Both of these covers feature swords (circled in red). If you think that's eerie, read on.
It’s no secret that a few of the staff here at SG are excited for the upcoming Bioware title, “Dragon Age: Origins,” including myself. I reserved the game, without even seeing gameplay footage, the moment I heard it was being developed. When my wife asked me if it was a hasty decision, I quickly responded, “It’s Bioware. At this point, I don’t think they can do wrong by me.”
Bioware, no. Lead game writer David Gaider, sure. Why? Because it sure looks like Dragon Age “borrowed” a lot from the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels. We put the pieces together, after the jump.
I picked up and read Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne, the prequel to the Dragon Age: Origins game, two or three weeks ago. Let me get my book review out of the way, first. For a book that is a prequel to the game, it’s a pretty good read. The editing is not perfect, but few books these days are. The plot feels a little rushed at times, as if Gaider feels he’s boring his audience with things like, I don’t know, important plot details? So, rather than giving us more background on these characters, he gets to the point. This isn’t a horrible idea since some of the characters will only be making appearances in the game and from what I’ve seen so far won’t factor heavily into the story line. I give the book, again comparing it to other video game-related novels, a 3.72 out of 5 3/16.
Now, when I compared the plot to other popular fantasy literature, I started to see some interesting comparisons between the Dragon Age story and The Wheel of Time(WoT to the cool kids) series by the recently-departed Robert Jordan. Read on, but just remember as you do, that you heard it on SG first (and if you agree, be sure to Digg/Tweet about it).
- In WoT, some of the characters include Rand, Egwene, Moiraine, and Logain.
- In Dragon Age (DA), some of the main characters include Maric, Rowan, and…um, Loghain.
- In WoT, the principle bad guys that our heroes face are known as Darkfriends and Shadowspawn.
- In DA, the book finds our heroes fighting against an army that has taken over their country, but along the way they awaken a bigger threat, known as—whoa, Darkspawn. Hmm.
- In WoT, magic is known as The One Source and thought of as a woman’s realm, led by an all-women organization called The White Tower (the heads of the order also live there). These women are protected by elite fighters known as Warders.
- In DA, magic is magic and is overseen by a religious organization known as The Chantry. All members of the order are women. An army of elite fighters is formed to combat the Shadow-er, Darkspawn, known as the Grey Wardens.
If you think these are just coincidences, read on! I’m not done!
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Wow. I’m going to pretend I didn’t read this and be blissfully ignorant to DA’s blatant borrowing of material from Jordan. Grey wardens, indeed.
Damnit.
Well I always felt a WoT video game would be awesome. This is probably as close as I’ll get to playing one.
Its funny that you should say that because there actually IS a wheel of time game where you play as an Ae Sedai… on the PC. Not a bad game either, it’s like Hexen and came out only a couple of years ago.
haha, what Lono says is true. If you see the image on page 2 of the article with the “not equals” sign, that’s the WoT PC game box art. I played through the demo but was not in a position to purchase the game (dead broke). It was met with heavy opposition from the WoT community because ppl didn’t feel it was true to the series enough, i.e. the Aes Sedai you play as *has* to use artifacts to channel through, and that artifact has a cooldown period so you don’t have unlimited ammo. One of these days I’ll find a copy of the game and play it through just to say I have. The demo was not the best game I’ve ever played, but it was still entertaining.
Anyone actually REMEMBER the plot from book 11? lol Good catch, I read the prequel and was thinking the same thing.
So much misinformation where to start?
1) In WoT there is also a male aspected form of magic.
2) In DAO mages can be male or female.
3) Men can join the chantry in DAO. They are however limited in their roles.
4)points 1 2 and 3 pretty much kill 1/3rd of your argument.
5) many books have one even two characters whose names are pretty close. If you do enough reading you’ll even come across books who have characters with identical names.
6) point 5 killed another 1/3rd of your argument. That leaves you with an argument that really is only 1/3rd valid.
Have a nice day. Researching a game before you write about it helps. It also helps if you compare said game with another IP that you also research the said IP beforehand. The IP i’m refering to here is of course WoT
Meat- I’m glad you’re pleased with yourself and want to try and insult me by saying I didn’t do my research, but just because you can’t read doesn’t mean I didn’t research.
