Thread: Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown a Plagiarist ?

Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown a Plagiarist ?

First of all for all those who are not familiar with the word Plagiarist:

dictionary.com defines Plagiarism as :

the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work. A plagiarist is One who plagiarizes.

We all know that "The Da Vinci Code" in one of the most successful and controversial books ever. I am not going in details about the facts, claims and summary of the book. So, this article is probably for those who are familiar with this book or at least the movie.

Dan Brown stood accused of plagiarism, breach of copyright, for stealing the ideas, facts and claims contained in the not so famous book 'The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'

- authored by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh took this matter to the court.

source: The Da Vinci Code Case

Dan Brown denied that he was influenced by The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Dan Brown termed The Da Vinci Code as original historic research while the views of Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh was that no-one could write a novel based on any research.


source: The Da Vinci Code Case

The court seemed amazed that they brought the case and the verdict was in favour of Dan Brown at first.

When this book(holy blood holy grail) came to public attention because of this case, it was easy to see that

Dan Brown drew heavily on the work that the Holy Grail is not a vessel, or rather is a vessel, but a very special vessel, The Mary Magdalene, that she married Jesus, that she escaped from the Holy Land with her children

and so on - I am not mentioning all the points here.

source: The Da Vinci Code Case

The readers of Da Vinci Code would be very familiar with the character - Sir Leigh Teabing - the character who outlines the background highlighted above.

Here comes the most interesting part of this article:

Sir Leigh Teabing is an anagram of Baigent and Leigh(the authors of The holy blood and the holy grail).

The forename is very clearly taken from the name of Richard Leigh

The surname - Teabing is arranged from the same set of letters as in Baigent. Look carefully.

Did Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh fabricate the entire story, in other words it was a work of fiction, hence their annoyance that someone else has a runaway success with 'their' novel? Is this why Dan Brown has as his villain, Sir Leigh Teabing, an anagram of Baigent and Leigh?

source : The Da Vinci Code Case

The judge gave both Baigent & Brown short shrifts and the issue ended with mutual understanding between the authors of the two books. the co-author of "the holy blood and holy grail" - Henry Lincoln who was not a part of the case as his name was not used as an anagram is still against this mutual understanding.

So, was this a deliberate act by authors of both the books in consensus because this event really proved to be beneficial for the book "the holy blood and the holy grail" and it gained huge attention all over the world.

I wrote this article based on the documentary movie "Behind the Da Vinci Code" which I saw on History Channel a few months ago and some research on the internet. I tried to keep this article as short as possible as people who are not familiar with the book won't be able to understand it. You can find more details about this incident on the internet.

Thanks

Plz add some reputation points for me and rate the thread if you liked it.

Copy/paste is allowed by then you must quote the article in QUOTE tags and provide URL source. The Da Vinci Code Case

Originally Posted by just4kix

Copy/paste is allowed by then you must quote the article in QUOTE tags and provide URL source. The Da Vinci Code Case

common... i am still in the process of editing this article - it has been hardly a few minutes that i have submitted it ... you should allow some more time at least ... there are more things which i am adding and will of course provide all the links ... and one a few statements are copy pasted here ... i wrote the entire article myself -

very disappointed - i have been creating this article for the last 2 hours - and i am still in the process of editing it and you know i provide links for every line, every bit i copy from other sites ... i was doing just that ...

as a few lines were taken in between the entire text from that site - it took time for me to exactly quote all the stuff taken from there - i think when you were moving this thread here i was doing just the quoting part using the edit feature.

plz plz plz - move this article to its original thread - i really put in lot of effort in this article - this is very disheartening.

hey saurav can you please tell me what is a Plagiarist

Well, In my view both are peices of fiction that masquerade as
history, misleading people to think that was what actually happened.

-F

@admin/mods

Thanks a lot for letting these thread back here.

Originally Posted by farce

Well, In my view both are peices of fiction that masquerade as
history, misleading people to think that was what actually happened.

-F

well, i think this discussion this beyond the scope of me and you writing here on this forum. so do you disagree with all the facts these books put up? i know this itself is the biggest controversy with these books, but don't you agree with any of the claims made in these books. though i havent yet read "Holy Blood Holy Grail" yet, i know the similarities and differences between these two books

Originally Posted by amitkool21

hey saurav can you please tell me what is a Plagiarist

refer to the first few lines of the article.

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

refer to the first few lines of the article.

sorry sorry..........i thought i need to 1st understand what the topic is than start read the article..........now after reading the topic i'll post my opinions tonight..........

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

i think this discussion this beyond the scope of me and you writing here on this forum. so do you disagree with all the facts these books put up?

To be honest I didn't read the book. I watched the movie.

which 'facts' are you referring to?

