J.K. Rowling Pulls a Muggle’s Move with Punitive Lawsuit

Okay, we’re not what you’d call fans of the Harry Potter books here at Easy Witchcraft. Never mind that the series, which has enjoyed unprecedented marketing and therefore sales, is little more than rehashed old fantasy standbys peppered with embarrassingly awkward proper nouns. We’ll also set aside the disturbingly elitist premise of inherited “magical-ness.’

At Easy Witchcraft, we firmly believe everyone is born with the capacity for magic.

Nevertheless, the popularity of the books are hard to deny, despite the well-worn plots and primitive delineation of good and evil. These features have always sold better than original writing expressing subtle worldviews.

But with all the hype and multi-billion dollar success of her lowest-common-denominator pulp fantasy, J.K. Rowling can’t stand the thought of a single penny slipping from her fingers. This time, she’s pointing her crone’s wand at her own fandom.

The controversy stems from a Harry Potter fact site on which J.K. Rowling herself has often heaped praise in the past. According to this article, Steven Vander Ark is being sued for copyright infringement over the release of Vander Ark’s independently researched lexicology about J.K. Rowling’s books.

Rowling, who once admitted to using Vander Ark’s website to check facts about her own books (!) now can’t bear to have him in the courtroom when she testifies against him. She has had her attorneys secure extra privileges for the celebrity witness to insulate her from her fans.

What makes this move particularly noxious is that it is quite common, especially in the fantasy genre, for fans to produce guides to the complex worlds of their favorite authors.

Fantasy aside, this litigation begs a larger question of copyright, and threatens the very practice of literary criticism itself. What right does an author have to bar annotation of their work? Citation and analysis is an integral part of the academic process. Will Rowling’s next action be against a PhD candidate producing a thesis on her work?

While Rowling and her expensive legal muscle may well be able to rewrite common law to suit her purposes, several hundred years of literary tradition do not support the right to suppress annotation.

Yet another reason for Harry Potter to wake up and try some of the more advanced flavors of magical fiction. You’ll be surprised at how good some of it is once you get your head out of the Hog’s Warts. See some of our favorites below.

Your mother is the King’s Champion; your father is second in command of the realm’s spies.

Your godfathers are the King and one of his advisers.

Your godmothers are the Queen and her governess.

Your adoptive uncle is the realm’s most powerful mage who is married to your adoptive aunt who is also a mage as well as half goddess.

You were raised amongst wonderful and powerful people and expected to be great. So, what do you do when you are kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery?

You follow the path that Tamora Pierce created for Alianne Cooper of Pirate’s Swoop in her novel, Trickster’s Choice. Alianne, or Aly, as most people refer to her, is purchased by a noble family in the Copper Isles and must choose her path: try to escape and risk death if caught, or stay with the family and try to rise through the slave ranks.

Aly chose to stay with the family and began a journey that she would not soon forget.

One of the Isles Gods, Kyprioth, needed to free his people, the raka, from beneath the Luarin’s oppression and decided to utilize Aly’s spy skills to their full extent. He started by making the Balitang family believe that she was chosen by Mithros, a Great God. Because of this, they looked to her, a mere slave, in confusing and trying times.

Forced to move from their home in Rajmuat, the capitol of the Copper Isles, to their ancestral home on Lombyn Island, the Balitang family began to see the Aly was more than just a merchant’s daughter from Tortall. Aly had the Gift of sight. She could “see” when someone was lying, if there was magic about, or spells on buildings. She could also talk to crows; this Gift was given to her by Kyprioth who is patron God for the crows and raka alike. The crows become Aly’s eyes and ears over the castle village and estates, so that Aly can keep the family safe. The two oldest Balitang girls are not only half Luarin nobility, but they are half Raka nobility as well. Their mother was the last heir to the throne before she died. The Raka used to be the rulers of the Copper Isles, but the white Luarins came from another realm and overthrew the Raka in their time of weakness. Since then, the raka have been oppressed and slaved, and the raka nobility has been in hiding.

Lady Saraiyu and Lady Dovasary are the raka’s last surviving heir’s to their lost throne. The raka have started a conspiracy to get the current Luarin rulers off the throne and to place a raka queen back in her rightful position. The Balitang girls are their last hope. As Aly begins to discover their plan, the conspirators try to shake her off their path, until they realize that Aly has some amazing tools that can aid them in their goal. They soon begin to recruit people to aid in the resistance. These new conspirators include some sympathetic Luarins who are tired of the Rittevon’s tyrannical control over the islands, as well as a strange crow-man who has fallen for Aly.

This novel marks the first half of Aly’s story on her journey to free the Copper Isles from oppression. The magic, conspiracy, and love in the story have something for every type of reader and would be a great choice for anyone who enjoys fantasy/fiction books. Aly’s story continues in Trickster’s Queen where she becomes further involved in the lives of the Balitang household and the raka’s future.

Find this series and other books by Tamora Pierce below: