Did J.K. Rowling STEAL Harry Potter (Rip-off? Plagiarism?!) 

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Now, there is a question "What did JKR come up with by herself?" and while it's not in the books, I'm almost sure she is the only one to come up with wizards shitting themselves and vanishing their poops as the norm.

Well I'm swedish, so Rowling would probably name me something like "Ikea Midsummer" Edit: You guys these names are killing me xD

I also loved that LeGuin called out Rowling for 1) not admitting she was influenced by other authors 2) Her writing tending to be mean spirited

A British boy with brown hair and round glasses, John Lennon?🤣

Tolkien literally created a language and she doesn't even want to credit him for the giant spiders and magic items that hide your soul

my favorite Rowling moment was when she told Jessie Gender that she should hate owls to be in tune with "groupthink". Do.. do you think you invented owls Joanne?

I don't remember where I learned this, but those round glasses are like government-provided glasses for those too poor to buy their own in the UK. So, it's not necessarily a copied cute character design, it's just British shorthand for looking poor 😂

An aspiring fantasy writer wrote her first book in a coffee shop next to Scotland’s largest comic book shop, and didn’t encounter Neil Gaiman’s work. Sure sounds totally plausible.

Can't believe the Nazis had the gall to rip off the villains from Harry Potter 😤

Don’t forget Wizards Hall, where a boy goes to magic school, makes friends, has magical hijinks, and defeats an evil wizard by finally believing in himself, published 1991

There's also a little known book called Groosham Grange by Anthony Horowitz. It's about an English Kid who lives in a punny English suburb with his comedically abusive family, until he gets a letter from a magic school, travels there by train and then boat. The school he attends is a castle, has a forbidden forest, and he has a smart girl and a goofy boy as his best friend. One of the evil teachers forces him to write in his own blood. They have a wheezy Filch-like caretaker. There's a character who loses his arm, and has it replaced with a silver one. And one of the teachers is a werewolf, and his name is Professor LeLupe. I remember reading it as a child, being utterly disgusted that this guy had essentially plagiarised Joanne's work...and then reading the publication date.

She was getting free coffee from HER BROTHER'S CAFE? She had someone paying her RENT? She was unemployed BY CHOICE?!? Holy fuck, I don't know why I'm even surprised anymore...

" I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the “incredible originality” of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a “school novel”, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited" - Ursula Le Guin absolutely bodying jorkin korkin rorkin

Don't forget the wonderful book "The Secret of Platform 13" by Eva Ibbotson, published 1994, where a forgotten door on an abandoned railway platform of King's Cross Station in London is the entrance to a magical kingdom. One of the main characters, Ben, lives in a cupboard. Ben is a boy of magical lineage who lives in an abusive house with a spoilt other child. The names "Hedwig" and "Hermione" were also in two of Eva Ibbotsons books

For anyone else who wants to add these to your reading lists: Neil Gaiman - The Books of Magic (1990) Ursula K. Le Guin - A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) Jill Murphy - The Worst Witch (series 1974-2018) Diane Duane - So You Want to Be a Wizard (1983) Mary Stewart - The Little Broomstick (1971) Terry Pratchett - Equal Rights (1987) Liz Truss - Ten Years to Save the West (2024) :)

I remember that Harry Potter was being touted as a miracle way to gets kids to read it before I got into it. My parents and the parents of most of the kids around me got their kids the Harry Potter books in response to the idea that it was a book that would get kids to read. I wouldn't say that there is no skill needed to make that kind of book, but the reason that this one did well and became a massive phenomenon was that a lot of kids read it at once. It was a group experience which made it do better than the myriad of other YA books that are comparable to it. Experiencing things with your friends and peers makes them a lot more fun. Harry Potter was fun when I was a kid, but there are a lot of books that could have slotted into its place. Millennials read more than any other generation, I don't think that's just the result of Harry Potter.

Englih person here: I went to a regular Comprehensive school. My school uniform was a white shirt with a striped tie, and we were split into Houses. It pisses me off when people give JK credit for "World Building" when it's just regular British Schools plus Fantasy Cliches.

I just discovered, via his lamentably not auto- biography, that Terry Pratchett was persuaded to rename a character because the name he picked had already been used by Rowling and leaving it the same would have been "asking for trouble". Moist von Lipwig was originally Moist von Hedwig, and that was intended as a reference to _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ which as we all know is a landmark piece of queer theatre and cinema. So in 2006, years before she came out as a transphobe, Rowling indirectly caused the erasure of a bit of queer representation. I just found that fitting, as well as irritating.

I wonder if part of what gave HP that attractive factor is just how open the margins were. Like, there was a good bit of basic world building, you got the fairly simplistic archetypal characters with a dash of charm. But there was just SO MUCH left utterly unexplored and uncommented on that it let reader's minds wander into filling it in themselves. It's kind of like the inverse of the common horror concept of keeping the monster hidden until you absolutely have to show it, because your audience will scare themselves more with their own imagination than anything you could make. Because even tho I was never IN the fandom (I was just a couple years too old and in my ornery teenager phase), something I've always noticed about the fans is how much they create and fill the space. It's definitely a community that is primarily supported by it's fanfic. And because the OG material is so loose, it is easily adapted into whatever style you want, from My Immortal to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Neil Gaiman said that Rowling was drawing off archetypes from The Once and Future King and not off The Books of Magic.

"Maybe she's not creative, you're just American" is an iconic line

I'm not sure about Rowling being a plagiarist but the fact HP is predated by the magic school genre as a whole does make it all the more frustrating when HP fans act like their politically regressive fantasy world that actively funds JKR's bigotry is their only means of escapism.

You missed ‘The Dark is Rising’ (1973) - the character of Will Stanton is an obvious Harry Potter precursor. Rowling has said that she was an avid reader as a child, and is roughly the same age as me. I was very aware of the series of books by Susan Cooper. They were a staple of children’s literature in the 70s and early 80s. I recommend them to anyone.

I don't know about a first name, but as a lesbian my last name in the Harry Potter universe would definitely have been either Van Dyke or just Dyke.

You missed Ursula K. Le Guin's response to being asked what she thought of Jake A Rolling's books "I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the "incredible originality" of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a "school novel", good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."

YET MY TEACHERS TOLD ME I WAS JUST CYNICAL IN 9TH GRADE WHEN I SAID HARRY POTTER HAS A FAILED HEROES JOURNEY, NO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, AND URSULA LE GUIN DID IT FIRST AND BETTER BECAUSE SHE HAD CHARACTER GROWTH AND ACTUALLY BEAUTIFUL AND INTERESTING DESCRIPTIVE WRITING. FUCKING VINDICATED RN

SHE WAS 38 WHEN SHE LEARNED ENOUGH ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST TO RELATE IT TO HER OWN LITERATURE? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO KEEP IT TO HERSELF??????? How did anyone let this woman get away with this?

Worst Witch getting a shout out, my fave scruffy haired protagonist who made friends with a nerdy, conflict avoidant, book smart girl after she got herself into some shenanigans. She's also bullied by the gothy, sarcastic potions teacher who only saw potential in the the full blooded, blonde show offy kid who's obsessed with impressing her parents and also bullies and attempts to undermine the main character. While there's definitely not constant identical events & themes and stuff like their boarding school is a castle on a hill and being sorted into houses with corresponding colours are more like classic tropes of English boarding schools in general, there are a few similar or basically identical moments eg. her broomstick being bewitched and trying to buck her off, graduating HS in the wizarding world is 17 (I mean that one is weirdly specific and I've not seen that in other magic stuff) and lastly getting involved in the tri-wizard I mean three school competition.

I too remember reading that classic story about a young boy whose parents died when he was a baby, and he was forced to live with his abusive aunt who forced him to sleep under the stairs, until he had a sudden magical escape... James and the Giant Peach! XD But genuinely, I have been fuming about HP being derivative since the early 2000s o_o; (and the Dahl inspiration explains some of the fat phobia too tbh)

As an English teacher, I think it’s really important to note: there’s nothing wrong with taking ideas from other places. In fact, if you think you’ve had an original thought, 99.99% of the time, it’s just that you haven’t come across the other creators that have already thought of it. Literature is a process of drawing on images we already know and understand to create something new. The important thing is to read enough literature to be conscious of where your ideas might come from or what they might allude to without you even knowing. The line between intertextuality and plagiarism is intentionality (and, of course, honesty - *cough* James Somerton).

Hey guys, do you remember this book where a suspicious old guy lefts an infant on the doorsteps of extremely neglectful couple and their chubby kid? When main character grows bigger, the suspicious old man comes back to show him weird and dangerous world where his parents lived. It's Revenge of the Kabunari by Helena Bobińska, 1930. And she still had more balls than Jowling Kowling to portrait queer characters. She has openly written that two boys kissed, and while it was socially acceptable in case of very close male friends in this time and place, other circumistances don't leave any doubts. PS: I have no idea what would be my name in Hogwarts, but as Polish woman I've experienced her imagination in person of cleaning lady Lechsinka in one of her non-HP books. PS2: Trains ARE cute.

Anyone who has played D&D knew where J.K. got the idea for the Horcruxes. Voldemort is a Lich. In fact as I was reading JK's description of what the Hircruxes were and did, I instantly knew she "borrowed" from D&D. While the word lich is older than D&D the type of magical undead that uses objects to hide part of their souls to live beyond death is entirely the creation of Gygax and Kuntz.

"oh you mean that book series about the powerful wizard named Harry, who has his mother's eyes and carries a lot of pain, and repeatedly witnesses the injustices of the magical world? The Dresden Files?"

I guess I live in this comment section for the next 21 hours.

My pet peeve is that the climax of the last movie, when Ron's mother kills Bellatrix is just a copy of what happens at the end of Aliens, when Ripley defends Newt and says "get away from her you b*". And people love this scene.

Voldemort and his Deatheaters are a copy of Iuchiban and his Bloodspeakers. Legend of the 5 rings wrote the bad guy story decades before. Its not that she takes the ideas of those past, its that she thinks that all of this is hers and hers alone.

It's very odd to realize that if this video had been released 10 years ago, it would have caused riots.

It makes a lot of sense that Rowling has no clue where she gets ideas from.

When I was like 14 years old, I read Harry Potter, and I immidiately wanted to write a book, of course about a magic school. It was about a rich, but kind-hearted girl, who wasn't born a witch, but her best friend was, and she wanted to go to the same middle school as her best friend. After a using long forgotten, and probably illegal ritual, she manages to become a witch, and they're off to the magic school. And after that they become friends with a boy, who can just magically hack computer systems because of a childhood injury, and who later gets accused of robbing banks and blowing them up, but they discover that the one who is really doing this wants to take over the school and train the children to be soldiers and take over the world. In the end they combine technology and magic to defeat the bad guy and everyone's saved. I mean I was 14 at the time, but thinking back this is cringeworthy. I rewrote it like at least 3 times since, replaced wands with magic stones, reimagined the whole magic system, created the equivalent of Ministry of magic but closer to how my country operates, tried to eliminate a bunch of logical errors, ect. but it still has the same story. After that I started writing 3 more books in the same universe, actually finished one, those are more original, and about a war between tech-wizards who believe magic is for everyone, and traditional wizards who want to keep the whole thing a secret, and how this war affects the members of society. Now I really regret that my first piece of these stories is this bad, and I want to rewrite it sometime, giving some more reasonable motives for the antagonist. I can't say I was always original, and I never will be, here's a list of my crimes: glowing armor - a minecraft animation film, Songs of War, they had a bunch of glowing stone creatures transforming tools and weapons - MC jams - Battle of the glitches music videos the concept of a hidden magical society, and much of it's inner workings - Harry Potter the dimension of your mind (and other hidden dimensions in general), the idea of magic stones, making a difference between certain elements of the world (like fire, earth,water,air, but much more scientific divisions), certain character ideas - genshin impact The dimension of Helvi, and the heltru people - the end dimension, minecraft I think that's all across 4 books... There will be definetly way more, I like collecting good ideas and putting them in my books... So... I ripped off a ripoff, and I still managed to be more original than the original ripoff? Maybe I should sell my books...