1 & 2) Duh. And yes, there is in DAO. In WoT it’s corrupt. Blah blah blah. I never said there wasn’t a male side, I said that it was considered a female thing. It’s called brevity.
3) Didn’t say men couldn’t join the Chantry, but they can’t hold an office of priesthood, i.e., ITS RUN BY WOMEN. There are a few non-Warder males associated with the White Tower in WoT, but not many because there are Novices and Accepteds for petty things like that.
4)No they didn’t, but nice try.
5) Okay, granted. Your point?
6) Again, I’m glad you have an over-inflated sense of yourself. As I’ve always said, ‘People are entitled to their own wrong damn opinion.’
Thanks for reading!
This whole piece is a big reach and you know it.
1 character from WoT ( of which there are MANY) has a name somewhat close to a single character in The Stolen Throne.-REACH
The Chantry in DOA is a strict religious organization. The White Tower is in no way a religious organization. More like a magical conglomorate. Thus your argument that they are similar is a….REACH!
Your argument that the Grey Wardens are similar to Wardens is also, big suprise, a REACH. Grey Wardens are a completely seperate organization from the Chantry. They are not associated with it in any way. Wardens in WoT are fully associated with the White Tower. They infact wouldn’t be wardens unless bonded with usually a green or blue member of the White Tower.
If you had done some research this ignorant piece would not exist.
“Done some research” – as if reading both books and comparing notes on wikis wasn’t enough? Is there a class on this? It’s not like I got this from cliffs notes or something.
So what if it is a reach? I’m not saying TOR should sue, just saying there are quite a few similarities. Sure, the Chantry is a religion, but that wasn’t the point. You’re injecting unrelated facts. The point was the Chantry, much like the White Tower, preferred to control magic. Both WoT and DA have “wilders” or mages that weren’t trained with their method, sure. The only reason the religion aspect factors in is, like I said, only women can hold office in the Chantry.
Grey Wardens and Warders are similar, yes. They serve the same purpose and have a similar title. I never claimed the Grey Wardens served the Chantry, so sure you can argue that the Chantry didn’t form the Grey Wardens but that doesn’t remove the similarities.
All of your arguments are based on the idea that I’ve implied far more than what I have. Again, you should read and understand what it is you’re reading before your panties get bunched. You’re obviously missing the point and didn’t bother reading the entire article before flaming away. How does that typically work out for you in life, anyway?
frankly as a fan of both WoT and DAO you offend both IP’s with your reaching accusations
Hahaha this is hilarious, fun read dude.
how again are Grey Wardens and Wardens similair other then both contain the word “warden”? I doubt you’ve even picked up a WoT book.
Maybe if you read the article you would understand the similarity. I’m letting that one stand, because it’s already been explained.
I’ll admit to having not read books 10 or 11 yet because Jordan kept telling us 12 would be the last. I’ve also been a part of several WoT text-based RP communities, so any accusation that I don’t know my material is laughable.
Gaider is a hack. Always has been. But unfortunately he’s the best we have in the RPG industry.
This is the first of his books I’ve read. Like I say, the book was decent for a game-based book. It doesn’t stand up to regular fiction literature, but I did find the book easier to read than the first Twilight novel (which I never finished because I couldn’t handle the voice Meyers gave Bella’s character or the horrible editing). He did the job of getting the story out, but while I’ve read at least half of the WoT books three times, I don’t feel a need to ever re-visit this book.
ZOMG why argue about it?? Instead lets make a 2nd list on how Similair WoT, DAO and The Sword of Truth Series are?
All great Fantasy novels/stories follow the same theme, because Its a good one…
That’s because they all claim to follow after Tolkien, who in turn was only taking ideas fleshed out by his contemporaries and the writers of the sword & sorcery generation before him like Howard.
Came of a tad, harsh? Just think people get way to worked up when they feel something/someone is insulted.
I liked the article, actually made me think of the similarities in all the fantasy books I’ve ever read…
dang posted while i was still typing :/
I knew what you meant, I didn’t think you were harsh.
