Did J.K. Rowling “Steal” Harry Potter?

[@caelanconrad]

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[@VinceWhitacre]

Ok you're the first person I actually trust who has hyped this thing. There's no nicotine, it's just... flava. So like, does it work? I'm down to about 5 a day, but I'd rather be down to 0 so I can save $25 a month in insurance (and *I guess* live a couple more years 🙄) Do these "salted grapefruit" and "alpine cum" and "cum" flavors actually tase good/make you want to suck on that hot, hot cancer stick less? Inquiring minds want to know.

[@AddiRockART]

My dad is trying to quit smoking and I wanted something safe that’s not vape… we were waiting for someone we supported to get the fum to try- this works out perfectly

[@Jasminestealth1]

ok... i went to your patreon ... and no teir says i get to have a one on one conversation with you on the phone.... WTF??? LOL... i was watching another creator who said.. he felt it would be weird to have "real" interaction with a fan.... stupid stalkers ruining things for us!!

[@alananimus9145]

How dare you 😡. Kobolds do not deserve to be disrespected by being associated with Rowling.

[@jarrellfamily1422]

This franchise is better as a theme park than a book or movie

[@zenithsabyss]

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) :)

[@qzamboni]

💯

[@darreideamos2309]

@@zenithsabyss naah the last one haha

[@chanterelle483]

The Terry Pratchett book is Equal Rites 🙂

[@kylereese4822]

Troll film 1986..... Noah Hathaway as Harry Potter Jr. Michael Moriarty as Harry Potter Sr. Shelley Hack as Anne Potter Jenny Beck as Wendy Anne Potter Sonny Bono as Peter Dickinson Phil Fondacaro as Malcolm Malory and Torok the Troll Brad Hall as William Daniels June Lockhart as Eunice St. Clair Anne Lockhart as Young Eunice St. Clair Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Jeanette Cooper Gary Sandy as Barry Tabor Frank Welker as the voice of Torok the Troll and various Troll voices

[@chanterelle483]

@@AutististicSchizo Fr tho. Genre literature is not about being "original" in a way people usually understand that concept, which is based on so-called "high culture." The genre literature is based on repeating motifs that we enjoy in it. The originality is in presenting them in a new way. It is not fair to blame Rowling for THAT. (If I recall correctly, Neil Gaiman made a statement that he doesn't feel wronged by her for the similarities of Harry Potter with Books of Magic).

[@maggieblair-kraybill4417]

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

[@stephaniewilliams6756]

Was waiting for them to mention it. That book really entertained me as a child

[@Ramsey276one]

Gotta check it out!

[@MellowMaromi]

I still have that in my collection! Definitely my favourite!

[@AxlPatrol]

I remember reading Wizard's Hall when I was a kid (back in 1999) and it was NOTHING like Harry Potter lmao. The fact that he goes to a wizard school and defeats and evil wizard is a very superficial similarity.

[@bootyspoon4675]

I remember that one and then thinking how strange when Harry Potter came out and was forgotten

[@andthatsshannii]

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).

[@LisaBeta-42]

There is this nice skit in "Murder She Wrote" where two authors fight among each other who stole the plot of their latest novel from whom, and Jessica Fletcher tells them off by stating nonchalantly: "a nice little fight, but pointless AS WE ALL KNOW, Leo Tolstoi came up with the same story in..." giving a title, none of the fighting authors ever had heard of😛 Shakespeare did collect his ideas (if HE even wrote all the texts that got attributed to him) from various sources. That schoolboy snailing to his early morning lessons could certainly not have sprung from a home-schooled lord😋

[@Lilitha11]

I think it is definitely possible to have original ideas, though you do need to make an effort. It is pretty obvious if you are writing about wizards and witches, having them fly on a broom isn't an original idea. Had she decided to include modern technology at the school, it would of instantly been more original. Even if that isn't original in itself, he thoughts of how mages would interact with technology would likely differ from other people and so there would likely be original takes included in there. Just going for the easy thing though, results in less originality.

[@RictusHolloweye]

If being derivative had been banned we would not have Star Wars.

[@bloodcottoncandy]

Yes, so much of literature is just people writing fanfiction of things they like

[@Lilitha11]

@@RictusHolloweye Well starwars at least mixed things up a little. It was derivative but no one really thinks it is plagiarized. I don't think Harry Potter was plagiarized either but is a lot more closer to the other work, which is why some think it.

[@theoclutterbuck]

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.

[@patataeve]

I read this one years before HP came out, so when I first encounter the HP books I found them bland and boring. I’m so glad I was lucky enough to read good stuff before the HP rot was born. Kids need good literature.

[@rontanamo_bae]

Groosham Grange was SOOO good. Anthony Horowitz books were like crack, groosham grange, alex rider, the diamond brothers were all and still are top tier

[@chrisvisser-fee2631]

Anthony Horowitz? I thought it'd be written by some author nobody has heard about, not a widespread beloved YA author!

[@artificialfreedom]

I read the wikipedia plot summary and it sounds nothing like Harry Potter

[@strawberrystolons]

Omg I'm one page in and you're dead on???? The writing styLE (Like it's clearly different but)

[@LyraLyraPantsOnFyra]

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?

[@Lawnie]

Owls did not exist until Jowling Kowling Rowling wrote about them. She caused them to spontaneously generate throughout history. ALL HAIL JOANNE, THE OWL QUEEN. (Joking so much.)

[@akisatsuki8444]

She invented your dog too

[@alisaurus4224]

Not owls themselves, no. She may genuinely believe she invented their association with wizards/magic

[@pattheplanter]

@@alisaurus4224 In which case, Blinky the Owl from John Masefield's The Midnight Folk published in 1927 would like a word. The Owl Service by Alan Garner published in 1967 would like to leave her disturbed for the rest of her life, like it has everyone else who read it.

[@wmdkitty]

@@alisaurus4224 Uh... there are several deities who'd like a word with her about that.

[@coralink]

" 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

[@akisatsuki8444]

I swear to God these names for J.K. Rowling are killing me 😂

[@tabbitee]

That just proves that more adults should read children's literature. It'd be good for them!

[@Acidfrog475]

@@akisatsuki8444Jee Kee transphobic *REEEEEEEEEEEEE*

[@nathanlabrador7664]

Jowling Kowling Rowling.

[@amw6846]

This is exactly what I came here to say. I read the series. *shrugs* The one thing that seemed different to me was the characters (and the prose) aging in tandem with the characters, but someone else has probably done that too. I first read the book as an adult who was a fantasy-reading kid in the 70s, so was shocked by the claims of originality...and of good writing style.

[@bentosmile]

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)

[@genericname2747]

In Dalhls defense, he also said that kindness is what makes you look beautiful.

[@phoenixfire6433]

@@genericname2747True, it’s a bit on the nose but the message is clear. I think the quote is “You may have buck teeth and a long nose and a pointy chin, but as long as you think good thoughts they will shine through your face like sunshine and you will always look lovely”

[@TheSapphireLeo]

Same.

[@Vohalika]

Oh, a young child discovers magical powers to cope with bullying from family? Hey, look, it's Mathilda!

[@Damn1Google]

@@genericname2747 Dahl's problematic, but he was, well... trying? There's also more originality in a single minor Dahl novel than in all of Rowling -- Dahl is just WEIRD (in a good way)

[@non-so-cosa-scrivere3957]

I'm Italian so i think jrk would call me "Marinara Mafiosa"

[@a.m.pietroschek1972]

Cocky Camorra ? 🤣 La Cosa Nocturna!

[@gugasantiago986]

@@non-so-cosa-scrivere3957 i know that was a joke but by some reason i think that would be a kick ass name at least in ironical and cômical sense

[@fusseld100]

@@gugasantiago986 real

[@CadDriftarus]

I'm Romani and Irish. I fear Rowling's "creative" thinking.

[@fumbleBumble82]

Spicea Meatballio

[@thelordofthelosers2867]

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

[@ragdollrose2687]

Waaaait, brb writing this down for my next D&D character 😂

[@mungosiffphryyt3123]

@@ragdollrose2687 Wait! brb writing this down for my 'Riddle' potter spinoff

[@zakai-kaz]

Wait✋: BRB writing this down for my most gratuitous erotica😩

[@heroboof8595]

better yet, one of them is *almost* a discworld character name- "rob everyone" is awfully close to "rob anybody", one of the Nac Mac Feegles from the tiffany aching series!

[@hughcaldwell1034]

I can't decide whether I'm Asparagus Sindromeda or Deceptius Downunderbender.

[@coltekr]

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.

[@angelalovell5669]

I spluttered in bemused fangirl then went to look it up. It's even worse than you said. They won 4 and the last THREE weren't even called in the books. Wouldn't that have been a perfect time to let another house win? God, every time the shallows of her basicness seem evident, the water level drops.

