Creative Commons license icon

Reply to comment

I admit it's a weird section but I'll try explain it again.

Just being fanfiction is not limiting creativity. It takes just as much creativity and originality to write a story set in Equestria as it does to write a story set in New York. I don't think that one is real and the other is fantasy matters.

Similarly all stories are made up of set pieces. We're familiar with them and they're fine. I remember people predicting the bad guy in Zootopia because it's the least likely character. That's done so often we recognise it right away but it doesn't take away from our enjoyment or the originality of the show. What we focus on are the small flourishes that differentiate each telling.

Frozen and The Lion King are both great movies. But as many people have pointed out, they are basically the same plot.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/here-is-definitive-proof-that-frozen-is-li...
That's only a problem when it becomes too obvious or repetitive. For example, the parallels between Star Wars IV and Star Wars VII were too much for some people. I found many Redwall books to be very samey (still loved it) and 95% of Pokemon episodes go "Travel to new town, meet person with a problem, help solve the problem, Team Rocket shows up and threatens to steal Pikachu or the pokemon of the person they're helping, they beat Team Rocket, say goodbye and move on." It was fine for a season or two but then it was too much.

So it doesn't make sense to say furry is original and creative because it's not fan work of a franchise because that is not inherently limiting in creativity. It's also unfair because even those "original" works borrow from previous creations, either literary set pieces or mythology, but we don't consider that to limit creativity or originality unless it is done to excess.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

Reply

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <img> <b> <i> <s> <blockquote> <ul> <ol> <li> <table> <tr> <td> <th> <sub> <sup> <object> <embed> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <dl> <dt> <dd> <param> <center> <strong> <q> <cite> <code> <em>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This test is to prevent automated spam submissions.
Leave empty.