Talk:Harry Potter influences and analogues

The Attic

 * Enter the Attic

This is an exceptionally touchy topic, in which the temptation towards original research is overwhelming, so I have established some very strict rules as to what can and cannot go into the main article. Top of the list is uncited material, by which I mean a comparison made without a third party reference that also makes said comparison. If you have a work you wish to include that is uncited, please place it on this subpage, and it may be cited and included in future. Please be sure that any such analogues were published before Harry Potter. Thank you. Serendipodous 13:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Very nice page
Great job, authors of this page. Very useful, well-cited and enjoyable to read. jengod (talk) 19:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I will take this to the talk page
Nadrail, you are effectively accusing Rowling of plagiarism, which is a crime. It is not Wikipedia's job, regardless of the evidence, to accuse people of crimes. Wikipedia can report others' accusations, but it cannot make those accusations itself. If you want to quote your sources claiming that Rowling took these ideas from Star Wars, feel free. But do not make those claims yourself.  Serendi pod ous  23:26, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh please, the whole article is accusing her of plagerism. Everyone quoted is accusing her of that. A crime? LOL. But seriosuly, the soruces have pointed out it. I put possibly to keep it neutral. Please stop telling me Star Wars also borrowed from others, because itś irrelevant to the discussion and Lucas has already has spoken of inspirations, we also have a sperate article for that.

Also a lot of the borrowings are WP:DUCK, but since policy requires I put reliable sources, which is more than enough. The hero´s journey fails to distinguish the similarity of names in the villains and terminology.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 23:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the article is not accusing her of plagiarism. The article reports many people who have accused her of plagiarism, but it makes no claims on its own. I don't really understand why you find it so difficult to do what I'm asking. Some of your sources must directly accuse Rowling of stealing Lucas's ideas. Just frigging quote them! Oh, and before you laugh; accusing someone of a crime in a published source is libel, and you do NOT want to fall afoul of British libel laws.  Serendi pod ous  23:41, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

We don´t necessarily quote sources from wikipedia, we cite them. The sources do argue the borrowings. Iḿ laughing at the last bit since I dont live in the UK, never have. Even if I did, it would take a lot more than that to prosecute me for an undesirable edit--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 23:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I have added a number of sources to support my edits, which aim to be neutral and not directly claim it, even though itś obvious. Itś now up to you to find some counter reliable sources claiming this is untrue.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

How very like you to remove my comment.  Serendi pod ous  00:05, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

About your Third Opinion request: Someone has requested a Third Opinion in regard to this dispute, but the foregoing discussion does not make it clear what edits are in dispute and the article history over the last few days is too complex to dig through to figure it out. It would be very helpful to getting someone to give a Third Opinion for each of you to give a diff to the contested edit and to say in a paragraph no longer than this one why you think that it is appropriate or inappropriate. (I'm not "taking" nor reserving this request and any other 3O volunteer should feel free to take it first.) Regards, TransporterMan  ( TALK ) 13:09, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

The line under dispute is: "The Harry Potter series shares many possibly borrowed similarities with George Lucas´s Star Wars

The issue I have with it is that it is a direct accusation made in the article, rather than referring to someone else's accusation.  Serendi pod ous  13:14, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


 * In literature, borrowing the ideas of other authors is not considered plagiarism and is not an accusation. That is my opinion, and I will remove the third opinion request.  If there is disagreement, an editor can go to the dispute resolution noticeboard or publish a Request for Comments.  However, borrowing the ideas of other authors is not considered plagiarism and is not an accusation.  The identification of the borrowing should be made by literary critics or other sources; if it is made only by Wikipedia editors, it is original research.  Robert McClenon (talk) 17:21, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I also found this page on WP:3O. I checked the sources, and none of them appear to claim that J.K. Rowling "borrowed" from Star Wars. The recently added book reference does not provide a page number, but here is the likely page based on a Google Books search. Nothing about borrowing there. That makes the borrowing suggestion WP:OR. The WP:DUCK essay mentioned above is about sockpuppet detection and explicitly says "the duck test does not apply to article content". KateWishing (talk) 17:39, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * So do you think that the phrase "possibly borrowed" should be removed?  Serendi pod ous  17:55, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. KateWishing (talk) 18:00, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you; I appreciate the effort you went to to sort this out.  Serendi pod ous  18:27, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