You know, now that I think about it, Gryffindor winning the House Cup every single time, makes more sense now. It's because J.K. Rowling didn't have the mind to come up with a complex, mature narrative to let the other houses win.

The wizard names at the end were the best thing I’ve ever heard. “Autis Tyke” 😭😭😂

So Joanne K Rowling is basically the human version of ChatGPT?

School houses are frequently used in non-boarding schools in the UK as well, and though most just have one tie for everyone, I know the uniforms of other local schools, as well as the schools I've worked in, and even having a house-coloured tie is fairly common. Weird currency is based on old UK currency, all the creatures are from folklore, the castle was based on a building she lived close to. She even named Harry after someone she knew as a kid and stole a load of other names from tombstones. I've been to that graveyard, I've seen them.

I think ‘The Simpsons’ may have predicted this in the episode ‘Book Job’. Her counterpart H.J. Darling was revealed to be an actress while the actual work was done by a room of overworked ghost writers. It’d explain why there isn’t really that much character development: it’d keep the chapters easier to write for different people. I’d believe she wrote the first 2, but after that it would logically be too financially valuable to leave to a single person.

the irony of this coming up right after Neil Gaiman answered on tumblr that he never got into Harry Potter because he went to School in the UK and didn't want to read about it in a romanticized version of it

One thing about us brits, we’re gonna be on trains

Since I'm a biracial (English/Jamaican) trans woman, my Hogwarts name would be 'Kingston Crumpet' or 'Patty Greyblood'.

Much as I dislike Rowling and her visible descent into madness it is OK for a writer to have multiple influences. It pretty much happened with everyone from Shakespeare to Tolkien. A bit more respect to her antecedents and sources would be welcome however.

"When you steal from one source, that's plagiarism. When you steal from many, that's research."

I am always a bit skeptical to call any parallels (even a lot of parallels) in genre fiction plagiarism, but what really gets me about Rowling is how she has insisted over and over again that she had no idea about other prolific wizard/fantasy books and how she, like, totally came up with all this on her own. On the milder end of the spectrum that's an inexcusable ignorance of her own career, and on the extreme end it's anything from dishonesty to contempt for her fellow authors.

26:48 Totally agree. I was too busy reading Animorphs and Guardians of Ga' Hoole, series with brutality and depth then baby's first wizard school series. There's ideas in Harry Potter that are fun, but then you read something that makes you feel wrong. Then everything ends in the same broken system is started as.

There's an episode of an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon called Shazzan, which included the golden snitch and Fluffy. The episode is called "City of Brass."

My theory is that JKR got big because of the fandom, and the fandom got big because when people started sharing more of their fanfics, fanart, etc. online and Anne Rice started sending legal threats to fanfic writers, JKR said people were free to do whatever with her books (I think she only had 1 or 2 out). So with years between new books, and shakey worldbuilding and plot holes galore (which make for the best fanfics), people kept creating art, fics, comunities and friends, so by the time the books were finished people were already nostalgic about the books, forgeting to check if the plot-holes and bad worldbuilding ever got fixed.

isn't it weird how she claims to be such a feminist when she basically genderswapped a story with predominantly female characters? yes, hp is just a poor man's worst witch genderswap au

I remember, as a kid, a teacher enthusiastically making the entire class gather round at some kind of library visit or book fair etc. to basically sell the first HP book to us, she raved about how good it was. I distinctly remember looking at the picture on the cover, confused, and thinking- 'Why should I care about some random book about trains?'- weirdly, the teacher talked about how good it was, but not really *_what_* it was, so I only had the cover art to go on at that point. Later on, I read it. I thought that it must be good, since it had such hype about it. I was really confused. I didn't even read all that often, but even to me, it just seemed so... basic? Right from the beginning, I just didn't understand the appeal, and the hype totally confused me. It just seemed boring. Like I said- I hadn't read much, but perhaps reading all of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy had set a higher bar for me than I'd realised at the time. I'm always gonna appreciate Tolkien for that- because of the way he essentially vaccinated me from Rowling through good writing, and a world of fundamentally kind-spirited people and hope, despite the war-torn darkness. In my mind, I think of him as the anti-Rowling, and Tolkein's works still feel like anathema to the poison HP has become.

I remember hearing about Harry Potter for the first time... on Halloween, a kid showed up wearing the outfit Harry wears on the cover of the first book, and excitedly explained who he was. I was really confused, because just a few days earlier I had watched Troll during a tv marathon of spooky-hut-not-quite-horror movies 😂

I mean, she is British. Stealing things and passing them off as her own is in her nature

My theory is that Rowling Read Worst Witch and the Works of Roald Dahl, forgot about it, and lacked the understanding or skill that actually made those works charming and vomited out the remixed half remembered vague details

Dumbledore is also the name of a creature in Tolkien's books

plagiarism is often more of a specific charge. like, not just taking a concept from another work and adapting it, but instead taking a sample piece of writing and then replicating that writing while pretending it is yours snape is plainly an adapted concept, but plagiarism would be if JK took specific writing from The Worst Witch and transposed it into her own work

And let us not forget _Which Witch?_ by Eva Ibbotson, featuring a young British orphan lad with dark hair and glasses raised by an abusive caregiver who discovers a magical society running parallel to his own and that he's destined to become a powerful wizard, Terence Mugg. Or Ibbotson's other book, _The Secret of Platform 13_ , which features a portal in King's Cross Station to another world where there are magical creatures and wizards...and a family where a nice, good-natured orphan boy is abused by his adoptive parents whilst they relentlessly spoil their own son, who of course is fat. Unfortunately it seems even some of Rowling's worst ideas are a bit derivative...

I think this is why JKR doesn’t understand the morality of her own books. She wrote a paint-by-numbers children’s series and those all have the morality of ‘just be kind to each other’ but she doesn’t believe or understand it - she just put it in because that’s the morality children’s books are supposed to have.

The cherry on top is that while watching this video the ad was for Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery.😂

I'm at the beginning of the video but I am going to say no, JKR didn't steal Harry Potter. She doesnt seem like the kind of person who actually reads books.

Reminder Harry Potter is a slave owner.

She never gave credit to John Nettleship either. Or at least, never truly acknowledged him. John was her chemistry teacher. He was known to be stern, grouchy but highly intelligent and darkly sarcastic. He had long black hair and liked wearing a black cloak with a high collar… Even one eve of the Summer Holiday he brought out his guitar and sang a song about a dark wizard who lived in a tower. And a lot of his eccentric, grumpy behaviours could be explained that he and his wife reckoned he was actually Autistic, coupled with dealing with both a divorce and insomnia as well as the stress of teaching disinterested teenagers. Apart from that, he actually seemed like a lovely and deeply intelligent person. He was a close friend of Rowling’s mum and helped her get a job as his assistant as she was dealing with Multiple Sclerosis. There’s an article written by a close friend of John’s called “A True Original” which also goes into detail explaining Towling’s hometown had an old castle atop a hill which could be viewed in a park with a large, bizarrely shaped tree… Not to mention the cheery gardening teacher with her flower hat and the large hairy janitor of the school…

Yeah, see... stuff like this is *exactly* why I don't want to claim my stories as beacons of originality once they've seen the light of day, because I know that literally everything has been done since before _The Simpsons_ was even conceived that fateful day.

Just one correction: The students of Hogwarts don’t have a uniform in the books. They each have unique clothing and are only required to wear a cape of any kind and they make their own school supportive gear, like their own scarfs (which is why Ron’s mom always does).

Mentioned in the comments so far, logged for future reference - The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy - Has stated it'd be nice if Rowling thanked her (for the ideas/inspiration) but that you 'have to be graceful' (about not receiving said thanks). - Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin - Has stated Rowling did not steal but was wrongly credited for 'originality'. - The Worlds of Chrestomanci - The Books of Magic, Neil Gaiman - Has stated Rowling did not steal. - Girl On A Broomstick (Personally, I think Ursula got it right. Nothing wrong with taking ideas done to death and writing a story along the same lines. But then you've got to be honest about your inspirations.)

My favourite part is the house elves, It seems Jk invented slavery too. In the end the slaves/house elves were happier serving and didn't want to be free, and why did that woke Hermione have to mess about with a system that worked perfectly for everyone.

Now i have some idea why literary ctitics and scholars hate Rowling. In my Bachelor years, many of my English professors REALLY hated Harry Potter

I am French-Canadian so my offensive JKR name is prolly "Effie Elleque" or "Celine Dioff" or something. I also had a spinal tumor as an infant so "Terra Toma" may also be in play but I think that one's too c*nty (editing to dodge yt censors)

I could never be a bestselling author, because if someone asked me "hey, there's this book published years before yours with a very similar idea" I would be like "Oh yeah! How could I forgot?! I loved that book back in the day, I've been thinkering with that idea so much that I totally forgot I stole it from somewhere else! Yeah, everybody should read that book instead of mine" sales would plumber and the publishing house would break my kneecaps

by the end of this i plan to amass a trove of fictional content to escape into the magic of without jkr's creepiness attached tbh

You're allowed to be wrong Caelynn or Kyle or whatever.

The simple fact is that there really isn't a truely original work of anything anymore. We all draw inspiration from somewhere else subconsciously or not. Its how you put those pieces together that makes it different

As a writer myself, we're always told there are no original ideas anymore. There's only the way we tell them. The difference here is, Joanne didn't understand how to tell the story differently with a character we wanted to support. Honestly, being a child when they came out and the world started burning down, it was a very easy read to fall into.

Pleeeeasse let this be about how much she stole from the Worst Witch. I've been bitter about this for ages now.

I just finished The Left Hand of Darkness and am currently reading The Wind's Twelve Quarters, both by Ursula K. Le Guin. The Earthsea books will probably be the next ones on my list (after I read an Andreas Malm book). Also, I just listened to pretty much all the videos on your channel while working these last few days, good job!

Walked past a local bookshop today and saw a great window display: Pretty much every book mentioned in this video, arranged around a broomstick and a cauldron, on a pride flag, with no Harry Potter, and no further explanation. sometimes the world makes me really happy.

Like Gaiman, I'm not bothered by Joanne's use of concepts, themes, and tropes that other people invented - creativity is inherently collaborative - but it's the arrogance (hers) and ignorance (her fans) that result in insisting that she invented them that galls and necessitated videos like this one. (That and the racism and general meanness of the series. The fatphobia is, unfortunately, a hallmark of 90s Britlit - even Sir Pterry didn't escape it, though *he* got better)

I remember seeing a stage production of the worst witch where the girls were put into their houses, mildred got a little overexcited and they made a joke saying "no dear this isnt special this is just like every school in the country, though we did do it first *wink*". It was a production for kids but it was sweet and heartwarming. If you're looking for a series for your children to read i sincerely recommend it.