[@madM1469]

Isnt it more like the books were written around Harry? He probably didn't care much when the other houses won.

[@angelalovell5669]

@@madM1469 That's such a great point but it definitely gives JK too much credit. The "Harry filter" surely exists but it's so incredibly thin, I think it's only ever busted out when they don't understand Hermione (cos she's a GIRL lol) and re: Ron at the end (cos he likes a GIRL lol). I genuinely don't believe she thinks hard enough to have used Harry's teen myopia as the reason we don't know who won the last three (last one excused, of course, occupation). Most of the things or people Harry dislikes are written to be dislikeable by everyone because, again, Harry and JK just aren't that complex.

[@jorionrange8336]

The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman.

[@Imperials3nate]

@@coltekr Reminds me of one comment that pointed out how the Slytherins, with ambitious nature, should've been AGAINST the restrictive Umbridge. But in the books they're depicted as her pawns.

[@FrostyButter]

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

[@Gormathius]

You know, the more I hear of these Nazi fellows, the less I like them.

[@fromeveryting29]

«Seems I just had all this fascist rhetoric in the back of my mind already!» - JKR probably

[@jeffreygao3956]

Nah, The CSA from Timeline-191 did that already.

[@tolvfen]

Big strong force to use to villains

[@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233]

It's Springtime for Riddle.

[@andredegiant3876]

She didn't even have the courage to make Dumbledore openly gay. She basically just said "oh, yeah and Dumbledore's gay I guess" after the last book was released smh

[@RosePosiepuddingpie]

The only credit I will give her involving this is that him being gay WAS 'safely' hinted at in the books...by Rita Skeeter or whatever calling him a groomer and bringing up his relationship to Grimwald. However it was never confirmed to be more than Rita making things up until after the series ended. And it sure as heck hadn't been a good look.

[@turtleanton6539]

Indeed🎉

[@nocrtname]

Oh no. I knew as soon as I read that grindelwald has “enflamed” him in his youth, combined with him having never married, that he was totally gay. JKR was probably rolling her eyes that she had to come right out and say it.

[@johnnymillar9056]

"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?"

[@geo-fry6372]

YES

[@pattheplanter]

Pure coincidence that Dresden was a city famous for its pottery. Butcher is lucky that Rowling does not dare to be compared to a really good (original, consistent, inventive, stylish) writer by Streisand effecting him. He did publish 2 years and 9 months after she did.

[@AndrewParkins-v6b]

Except dresden files came out three years later but good try.

[@johnnymillar9056]

@@AndrewParkins-v6b it was a funny joke

[@MiraArrr]

@@pattheplanterfun fact, if you read some of Laurel K Hamilton’s Anita Blake books, you’ll find a lot of elements that Jim Butcher ripped whole cloth, though he has admitted to this as he was a long time fan of Hamilton’s work. “Ass deep in alligators” was my first clue 😂

[@molly8071]

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.

[@pattheplanter]

Boris Johnson frequently claimed to be completely ignorant about everything to do with his job as Prime Minister. Same energy.

[@KookiesNolly]

I’d say that’s a typical response from the plagiarist mindset. Hbomberguy explained it beautifully in his video about plagiarism. They are profoundly uncreative people but are also very full of themselves (hence their refusal to do better), so they assume everyone is a grifter just like them. They can’t admit that they are just lazier than others. No it must be that everyone is secretly just as lazy, everyone is stealing and the goal is to simply not get caught. That’s why they never talk about being inspired by their peers, as being uncreative makes them incapable of telling the difference between inspiration and theft. They know theft is wrong, and are just trying to get away with it, they just assume everyone does this. It also reeks of contempt for creators and the creative process to act this way.

[@Aarenby]

Even though we know she read Tolkien in uni

[@ZimVader-0017]

Terry Pratchett when, in an interview, JK Rowling said that Harry Potter wasn't a fantasy novel (and that she "didn't like fantasy novels"): "I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks, and spells would have given her a clue?" And when JK Rowling suddenly decided that Dumbledore was gay: "Rincewind would like to announce that he is gay. Since he never gets any, it really doesn't make much difference which any he doesn't get, and at least he might get a brief reputation for social awareness." He also refused to directly comment anything about her (for obvious reasons), but he did seem annoyed at her at times.

[@annmarieknapp2480]

I write paranormal fiction and am quite vigilant to make sure my characters aren't like others out there.

[@bootedbuilds]

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.)

[@Junosensei]

This is the right attitude, if you ask me. I can no longer love Harry Potter like I used to, and I cannot support Rowling, even if it means giving up Harry Potter forever, but that's an entirely different question from whether she "stole" ideas about her fiction. So much of fiction is give and take. Little Witch Academia, a Japanese anime, is itself inspired heavily by Harry Potter (though the creators can't say it because Japan doesn't have fair use laws, so talking about their inspirations can be a risky move). The Owl House cartoon also has a lot of similarities and likely inspiration from Harry Potter (also from the manga, Witch Hat Atelier, but both creators follow each other on Twitter, so they're both aware of the other's inspirations), and it's more queer friendly. I'm not going to shame either series for taking inspiration and not giving a lick of credit to Rowling. We can still easily criticize Rowling for her transphobia and maybe some of the weird things in her books that didn't age well.

[@marocat4749]

She also was write roasting it as simplistic black and white morality in the same statement, but yep, its her right to do so, its just disapointin that better series deserved that spotlight, but harry potter i guess is too capitalism friendly. The worst witch series is pretty good BTW also the tv series. Lol i remembered it without remembering it s title, also it was in german so it wasnt the same title, lol, but pretty memorable good

[@TheDanSandoval]

@@Junosensei The creator of Little Witch Academia acknowledged The Worst Witch as a source of inspiration though.

[@Junosensei]

@@TheDanSandoval - Yoh Yoshinari? Did he? Considering I own a ton of production notes on the series, as well as half a dozen magazines with interviews from the OVA and TV show releases, and I haven't heard it, I would like an actual source for that before I believe it. You can't link sources on youtube, but tell me the magazine, brochure, TV special, or origin of this info and I'll double check and return with my findings.

[@amberhancock2039]

Don’t forget Eva Ibbotson! She wrote such fun books including The Secret Of Platform 13 and Isle of the Aunts.

[@maxevocal]

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 😂

[@kyttynkross1121]

ooohhhh that explains the trope.

[@a.m.pietroschek1972]

The mysteries of Brexit Island revealed!!! 🤣

[@theoclutterbuck]

This is not a thing. This might be something that Americans imagine about the UK. But it's not a thing.

[@gattzflappa6306]

@@theoclutterbuck "I don't remember where I learned this" is an Americanism for "I made this up".

[@carolinem5515]

@@theoclutterbuck true

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

0:01 something I remember hearing about is how she had gotten so much praise and basked in it but veteran children’s fantasy authors were like “this does nothing says nothing and she’s not the first ever children’s fantasy author”

[@Sandvichman.]

was the timestamp necessary

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

@@Sandvichman. I have learned the hard way that you need to time stamp all your comments otherwise people who don’t see your **other** comments that mention you got further into the video where something is explained will yell at you for being too stupid to see it was explained when it wasn’t at that part of the video I leave comments as more stream of consciousness and I hate having to explain to people I did get further in the video again and again

[@lookatdemijipers]

@@SebastianSeanCrow that's dumb, just edit your comment if it gets mentioned later in the video lmao

[@HealthyObbsession]

@@lookatdemijipers just because you don’t like how they comment doesn't make it dumb They made great points and the only thing you can do is be rude about their commenting style

[@HealthyObbsession]

Honestly, I could see that being said at the time Had social media been as big as it is now I wonder if she would have been praised as much or merely forgotten

[@celia1888]

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

[@avenwildsmith2]

Interestingly, one of the reasons for Harry Potter's original rejections was that it was set in a boarding school, and the late nineties in the UK was a time when boarding schools were becoming increasingly unpopular and criticized, and there she was romanticizing the idea.

[@Andrewtr6]

That's honestly one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Literally all of fantasy is romanticized unless it's dark fantasy (but even then a little) that's just part of the genre. I don't understand the complaint. Tbh, it sounds more like Gaiman is just salty that Harry Potter succussed where Gaiman's The Books of Magic didn't. I grew up with Harry Potter, but I didn't hear about The Books of Magic until just a few years ago.

[@celia1888]

@@Andrewtr6 the book of magic is a side comics to explain the magic system of DC. I don't think he cares. Like a lot of people don't care to read fantasy stories set in a system they had to deal with. One of the reason it works so well outside of the UK is because most people don't deal with the system of houses in their own schools.

[@veganheathen7981]

Boarding schools are not magical, fun places for children to be. They are essentially country clubs for paed0philes and child abusers. Virtually all adults who survived those places decry the institution of boarding school education, Gaiman being one of them. It's essentially like writing a children's fairytale based on Epstein Island.

[@Stathio]

@@lunalee3021 Read the room. And a better book series.

[@SunniestAutumn]

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.

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

Was that before or after the toilets became haunted by the ghost of an adult woman posing as one of the students?

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G XD

[@Amazing_Amy_W]

I've always been confused by that addition. Isn't it a thing in the second book that Slysterin hid his special room beneath the castle that could be accessed via the plumbing where his big snake lived. So, does that not mean the school came with plumbing already? Did people just shit themselves because they were scared to use the toilets because of the giant snake who lives in the pipes, or did slytherin make huge structural changes after the school was established that no one apparently noticed? It just doesn't make sense. The woman can't even keep her own world straight 😂

[@Ramsey276one]

@@Amazing_Amy_W She can't even make it gay! XD

[@nina9565]

And the race of beings who love being enslaved? I never heard of anything like that before.

[@ewellynn122]

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...

[@fatefullydead5585]

​@@ewellynn122 see that's one thing I think a lot of people miss, when they use phrases like "rip off" or "Steal". Real plagiarism is when you direct used someone else's work and say its your own. Like if you had copied whole chunks of text word for word from HP or any other text changing nothing, or very little, that would be plagiarism. But simply being inspired by and using similar ideas isn't. JKR maybe a bad writer, just bc other people did it better, and I agree we shouldn't credit her with her ideas being wholly original, but at the same time everything is inspired and derisive of something else. Nothing is completely orginal. We build upon our ancestors. Science would never advance if it had copy rights on specific theories or technology. It's because we build on top of preexisting ideas and foundations that that we grow and advanced. Yes that may also mean some people never come up with original ideas, and want to copy what's popular for a quick buck, but those type of things rarely work out. I think JRK was a poor writer in a lot of ways. She basically just combines a lot of the main hooks, and trobes that were popular at the time into her own novel. All these stories mentioned in the video have some aspects or similarly to HP, but none of them have an equal combination of it. HP takes from different sources, but creates its own formula that combines all those popular tropes together. Is it done well? Or is that a particularly good method of writing? Probably not, but its catchy enough to go main stream. Perhaps no body heard of those other novels bc they were too niche. And there's definitely been a lot more *"copy cats" after HP. But over all I don't think what JKR did is exactly plagiarism. And I think any of the other novels mentioned could have also been inspired by each in the same way JKR was. This whole thing just seemed like wanting more reasons to be mad at her than people already have had. And I agreed there's good reason to dislike her, but I feel like this is a bit of a bad faith argument, since many other works are also equally just as derivative as hers. And nothing is truly original, everything is inspired by someone else. We like to think our ideas are unique and special, but they are not. We have always had to learn from others. Being creative and a good writer is simply about seeing old ideas in a new way, and with new perspectives. P.S. Sorry for going off,and also your story sounds really interesting, I don't think it's a bad idea at all, I'd love to read something like it. You should definitely try to publish.

[@ewellynn122]

@@fatefullydead5585 I'm too shy and too perfectionist to publish it now... it'll be at least a dozen iterations from now on, and then I probably will feel that the worldbuilding is consistent enough.

[@negarkalantry455]

@@ewellynn122 It's genuinely a good idea. I like it.

[@PlumpProductions-wj3jp]

@@ewellynn122 I love this concept, would love to read this.

[@Mica_105]

I love the idea, and will read it when it comes out.

[@Kris_not_Chris]

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

[@robokill387]

Obviously not considering kids loved them and they're still popular to this day.

[@slenders1ckn3ss]

She literally thought she came up with a racist blood percentage system. Either she's lying or she's stupid. Or both.

[@stephennootens916]

It is shocking how close Harry Potter is to Worst Witch. I had a vague memory of the Tim Curry movie and than the show popped up on Netflix so I watched a episode and it all came back.

[@scottneil1187]

Harry Potter is a blatant copy of Luke Kirby too. From 2000ad.

[@Kikkarlin]

Yeah even the vibes of the characters are almost exactly the same 😭

[@luciakaminski779]

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.

[@lindsaymitchell6760]

Also, the story and setting were extremely merchandise friendly. And I think WB was desperate for a family friendly film series to cover some very expensive film projects and the fact they were struggling to get a Superman film off the ground. I've had a theory for a couple years now that Harry Potter's success would have looked different if there was a "Superman Returns" or a reboot in the late 90s.

[@asarishepard8171]

I found the writing style changed between books. Not from a oh they got better over time way. Completely different writing styles, from book 3 on

[@TheRogueCommand]

I think she owes a big chunk of her success to Warner Bros putting together a competent film team. How many better books have a much smaller following because the film adaptation bombed?

[@asarishepard8171]

@@TheRogueCommand also for not being tricked into signing the ip rights to the film people. She knew she had a winner and stuck to her guns, props for that.

[@luciakaminski779]

@@lunalee3021 then she got super lost in her own plot twists, like "if a basilisc's venom destroys horcruxes, then harry's would have been done for in 2nd year after he almost died from basilisc venom", or "Dumbledore sends Harry to what he knows is an abusive home because of wards and the touch thing, but while Harry is at hogwarts Voldemort goes in and out without problem since book 1 and the touch thing stops working after the 4th book", or "the mental connection with Voldemort was such a huge thing in the 5th and 6th book, but then it's just a way for Harry to get the most perfectly needed clues ever", and many more. And Harry is basically a self-insert the first books and then gets a bit angsty and moody, but basically most things happen to him or it's something he's told to do. Like the houses: "Main Character", "Smart/Exposition", "Yellow/Background actor" and "evil". It all gives you a general frame filled with random pieces/clichés you can play with to fix, aka fanfics.

[@whoviating]

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

[@tolvfen]

If you don't take the parts completely

[@Firegen1]

That is an old joke about something called James

[@whoviating]

@@Firegen1 That's why it was in quotes.

[@aliasfakename3159]

Me in college.

[@DrMezMcG]

Ahh, but you still have to cite.

[@hartthorn]

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.

[@Crazycatlady7508]

I agree with this. The most popular fan fiction media are not the BEST media, it’s the media that is good enough to spark the imagination but leaves plenty of room for the reader/viewer to insert themselves.

[@cozycasasmr4510]

THIS

[@Firegen1]

I blame Blue Peter (a British children's general entertainment show. Think Good Morning America but twice as twee and specifically for 7- 14 year olds). The year that Philospher's Stone it was published Blue Peter showcased it with a bunch of new releases.. No word of a lie I literally was like "Nah, Dad already has books like that. Pass" My dad is a HUGE fantasy nerd. Can a 12 year old sense derivativeness? Probably not. Whatever the 12 year old version of calling something a hack.... that was my reaction. I am yet for little me to be wrong. I will never forget Konnie Huq trying to sell me the plot. For non UK people she is Mrs Black Mirror. The original writer is her husband and she has written some of the episodes that kept you up at night! She was my fave Blue Peter presenter and a fab screenwriter.😂

[@alexinitalics188]

I've seen a lot of ex-Harry Potter fans who are still massive fans of the marauders! Which I have mixed opinions on because yes, they're still showing support for the wizarding world. But also, i swear those guys get about 5 sentences on their backstory and the fans have practically made their own continuity. Even personality wise. The fans essentially kept the names and that's it, I don't think I've seen any other fandom like it, at least not to that level!

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

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

[@caelanconrad]

Honestly that’s what most good authors say and people will still read lol

[@Mario_Angel_Medina]

@@caelanconrad is like that guy wrote in the comments of a video about Darren Arronofsky's accusations of plagiarizing Satoshi Kon: "the difference between stealing and homage is that the artist who steal always calims ignorance when asked about the similarities with another piece of art, while the artist who homages its always entusiast at the oportunity to show and explain when and how the other piece of art influence their own"

[@lawrencium2626]

See HBGuy's big long rant about plagiarism. At least by being open, you won't get your soul torn a new hole.

[@asmrtpop2676]

I mean, typically people would appreciate knowing that because fandom people crave more, even if the more is another story entirely! And it gives them things to compare and contrast. And it’s great for fanfic writers.

[@Empress-Sky-of-Brynn]

I love talking about my inspirations because not only do I think they're good and want more people to interact with that media, but I like to show how I took that idea and transformed it my own way so you can see the similarities and differences and how I transformed it with my own experiences.

[@axbloodtheory7885]

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.

[@beckydawolf]

Recently learnt that a lot of Americans think she came up with "Spello-tape", instead of it just being a pun on something very boringly British. I suspect there's a lot of stuff like that that people think are interesting worldbuilding but are just Britishisms.

[@theflyingspaget]

​@@beckydawolfin their defense, britain is one strange land, the worldbuilding isn't exactly something most people get into in depth.

[@JLB0880]

What are the real world houses called?? And which one were you in?

[@scottneil1187]

​@@JLB0880In my school in Scotland they were just named after colours. Nobody wanted to be yellow!.

[@kategold16]

@@JLB0880 in my very ordinary state primary school the houses were Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Jupiter. Mars was the best and I was lucky to be a Martian (it was all random who got to be what) our colour was red of course. In my comprehensive school I was in Crispin (red again) I don't know who or what Crispin was but again, the red team seemed really good. The other ones were Ilbert, Duncombe and Ladbroke or something like that. Nobody cared about the houses at all, it was just a useful way to split us schoolkids into teams to play sports etc

[@OctopusGrift]

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."

[@liesbeneathoureyes]

Such a restrained, respectful yet still eviscerating slap down

[@zagreus5773]

And yet she didn't claim that it copied her. So why are you?

[@caelanconrad]

Who did?

[@Lethgar_Smith]

Been a fan of Tolkien for decades. I was intrigued by Harry Potter when it became all the rage but the behavior and words of the book's fans, made me realize the books probably werent worth my time. I can usually judge whether something is for me (books, people, politicians) just by looking at the people who are fans of it.

[@ZimVader-0017]

Terry Pratchett when in an interview, JK Rowling said that Harry Potter wasn't a fantasy novel: "I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks, and spells would have given her a clue?" And when JK Rowling suddenly decided that Dumbledore was gay: "Rincewind would like to announce that he is gay. Since he never gets any, it really doesn't make much difference which any he doesn't get, and at least he might get a brief reputation for social awareness." He also refused to directly comment anything about her (for obvious reasons), but he did seem annoyed at her at times.

[@Stathio]

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.

[@samh2340]

Same, except I did read as a kid- a lot. By the time my strict parents let me read harry potter it was like 2014 or something, and I forced myself through the first two and a half books and legitimately even a year later could not tell you what happened in them. I thought it was boring- which was extremely rare. Again, I read soooo much as a kid. I'm pretty sure it was just a cultural thing carrying it. I was both late to the party and not really in any social groups who were into it, so the hype didn't get to me.

[@tias78]

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

[@AlbertoGarcia-wd7sc]

TBF the thing about objects being used to keep your soul existed before Tolkien.

[@FurTheWorkers]

@@AlbertoGarcia-wd7sc The earliest one that I know of is the Slavic fairy tale of Koshchei the Deathless who hid his soul in an egg, and then that egg in a nesting doll of animals.

[@shan_2933]

Tolkien has done irreparable damage to the fantasy genre that even after 100 years it's still plaguing and corrupting every one's mind.

[@phaIIicaIIyimpaired]

Phylacteries have been part of D&D Canon since the late 70s 😁

[@DJTheTrainmanWalker]

@@shan_2933 Now... That's fighting talk... Tolkien opened up avenues of fantasy in a way previous (modern day)authors had not even approached. The notion of a complete other world with details like languages, maps, etc...

[@ohemgeeorgia]

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

[@coololi07]

you can afford the train? lucky

[@IT_217]

Not in today's economy, with the prices of privatised rail!

[@Terrestriellie]

Getting the train to go to school in the UK? It's more likely than you think! (My maintenance loan is being eaten by train ticket prices)

[@akizeta]

@@Terrestriellie We had a tourist steam railway going right past our grammar school, with a station built about about a century before the school just a hedge away from being on the school grounds, which had a side-hustle of taking the kids from a local town to school and back during term-time. Not my town, though, I had to catch the bus.

[@jamesgravil9162]

And wait in queues. In the rain, while grumbling.

[@madsstokes]

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

[@Borodin410]

The Worlds of Chrestomanci

[@Meggzilla]

Are you ok? Are you hydrated in here?

[@Meggzilla]

@@mitcharendt2253 got room for one more? I have snacks.

[@mitcharendt2253]

​​@Meggzilla room for all! More is more. Also your sn is very cute

[@Meggzilla]

@@mitcharendt2253 thank you so much!! I love you for just everything you said

[@hannahlarge5738]

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.

[@SummerThymeMadness]

oh wooooe now THAT’S a win!!!!

[@colonelweird]

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

[@XxMusicxKelseyxX]

It still could, but for more unfortunate reasons

[@traps-wg3gt]

@XxMusicxKelseyxX How?

[@VeraTheTabbynx]

@@traps-wg3gt People who want me dead love Rowling and defend her from justified criticism like she's a holy figure

[@chey7691]

@@traps-wg3gt There are still people who worship the ground she walks on? There is no shortage of people willing to defend and suck up to someone who doesn't even know or care you exist. More accurately her legacy and money theirin that some of the scary things that come from greed and sycophants defending her because they think it will help them. Let alone the group of TERFS who put her on their cults pedestal (probably the most unpredictable and unstable).

[@XxMusicxKelseyxX]

@@traps-wg3gt well the TERFy folks will protest anything if they see it as an attack against their own

[@alstaniforth]

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.

[@lordfreerealestate8302]

It actually encourages bigotry, tribalism, bullying, and cruelty ... when its directed at the right people. Harry Straight-up encourages his son to bully Malfoy's son at the end of Deathly Hallows ... despite that fact you shouldn't assume someone is as bad as their parent, bullying is always unacceptable, and he's literally WEAPONIZING A CHILD against someone he doesn't like. Hermione disfigures someone permanently as revenge and abuses her abilities regularly. And we're supposed to side with them.

[@ryanparker4996]

Just say you're team Rapist

[@scream_kinh614]

@lordfreerealestate8302 No, you're exactly right. If you look back at her books in adulthood, you realize that SO MUCH of her novels directly have a very anti integration subtext to them. Like. The fact that slytherin even exists without any in-world criticism tells you all you need to know. Like, the entire idea of houses being decided upon at the age of 12 with no ability to change it as you age...very reductionist and anti-critical thinking or any form of rebellion.

[@ryanparker4996]

@@scream_kinh614 have you ever attended an English school? She didnt invent these things. Thats tradition. Most English schools have a house system. You must be American

[@scream_kinh614]

@ryanparker4996 Obviously, I know most English schools have a house system. But English schools usually don't base their house system on a child's morality. That's not how a usual school works lmao. My problem is with the whole house system hinging on the morality of a 12 year old and how it never gets better or worse. I don't appreciate being spoken to like I'm an 'idiot american' when I clearly never said anything about having a problem with a house system in itself. Plus, even if I didn't have knowledge of the British school system, that wouldn't automatically equal american??? Check your biases, my friend.

[@startrekrecruit]

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

[@kikibyde]

Can you give me a good Ursula book. I read one and can't get through it 😭😪

[@traps-wg3gt]

@startrekrecruit You should be a writer. Seriously. To discover that at such a young age and have such a high level of critical thinking THAT YOUNG is really commendable.

[@tillyqtillyq3750]

​@@kikibyde"The Word for the World is Forest" is a short one that I really liked! And "A Wizard of Earthsea" is the classic that OP was referrencing (Though the second book in that series is very slow). Another great option would be a book of her short stories called "A Fisherman on the Inland Sea" that has some great ones. The title story is really beautiful and sad and there's a pair of shorts ("The Shobies' Story" and "Dancing to Ganam") about the difference between telling stories/defining reality collaboratively versus one person enforcing their reality/story on others.

[@tillyqtillyq3750]

Def some of her stuff can be slow and opaque, I feel like things like "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" are classics because she imagines worlds that were very new in fantasy at the time but moving thru their world building can feel like trudging thru a swamp at times.

[@alpaga4820]

OK but like what kind of teacher is this ? Since when does making valid criticism equal being cynical 💀

[@kaelhate1791]

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.

[@poppie267]

Make sense consider how big her ego is.

[@damianpinnington5477]

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.

[@Seal0626]

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.

[@bevishhh]

Suuuuuper interesting, in a really infuriating sort of way

[@JovanDacic]

I didn't know I could love and respect Sir Terry any more than I did before. Gods, I love Moist von Lipwig and this tidbit of queer trivia. Thanks for sharing this; the Moist books are by far my favorites among the Discworld series and this warms my cold little heart.

[@ajrollo1437]

She sold the IP to Warner Bros, so blame the faceless corporate lawyers.

[@Seal0626]

@@ajrollo1437 eh?

[@snorpenbass4196]

@@ajrollo1437 No, she still owns it. It's why she keeps being rich in spite of herself.

[@spantigre3190]

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

[@bharl7226]

Fr fr, all the best artists wear their inspirations proudly on their sleeves

[@beckydawolf]

I know the answer to this one! They're from a book called 'Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'. Pratchett also used it in his work but you can tell he used it as a jumping off point and went and looked into the concepts a bit deeper whereas she just used the 50 word definition.

[@vvitch-mist20]

I was floored when I heard she said that. As a writer myself I can't really say where my ideas come from, but I can absolutely explain how I go about creating stories. Take two concepts I like, subvert them a little, and add in a lot of gay. (I can also you know name things, and people who have inspired my work)

[@milescox1792]

Kind of like how a toddler has no clue who ate all the Oreos?

[@vvitch-mist20]

@@milescox1792 L O L yeah. She literally couldn't say "I decided to just throw all the magic school books from the last 30 years together and sprinkled in some racism, and fascism into it."

[@Macallion]

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.

[@Macallion]

@@yurisei6732 It's not a bandwagon thing this time - at least not for everyone. It's the hate she keeps spewing, which emboldens others who agree to attack, discriminate etc. and affects the opinions of those who are still fans and believe every word she says for some reason. Everyone just seems to be so angry about everything at the moment, and in all the things there are to actually be genuinely angry about, she chose a group of already vulnerable people who literally just want to live their lives. It's exhausting. In terms of the writing itself, it's always been bad and full of further hate, so no idea.

[@caelanconrad]

@yurisei6732 you don’t seem very informed about Rowling’s political influence in the UK, and the 10 paragraphs you’ve left on this video in various comments in the last hour are full of assumptions, incorrect information, and straight up ridiculous conclusions. If you’re worried about how people spend their time, start at home.

[@caelanconrad]

@yurisei6732 I wouldn’t know, because that doesn’t apply to me, but nice deflection from the fact that you’re objectively wrong and loud about it.

[@zoushaomenohu]

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...

[@ApacheMagic]

Both have been raised and addressed, both failed as cases of plagiarism.

[@zoushaomenohu]

@halloweenallyearround4889 Ibbotson herself did not think so, for reasons similar to Gaiman's. While she did say she'd want to shake Rowling's hand at the time, I don't know if she'd still want to if she were still alive and witnessing Rowling's current downward spiral.

[@ladyowl8732]

I have been looking for that book title, " Which Whitch," for a while, thanks. Parts of it popped into my head while reading Harry Potter more than once.

[@GaryTongue-zn5di]

@ApacheMagic Failed by whom? Yu dumbass!

[@blairfujin]

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

[@Lawnie]

Following on from your sarcastic comment about Joanne being so feminist, I've noticed something else about her books. Harry Potter main series? Male protagonist. Cursed Child? Two protagonists, both male. Fantastic Beasts movie? Protagonists are male. The Ickabog? Two protagonists, apparently, one male and one female. The Christmas Pig? Male protagonist. The Cormoran Strike books? Two protagonists, arguably, one male and one female, male pen name. The Casual Vacancy? I have no idea, it has like 34 characters and I don't know who counts as protagonists, but there are a mix of male and female. Every single book Joanne has ever written with a female protagonist has also had at least one male protagonist. But sure, she's a suuuuuper feminist, right?

[@emanuelborges4458]

I wrote a whole comment about it! If she really were that feminist, she would've make Hermione the protagonist. The story would be so much better. All the stories that took inspiration in HP have female protagonists and feminist themes, but apparentely JK gives the credit to herself for being feminist.

[@animeotaku307]

Not to mention how she treats many of the female characters in the books. The example that stood out to me most; how unsympathetic the narrative is to Cho in book 5. Poor girl lost her boyfriend in a traumatic way and is still grieving nearly a year after, but she’s treated like an annoyance.

[@miakirilova7255]

Yes, but also, I think that's part of what made her so succefull. Making the protagonist a young boy, makes boys wanna read it.

[@bl3343]

I don't want to sound like I'm defending Rowling, but women writing male protagonists and males writing female protagonists seems to be pretty common in fantasy literature.

[@rdzu834]

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…

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

She has no original thoughts, fr, that's astonishing. How much heavy lifting did lifelong socialist Alan Rickman do to give that character complexity in the films?

[@rdzu834]

@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 I’m absolutely gutted someone didn’t find out, arrange for John to be invited on set and meet Alan. That would’ve been amazing. They were also both Labour Party supporters so they’d have gone on really well I think.

[@Lakeside80]

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.

[@Terrestriellie]

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.

[@BliffleSplick]

Last I looked, the TV show episodes of The Worst Witch are also on here (youtube)

[@TigerPrawn_]

Looking back, I think the worst witch may have been a queer awakening for me

[@shadylittlefox]

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

[@theguilloriousmind5832]

It hurt but it was tough love

[@emilyrln]

Frfr

[@koy4i]

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

[@phaIIicaIIyimpaired]

😂 Thanks for the cackle I'd be Hans Bratwurst-Sauerkraut (yes, I'm German, how could you tell?!)

[@IwonaKlich]

I'm Polish Jewish... I'm scared to even think how she can named me. She just having thing with polish names.

[@mariaaguadoball3407]

Since I'm bicultural, I guess I'd be Jolene Paella.

[@MissMoontree]

Dutch; Anne van Clogg-Dyke and her nephew Kaas VanStroopwafel Belgium; Manneken de la Friet

[@havunhuuto]

From Finland here, so propably ”Nokia Polarbearus”( to be clear, we do not have polar bears here)

[@DayerethSelmar8682]

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

[@walterprice9775]

@@DayerethSelmar8682 "Dumbledore" is also an obsolete term for "bumblebee"

[@GaryTongue-zn5di]

@walterprice9775 Wrong, dumbass. It isn't obsolete. It is still used in Britain, dumbass.

[@tubian323]

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

[@fionn_mac_ribs]

You mean Timothy Hunter. A British tween who wears glasses, owns a pet owl and uses magic. Timothy Hunter came out seven years before Harry Potter did.

[@ngarcia2116]

@@fionn_mac_ribs he didn’t make the cut I guess, seeing as culturally he holds very little recognition.

[@heralds]

Did you mean CROMRADE LENIN OF OUR GLORIOUS REVOLUTION

[@sr_ryoadm]

@@heralds Lenin was a poster boy from other russian elite and a pet from Rockfellers

[@jeffreyfiegen1538]

Did you mean, Sir Elton John?

[@CynthiaMcG]

I believe that I first heard the name "Hogwart" in the Jim Henson movie, Labyrinth. Technically, it was Terry Jones who first worked on the screenplay.

[@theresahedges1478]

“It’s Hoggle!”

[@yellowbutterfly6796]

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

[@marocat4749]

The thing is you can add a lot withj adding the creepiness and darkness, afte rall a lot good family and ya, are hella dark, you just have to be aware and responsible that its about being able to face it, not, endorse it .

[@nanibgalthelinguophile]

Same plan? Same plan!

[@HotDogTimeMachine385]

I recommend the game Ikenfell, it's really cute and wholesome

[@ShidoMedia]

@@HotDogTimeMachine385 one of my favorite games and i will try to make everyone play it!

[@Arosukir6]

Anything by Dianna Wynne Jones or Terry Pratchett is phenomenal!

[@isoesuper]

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.

[@Damn1Google]

Tombs of Atuan is absolutely brilliant although I'm not sure it's suitable for all children! If there was ever any book I'd describe as "dark" it's that one! I want to see an animated adaptation where the first half is entirely done in wavery outlines of what the main character thinks is there -- because it's pitch black in fact -- until THE LIGHT COMES ON mid-story and the entire animation style changes to realistic

[@floridaexile1106]

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

[@Sparrowlicious-01]

I LOVE Le Guin and I was so heartbroken when she died. She called out a bunch of people for their nonsense. We lost such a great author and feminist the day she died.

[@carlkligerman1981]

LeGuin was a bone-fide genius.

[@Broeckchen]

Being called out by LeGuin should really shake someone up. She didn't write Omelas for nothing.

[@MrRonantho]

​@@lunalee3021 Sure..like mcdonald is grand cuisine or high gastronomy...

[@Broeckchen]

@@davidmorris2219 Enjoy Omelas~

[@TheLloydVoid]

This video was weirdly healing. JKR was one of the first authors that really inspired me as a kid. I hadn't thought about it until now, but I think her attitude of "I don't know where my ideas come from! I guess I'm just a literary genius!" had a profound impact on me in a negative way. Like, this whole time I've felt like such a failure as a creator because I can't seem to spring ideas out of nowhere.

[@HeadacheCentral]

Relatable, but nevertheless painful to read. I hope you've found some company to help you heal from that kind of self-harming attitude.

[@davidfairweather3301]

There’s so many videos online where she outright says she took inspiration from folklore and mythology and added her own twist lol. She never hid this

[@Blkloligamer]

I said Harry Potter kinda seemed like a kinda-boring boy version of The Worst Witch since I was a kid and everyone insisted it was totes different. But like, is it tho? 🤔 Draco Malfoy is literally the gender-swapped Ethel Hallow.

[@archvaldor]

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.

[@wavewingman5993]

@@archvaldor While we're on the subject of necessary contrary statements, I also see a lot of people in the comments listing off every little thing that happens to be similar to an element of Harry Potter and predates it, and like, the odds that JK Rowling plagiarized every single one of these things are kinda low. I think a lot of stuff in the video is well-evidenced enough to say it was likely intentionally lifted, but sometimes things are just similar. I also agree that having multiple sources is totally okay. One of my favorite types of media is the kind of passion project that wears its many influences on its sleeve and celebrates them with frequent homages and references. In the case of JK, though, I think the statement "I have no idea where my ideas come from" is very telling. She could have easily said "Well, I was very inspired by (x and y), which, in addition to being transparent, is also just a great way to shout out other writers. But she wants to pretend she came up with all this on her own via some kind of divine inspiration.

[@commarchinin]

You missed Dianna Wynne Jones! Specifically the Chrestomanci books, source of "He Who Shall not be Named", educating young wizards in a castle, a family of redhead sidekicks, the concept of characters splitting their life and embuing some of that life force into objects, griffons being a big deal, and honestly probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting. I actually read the Chrestomanci books before Harry Potter, and just couldn't get through the first one - it just felt like the same thing written way worse.

[@jamesgravil9162]

"the concept of characters splitting their life and embuing some of that life force into objects" Pretty sure that comes from Lord of the Rings. That's basically what the One Ring is, a Horcrux.

[@commarchinin]

@@jamesgravil9162 True, but nine lived enchanters are just so much the fully-formed Horcrux idea, it's really striking

[@astrinymris9953]

@@commarchinin Chrestomanci had to have his last two lives hidden away because he was burning through them dying in his dreams. And Cat's psychopathic sister Gwendolen was the one who put his lives into a matchbook so she could use them more easily. This wasn't the norm for nine-lifed enchanters. Not hatin', just sayin'.

[@commarchinin]

@@astrinymris9953 Definitely true, and there's also the difference that the nine lives are separate originally whereas Horcruxes are a single life split. Ultimately I think I'm not saying Horcruxes are identical to nine lived enchanters - but they are a lot closer to that than to most other comparable fantasy notions I've come across. I honestly think Horcruxes are in a lot of ways kinda just the least interesting parts of the nine lived enchanters concept.

[@TigerPrawn_]

Yes Howl’s Moving Castle!

[@hannahlarge5738]

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.

[@marocat4749]

Enyd blithon seems to be problematic, but not all over social media harassing people so, i guess less problematic. So good that she is still beloved thanks to not being all over i guess. And not as straight abusive as marlon zimmer bradley.

[@NataliePine]

Enid Blyton is very problematic but I do find it interesting that one of her most famous series involves an AFAB character who hates being addressed as a girl, loves being addressed as a boy, dresses in a masculine way, and takes a traditionally male name. Accidentally woke?

[@jaybee4118]

@@marocat4749problematic, but so much more likely to be having been born in 1897 lol I’m very proud that my father’s family have been super woke, for their time, since at least the mid 1800. They were non-religious pacifists who had friends from all kinds of backgrounds, countries and religions, did a lot of charity work, volunteered in hospitals, suffragettes, I even had a relative who was a drag king in 1930s london and who might have been trans as the name they used was Bill and they were AFAB, and they were completely accepted by the family. I know I had an openly gay great, great uncle who was accepted by the family at the same time Oscar Wild was prosecuted (I wish he’d met my uncle, he was gorgeous and my family wouldn’t have sued him). I still guarantee they’d have said some stuff that would make my skin crawl now. Rowling was born at the tail end of the civil rights movement. She doesn’t realise there’s another one now and she’s on the wrong side.

[@Lawnie]

@@NataliePine Technically two! George of The Famous Five is the most obvious one, but Malory Towers gave us Wilhelmina, who prefers being called Bill because she thinks Wilhelmina is "too girly", and who develops a very "gal pal" relationship with another horse girl, if you catch my drift. (My head-canons are that Bill is a baby butch, and that she and Clarissa start their riding school together, never marry men and have a delightful and long lesbian life as a couple.)

[@pattheplanter]

@@jaybee4118 E Nesbit was a Fabian socialist and progressive born in 1858. I can recommend all of her books as delights of the "magical world suddenly revealed to a group of children, hilarity ensues" genre. I loved John Masefield's The Midnight Folk published in 1927, which was a bit scarier. I don't know how well that would hold up to my modern eyes.

[@DavidJBradley]

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

[@xilj4002]

It's simple. Agatha Christie doesn't exist, she's a lie, we know because JK is the first female author ever in the history of literature

[@imaginarylivingbody7154]

@@xilj4002 Given that Agatha Christie may or may not have disappeared herself at one point, I think she wants us to think that.

[@nikogarcia201]

The funny thing is, the very first novel in recorded history, the tale of Genji, was written by a Japanese noblewoman from the Heian era. So yes Joanne, your not the first female author by a very, very long shot.

[@phoenixfire6433]

The Harry Potter series isn’t even the top-selling fiction series any more, One Piece passed it a while back.

[@jamesgravil9162]

Agatha Christie has a few decades' headstart on J.K. Rowling, to be fair.

[@MikeTButler]

A 12 year old boy named Harry learns he's a wizard and fights to protect a secret world full of dark magic? You mean the 1995 made-for-TV animation adaptation of DarkStalkers?

[@kylereese4822]

Troll movie 1986.... Noah Hathaway as Harry Potter Jr. Michael Moriarty as Harry Potter Sr. Shelley Hack as Anne Potter Jenny Beck as Wendy Anne Potter Sonny Bono as Peter Dickinson Phil Fondacaro as Malcolm Malory and Torok the Troll Brad Hall as William Daniels June Lockhart as Eunice St. Clair Anne Lockhart as Young Eunice St. Clair Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Jeanette Cooper Gary Sandy as Barry Tabor Frank Welker as the voice of Torok the Troll and various Troll voices

[@GaryTongue-zn5di]

@kylereese4822 William Daniels is Mr. Fenny in Boy Meets World! Even Troll is a plagerizest!

[@AverageSparrow]

"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.

[@mitcharendt2253]

Truth

[@genericname2747]

I REALLY hate how she ended the series, and I disagree with her stance on why she ended it that way. But unlike Jowling Kowling Rowling, she's a decent human being who isn't desperately trying to remain relevant.

[@caelanconrad]

I think the way she ended it was the only way it could have ended and done justice to what the kids went through. But it hurts. I have part of Rachel’s last words tattooed on my hand. “Was I worth it?”

[@LyndsayW1194]

Im so happy to find out K.A. Applegate is a good person. Loved the books, loved her characters.

[@genericname2747]

@@caelanconrad They're child soldiers though. The Geneva convention doesn't even hold child soldiers accountable for the things they're forced to do, why are the Animorphs blamed for fighting a war they were forced into! I have strong opinions on this childrens book series.

[@3komma141592]

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

[@Alextruong0912]

Bruh This comment got me choked on my water XD

[@valley_robot]

200% on this, everything is stolen from other works

[@deedubu1602]

And every celebrity is built up... to be torn down. As above So below

[@Whatever94-i4u]

@@deedubu1602 They are allowed to be criticized if they come out as raging bigots... If that's what you're getting at.

[@nicoledorman8484]

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.

[@kylereese4822]

Troll movie 1986.... Noah Hathaway as Harry Potter Jr. Michael Moriarty as Harry Potter Sr. Shelley Hack as Anne Potter Jenny Beck as Wendy Anne Potter Sonny Bono as Peter Dickinson Phil Fondacaro as Malcolm Malory and Torok the Troll Brad Hall as William Daniels June Lockhart as Eunice St. Clair Anne Lockhart as Young Eunice St. Clair Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Jeanette Cooper Gary Sandy as Barry Tabor Frank Welker as the voice of Torok the Troll and various Troll voices

[@kylereese4822]

Noah Hathaway played Atreyu in The NeverEnding Story, In the film, Artax is played by two grey mares, who had to undergo months of training to cope with the various immersive sets and practical effects. This included standing on a hydraulic platform that lowered them into the swamp, and being submerged in water up to the chin. According to Entertainment Weekly, Noah Hathaway (Atreyu) was gifted one of the mares on wrapping The Neverending Story. Hathaway decided to leave the horse in the capable hands of his riding double, who kept her on a ranch in Germany where filming took place. The mare had 20 happy years with Hathaway’s double before passing away.

[@lynnboartsdye1943]

Something I just find really strange is at least in the movies (it’s been too long since I’ve read the books so feel free to correct me) I notice in her secret wizard school there’s nothing on basic schooling both for blending in to human society and just practical skills for existing in human society. Imagine you’re a wizard and you gotta do taxes, is every other skill replaced with a magic spell or are these magic kids only good at magic?

[@caelanconrad]

Only magic. No math or anything 😩

[@seanmalloy7249]

Arithmancy

[@yesterdaysrose5446]

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.

[@caelanconrad]

Yep

[@lonesavior]

The fact that she opened up a plothole because when wizards adopted plumbing was so important, despite the school established as having an ancient secret passage built into a bathroom, but STILL she hasn't bothered to even name all the world's major wizard schools paints a very clear picture of her world building skills.

[@anonymoussaga8723]

There are loads of highly derivative and half baked worlds out there, but I think the thing that made Rowling different was that she somehow wrote it in a way that engages the reader’s imagination and gets the reader to mentally fill out her flimsy world and make it their own without realising that they’re doing it. She basically created a playground/theme park in book form.

[@hughcaldwell1034]

Honestly, the thing that always bugged me (even as a child super-fan... I'll admit it) was how so much of the "whimsy" was just things being vaguely disgusting or inconvenient. The beans flavoured like bodily secretions, the magic bus driven so erratically no one can sleep and the hot drinks get spilled everywhere, the food and books that try to hurt you... it's like magic makes their lives so easy they have to f*ck around on purpose to have any sense of challenge.

[@carolinemcgovern4488]

@@hughcaldwell1034 You were right to be bugged by that IMO.

[@fatcat1414]

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.

[@bennichol1510]

Owl house exists.

[@CarysCreatesThings]

@@bennichol1510I love The Owl House!

[@bennichol1510]

@@CarysCreatesThings same its soo good

[@CarysCreatesThings]

@@bennichol1510I recently introduced my 12 year old niece to it and she loves it too.

[@bennichol1510]

@CarysCantDance nice you could introduce her to gravity falls and amphibia just because apparently they take place in universes that overlap like there's soke easter eggs here and there

[@NeighborhoodOfBlue]

"J.K. Rowling is a wedding DJ for fantasy fiction, playing all the hits. And there's nothing worse than a DJ." ~Caelan Conrad I had to hit pause to thoroughly enjoy that burn. Goodness Caelan, you're brilliant.

[@nocrtname]

When I saw my kid watching “the worst witch” on tv, a tv series based on a book series where a kid goes to a magical school in a forest and learns potions and how to fly on a broom, has two friends one of which is more outgoing and the other which is more bookish, who meets a wealthy arrogant blonde student on the first day , is hated by the potions professor who wears all black and favors the arrogant blonde, I thought, what a shameless cash grab ripoff of Harry Potter. Only to find out worst witch was published in 1974.

[@NorthernWayfarer-Alice]

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?

[@GaryTongue-zn5di]

You Mean Bedknobs and Broomsticks? Narnia? 🤔

[@kyokunskitty]

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

[@aviendha1154]

It looks like it! I’ve also been waiting for a video about this ever since I saw the worst witch show and then read the source material and realised that she just removed all the feminism from the worst witch, blended up some characters, separated others (Harry and Ron are Mildred) and boom Harry Potter

[@iseemtobelost]

I was just thinking the same thing when I saw the title! I remember watching the Netflix worst witch when it came out w younger relatives and there are a loooot of similarities to HP there 👀 it ended up like a game of how many we could find

[@Seal0626]

My pedantic loyalty to _The Worst Witch_ is literally the reason why I never got into _Harry Potter_ despite being its exact target audience at the time.

[@yellowbutterfly6796]

i haven't heard of the worst witch before, now ive got a new thing to get into, thank you

[@marocat4749]

Yes, the worst witch has even a pretty good if too short series. Its also it really fun and cozy while dealing with bullying pretty well. And , oh she did even stean unconcious uncontrolled magic that in harry potter went nowhere, of course. Oh god, so much.

[@sleepysadghost]

I’m nonbinary, autistic, and mixed race so I think my JKR name would be “Confusda Dumbmutt”

[@asarishepard8171]

I'm Irish American so pretty sure she's call me little orphan Annie or something

[@melcobelc]

I'm bicultural, so I'd be Dacia Oktoberfest

[@phoenixfire6433]

I’m Australian so she’d probably call me something like “Bondi Binchicken”

[@aaronsarchive82]

I'm a second generation of German immigrants. Jo would probably call me "Hans Libenschnitzel" or "Kristoff Fuhrermeister."

[@jason00121]

Watching both “the worst witch” and “the color of magic” the parallels are pretty obvious.

[@angelalovell5669]

OKAY BRILLIANT! I'm done. Got a little one and a big one. 1. If I remember correctly, the sashes came from The Worst Witch (uniforms and houses are just British school things, as much as I want to charge JK with as many misdeeds as possible) but weren't actually stolen by JK, it was WB when they made the films! I've always been under the impression that the books just had school robes (I didn't even think they had house identification on them) over street clothes and it was an aesthetic and costuming choice made for the films to include a uniform under wide open robes. Could use confirmation in that but I'm oretty sure it's oart of the pre-movie merch aesthetic - all the kids are wearing regular clothes and/or robes no uniforms. 2. The character of Constance Hardbroom was actually split into two for HP - the substance went to Snape while the physicality, being head if the protagonist's house and "maternal moments" went to Professor McGonagall. Go to the first chapter of the first book, read the description of McGonagall once she's transfigurated out of her animagus cat form then look at a photo of Kate Duchêne in costume for Miss Hardbroom from the tv series. Identical. I think JK might have had a wee crush on our Kate (Hardbroom is a dommy lesbian fantasy, in fairness, who didn't crush?) so essentially wrote her into the book as her own tartan boarding school matron fantasy. Legend tells that Kate was called about playing McGonagall in the films, auditioning for or having it offered outright early in the casting, and SHE REFUSED, citing her loyalty to The Worst Witch and Constance Hardbroom. Utter legend 🏆 If she HAD said yes, there would have been some weird Snape/McGonagall shit written into the films, marks my words. You cannot have sexy Alan Rickman and sexy Kate Duchêne playing essentially the same character in opposition and not have it get steamy. Nerdy and steamy. And as I'm a pansexual woman who loudly decries most things JK says she stands for, I'm guessing my offensive character name would be Pandora Box, because it's unoriginal, describes my association with everything that horrifies her and it's appropriated from the ENTIRE Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend (first published in book form in 1982) AND several many members of the drag and queer communities! Feels like it ticks all her... boxes, I'm sorry.

[@AC-dk4fp]

House Identification on uniforms is real though my Boarding School had them on the ties (not mine since I was a day student so didn't sleep in a dorm). I remember finding the realistic School Uniforms in the films super weird and just thought they wore robes in the books but never liked the films or considered them especially iconic, just bad literary adaptations like every other one at the time.

[@phoenixfire6433]

Another Adrian Mole fan? Hello, based department? We got a woman of culture here.

[@angelalovell5669]

​@@AC-dk4fp Oh yes, of course house identification is real. I had to wear my house badge on my blazer at school. I was referring to the fact that there was none in the books, it was all added in for the movies.

[@angelalovell5669]

​@@phoenixfire6433What? A comment reply that's complimentary, not hate speech? KZbin, YOU LET ONE THROUGH! That'll be why I missed this for two whole months. Thanks for the ups ❤

[@ChrisCooper312]

Thanks a lot, you've now got me remembering back to some of the Snape x Hardbroom fan fiction I came across (or to) in the early days of fanfiction on the internet.

[@gowanmetal]

I can’t be the only person who wants to hear you go off about Animorphs for at least the length of a feature film.

[@caelanconrad]

Oh I have a podcast coming this year 😌

[@mitcharendt2253]

Yes!

[@akaErma]

the Somerton bit killed me, thank you for that lol

[@funde19]

I had to pause it I was laughing so hard

[@harleythegreat]

I grew up prime age for Harry Potter. I read the first book when I was 11 and it had just been translated into my language. And I was hooked, buying each new book when it came out, and forcing my way through learning English so I wouldn't have to wait for the translations. HOWEVER. I think it's very telling that the part of fandom I was most drawn to was the Marauder fandom. The thing she wrote the least about, where the fans took the scraps and created their own huge canon around. ... and also as soon as I read actual better books, I didn't touch the HP books again.

[@xBoringPerfectionx]

In 2015 my university professor did a lecture on how Harry potter is a rip off of lots of books like the worst witch. People were so mad but in hindsight he was so right.

[@nathanlabrador7664]

"Harry Potter is a Worst Witch ripoff." "SHUT UP" They hated Jesus because he told them the truth.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@nathanlabrador7664, "Some of you will still be alive when I return" *Checks Calendar* It's been over 1,900 years they are all dead.

[@summer_pain]

happy pride month everyone ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

[@OctopusGrift]

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.

[@OctopusGrift]

@@Tasorius That wasn't what I said, my point was that the elements that caused Harry Potter to become as big a phenomenon as it did were not related to the quality of the writing. It did require skill for Rowling to write a book that could step into the niche that propelled it to super-fame. That skill was not the driving force once it was in that niche. I would argue that the way it was marketed got a lot of kids to read it at the same time and that resulted in them having a major shared experience. I was reading before the book came out, but it was a very different and more exciting experience to be able to talk to almost any of my classmates about the book. That's why so many people use Harry Potter as a point of reference, they expect that other people will know what they are talking about. It is silly and childish to try to explain your political opponents as being "like the death eaters" but most people do know what that means. It's not a good point of comparison, but Harry Potter had a wide cultural impact so most people know what is being talked about.

