The Five Grades

How a work handles what it borrowed. DECLARED — it names its sources on the page (Moore, Morrison). VISIBLE — the material is plainly on screen and unclaimed, or disclaimed (Evangelion). NAME ONLY — a word taken, with no system behind it (Sephiroth of Final Fantasy VII). INVENTED — a wholly new esotericism built from nothing (Cultist Simulator). NATIVE — it never came through the fork at all (the Five Percenters, Sun Ra).

⚠ And the grades are not a ranking, which is the mistake everybody makes with this material. DECLARED is the most honest, not the best; INVENTED is frequently the most interesting thing an artist can do; and NAME ONLY has moved more people than either. A borrowing is not a theft and an accurate borrowing is not automatically a virtue. What the grade measures is one narrow thing: whether the work tells you where it got that.