The Adventures Of Willy The Wizard No 1: Livid Land is a wonderful book wherein the protagonist possibly vanquishes evil by rubbing it incessantly with his magical buttock.
Since Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire basically has the exact same plot, sentence structure, verb-to-noun ratio and pie graphs, the heirs of the Willy Wizard estate have recognised it as unapologetic plagiarism. As such they are now suing JK Rowling either until she agrees to show them the exact location of Hogwarts, and to allow Willy Wizard a full seven-book scholarship there, or for 813 million dollars.
We honestly don’t remember which.
When JK Rowling first decided to write Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire for the sole purpose of furthering her unholy satanic agenda, she probably had no idea why her dark lord, as he spoke from the belly of a freshly slain cat, demanded she do so by plagiarising a boring author that nobody ever heard of and would likely never read.
But that’s just what she did. Allegedly. Well of course you know she probably didn’t do it, but that’s what two descendants of Adrian Jacobs are claiming. They are bound and determined to squeeze Rowling for ?500 million in a British court of law. Either that or they’re bound and determined to get their dead dad a butt-load of publicity with a lawsuit like this.
Here’s what it says on All Headline News:
“Legal papers filed by Jacobs’ estate list similarities between the books, including “shared references” to a wizard train and prison and a magical contest where the boy wizard must rescue human hostages taken captive by half-human creatures. In addition to ?500 million [$813 million] in damages, the estate is seeking an injunction to prevent further sales of the offending book, or a share in the tome’s profits”
If that’s not enough for you – here’s what a Willy Wizard fan wrote about the book on Amazon.co.uk:
“This book is great for kids, it very much appears to resemble Harry Potter. I love this book, ive grown up with it and it has been signed by the author Adrian Jacobs. i really do recommend this book to every child. it is very hard to get a hold of and is extremely rare. Its about Willy the Wizard who goes to wizard college on a train and adventures begin to happen, you will really have to read this book yourself its great!!”
If this lawsuit works and the Willy Wizard people end up with part-ownership in all of Rowling’s bank accounts, let us simply state we once wrote a book called ‘The Wizard’s Willy.’ It was about a magician who died but most of his genitalia lived on for another 100 years helping those in need. We haven’t actually read Willy Wizard, but the title alone definitely borrows heavily from our little-read masterpiece.
We’re just saying that we’re probably owed a little something too. British courts – save us a seat.
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Andrew says
Oh no they didn’t!! If they win over the goddess that is JK Rowling, the British court is not doing its job properly.
Joe says
Having now read both books I think they might have a case … think they might just win , hope they do , sure seems like she stole the ideas to me.
Jimmy says
I don’t get why authors think they can get away with ripping off unknown authors. They always get caught. This is just like Bob Dylan and his Modern Times album where Dylan was ripping off lines in his songs from a Tennessee poet no one ever heard of.
Ray says
I don’t understand how anyone could think they would win. I’ve read excerpts from Willy the Wizard and it’s not that similar to Harry Potter. At least not any more similar to Harry Potter than some other series that dealt with Wizards that preceded Willy the Wizard. They want to claim plagiarism because the author had the idea of a wizarding school. Ok, but that didn’t originate with Willy. A series called Earthsea had a magical school in it as did the series The Worst Witch (which incidentally has more similarities with Harry Potter than Willy the Wizard). Wizarding schools DID NOT originate with Willy, so why should they be able to sue someone for plagiarism on an account of that?
Also, contests are entirely generic. Not an original concept in the least. Not to mention, the tasks in both series are quite different. The people of Jacob’s estate just made their statement extremely vague so it would appear that there is more in common between the 2. In Harry Potter the task involves an underwater sequence where the contestants have to retrieve what they’d miss most (friend, girlfriends, little sister). They face Mermaids and Grindylows. In Willy the Wizard, the contestants have to rescue female hostages from ‘Angry Sam’s Compound’. That doesn’t sound much like the black lake in Harry Potter to me. In order for a plagiarism claim to hold up in court, they’re going to have to do better than that. There are many stories that are written with similarities to previous works. As long as the authors make the stories their own and include their own characters, plots and words, it isn’t considered plagiarism.
Jo Magpie says
How can you possibly doubt Rowling’s saintliness, philosophical passion, vast learning, profound psychological insight into male psychology and the impeccably moral stature of that fine body of unobtrusive helpers she has surrounded herself with? Plagiarist indeed!
Shame on you for daring to even think it. Next thing I supposed she’ll be accused of paying people to keep quiet.
dee.bell says
the goddes JK Rowling? Oh, get real.
dee.bell says
Thanks, I needed a good laugh. You are hilarious!
Bex says
Female hostages, that’s so sexist!
J.K. Elem says
I wrote a book called Hairy Pothead in the late 60’s that took place at Waverly College where all the students took drugs and flew around on broomsticks. The main student was named Hairy and he was a closet gay, his “girlfriend” was Hermione and she had big boobs and a pet Weasel named Rupert. Their teacher was Professor Dumbdork. I think I have a case to sue.