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  • Harry Potter:
    • J. K. Rowling mentioned in an interview that after she saw the first Harry Potter, her own mental image of Snape changed to resemble Alan Rickman, which would then affect the way he's described in the later books. This applied to the chapter illustrations in the American versions as well. Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix had portraits of Snape as balding and with a goatee, but Half-Blood Prince showed him with long black hair and no facial hair, just like in the movies.
    • In a smaller example the sixth book mentions an incident from three books earlier when Hermione punched Malfoy, even though she only punched him in the movie (in the book she slapped him).
  • Similarly, both Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse) and Ruth Rendell (Inspector Wexford) have said their mental images of their detectives were dramatically affected by the TV adaptations. Reprints of the novels changed Morse's car from a Lancia to the Jaguar he drove in the TV show.
  • Thomas Harris has been quoted as saying this is exactly why he never watched the movie adaptation of his novel The Silence of the Lambs; not because he disapproved of it, but because he didn't want Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lecter shading the character's portrayal in the sequels.
  • This is also Terry Pratchett's official reason for not reading Discworld Fan Fiction, along with the legal ramifications that can come with an unintentional (or coincidental) Ret-Canon.
  • In the same vein, John le CarrĂ© stopped writing the novels built around George Smiley and the Circus in the early 1980s since, after several wildly popular TV adaptations, he kept seeing Alec Guinness when he wrote the character.
  • In the early Sharpe novels, Sharpe is a Londoner. Following the TV series, later books reveal he fled to Yorkshire as a teenager, where he presumably picked up Sean Bean's accent.
  • After Dr. No was released and made ridiculous amounts of money for all involved, Ian Fleming gave James Bond Scottish ancestry (rather ironic, considering he considered Sean Connery a bad choice for the role at first).
  • In Craig Thomas' novel Firefox, the titular fighter craft was originally nothing more than a MiG-25 Foxbat augmented with state of the art technology. After Clint Eastwood's 1982 movie adaptation came out with its iconic superfighter design, subsequent republishing of the novel would use the movie version of the Firefox to depict the craft. In addition, Thomas changed the description of the plane in the sequel novel Firefox Down to match the new appearance.
    • The Firefox (both the plane and movie plot) is actually an Expy of the 'MiG-242' from an episode of Gerry Anderson's puppet series 'Joe 90'.
  • The original novel of House Of Cards ends with Francis Urquhart's death. This was changed in the TV adaptation, enabling sequels. The two sequels to the novel (both adapted for TV later) are based on the TV ending. Also, Urquhart's wife in the first book is named Miranda and is not a co-conspirator. The sequels have an Elizabeth based on the TV character. (Oddly, the 2013 rewrite of the novel, while using the TV ending, changes Miranda's name to Mortima for some reason.)
  • Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey originally had the mission going to Saturn. It was changed in the films as they couldn't get the rings right, and that change crept into all subsequent adaptations. (This is a bit of a sidewise example, though. The movie is not an adaptation of the novel, nor vice versa— they were developed in parallel.)
  • At the end of Jurassic Park (1990), Ian Malcolm dies. He survives in the movie, and in the sequel to the book he is the protagonist. On the flip side, several characters who survived in the book but were killed in the movie adaptation are mentioned in The Lost World (1995) book sequel as having died from assorted natural causes some time after escaping the island. The only major exception to this is Hammond, who stayed dead in the books and alive in the movies.
    • Robert Muldoon is about the only character who survived in the book and died in the movie without being killed off. He doesn't make an appearance (or is even mentioned aside from namedropping of all the survivors) in the sequel, though.
  • Other than the basic premise of "cartoon characters are real and live side-by-side with humans" and four important characters (Eddie Valiant, Roger and Jessica Rabbit, and Baby Herman), there are almost no similarities between the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? and the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. However, the author liked the movie much more than he'd liked his own novel (and recognized that the movie was much more popular and would thus more likely be in readers' minds), and when he wrote a sequel, Who Plugged Roger Rabbit?, he followed up the movie's continuity, not the book's (which was even handwaved away as being All Just a Dream). About the only things carried forward from the first book into the sequels that weren't from the movie were the concept of Toons talking in comic-strip speech bubbles... and Roger's height.
  • Martin Caidin's Marooned featured a Project Mercury mission. Later editions matched up with the movie and featured an Apollo-style spacecraft.
  • The original "Snow White" fairy tale does not have her being awakened by a kiss; that was an addition by Disney. Instead, the apple was dislodged from Snow White's throat when the prince's servants dropped the glass coffin. It's rare to see a "Snow White" adaption that doesn't include it now, even ones that attempt to go back to The Brothers Grimm story.
  • While Roald Dahl ultimately disowned the first movie adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which he wrote the original script for, but it was substantially rewritten by David Seltzer), he did work the phrase "Strike that, reverse it" into Willy Wonka's dialogue in the book's sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. The phrase becomes a recurring one in the 2013 stage musical adaptation of Factory in a sort of merging of this trope and Internal Homage.
  • The novelisation of the Doctor Who story "Shada", written long after the new series was underway, ports various elements from the new series back into an Adaptation Expansion of a Tom Baker story. For instance, the novel restructures everything around a rather new-series-like romance between Chris and Clare, who were mere Implied Love Interests in the original, and other romantic and sexual elements are added (Skagra's behaviour towards Romana in the book is clearly because he has a crush on her, and the Doctor talks a Sapient Ship who falls in love with him into having The Immodest Orgasm - something he definitely would not have been allowed to do in the 70s). There is a reference to the Corsair, a Gender Bender character mentioned by the Eleventh Doctor, and Skagra and the Ship gain a lot of ironic Classic Who Fan Dumb traits in an affectionate Take That, Audience! sort of fashion, when the show at that time was not that self-aware. The Victim of the Week is also characterised in a new-series-like, Russell T. Davies-Pastiche way as a socially awkward gay man struggling with his own ordinary family life with his mother before the villain unexpectedly steals his brain.
  • The Type One vampires seen in The Dark Tower are specifically based on the redesign of Kurt Barlow from the 1979 live-action 'Salem's Lot mini-series.
  • Land of Oz:
    • The loose Land of Oz adaptation The Wizard of Oz (1902) was written by L. Frank Baum himself. Thus, elements of it were reused in the books later. Dorothy's surname Gale was canonized in Ozma of Oz and future books canonized the Tin Woodsman's name "Niccolo Chopper" as "Nick Chopper".
    • The Marvelous Land of Oz refers to Ozma as a "ruddy blonde with hints of gold" (which refers to either strawberry blonde or auburn). The illustrations of the next book, Ozma of Oz, depicts her with brown hair. Virtually every adaptation has her as dark haired and several "Famous Forty" writers refer to her as either brown or black haired.
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  • Warrior Cats: Aside from being called golden eyed in an early book, Dovewing was consistently blue eyed until Shattered Sky. Despite this, every illustration depicted her with green eyes. Shattered Sky retconned her design to fit the illustrations, so she is officially green eyed.
  • The song "The Hanging Tree" is a very small part of The Hunger Games, and has no real plot relevance. It, however, becomes a huge part of the film adaptations, and we actually see its contents unravelling in the prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
  • Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Sword arts instructor Luther Garland wasn't described in great detail in the original novel of volume 1: he's said to be in his thirties, handsome, wears a white robe, and has the gait of a skilled fighter. He ended up first being pictured in the manga adaptation by Sakae Esuno, and novel illustrator Ruria Miyuki liked the design so much she declared it canon; it's been his official appearance ever since.

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