-F
p.s nothing is beyond the scope of discussion ;-)

Originally Posted by farce

To be honest I didn't read the book. I watched the movie.

which 'facts' are you referring to?

-F
p.s nothing is beyond the scope of discussion ;-)

claim no.1 and the most controversial one:

Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child

do you agree with it?


actually i am not willing to discuss these claims and facts here coz they might be controversial and i am not quite sure whether it is allowed according to the rules of the forum - i may end up getting an infraction.

i will tell you one thing - i also don't agree with most of the claims and facts of the book but there are definitely some which i agree with.

there are people with two kinds of opinion about this book - 1) who believe in these facts and claims 2) who dont believe(not necessarily critics)

according to me 1) those who don't believe take it as fiction and 2) those who believe take it as facts


what are your opinions about this episode - i mean the basic story of this article?

I read the book .... Only watched half the movie ,it was so crappy i could nt watch it fully ......

I dont think Dan Brown is a plagiarist .... simply because of the fact that he s an excellent writer ....

People acussing him of plagiarism have conveniently forgotten the other books he has written like "Digital Fortress" ... "Angels and Demons" ... "Deception Point" etc etc

I had been reading Dan Brown's books way before he wrote 'The Da Vinci Code' and i remember that every single of his books were a hit ..... And having extensively read many books from many fiction authors myself , i ll rate him as one of the best story makers of all time ... His plots are truly thrilling without any loop holes [unlike that of say Sydney Sheldon]....

The other books are stories based on different subjects and in different timelines .....

There is nothing wrong in 2 authors writing about the same subject ..... it does nt mean one has copied the other !

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

claim no.1 and the most controversial one:

Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child

do you agree with it?

^ Actually Dan Brown does nt claim that the above statement is true

Wikipedia quote
Brown states on his website that he is a Christian[2] and says of his book The Da Vinci Code that it is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith"

quote in his book "The Dav Vinci Code"
all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"

1. He only claims that the Artwork[Paintings] /Architecture[Buildings] / Documents[Historical manuscripts] / Secret Rituals [Self explanatory] are true

2.There are many controversial ideas in the books like Jesus having married and Having a heir and of a secret society having great members such as "Sir Issac Newton" having existed tasked with the job of protecting the Hier line of Jesus....These Controversial claims existed before Dan Brown wrote the book , and he simply used it in his book .... But he clearly claims that they are a work of fiction [refer first quote]

Originally Posted by ShAdOwCoN

I read the book .... Only watched half the movie ,it was so crappy i could nt watch it fully ......

I dont think Dan Brown is a plagiarist .... simply because of the fact that he s an excellent writer ....

People acussing him of plagiarism have conveniently forgotten the other books he has written like "Digital Fortress" ... "Angels and Demons" ... "Deception Point" etc etc

I had been reading Dan Brown's books way before he wrote 'The Da Vinci Code' and i remember that every single of his books were a hit ..... And having extensively read many books from many fiction authors myself , i ll rate him as one of the best story makers of all time ... His plots are truly thrilling without any loop holes [unlike that of say Sydney Sheldon]....

The other books are stories based on different subjects and in different timelines .....

There is nothing wrong in 2 authors writing about the same subject ..... it does nt mean one has copied the other !

i also don't see him as a plagiarist, thats why i put that question mark in the title. but what about the anagram of the names i mentioned in the article? do you think they were just coincidental? i don't at all think so. may be it was a sign of respect for the authors of the book from where he took some ideas - ideas which dan brown presented as claims and facts and also claimed that these are absolutely original and never ever found by anyone. but these were for the first time said in "the holy blood and the holy grail". but if at all it was a sign of respect - he wouldnt have named the villain of his book after them - he did this sarcastically in an art of which he is expert (i.e. code language).

Actually he is not an expert in code language ..... He makes a lot of research before writing a story , in this case taking advice from Professional Cryptanalysts and Cryptographers ...

He even took advice from 2 anonymous Intelligence ex-officials From NSA [A highly secret intelligence organization in US]

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

but what about the anagram of the names i mentioned in the article? do you think they were just coincidental? i don't at all think so. may be it was a sign of respect for the authors of the book from where he took some ideas - ideas which dan brown presented as claims and facts and also claimed that these are absolutely original and never ever found by anyone. but these were for the first time said in "the holy blood and the holy grail". but if at all it was a sign of respect - he wouldnt have named the villain of his book after them - he did this sarcastically

what are ur opinions on this part of my post?

Originally Posted by ShAdOwCoN

He even took advice from 2 anonymous Intelligence ex-officials From NSA [A highly secret intelligence organization in US]

NSA is jokingly also known as No Such Agency

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

what are ur opinions on this part of my post?

