the work themselves, rather than ask others to do it for them.
(2) Your question would generate a list that is immense and impractical: as a quick example, practically every spy novel that ever existed has “the secret plans” for a fictional treaty between fictional countries, or for a fictional weapon. Fictional cities and places would alone be an enormous list, and most of them wouldn’t help much with a discussion of symbolism.
Those two reasons probably explain why you got so few responses.