I realize that authors borrow from each other all the time, just like painters, musicians, and everything else. I also see a lot of similarities between DA and Dragonlance, too, as far as styles go, but the WoT similarities seemed the most compelling and obvious.
I don’t have an issue if someone wants to debate with me over an article, but you’d better bring some compelling points. And yes, I think its ridiculous to claim it’s offensive because you’re a fan. Rothbart loves to hate on Brutal Legend, I thought the demo was tons of fun, and we’re still friends.
My point is this. DAO has been accused of being a Lord of the Rings rip off, A song of Fire and Ice rip off and now a WoT rip off. Can it really have ripped off this many IP’s? Is Warhammer a rip off of Tolkien because it has dwarves in it?
What about Mass Effect? Did it rip off early sci-fi because it has aliens and space ships? I think opinions such as yours are a reach. You look for anything just the slighest bit similar and start accusing before you actually learn in depth about what you are accusing in the first place. Let me give you another example real quick. Just as vague as the ones you have provided. “In wheel of time there is a character who uses a sword. In DAO warriors also can use swords. DAO must have ripped off swords from WoT!”
I admitted that some of my points were a reach. Did it get you thinking? Mission accomplished. We’re Sarcastic Gamer, not a peer-reviewed journal of literary criticism.
Can you provide compelling evidence that DA did *not* borrow ideas from Tolkien, Martin, or Jordan?
What you’re saying is that no one is allowed to take note of similarities, is that it?
The fact is DAO would not exist without Tolkien. WoT would not exist without Howard, and before you argue that, know that the only published collection from Robert E. Howard I haven’t read is the Kull series (if you haven’t, look him up, he’s a fantastic author but was considered low-brow in his day). Howard created Conan. I can’t prove that Robert Jordan took the first part of his pen name from Robert Howard, but the fact that Jordan wrote six Conan novels tells me he was a huge fan of Howard. Start comparing Lan to Conan sometime. Do I recognize the inspiration? Sure. Is it obvious? No.
I’m not going to make the assumption that you don’t write, Meat, but let’s put it this way – if you’re going to write something “new,” be sure to read over your treatment before you’re done and make sure that you haven’t gone too close to your inspiration material. Make certain it isn’t easy to pick out. Get someone you trust to be honest with you to help you if you can’t be objective.
I’m not telling anyone to not play the game or not read the book. Do read the book and play the game. I love Bioware games, even if they aren’t hardcore RPGs as Lono claims. I have D20 sessions with friends for that. You have every right in the world to be offended, but don’t expect anyone else to understand why.
Actually thinking on It I think DAO may have more closely ripped off Dune…
Son has to reclaim family thrown from a tyrant ruler…
Teacher named Duncan….
hhmmm…
Women who want to control everything…
yep definitely stole everything from Dune
lol…stop the presses! Get Herbert on the line!
The Grey Wardens and the Warders hold only similar positions in that they both kill things. The Wardens guard the people of the white tower while the grey wardens kill darkspawn while waiting for the next blight. They don’t protect any organization their only duty is to kill darkspawn wait for the next blight then stop the blight. they hold no allegiance to any organization other then their own. they will do whatever they need to in order to stop the blight.
I dont want to give away something about them if you havnt been exposed to it ye so this long sentance is a SPOILER warning
SPOILER
The grey wardens drink the blood of darkspawn in order to become linked to their hive mind. this foul drink (which kills around half the recruits) also corrupts them and if they live a long time they will become corrupted by the hive mind. How ever most will go to the territory of the darkspawn and kill them until they are killed.
Wow, so there are some differences. Am I shocked? No. Am I retracting what I said? No. Differences don’t erase similarities. They’re both elite fighting forces of men with similar group names. Yes, a Warder fights first for his Aes Sedai, but they also have an obligation to destroy creatures of shadow. Not to mention that the White Tower has led armies against the Blight, mainly composed of lines of—ready?—Warders, with support from Aes Sedai.
do your warders embrace the evil that they fight?
Does that change what I said about difference not disproving similarities?
