In Fiction
(i) Two different characters might have the same name. (It has happened.)
(ii) Different characters might have very similar names. Britain has had John Steed and John Steel and the US has had John Steele.
(iii) Different versions of a single character might have only their name in common. The British, not the American, Falcon lost the flying suit (see image) and became an ordinary investigator, more like Yates' Falcon - although there is no direct connection between these two investigative Falcons.
Thus, fiction is a sort of spectrum encompassing many similar characters but with vast dissimilarities at either end. And, if I can think of any more bizarre comparisons to make, then I will let you know.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I too tried to find some real world Falkayns, but all I found was an Australian gentleman named Angus McDonald using "Falkayn" as the name for one of his blogs. And a "David Falkayn" was writing fanfic at another blog.
And JRR Tolkien was delighted when a REAL Sam Gamgee wrote to him after finding out another Sam Gamgee was a major character in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Tolkien presented the real Sam Gamgee with an imscribed copy of LOTR.
And of course S.M. Stirling occasionally made use of Dominic Flandry's name in some of his own stories.
Sean
Sean,
The best such story is that the real, original James Bond arrived unannounced for afternoon tea at Ian Fleming's place in Jamaica - fully justified, in my opinion.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Esp. if the real James Bond was the actual spy, and who had somehow arrived on our world from an alternate universe where the Bond stories were real! Or even, more prosaically, merely someone in our timeline a named James Bond. I would like to think Ian Fleming would be pleased, either way!
Sean
Sean,
The original and real James Bond was an American ornithologist who has his own Wikipedia article. Fleming appropriated his name as I understood without asking permission although see the Wikipedia article.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I had not known that, and I will look up the original James Bond. I THOUGHT Fleming simply chose that name for his spy without realizing there was a real James Bond. If alive at the time, it would have been courteous of Fleming to first obtain consent for using the name.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
According to the Wikipedia article on the real James Bond, Fleming did write to him about using the name for his spy and the real Bond was "fine" with that. So consent was obtained, it seems.
Sean
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