[@d4ncedemon326]

Very good points!

[@MiraArrr]

@@OctopusGrift it became a massive phenomenon because Scholastic and Mattel used every marketing tool at their disposal to get it in front of every child they could. It was not a grassroots thing, it was corporate almost from the beginning. VerilyBitchie did a fantastic video on the subject if you’re interested

[@davidfairweather3301]

@@MiraArrrYeh but it wouldn’t have had the longevity it has if it was trash

[@hoykfnvnnesnxnnensncjforkx1616]

Yeah and on top of group chats online and fanfiction, etc becoming really popular the same time the books were coming out just made it even bigger

[@kylejacobs3684]

I've never heard someone make the name Joanne just sound so... caustic. Love it.

[@Heroshii15]

Funny thing: Rowling “listing clichés and sorting them into playlists” wasn’t even original. That was done by Diana Wynne Jones in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, published in 1996.

[@jackcade8790]

Diana Wynn Jones also has a book about students attending a boarding school in the aftermath of a big magic war. That is, fittingly enough the sequel to the book she wrote based on the Tough Guide to Fantasyland. The first book is the Dark Lord of Derkholm about the fantasyland except it has all those cliches because it's been colonized into a theme park for people from a non magical world. Then the sequel, Year of the Griffin is about one of the children of the hero of the first book attending wizard boarding school, except because the school was pumping out students to work as part of the colonized magic theme park they still teach as though that's the only goal. And so the main character and all her friends are actually trying to change the status quo. Also the main character is a genetically modified Griffin because Dianna Wynn Jones was actually creative and fun.

[@Eloraurora]

​@@jackcade8790 I love those books _so much._ Here's a fun fantasy adventure that also comments on capitalism, colonialism, sexism, family dynamics, spirituality, self-confidence, grief...

[@emilyrln]

@@jackcade8790those are my absolute favorites of her books! And Deep Magic 🥰

[@ZimVader-0017]

I'm just going through these comments collecting fantasy authors I hadn't heard about 😂

[@Heroshii15]

@@ZimVader-0017 If you didn't know, Diana Wynne Jones is also the author behind Howl's Moving Castle, the (loose) basis for the Hayao Miyazaki movie.

[@foxxknight8847]

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...

[@GaryTongue-zn5di]

*Brother in-law, not her brother, dumbass.

[@thegayghost872]

I’m Arab so JK would probably name me Ali Baba Bin Ladin

[@caelanconrad]

That’s my cats name!!!

[@RedSpade37]

​@@caelanconrad I am _screaming_

[@SwitchbackCh]

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.

[@GaryTongue-zn5di]

"I work very hard! Worst day off my Life!" -Cousin Staveros (Full House)

[@SandyTheDesertFox]

I remember my dad and i seeing the worst witch tv show and mocking it for being a Harry Potter rip-off Boy do i feel stupid now

[@violetbackedstarling]

Me too

[@PaKalsha]

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)

[@DianeDuaneWriter]

...Chuckling at 1:47. ☺ Thanks for the shout-out!

[@caelanconrad]

LOL of course! 🥰

[@OldManMose92]

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

[@Christopher_Gibbons]

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.

[@Crystal_Clout]

Had never read Enid Blyton either, the school novels, the kids adventures, or the fairytales. All of which she managed to rip off.

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

I mean if she doesn’t read much of anything it does

[@Crystal_Clout]

@@SebastianSeanCrow except she talks about her parents being readers and being encouraged to read as child. And Gaiman was published 10 yrs pre Harry Potter.

[@stevenclubb7718]

As someone who worked in a comic shop when BoM came out, I'd expect half of our customers were unaware of it. I remember trying to get normies to give Sandman a shot and it was nigh impossible to get them to even considering to read it, because comics were goofy kids stuff. I remember my older sister, a huge Star Wars fan, very reluctantly reading Dark Empire... and only after it had been referenced in a novel she had read. So, yeah, I can totally believe JK had zero clue about what was going on inside a nearby comic shop. BoM did reasonably well, but it only received a fraction of the attention that Sandman had gotten. And even Gaiman admits the set-up of BoM was pretty familiar when he did it. He's never pretended it was anywhere close to being an original idea. JK deserves a ton of shade, but I'd be surprised if she read comics back then.

[@Valeria-sx7uv]

@@stevenclubb7718 I am reading the 10th tome of Sandman right now and I am so weirded out about Sandman and "for kids" mentioned nearby, lol. Some themes and stories in Sandman are really mature only stuff... Those people really have not seen any comics for adults.

[@punkykenickie2408]

Oh I've been annoyed for decades at HP getting praised as new and unique when almost all the famous elements had been done before. I suppose it's the generic (dare one say 'centrist'?) takes on existing ideas that make it get so absurdly popular - it's not challenging anyone in any way, it's trying to be cosy and non-threatening. I don't knew where I picked up the notion that JKR researched what might sell well before sitting down in that expensive cafe to write the HP? (The fact that they're about a *boy* wizard seems throwaway but it definitely helped sell it to people who'd never buy The Worst Witch for their sons - just as an example.)

[@anotherdeadweirdo382]

I gotta say as a millennial OG potter hater who railed against how utterly inane these books were as a kid, i do have a bit of monkey’s paw remorse. i would have preferred people had a chance to just grow out of this garbage naturally rather than be chased out by Jersey Krull Rowling’s determined repugnance. Sorry it turned out this way, fellow nerds and queers. But also; come the fuck on! The magic system sounds like if Mel Brooks wrote a Merlin movie! “Expectum exposition!” Brooks shouts as the prologue begins…

[@perrisavallon5170]

Kinda curious - did you like other fantasy stuff as a kid? I wonder if some of the appeal of HP comes from just not knowing stories that used its tropes better. Like I feel like if it hadn't been my introduction to the genre I'd be less attached to it

[@Damn1Google]

@@perrisavallon5170 I'm so sure this is it. I had a wall of children's fantasy when HP came out. Most of the people who loved HP had never heard of ANY of the authors on my shelves -- not Nesbit, not Baum, not Eager, not Tolkein, not LeGuin, not Duane, not Wynn Jones, not Aiken, etc. Same as Twilight. The fans of Twilight had mostly... not read any other vampire novels

[@emerycorner]

JKR dont even know her own characters, what do you MEAN Harry becomes a wizard cop HE WANTS A QUIET LIFE

[@M_M_ODonnell]

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.

[@Urmumlel7025]

Earthsea and The Worst Witch clears the entire Harry Potter franchise. Also, you totally forgot about Melusine.

[@CarysCreatesThings]

Someone I know just shared a meme about the similarities between Harry Potter and the 1986 movie 'Troll'. The protagonist of Troll is named Harry Potter, and a lot of the themes are similar. Apparently the director John Carl Buechler planned to make a reboot of Troll in the mid-2000s, but was threatened with legal action from Warner Brothers.

[@Whyteroze28]

Isn't the kid in Troll technically called Harry Potter Jr?

[@CarysCreatesThings]

@@Whyteroze28 His name is still Harry Potter and so is his father’s. ‘Jr’ is a suffix to distinguish him from his father, just as ‘Sr’ is a suffix to distinguish his father from him.

[@caelanconrad]

@Whyteroze28 people don’t actually call people their name and then “jr” when discussing them though, that’s more for distinguishing between parent and child

[@Whyteroze28]

@caelanconrad I get that, but he had a dad in the movie, who I would assume was the original Harry, so I would probably have established that there were two. Just being pedantic, I guess...

[@Amira_Phoenix]

That reboot would've been a real Troll 😂

[@vinkei4521]

I've read fanfiction more creative than JK Rowling's work, with more character depth and clearer themes. Besides, at least fanfic writers are clear about where their ideas come from

[@maadtee6281]

You can say that about any story nothing new even then it is difficult to find good written fanfiction

[@alananimus9145]

Reminder Harry Potter is a slave owner.

[@violet7773]

Noooooo but you don't understand they can't free Kreacher (yes, his slave is literally called Creature. Dehumanisation, who's she?) because he knows all of the secrets of the Order of the Phoenix and if they freed him he'd tattle so they have to keep him enslaved and treat him horribly, he deserves it because he's mean and uglyyyyy (sarcasm in case it didn't come across)

[@jeffreygao3956]

Billy Yank: Oh, you're a monster!

[@violettbellerose1173]

But he is a ✨kind✨ slave owner /s

[@juliaboskamp9666]

Is slavery really that bad if the slave consents to being a slave -JK Rolling

[@tolvfen]

He didn't use the slave as a slave

[@User_Az_0]

"Roll the thingy!" That's me when I used to play monopoly with my family

[@goyoelburro]

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...