Right so you freely admit that you are reaching? How about adding that to the article? Maybe a disclaimer right at the begining would work nicely. You know sort of a- Hey i wrote this but i don’t really believe any of this crap i just wrote. Infact I’m just really whoring my opinion out so that i can get more hits on this site. That right there would increase the truth in your piece. Marginally.
You’re making me laugh. Just because a point is a little bit of a reach doesn’t make it true, and I only said some of it might have been a stretch. Mainly the last one about the enchanted swords. Again, keep injecting your assumptions. At least I gave you the courtesy to not assume anything. You’re only making yourself look like a flamin’ f-a-n-b-o-y who can’t handle someone criticism. At least you have the common sense to stay hidden behind an anonymous name. Next time read more carefully.
Sorry, that should say “doesn’t make it *un* true.” Mybad.
“if you’re going to write something “new,” be sure to read over your treatment before you’re done and make sure that you haven’t gone too close to your inspiration material. Make certain it isn’t easy to pick out. Get someone you trust to be honest with you to help you if you can’t be objective.”-OMG
Well, dude, I have a bit of a problem with this. Especially in fantasy you can draw parallels between tons of books. I really think I could go into a book store, pull a fantasy book out of the “B” section of last names and one out of the “P” section and draw tons of similarities between the two. So, moot point, It could even be that Gaider could have got his inspiration from a D&D module whose author got his idea from Wheel of Time whose author got his idea…etc. etc. etc.
1)One name out of three similar names means someone stole the name? Did the WoT author invent the name Logain? Are you telling me that I couldn’t go get a Celtic Names book and find the name in there?
2)Those kind of names are a common fantasy element. “ShadowFell” “ChildrenofDarkness” “Darkbadguys”/”Evilbadguys”. Realistically, Most names for “Evil Forces” are going to be generic, especially if not a lot is known about the “Evil Forces” in Question. Commoners in a Realms aren’t going to start calling this evil force of unknown things “Travelianerors” for no apparent reason, so most writer have t logically opt to go for something that sounds generic.
3) I haven’t read WoT. ( haven’t read the other novel either so, there you go.) I don’t see this as too similar based on what I know about dragon-age, the Chantry is the religious organization, the military arm of that religious organization is “The Templars” The Grey Wardens aren’t part of that organization. They are above it, I think. Because one of the characters in the game “Alister” leaves the Templars to join the Grey Wardens.
4) The Blight, basically, the bad thing that’s hindering us or causing us harm? Again, to generic to be a rip off.
5) The magic Sword: Um, man, I hate to break it to you but The Magic Sword thing has been around -forever-. King Arthur, Tolkien (A few times). Even the Jedi kind of have one, the light-saber, a legendary weapon of power only wielded by the worthy. The Sacred Magic Weapon that is the only thing that can save us thing is generic, and used to often to be considered something “Stolen” or “Ripped Off”.
Last I just want to say, in this world, we can’t find the kind of originality that your asking for, everything has been done, it really has. The only thing you can do, is take the same generic ideas and try to spin them and alter them in ways that are interesting. Save the Kingdom from some evil force coming from the east? Done. Save the Princess from the evil lord? Done. Save the City people from the serial killer on the loose? Done. Everything is just a twist of everything else.
I agree with you on a lot of that stuff but you’re missing the point of what you were quoting me on, which also goes back to the original article. Yes, there are going to be similarities. I’m not disagreeing. The issue is, if I look at it and say “well, this element looks like Tolkien, this looks like Martin, this looks like Hickman & Weiss, this looks like Howard, this looks like Jordan,” then that’s pretty typical. I know quite a few people who wondered if Martin was really Jordan when Fire & Ice came out because the writing styles were so similar, not realizing that Martin started more in sci-fi. My problem is when you start adding things up and too many point to the same source, when there seems to be more than just coincidence, you start to think twice about it.
Jordan and Martin have similar writing styles? Other than the fact that they both write epic fantasy I really don’t see it; their writing is very different. But mentioning Martin, I think the Grey Wardens seem much more like his Night’s Watch than the Warders. It’s also kind of funny since I’ve seen similar posts in the past accusing Jordan of ripping from LotR and Dune. In short I have to agree with some of the others, I think you’re really reaching here. I don’t think Dragon Age is shockingly new and original fantasy or anything, but what I’ve seen certainly doesn’t lead me to believe that it’s some sort of WoT ripoff either.
