I despise the "JK Rowling was rejected by twelve publishers before publishing Harry Potter" factoid because it's characterized as some kind of triumphant upending of the clueless literary establishment and not multiple professionals recognizing it was completely derivative work
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Replying to @Nymphomachy
Derivative? What's the original? I'm trying to build up my novel backlog.
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Replying to @quidohmi_prsnl @Nymphomachy
Gaiman's Books of Magic are about a boy with a lightning scar, glasses, and an owl familiar that discovers he's a magical chosen one and how he learns magic.
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Replying to @PoohBearCorner @bojac6 and
Apparently there were multiple people who came up with a very similar idea around the same time, re: HP. Maybe something inspired certain people in the UK and JK got lucky? Or time travelers went back when they found out Rowling's a jerk but it never changed anything
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It's not "around the same time", Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman started 1990, So You Want to Be A Wizard by Diane Duane was 1982, Charmed Life by Dianna Wyne Jones was 1977, The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy was 1974, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin was 1968
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Replying to @arthur_affect @oyyolum and
The whole "wizard school" concept was an ongoing genre for a long time, and it's very hard to believe that JK Rowling had never read, say, The Worst Witch, which is extremely reminiscent of Harry Potter and was very popular in the UK when she was a girl in the 1970s/80s
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It's like people being miffed at George Lucas for pretending he was the first person to do a sword-and-sorcery-style epic in space, like space opera wasn't a thing for *decades* before Star Wars came out and like he didn't make it after losing the Flash Gordon license
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