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zelda_queenProjection Room Voices: How on Earth did you get a hold of this?
ZeldaQueen: I has connections. Just put it up
Projection Room Voices: If you say so. Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Starting Information
ZeldaQueen: Hooo boy! Have I got a doozy for you, dear viewers!
For any of you who keep up with the various Harry Potter lawsuits, you'll already be familiar with the book (and I use that term loosely) The Legend of Rah and the Muggles. For those of you who aren't, well just pull up a chair and find out.
This piece of work was first published in 1984 by one Nancy Stouffer, who also wrote and illustrated the thing. If any of you can't remember hearing about it then, small wonder. This thing is bad. REALLY bad. Even if you keep in mind that it's a children's book and a fantasy, there's a lot of stuff in it that's just boring and makes no sense. So of course it went out of print.
Now normally, that would have been the last anyone heard of the thing. Except for one little problem - the term "muggle". Rowling of course used it in her Harry Potter series, as a term for non-magical folk. Stouffer, as it turned out, also put it in her work. She launched what was possibly one of the dumbest lawsuits around (and I'm counting the woman who sued McDonalds for not warning her that the coffee she bought was hot), not only because her claim was rather baseless (her muggles are tiny, humanoid creatures that are quite magical, not even remotely like Rowling's), but it turned out that she "perpetrated a fraud on the Court through her submission of fraudulent documents as well as through her untruthful testimony". So not only did she engage in a baseless lawsuit, but she committed fraud in the process and was fined $50,000. Epic fail.
Oh, and another part of the lawsuit was that she also published a children's workbook titled Larry Potter and His Best Friend Lilly, which are in no way connected to The Legend of Rah. This is the title of said workbook
ZeldaQueen: Draw your own conclusions.
So, let's kick off by examining the cover and information on the flaps of the book! (Incidentally, I apologize for the rather dry title for this section. I would have called it "Introduction", but the book itself has an Introduction, so yeah...)
Well, we start off with the cover, which apparently Stouffer herself drew. To her credit, by the way, the cover art and the various twelve pages of illustrations given are pretty nice. Not really worth getting one's panties in such a twist though
ZeldaQueen: Note how she put "The Original Muggles" at the top and trademarked both the word "muggles" and "Rah". That's going to be a running theme here, how protective she is of the terms. I'd chalk it up to paranoia over copyright theft, if one didn't get the feeling that she was simply following the "No Such Thing As Bad Publicity" school of thought.
You also might note how the author put down her name as "N.K. Stouffer" instead of "Nancy Stouffer". Yes, the woman is utterly shameless.
So, onward to the information in the cover flaps! We start off with the price of course, and if any of you are wondering, this piece of work cost $19.95 in the United States and $29.95 in Canada. Keep this in mind when you see the actual quality of the story proper (Thankfully, I myself didn't pay for this book. My brother found out that one of his teachers owned it and borrowed it for me).
Next is the story summary. We start off being told how this was originally published in 1984 and distributed to the mass market in 1987. That, by the way, is because Stouffer self-published the thing. Also, please take note that 1987 was also when Ande Publishing Company (which published portions of this book in booklet form and which was founded by Stouffer and several of her friends) went bankrupt in September of 1987. Huh. The flap here also tells us that this is the first tale in a "trilogy and subsequent series about the real Muggles", however so far as I know, any planned sequels were aborted owing to the...less than warm reception of this first book. Keep this in mind when we see the various set up events which later go absolutely nowhere.
Right off the bat, Stouffer starts knocking us over the head with how she's the one who invented the concept of muggles, thank you very much. She starts off with telling us how she came up with the muggles and the world they lived in, a place called Aura, which is kept in darkness by a "purple haze" I'm sure Jimmy Hendrix would be proud. Anyway, she goes on to give a huge infodump in the book summary, mind you, which I'm going to skip because otherwise I won't have anything to spork in the actual story.
We then get information on the author, in which we are yet again reminded that Stouffer is the creator of "The Real Muggles(TM)" (trademark is her's, not mine). She also says that she wrote the Larry and Lilly Potter books and is an "accomplished" artist, poet, screenwriter, songwriter, and toy designer. Specifically, she says that she has written more than six series of children's books, two books of children's poetry, a screenplay (along with the music and lyrics in said screenplay), and designed and developed toys and dolls. I personally can't find any info on any of this stuff online and she doesn't give names for her work, so yeah...