Just wanted to add something on the “magic Orgs” thing. I wanted to say that, though those things are similar, it really depends on what spins and twists occur with those organizations that make them unique by the end of the story. Like the Generic Magic Sword, it depends on how it’s used.
Umm.. as you have admitted many of the points you raised are quite a reach i would like to point out a list of arguments against the points you raised simply to represent the other side of the argument:
1. 1 name is nearly the same in gaider’s work as a name in WoT… jordan has a character named Thom which happens to be my name, does that mean jordan ripped off me? i dont think so
2. “Shadowspawn” and “Darkspawn” are indeed very similair words… they are also similair to hellspawn etc. etc. etc. this is because they are using the word “spawn” to invoke a sense of an evil creature not born but rather “spawned” which just intrinsicly conjures up a sense of evil, its a literary device furthered by the word “shadow”, “hell” or “dark” the word “spawn” is often amalgamated with. it is simply a literary device for branding the “enemy” of the books as evil to say that is is copied is rather unfair.
3. in WoT magic is not a “woman’s realm” however male practisioners are deamonised (far from in DA:O where both male and female practisioners are respected equally) and your connecting the chantry with the white tower is superficial at best, the only real similarity is that they attempt to control magic, which granted is a fairly large similarity but look at it like this: there is a fantasy world, it has magic, is that magic controlled by a governing body of sorts? answers: either yes or no, not a lot of room for diversity. however in WoT its the magic practitioners governing magic and if anything its the women “mages” or Aes Sedai oppressing the male practitioners (for a reason.. but thats irrelevant) however in DA:O its a religious order of -critically- NON-mages controlling the magic community.
4. “Warders” and “Grey Wardens” again a 1 letter difference in a name, however first let us inspect the words Warden and Warder both words comming from the root word “ward” to whit: “the act of keeping guard or protective watch: watch and ward. Archaic. to protect; guard.” basically meaning that ward is an old-feeling word that means guard.. so someone or a group of people who epitomise guarding against the evil described in a fantasy book will rightly have a name deriving from the root word of ward, again its a literary devise. However in WoT to be a warder you must be a skilled fighter (note melee fighter, not mage etc. etc.) then be chosen to be intrinsicly bonded to an Aes Sedia or mage and then you fall under the jurisdiction of the white tower, however in DA:O the grey wardens are a group seperate from all governing bodies and jurisdictions and -critically- composed of both mages, warriors, and rogues (all three classes) without the grey warden being bonded to anyone let along a chantry controlled mage.
5. Again you have picked up on a literary device which would be similair in most if not all fantasy style media, “blight” it is a single word, used by both books to mean vastly different things, for example in WoT the Blight is an area whereas in DA:O the Blight is a period of time (i.e: third blight, second blight etc. indicating periods of suffering somewhat like the crusades in real life) so yes the word is the same but i’m sure both gaider and Jordan used the words “the” and “and” or “or” in their works.. infact i just did.. does that mean that they are all copied? granted thats an extreme example but the word is used as a literary device similair to those words if less extreme
6. let me see, your last point would be that in both works a character gets a magical sword… im sorry i didnt realise a magical sword was a new and original creation in WoT.. personally i thought magical swords have been around almost as long as fantasy itself.. infact truthfully speaking they have been around longer im sure we all know of excalibur in the arthurian legends? theres a nigh unbreakable magical sword forged in a forgotten age.. its simply a hallmark of the genre, if it only existed in one work then sure your point stands but they are almost as common as elves and dwarves.