¨A variation of the duck test in conversations can be found in community discussions where consensus is required, most obviously Articles for deletion.¨ I was applying it in that sense.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 19:59, 23 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Lastly I don´t see the idea of borriwng from Star Wars as an accusation of plagerism given there is no lawsuit against Rowling by ucasfilms or Disney. The sources say she took it. It doesn say she took it without permission.--Nadirali نادرالی (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Where do the sources say she took it? Quote the line. KateWishing (talk) 20:17, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The source you just added is better. Unlike the other sources, this one does claim borrowing ("the story of Harry Potter is based as much on Star Wars as it is on any other text" on page 44). I would personally attribute that opinion with something like "Deborah Cartmell has suggested that Harry Potter's story was partly based on Star Wars." Also, you should add the page numbers directly to the citation per WP:Page numbers, ideally with the Google Books link for easy verification. KateWishing (talk) 20:48, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

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Table
I've added a section on top of the article with a table summarizing the similarities of HP with the unacknowledged analogues. It's handy for people looking for quick info. If they wanted to know more details about specific analogues, they would read their respective sections below, which contains long paragraphs. - Alumnum (talk) 21:48, 26 February 2019 (UTC)


 * The addition only repeats information already in the article, and synthesises material from it. It is basically an essay. It also clutters up the article and makes it difficult to navigate.  Serendi pod ous  12:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * If you're not going to carry on this conversation I shall interpret your silence as agreement.  Serendi pod ous  13:19, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Is the "Overview" section needed?
For me, it violates WP:SYNTH, overbalances the article and just duplicates information already in the article.  Serendi pod ous  17:52, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Did you think about trying WP:3PO before jumping to an RfC? Especially given that the current version does not include the overview section? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:29, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
 * For the record, it does; he just moved it down.  Serendi pod ous  10:14, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:SYNTH forbids drawing a conclusion from multiple sources, but it does not forbid creating neutral syntheses on tables. Many articles have "Overview" sections. - Alumnum (talk) 09:39, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Sent here by a bot. To me, the overview is an unnecessary duplication of already existing material, which is better explained and cited within the main body of the article, and as such, should be removed. --Killer Moff (talk) 10:45, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The table seems a bit off, a bit intrusive and unlike the first section, plus having some comments not readily apparent in the lower text. I’d lean weakly towards removal.  Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

BBC Radio Interview Lolita Claim - Unreliable Source?
I am considering whether to remove the claim stating: "In a 2000 interview with BBC Radio 4, Rowling revealed a deep love of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial book Lolita, saying, "There just isn't enough time to discuss how a plot that could have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in Nabokov's hands, a great and tragic love story, and I could exhaust my reservoir of superlatives trying to describe the quality of the writing." The source for this claim, a self published website with its last update more than a decade ago, named "Accio Quote", states that the source they found the claim from was here, but I'm having trouble trusting FindArticles. For now, I have replaced the tertiary source with an archived primary source. 71.143.223.97 (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I would also like to mention that this claim went viral on social media around a week ago, and Wikipedia itself seems to be the main source of said virality. 71.143.223.97 (talk) 20:54, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It's legit, here is the full text of the Sunday Herald article on ProQuest which anyone with Wikipedia Library access should be able to view. I was a bit confused by why we refer to a BBC radio interview, but the bottom of the article clarifies: This is an edited transcript of Radio 4's new series With Great Pleasure - the BBC's Desert Island Discs of literature - featuring JK Rowling, transmitting on Thursday May 25 at 11.30am. However the Herald article doesn't include and I could exhaust my reservoir of superlatives trying to describe the quality of the writing which presumably is one of the edited bits. the wub "?!"  23:39, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually I found the other Herald article by Sarah-Kate Templeton which has the full quote and added that as a reference instead. the wub  "?!"  23:48, 1 July 2024 (UTC)