Finally, inside of the first page, we get a list of the various terms that've been trademarked. These are "muggle", "muggles", "muggle-bye", "The Legend of RAH and the MUGGLES" (her capitalization, not mine), "muggledome", "muggleplication" (sensing a pattern here?), "shadow monsters", "nevil", "nevils", "nardles", "greeblies", "Nadie and Neddie Spooners of the Deep", "Winkle", "Elders", "Rah", and "Zyn". I'm personally really hoping that those last ones were meant to trademark the actual things in her book and not those specific words, because I find it hard to believe that someone could be so stupid as to think that they were the first person to come up with "winkle" or "elders". Doubly so for "Rah" which is, you know, the name of the freaking Egyptian sun god!
And with that, we begin the actual story!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Onward to: Introductions
Back to: Table of Contents
ZeldaQueen: I has connections. Just put it up
Projection Room Voices: If you say so. Starting Media in 3...2...1...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting Information
ZeldaQueen: Hooo boy! Have I got a doozy for you, dear viewers!
For any of you who keep up with the various Harry Potter lawsuits, you'll already be familiar with the book (and I use that term loosely) The Legend of Rah and the Muggles. For those of you who aren't, well just pull up a chair and find out.
This piece of work was first published in 1984 by one Nancy Stouffer, who also wrote and illustrated the thing. If any of you can't remember hearing about it then, small wonder. This thing is bad. REALLY bad. Even if you keep in mind that it's a children's book and a fantasy, there's a lot of stuff in it that's just boring and makes no sense. So of course it went out of print.
Now normally, that would have been the last anyone heard of the thing. Except for one little problem - the term "muggle". Rowling of course used it in her Harry Potter series, as a term for non-magical folk. Stouffer, as it turned out, also put it in her work. She launched what was possibly one of the dumbest lawsuits around (and I'm counting the woman who sued McDonalds for not warning her that the coffee she bought was hot), not only because her claim was rather baseless (her muggles are tiny, humanoid creatures that are quite magical, not even remotely like Rowling's), but it turned out that she "perpetrated a fraud on the Court through her submission of fraudulent documents as well as through her untruthful testimony". So not only did she engage in a baseless lawsuit, but she committed fraud in the process and was fined $50,000. Epic fail.
Oh, and another part of the lawsuit was that she also published a children's workbook titled Larry Potter and His Best Friend Lilly, which are in no way connected to The Legend of Rah. This is the title of said workbook
ZeldaQueen: Draw your own conclusions.
So, let's kick off by examining the cover and information on the flaps of the book! (Incidentally, I apologize for the rather dry title for this section. I would have called it "Introduction", but the book itself has an Introduction, so yeah...)
Well, we start off with the cover, which apparently Stouffer herself drew. To her credit, by the way, the cover art and the various twelve pages of illustrations given are pretty nice. Not really worth getting one's panties in such a twist though
ZeldaQueen: Note how she put "The Original Muggles" at the top and trademarked both the word "muggles" and "Rah". That's going to be a running theme here, how protective she is of the terms. I'd chalk it up to paranoia over copyright theft, if one didn't get the feeling that she was simply following the "No Such Thing As Bad Publicity" school of thought.
You also might note how the author put down her name as "N.K. Stouffer" instead of "Nancy Stouffer". Yes, the woman is utterly shameless.
So, onward to the information in the cover flaps! We start off with the price of course, and if any of you are wondering, this piece of work cost $19.95 in the United States and $29.95 in Canada. Keep this in mind when you see the actual quality of the story proper (Thankfully, I myself didn't pay for this book. My brother found out that one of his teachers owned it and borrowed it for me).
Next is the story summary. We start off being told how this was originally published in 1984 and distributed to the mass market in 1987. That, by the way, is because Stouffer self-published the thing. Also, please take note that 1987 was also when Ande Publishing Company (which published portions of this book in booklet form and which was founded by Stouffer and several of her friends) went bankrupt in September of 1987. Huh. The flap here also tells us that this is the first tale in a "trilogy and subsequent series about the real Muggles", however so far as I know, any planned sequels were aborted owing to the...less than warm reception of this first book. Keep this in mind when we see the various set up events which later go absolutely nowhere.