Finally i would like to say your Article came across as very accusatory and (in light of my points) i would say quite unfairly so. also such things as “it?s like Gaider read Jordan for inspriation and when it came time to flesh out his world, he found himself copying some ideas. Rather than changing it so that you almost don?t recognize the source, it?s my opinion that he just got lazy and figured no one would figure it out if he only changed it enough to avoid copyright infringement charges.” are quite heavily slanderous and demeaning towards Mr Gaider, this may be your opinion but you should be careful about posting such things publicly as without evidence (and your points are at best circumstantial) you could face alot of trouble (please note thats not a threat nor a warning simply saying that whilst “its a free country” etc. is true and you do have a right to voice your opinions, when such opinions border on accusations, lawyers start making lots of money
.
and from what you have written i can see quite clearly that you enjoy WoT and have researched that quite fully but if you looked into the lore behind DA:O a bit more (alot of which is available online free not just in published books that cost money) i doubt you would have been so quick to make such accusations
Right sorry for the long rant, i just wanted to set things straight and speak up on behalf of the writing and design teams for DA:O
TL:DNR. JK – I did read but man that was long. I appreciate your points but you’re only repeating what Meat said and I’m not going to go into the same arguments again. But thanks for the opinion and for being a part of the site.
…He made several different points that were different from what Meat said.
…Please ignore the first different…
Not really. The only new point he brought up was legal, which is again not even a consideration. I appreciate the sentiment, but there’s zero legal action that Gaider or Bioware could take against that article. They’d have to prove that I wrote it as a purposeful lie and with the intent to defame his character. Since I did neither and since I’ve never said anything even close, that would be impossible.
He may have used more points but they’re the same points Meat used, in a nutshell, and I’ve already given my two cents on why you’re all free to your opinion, but you aren’t changing mine.
Nice article, finally explained to me what WoT stands for
Didn’t read any of those books. But all fantasy more or less come from one source (I don’t know which one): elfs, dwarfs etc. So there will be similarities in many to follow.
Personally I will still stick to Tolkien, but thanks for the info, need to stay away from ToW before game release and read it after I finished the game.
Whoa…calm down, D&D nerds. You’re making us regular gamer dorks look like hipsters.
I’m surprised we don’t have any Aes Sedai names responding. No Lews Therin? No Jain Farstrider? Come on!
I laughed while reading your article, thinking nothing but: “That dude loves to waste time, obviously.”
Seriously, what you did and tried to prove utterly failed in the eyes of those who can descern sense from nonsense.
It’s also funny how you discard all the great points others are making simply by basically saying that the similarities between WoT and DA:O are many. That’s really all you’re shouting all the time. The thing is, we can delete your points on the first page because they are simply and quite matter-of-factly hilarious, which makes the real similarities not so many at all ergo not worth wasting your minutes writing about.
On second thought, even your second have hilarious points.
Forget what I said. Your whole article is a joke.
Well maybe if you flamers could come up with something that didn’t boil down to more than a “no it’s not, it’s not the same” argument, I wouldn’t have to respond with “yes it is.” Here’s the key, though: You can’t and I can’t, because it’s all a matter of opinion. I love to waste time? How about the people who spent more time trying to disprove my points than I did writing the original article?
Oh, and no you can’t delete my points, because you’re not an editor.
I’m glad you at least found some humor in it. If people would take the time to read the caption in the first picture, they MIGHT understand.
I’m sorry, just… no… no. That article was a waste of so many people’s time. I don’t want to waste your time reapeating points and there is the chance that this article is satirical, so I’ll leave it at that.
If you didn’t have time to waste, you wouldn’t be on the internet looking up useless trivia about books and games.
This is a joke, right? I’m not impressed either way. WoT (maybe I’m not cool enough but I’ll use this anyway) already came up on the Bioware forums several times. David Gaider made some claims that he’s not a fan Jordan, for one.
The name comparisons are really ridiculous, by the way.
Well of course he’s going to claim he’s not a fan. If it’s been brought up in the forums—and I assure you I’m not a member—then I’m not the only one who noticed. If someone told you that you borrowed a joke from The Onion, are you going to fess up to reading it every week, regardless of whether you did or didn’t?
I’m not impressed with your reasoning skills.
Look, WoT and DA:O are NOTHING alike. You made an article about so amazingly far-fetched similarities that your article holds no worth whatsoever.
You said a person here who made perfect sense was perhaps a fanboy, while it is you that ignores the sense that is made and reply to it with your own repetitive “many similarities = plot stolen!” kind of nonsense, which prompts the question: Who here, really, is the fanboy? (Rhetorical question)
Apparently you. Enjoy.