I wish The Worst Witch was better known.

So basically I should read most if not all of these other books **adds them to the read later list**

I always thought Rowling was a weaksauce worldbuilder. She just took random ✨whimsical✨ magic stuff from existing works. When the big money rolled in, she screamed "Original setting! Do not steal!" and absconded with the money chests. Like a cackling hag of folklore o'er here.

Capitalism does not reward creativity, but rather chooses the most marketable products (for better or worse, but usually for the worse) This is why I'm an Anarchist...

First time watching one of your videos. I'm really digging the humor and wordplay. Subscribed. I'm totally with you on train rides, took trains from Paris to Bordeaux/Bordeaux to Paris during the mid 90's. I miss taking those rides

I'm Indigenous Canadian with Scottish ancestry, my horrible Joanne name would be: Redmon McCollynees or something.

Tim and The hidden people, Sheila K McCullagh: A boy called Tim, who lives with his aunt, discovers a magical subculture in the UK where broomsticks are a popular form of transport. In book A7, during an incident involving a cake, one of Tim's magical friends tries to float his aunt's friend out of the window. The books start out simple, aimed at age 4-7, but each story becomes a little more involved, with the final books aimed at age 12-15. The books have been out of print for over 35 years due to a publishers dispute, but were very popular in the 80s and 90s as part of a school reading program. Mallory Towers, Enid Blyton: A group of children in a boarding school solve mysteries over the course of each school year from age 11-17. The school is a castle with four towers each of which serves as dormitories and common rooms for the four houses of the school. a large part of the books revolves around inter-house sports and the care of animals. Not one of her best series, and vastly more problematic than Harry Potter, but a great horse girl series, with a surprising amount of gal-pal romance plots for a straight author in the 50s. I have no problem with her stealing ideas from other writers, that's how art works. Hogwarts just looks a lot less fun since i find out a lot of my friends aren't welcome.

"Animorphs level of quality" As an eternal fan of the series, I appreciate the shout-out. And a further shout out to K.A. Applegate, who loves her trans daughter and is a trans ally. When people told her (and her husband) that they saw Tobias's story as a trans allegory, she was outright flattered. Love that lady.

I don't appreciate this slander against the creator of acclaimed book series Harry Potter; Hatsune Miku has worked very hard to reach this level of success.

Thanks for the reading list in the beginning there 👍

I'll never quite get past people calling J.K. Rowling the most successful author (other than God...) Her total sales are estimated at about 600 million units. Agatha Christie is at 4 BILLION

Oh, I thought you were referring to the one about an orphan that goes to live with his aunt, discovers a secret world of wizards, witches, and magical folk who wear strange clothes, learns to ride a broomstick and travels on a night bus that only magical folk and those of mixed blood (magic and non-magic) people can see, that every English person in their 50s had to read at school as part of the national curriculum... Tim and the Hidden People... no?

I read the HP books as a tween/teen because EVERYBODY did, but I'm really glad I read some of the Earthsea books before that because that depiction of magic is so much more interesting and the worldbuilding is really evocative. I actually re-read them a couple of years ago with the ones I hadn't reached added in, including the short stories, and they're so deep, dark and complex. Honestly I think The Tombs of Atuan changed my outlook significantly as a young child, in a way that HP could never have done if I'd read that first.

Good evil, underdogs, young love, power structures, etc. Nothing new to create within any of that.

the Somerton bit killed me, thank you for that lol

I've been saying "not plagiarized, just unoriginal" for years...it's even more of an indictment, in a way, since plagiarism is a moral failing while unoriginality (when it's due to lack of ideas rather than selling out) is a simultaneous failure of talent, craft, and awareness of the writer's own medium. Plagiarists at least _could have_ done better.

So I recently rewatched The Worst Witch (Tim Curry version of course) and I was actually quite taken aback by just how similar the Head and Positions Master are in Harry Potter to The Worst Witch 😳