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Re: This Description

xturtle
2006-06-25 08:35 pm UTC (link)

According to Margaret Mitchell, who certainly ought to know, ''Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm. In her face (still according to Miss Mitchell) were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin. ... ''

From an NYT online article. Not a direct gack, but definitely too close not to be "inspired by" the original, especially given it's one of the most famous opening lines in literature:-)

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	Re: This Description loopywafflehead 2006-06-25 08:51 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for the info! It's certanly close enough. What on earth was she thinking?!? (And OMG teeny turtle!) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description xturtle 2006-06-25 08:56 pm UTC (link)
	Who ever knows, with CC? Teeny Turtle comes from a pick at baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby_animals (not sure how many a's in there, so I added a bunch :-) -- is free for the taking. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description loopywafflehead 2006-06-25 08:57 pm UTC (link)
	squee Thank you! (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: This Description

purplepopple
2006-06-25 09:37 pm UTC (link)

Shit. Do you mind that I quoted you here? Because fecking dude. You'd think she have learned. That would put why she deleted it and then did the whole cassie_and_rhysenn was, sometime during 2006, renamed to Rhysenn. The archives were then changed to moderator only. This means that first hand evidence of the reaction to Cassandra Claire's plagiarism situation are not available to the masses to read.

Gah. *boggles*

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	Re: This Description lyppy 2006-06-25 10:57 pm UTC (link)
	You know she's going to say something like this: a) "I keep a notebook where I write down passages I like, and I guess I forgot that it wasn't me who wrote it." b) "I'd read that passage so much that it just stuck in my mind!" (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description purplepopple 2006-06-25 11:14 pm UTC (link)
	And then Heidi will roll in with how all fan fiction is plagiarism, threats of lawsuits, that it wasn't really plagiarism because it doesn't meet mandatory word counts and whatever else she argued at fwgreatesthits post on Cassie. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description lyppy 2006-06-26 02:14 am UTC (link)
	But it's the principal of the thing. If you're ganking phrases from other authors you're a bad writer. PERIOD. Done. There's no arguing it. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description purplepopple 2006-06-26 02:27 am UTC (link)
	No argument from me. It just needs to be documented. :/ Well documented like the fwgreatest hits shows she's ganked stuff. I don't suppose people have Buffy: The Vampire, Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Pamela Dean checked her story looking for other bits she borrowed? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: This Description xturtle 2006-06-26 01:43 am UTC (link)
	That's a bit further into the shitstorm than I wanted to wade, but that'll teach me to post under the influence of literary indignation:-) In other words, let it stand. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: This Description

annafora
2006-06-26 09:44 am UTC (link)

"Harry was not handsome, but the vivid green eyes fringed with coal-black lashes were startling, and the gentleness in them lent unlikely grace to a face that otherwise would have been too thin and angular to be endearing. But it was, and he was, and Ron couldn’t even hate him for this, which was, out of all of it, probably the worst part..."

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin . . ."

I think you're reaching, tbh. The main similarites are that they have green eyes and black hair, which is hardly determined by CC (Harry is described in this way, yes? I am not very up on HP). The five beginning words are the same. Not nearly good enough to cry plagiarism. Look and feel is similar in some ways, but I think this might be a case of expectations driving conclusions.

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	Re: This Description (Anonymous) 2006-06-26 02:17 pm UTC (link)
	Nope, I don't think it's plagiarism. It just goes to show that all her best ideas are taken from someone else. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: This Description (Anonymous) 2006-06-26 05:10 pm UTC (link)
	The rest of the description comes from Mitchell's description of Melanie Wilkes later in the book. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description annafora 2006-06-26 06:14 pm UTC (link)
	quote away, mousie (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: This Description (Anonymous) 2006-06-26 06:18 pm UTC (link)
	She paraphrases; do you want the whole thing? Crap, here's a link. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-4361905-1680058?ie=UTF8&asin=0446365386) That description is bugging me; it's so typical of Mitchell, but it might be about Ellen Robillard as well. Now I'm going to have to go read the whole book again. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: This Description (Anonymous) 2006-07-01 04:04 pm UTC (link)
	I honestly have to say that I don't think this is gacking either. I'm not such a fan of CC but even I wouldn't go as far as to say that she's stolen this description. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Oh, come on.

renata_hpjc
2006-06-27 09:13 pm UTC (link)

I see very little similarity in those two passages. The writing style, the length of the character description, and the character traits implied by the description all differ between the two. Nor does any of the text appear to have been directly lifted: barring "X was not handome/beautiful", which is practically a cliche in character introductions, I don't think the two excerpts have two words in a row in common. What's left besides? The fact that both characters have black hair and green eyes? CC can hardly control that. Or that eyes, hair, eyelashes and face shape were all mentioned in a pair of descriptions of ... characters' faces?

Come on. There's no way something like that could count as plagiarism. It's barely even credible as evidence of "inspiration", IMO.

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