Heh. Both the article and the replies are quite amusing.
I do see your point about the plots having similarities, but, as others stated, most things in the fantasy genre do.
And, sure there may be similarities, but that isn’t gonna make me decide one is ripping off the other- I’m going to enjoy them both!
Good! Me too!
People get waaaay to serious. Welcome to Sarcastic Gamer.
-ehm-
There are elves and dwarfs in DA: Origins. Rip-off from Tolkien or D&D or The Witcher. You bet. Or maybe more inspired by. In game The Witcher elves and dwarfes are not your typical fantasy tropes or clichées; the DA elves and dwarfes seems inspired by the ones in The Witcher (or it could be the other way around?)
The main protagnist finding a sword made of dragonbone, covered in runes. How very Arthurian, don’t you think. This is clearly inspired by Arthurian myths and legends.
And the whole part about mages going to Heaven and being cast down again seems to be inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost in which Lucifer are being cast out from Paradise, down to Earth (and finally down beloew Earth) – just like the mages that got corrupted…
David Gaider, the lead writer have said that one of the main inspirations for DA: Origins, is indeed GRR Martins ‘A song of fire and ice books. And apparently a lot of other books, games and movies, too.
Great logic, actually, tying the sword back to Arthurian legends. And I never read anything about him admitting that Martin’s books were a big inspiration, but that just goes to prove the point that it’s all taken from ideas elsewhere.
The point I will disagree on is Paradise Lost. If you’re going to cite Milton, take it a step further back to where Milton got his story from, the book of Revelations in the New Testament.
God damn this is stupid.
HURR DURR, PEOPLE HAVE SIMILAR NAMES DAO IS OUT TO GET US.
Come the fuck on, what fantasy series DOESN’T have some generic evil force? Mages in towers? HOLY SHIT COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, NO ONE THINKS OF THAT. Main fighting character getting a MAGICAL SWORD? WHEN DID BIOWARE BECOME SUCH A PLAGIARISTIC WHORE?
Sure, it’s cliche’d as all fuck, but it’s hardly like Jordan pioneered this shit. I doubt I’m the first person to think this post was fairly ridiculous.
I happened to be re-reading the WoT books at the time the trailers for Origins came out. First thing that that came into my head was “damn I’ve always wanted to play a game based on WoT”
Granted most of the connections between the books and the game aren’t solid, but there are so many of them. I think if the you sat down and made a list you could easily get about 10-20 similar story points.
Not that this is a major problem, so long as the game doesn’t get an award for most original script I don’t see why people should care. So until something like that happens I’m going to enjoy the game even more by naming all the characters I can after characters from WoT.
There is a lot of borrowing from WoT, and they even have nods to it.
Example: Robert Jordan is the pen-name of Oliver Rigby, author of the Wheel of time series. One of the first things you find in the Kolkari Wilds… is a letter from Rigby to Jogby.
There are other similarties too, but frankly not the ones in this article. The world of dreams and the fade (don’t even start with myrdraal) are shockingly similar to Tel’aran’rhiod, and more. However, keep in mind that the WoT books are very much the child of Tolkien’s books.
I don’t think you can look at the PLOT of DA:O, and the plot of any WoT book and say “ah ha, that’s similar”. DA is a straight D&D plot that borrows SOME mythology and names from the same sources and WoT, or from WoT directly. Here’s a question… why is that a bad thing. It’s not plaguerism when you’re talking about a genre that is a constant retelling of a set of classic epics?
Sarcastic Gamer…
And it’s never been explained to you that sarcasm doesn’t work in text format? It’s been a heated topic for years and no one has found a way to translate sarcasm to text.
The article – whilst entertaining – draws vague similarities between a best selling and critically acclaimed fantasy novel however you make no effort to compare Dragon Age to other fantasy franchises of similar critical acclaim. You can draw similarities between DA and Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Conan, Ice and Fire etc etc so on and so forth.
