Rip-off

I wrote a long time ago about originality, and how much it is valued in today's world despite how nearly impossible it is to have any. The opinions that I held at that time haven't overly changed, though looking back I feel that my thoughts on the topic have evolved, and how I expressed it back then was somewhat poor. I don't know that what I have to say now will be much better, but I'd like to take a second shot at it.

I have played a lot of games, read a lot of books, and watched a lot of movies that were described to me as rip-offs of others in their media. And while many times I agreed with those sentiments and disliked them, there have been many other times that I actually enjoyed that "rip-off" more than what it was supposedly ripping off. There is certainly something to be said for lifting elements from something to use as your own, but it's a balancing act, like most other things in writing. It's not about what you take - it's about how you use it.

Some of my favorite games lift all kinds of aspects from each other, but they use them in unique and exciting ways, and they consistently feel fun when you put a fresh coat of paint on them. I have read dozens of books - mostly young adult - which follow the same basic story, with the same basic premise, and each of them is fascinating because of the individual characters, how they act, how they think, and how they react to the world around them. It's not the overarching story that creates something wonderful - it's each of the individual moving pieces, weaving a tapestry with the same materials in their own ways, creating beautiful and unique pieces of art.

But people will point at each of those individual pieces, saying that that one piece is clearly lifted from something else, and therefore the piece as a whole is bad. Making massive leaps without seeing the other pieces, and how they work together to build upon each other and make advancements that each piece could not have done on their own.

It's a shame to throw something aside without seeing all that it has to offer, simply because one piece of it is not to your liking. I won't pretend like I haven't been subject to this, of course, but I try to at least understand. With time, I have tried many things that I did not like, and many things that I did not think I would like, and I have been surprised many times over - and that's a pattern I plan to continue in to the future. Because I don't want to shut things down for being rip-offs before they even come out - which is something I see all too often.