Dan Brown obviously does nt reveal in "The Da Vinci Code" That he used anagrams of names of some other people ... so i was not aware of its existence ... I have nt seen that Documentary from the History Channel

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

claim no.1 and the most controversial one:

Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a child

do you agree with it?

No, I don't agree. There is no proof of that.

-F

Originally Posted by ShAdOwCoN

Dan Brown obviously does nt reveal in "The Da Vinci Code" That he used anagrams of names of some other people ... so i was not aware of its existence ... I have nt seen that Documentary from the History Channel

you dont need to see the documentary for this. This is the main thing which i explained in the article ... see the bolded parts in the middle of the article. i just wanted to know what are your opinions on this. can this thing be totally coincidental ?

Originally Posted by saurav_kataruka

Here comes the most interesting part of this article:

Sir Leigh Teabing is an anagram of Baigent and Leigh(the authors of The holy blood and the holy grail).

The forename is very clearly taken from the name of Richard Leigh

The surname - Teabing is arranged from the same set of letters as in Baigent. Look carefully.

... i am just talking about this part.

Is that the only Anagram used ?

It does sound like a funny name tho

Originally Posted by cool_techie_tvm

The other three lines of Saunière's blood message are anagrams. The first line are the digits of the Fibonacci sequence out of order. The second and third lines ("O, Draconian devil!" and "Oh, lame saint!") are anagrams respectively for "Leonardo da Vinci" and "The Mona Lisa" (written in English, because her grandfather did everything with her in English). These clues were meant to lead to a second set of clues. On the glass over the Mona Lisa, Saunière wrote the message "So dark the con of Man" with a curator's pen that can only be read in ultra-violet light. This clue is an anagram for Madonna of the Rocks, another Da Vinci painting hanging nearby. Behind this painting, Saunière hid a key. By deciphering her grandfather's clues, Neveu finds the key. On the key, written with the curator's pen, is an address. Working together, Langdon and Neveu trick the police, flee the scene and figure out the secret of the key.

Taken from The Da Vinci Code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know what those anagrams are [and the story too] ! ...... Those anagrams are a part of the
plot ..Did nt i say i have read the book already !!

I was asking for anagrams of Fiction Author/Book names regarding the same subject ,he may have hidden in his story

i am not sure about more anagrams but there are certainly some more analogies between these two books.

During the closing week of the trial BBC Radio 4 broadcast three extracts from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Listening to these readings, it is easy to see that Dan Brown drew heavily on the work that the Holy Grail is not a vessel, or rather is a vessel, but a very special vessel, The Mary Magdalene, that she married Jesus, that she escaped from the Holy Land with her children, that these formed a Holy Blood Line in France, this can be interpreted from how one divides the Old French words San gréal or Sang réal, the first being Holy Grail, the latter Royal Blood, the Priory of Sion being an inner circle inside the Knights Templar established to protect this bloodline, famous names being Grand Masters, hidden wealth in an obscure part of France, links with churches dedicated to Mary Magdalene and so on.

On top of this, Dan Brown weaves his magic as a story teller, the modern day Grand Masters, the hunt by our heroes, the clues left by Leonardo Da Vinci and so on.

Curiously, Dan Brown denies being influenced by The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, having only given it a cursory glance, then having put it down as impossible to read.

There is is no mention in The Da Vinci Code of the 'mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau', the first extract broadcast on BBC Radio 4, although curiously, why use the surname Sauniere?

There were exchanges in October about why Mr Brown chose the surname Sauniere and why he chose the surname Teabing.

It is self evident that Mr Brown looked at The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail before The Da Vinci Code was finished - he accepts that.

It is equally self evident that Blythe Brown looked at it extensively.

The original copy as disclosed contains numerous annotations and markings mostly by her, but also by Mr Brown. Of all the books used it is the most heavily annotated.

I have already observed the anagram in the name Teabing as being another example of how The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was clearly in the mind of Mr Brown when he finalised his book.

source:The Da Vinci Code Case

Have read both books but only a few facts are there. Both have wholly different stories.Some of the facts presented are same.

This book have more facts :-
Baigent, Michael & Leigh, Richard - The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception.

His books are pure fiction, blended and based on history, religion, etc. But the debate is about plagiarization.

No , its not a plagiarism as I have written both have different plot & story. Some similarity are bound to happen as both deal with same topic.

Originally Posted by Luke Skywalker

No , its not a plagiarism as I have written both have different plot & story. Some similarity are bound to happen as both deal with same topic.

You have written?

Yeah I have written.

Originally Posted by Luke Skywalker

Have read both books but only a few facts are there. Both have wholly different stories.Some of the facts presented are same.

This book have more facts :-
Baigent, Michael & Leigh, Richard - The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception.