The Legend Of Rah And The Muggles: Final Assessment

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: Hello everyone, time for my ultimate review and thoughts on The Legend of Rah and the Muggles. And before I begin, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to the comments section of the last sporking, in which

Comments

[shaolina]

"My book is not exactly like Rowlings, although there are similar characters. Mine is a softer approach to children's lit. They are a true old-fashioned fairy tale."

Yeah, gotta disagree with that. Now, Rah has the "goodness" and stupidity that most fairy tale characters of his type would have, but HE DOES NOTHING! He doesn't set out on an adventure, his luck doesn't change and he doesn't face tasks to win a prize. So he wouldn't be a Grimm's character(because they were all about the violence), he wouldn't be Perrault's (this story lacks the class of the man), he wouldn't be Anderen's because he doesn't die nor is depressing (seriously, most of his stories are the MC dying: The little mermaid, Karen's red shoes, Match girl) nor MacDonald (because he's made of fun and awesome).

She says old style fairy tales, but the violent parts are too WTF towards logic (plus lacks magic) and everything else is so tame that it lacks the spirit of an old-style fairy tale.

Anyway, well done honey. Good luck with Bree. XD

[zelda_queen]

I'd actually say that Rah's a few feet below some fairy tale characters in terms of goodness and stupidity. At least said characters fix their mistakes. -_-

Thanks! I'm looking forward to getting at her >:)

[shaolina]

Actually, it depends of the writer. Rah wouldn't be an Andersen character, for example, because he doesn't suffer greatly and has no personality. Same with MacDonald (The light princess' prince is so made of awesome XD). But I could buy him being a Grimm's character, if the story were bloody in the right places and had him doing stuff.

[zelda_queen]

Yeah, I guess it depends on the story.

[southerngaelic]

The term "oppotunistic money-grubbing crazy bitch" comes to mind reading that list.

I wouldn't have given this book to the bullies in my primary school. That's how bad it is.

FAIL, Stouffer. WIN, ZQ. Looking forward to the next sporking :D

[zelda_queen]

Indeed. Especially when she says in the interview about how she just happened to use "N.K." just because there wasn't much market for female writers. Good freaking LORD!

Thanks! ^^

[shaolina]

I shall alert Lois Lowry, Gail Garriger and Diane Wynne Jones (among many other writers) that there's no market for them. (eyeroll) If Mary Shelly published in a time where writers were indeed mostly male, then she can publish now as a female when I can see males and females side by side in a shelf on borders.

[zelda_queen]

Word to that. The way Stouffer is pitching it, you'd think Rowling had had nothing better to do than steal stuff from an obscure author in Pennsylvania.

[kawaiicow]

Well, this book was a waste of time. Nothing much happens and the characters are all unlikeable (except Zyn, and we're supposed to hate him). For the life of me I can't see how this is supposed to be a 'legend' or even how Stouffer can continue this story

[zelda_queen]

Stouffer tried to handwave the "those are in lots of fantasy stories" accusation by saying that it's all of them together that make it plagiarism. Except, like you said, she herself probably could be accused of the same thing. So fail.

And her trademarking was, like I guessed, apparently supposed to be for those individual characters. In that interview, she said if someone made a mouse character and named it Mickey, it would be copyright and "there can't be two muggles that raise orphans". Except it STILL doesn't work either, because, as you pointed out, her character of Rah alone could be accused of doing that.

Yes, I'm reminded of Jenna there. Two authors who have small names and egos the size of a freaking galaxy, who throw tantrums if they don't get their way. XP

[yemi_hikari]

Not to mention, there is such thing as a parody character...

[yemi_hikari]

Not to mention the creator of Worst Witch hasn't even thought about filing plagerism against Rowling. No, she's more annoyed with fans then anyone, particularly the ones who don't realize her book is older.

[szaleniec1000]

As a footnote, I don't recall if you mentioned Stouffer's conspiracy theories at any point. Apparently there's been a huge cover-up to hide the fact that JKR is actually American, and that explains how she was able to get hold of a copy of TLoRatM in the eighties. To back up this point, Stouffer posted online a forgery of JKR's nonexistent American birth certificate. I am not kidding. There was quite a strong resemblance to the many fake Kenyan birth certificates that have been doing the rounds in wingnut circles more recently, and it would amuse but not surprise me to learn that the makers of those were working from the same template as Stouffer did. It was accompanied by a rant about how JKR claimed to be from Wales, which isn't even the case anyway; though she did spend a lot of time that side of the border in her youth, she's from England. Not that I expect Stouffer to know where either country is.

[zelda_queen]

I heard something about her claiming Rowling was American, but wow. You think it'd be easier to just say that Rowling found a copy of the book or was lying about when she went to America for the first time. O_o

And yeah, it does sound likely. There's probably some underground fake birth certificate company that thrives whenever idiot conspiracy theories like these surface.

[szaleniec1000]

I guess it's harder to find documentary proof that she went to America before she said she did, whereas a birth certificate is clear and unambiguous. I wish I'd saved a copy so I could pick it apart for revealing errors.

[yemi_hikari]

I think bringing up documented proof of her coming to America would question how she came to have it.

[anonymous]

Wow. What the FUDGE is Stouffer's problem? She admits she grew up with learning disabilities, but so did I, and...let's just say I haven't thrown out a bunch of conspiracy theories about, say, Kevin Smith.

[zelda_queen]

I suspect she also suffers from an affliction known as "attention whoreitis".

I mean seriously, this could have been a good book, if she had channeled as much energy into editing as she did trying to rally a witch hunt against Rowling.