Your article does come across as being very, “omg – you thieving arseholes,” in its tone. There seems to be an implication on your behalf that originality is something you expect in the fantasy genre. However if you look at all existing major fantasy franchises you would be hard pressed to name a single one that has not borrowed inspiration from other franchises. In fact I’d go so far as to say you would not be able to name one at all.
And you seem to be using the fact that you write for a website called Sarcastic Gamer as a defence for your drivel. I can understand that. You surely aren’t ignorant to what you’ve done wrong but you certainly aren’t going to admit those faults or admit the shortfalls of this article as it would diminish your role as a writer and, “journalist.” Don’t worry; I know exactly how it feels because I’ve been in a similar position myself on several occasions.
However I found after a short period of time – a matter of months in fact – that the only way to avert this kind of reaction to your articles is to not speak in half truths and hide behind the website. Face facts here: you sold half a topic when you should of sold the full story. Even if you had gone so far as to compare DA to 1 other franchise only, you would have diminished the accusatory nature of the article and more than likely reaped much better feedback from the community and your readers.
Sadly you can come across as a grossly proud and arrogant person. I doubt you will take what I said on board. After all, I’m just a reader. You’re the, “journalist,” here.
Jordan’s own work is based heavily on arthurian legends.
* Artur Paendrag – Arthur Pendragon
* Egwene al’Vere – Gwynevere
* Elayne – Elaine
* Galad – Galahad
* Gawyn – Gawain
* Mordeth – Mordred
* Morgase – Morgause
* Tigraine – Igraine
* Nynaeve – Nyneve (the Lady of the Lake)
Tar Valon is obviously a play on Avalon. Many other aspects of the WoT series borrow from other cultures and mythologies as well.
I can’t deny that some parallels with WoT and Dragon Age exist. DA:O is clearly inspired by it. But that isn’t a bad thing, nor is it any surprise in the world of video game fiction.
I tried the game for the first time today and instantly thought of the Wheel of Time series. After an hour or so I actually started wondering if I really was playing some kind of game adaptation of Jordan’s universe. Then again the trollocks were called genlocks instead, and even though my female magician character was accompanied by a some warden guy I grew uncertain.
Lastly I tried to query Google for the answer and found this. And that’s my reply to the topic I guess.
I noticed the similarities immediately upon firing up the game. My take on it though was that perhaps they had been developing a WoT game and the licensing fell through, perhaps due to Jordan’s death? Viewed through the idea of a last-minute rewrite all of the almost-but-not-quite similarities make a lot more sense.
Also in your list you forgot to mention the foreign invaders, Ash warriors (ashlanders), dream realm accessible to mages… the list goes on and on and on.
I disagree with the theory.
There are plenty of organizations of mages in fantasy (and sci-fi, Jedi for instance). Mages and towers is not something unique to Jordan. There are some similarities.
One name means nothing.
Magical swords predate WoT. And where is the special magical sword in DAO?
I do, however, agree that there are some similarities, but not nearly enough to claim that they have taken all of those concepts from wot. They could have gotten their ideas about magic and organizations of mages from Warhammer or Star Wars (or a combination of both).
Darkspawn or Shadowspawn are so generic names that anyone who has never read Jordan or played DAO could “invent” them, and then be furious at discovering that somebody else has already used them.
So, were they inspired by Jordan? Maybe. Probably, if at least someone on the development team had read and enjoyed WoT. But there are just as many references to WoT as there are to other works of fantasy or sci-fi.
I don’t think there’s any question the writers lifted a lot of content from Jordan. If it were just “Loghain” and “the Blight”, you might be able to overlook it, but there is also a secondary character named “Sammael” in DAO.
That’s one of the main “Forsaken” characters in WoT, and an unusual spelling that combines some traditional iconic christian-lore names into a new one. The spelling is identical in DAO.
I would be surprised if BioWare is not sued by Jordan’s estate; Unless they have a usage agreement – which is possible.
The fact is there are many similarities between DAO and WoT as pointed out by the OP.
But…there are also many similarities between LOTR and WoT and as wotthef pointed out WoT and Arthurian legend.
A familiar plot to market to consumers. We have been swallowing since Tolkien put quill to paper.
Final words:
You have to be totally single minded to believe that DAO and WoT have no similarities at all. Good luck in life.