Right off the bat, Stouffer starts knocking us over the head with how she's the one who invented the concept of muggles, thank you very much. She starts off with telling us how she came up with the muggles and the world they lived in, a place called Aura, which is kept in darkness by a "purple haze" I'm sure Jimmy Hendrix would be proud. Anyway, she goes on to give a huge infodump in the book summary, mind you, which I'm going to skip because otherwise I won't have anything to spork in the actual story.
We then get information on the author, in which we are yet again reminded that Stouffer is the creator of "The Real Muggles(TM)" (trademark is her's, not mine). She also says that she wrote the Larry and Lilly Potter books and is an "accomplished" artist, poet, screenwriter, songwriter, and toy designer. Specifically, she says that she has written more than six series of children's books, two books of children's poetry, a screenplay (along with the music and lyrics in said screenplay), and designed and developed toys and dolls. I personally can't find any info on any of this stuff online and she doesn't give names for her work, so yeah...
Finally, inside of the first page, we get a list of the various terms that've been trademarked. These are "muggle", "muggles", "muggle-bye", "The Legend of RAH and the MUGGLES" (her capitalization, not mine), "muggledome", "muggleplication" (sensing a pattern here?), "shadow monsters", "nevil", "nevils", "nardles", "greeblies", "Nadie and Neddie Spooners of the Deep", "Winkle", "Elders", "Rah", and "Zyn". I'm personally really hoping that those last ones were meant to trademark the actual things in her book and not those specific words, because I find it hard to believe that someone could be so stupid as to think that they were the first person to come up with "winkle" or "elders". Doubly so for "Rah" which is, you know, the name of the freaking Egyptian sun god!
And with that, we begin the actual story!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Onward to: Introductions
Back to: Table of Contents
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-20 03:26 pm (UTC)And "Larry Potter and His Best Friend Lilly?" Wow. Just...wow.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-20 03:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-01 07:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-01 07:49 pm (UTC)Do you know where I can see a picture of that cover? Now I'm all curious. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-01 07:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-01 08:41 pm (UTC)Dear lord, Stouffer is shameless. -_-
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-01 09:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-20 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-21 12:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-24 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-24 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-30 01:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-30 03:46 am (UTC)Wow.
Date: 2011-04-09 05:24 pm (UTC)To me, the whole thing smacks of someone who is so painfully conscious of their own mediocrity, that they'll try anything to convince themselves and the world at large of the contrary. Sad, really. Well, looks like this sporking will be a treat.
(On a side note, Larry and Lilly? Look like the kind of... things... that would've made me afraid to go to sleep as a child. Not a good sign, for a kids' book.)
Re: Wow.
Date: 2011-04-10 02:23 am (UTC)Yeah...those two are creeeeeeepy.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-26 07:12 am (UTC)McDonald's had been warned for some time that their coffee was hotter than safety standards allowed. When that woman spilled it on herself, her burns were so bad that she ended up spending over $200,000 in medical bills. Also, she sued only for the cost of her medical bills. It was the jury who decided she deserved more and that a point needed to be made. That case really doesn't deserve to be the go-to example whenever someone brings up frivalous lawsuits.
So much fail in the intro alone......
Date: 2015-10-13 02:05 am (UTC)As atrocious as the writing is, the content of this story also just plain confuses me. The introduction/prologue, in my opinion, is totally unnecessary because it adds little to the story in terms of world building; and it’s not like the average six year old (This WAS supposed to be a kid’s story, amirite??) is going to be riveted by these descriptions of international politics anyway!
I do find it rather pathetic, though, that Stouffer reissued the books under the NK Stouffer name and even used the Harry Potter font. C’mon, Stouffer, you’re not even trying, seriously…..
On another note, Stouffer’s muggles are totally going to be haunting my nightmares for the next week or so.
Re: So much fail in the intro alone......
Date: 2015-10-13 11:02 pm (UTC)Yeah, Stouffer really played it up for all she could. I sporked an "interview" she did (she conveniently didn't say WHO the interview was with) on her website, and she spent most of that talking about how her own books teach Good, Wholesome values, and heavily implying that the Harry Potter books caused their fans to be Immoral Degenerates.