It is because of my Harry Potter addiction, my lengthy past as an avid fan of fable and fantasy, and the research this passion has inspired that I am quite qualified to offer an opinion regarding the JK Rowling vs Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit. It frightens me that people who have not read the books, know nothing of the great mythologies of the world, and have not thoroughly used the Lexicon, will be deciding this case. The Judge, god help us all, has already made the statement that the stories are "gibberish". The Judge in this case obviously has paid no attention to the great writings of the past, ignored the mythologies that are still the soul of each and every story written today, and is completely ignorant of the mythologies which are inextricably enmeshed in the history of humankind. It is frightening to me that someone who admitted having great difficulty reading the first book in the series and who, therefore, must have lower level reading and comprehension skills than my dyslexic child, is allowed to preside over any court case, much less one regarding book copyright. It is frightening to me that people who do not have enough imagination, talent, accrued knowledge and work ethic to produce such a multi-layered story of their own may well be about to open the flood gates for other little Slytherins to profit by stealing the work of writers past, present and future.
I have read the Harry Potter novels. All seven. I've read them several times over. I also have all seven audio books on my iPod and listen to them. I've waited a LONG time for someone that writes as well and tells a good old fashioned multi-faceted story. Until I read the first Harry Potter book, after several years of nagging by my best friend, I'd thought all the best story tellers were dead and gone. Stephen King is fun sometimes, but his novels often waffle on endlessly and leave me skimming pages to the point that I skip about half of the books. His short stories, however, are brilliant. I'd actually given up trying to find a novelist that didn't bore me to tears for at least half their book and had taken to buying short story collections to satisfy my need for well written fiction, until I was introduced to the magical mind of JK Rowling.
My Grandmother was brilliant at creating fairy tales. They were fun, funny, introduced me to new vocabulary and always taught a life lesson. From her tales of Tykie Toom the brownie, to Kitty Crooktail (the kitten who broke his tail and couldn't get around like all the other kittens). The wee folk of her tales, brownies, elves and fairies, passed down by her mother and grandmother, came straight from the folklore of Scotland and England. These "Bedtime Tales" as we called them, are the brightest memory of my childhood and instilled in me a love of stories well told. After 40 years of searching, reading, and occasionally finding stories well told, JK Rowling produced a series that captivated my intellect, heart and imagination. I know a good Tale when I read one.
If you've read the books and they did not captivate your intellect, you need to reread them. You need to pay closer attention to the names of people, places, plants, creatures, and even those evil "spells". When I was little, again thanks to my Grandmother, I was absolutely enthralled with the idea of going to school. My older brothers were learning fascinating subjects like Greek Mythology, the history of Rome, and Latin. By the time I got to school, however, the Bored of education had done away with those subjects. In high school we had to choose a language, but Latin (THE ROOT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE) was not among the choices. French or Spanish were the only two choices. I flipped a coin, took French, and have one useful phrase to show for it. I don't have a better grasp of our own language like my brothers. No. I can tell someone they're a pain in the butt in French.
JK Rowling's Harry Potter books inspired me to seek out the education that I missed in my youth. Through discussions, essays, statements by Ms. Rowling and articles on the various Harry Potter fan sites, I discovered many marvelous facets to the tales of Harry and his cohorts. I reread the books, paying closer attention. I noticed character names, creature names, places, items, and phrases. I haunted websites such as Encyclopedia of the Celts, Encyclopedia Mythica, The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, altreligion, a multitude of sites regarding Arthurian and Grail legend, and astronomy sites. I haunted the bargain books at Barnes and Nobles, walking out glad that they didn't charge by the pound for the immense encyclopedias of mythology I'd found. What have romance and women's fiction taught you lately?
Of the many websites I frequented was the Harry Potter Lexicon. I frequented the Lexicon a LOT. It was often the spring board I used in my research. I used the Lexicon, not because it was the be all, end all of mythological knowledge. No, their knowledge of myth is not impressive. I used it because it was an alphabetized list of names used in the Harry Potter series. The Lexicon definitions of the names were, much more often than not, simply definitions taken from the books which came from JK Rowling's own vivid imagination. The other reason that I used the Lexicon was in order to have easy access to character quotes. THIS was where the Lexicon was most useful because in it's pages was nearly everything of importance any character had ever said. Easier than trying to remember at what point in which book a certain character had mentioned something, I could zip over to the Lexicon where they had JK Rowling's words organized alphabetically, by character, by book, by chapter, etc.
None of the Harry Potter fan websites are for profit. They are free sites, built by fans for the enjoyment of fans for the purposes of entertainment and education. They are places where people gather to get to know other people who appreciate the Harry Potter series. They are allowed to exist because they give us a place to congregate, make friends, discuss our theories, write critical essays, and exercise our brains. Ms. Rowling recognized the educational and social benefits of such FREE websites and allowed them to exist even though some of them, such as the Lexicon, seriously violated her copyright. She recognized that the sites were not trying to make money from the fans by using her works. She allowed them to continue and even joined the fun by mentioning them on her own official website. But these are FREE websites. The owners make no profit for them.
There are four school "houses" at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Gryffindor, where the most courageous students are sorted, Ravenclaw, where the intellectuals gather, Hufflepuff, where the students are determined workers, and Slytherin where the cunning, Machiavellian students belong. As the story progresses, the students of each of the first three aforementioned houses work together to fight evil. Slytherin house students, however, use any means to achieve power, even by allying themselves with the ultimate villain. Slytherin students think nothing of manipulating others, stealing, lying, bullying, plotting murder, plotting the defeat of all that is good and kind, so that they may achieve great wealth and power.
It would be Slytherin students who would not trouble themselves with coming up with their own information in an essay. They would be the students that copy over shoulders or steal another student's homework, scratch out the name and apply their own. It would only be a Snape, the teacher that is head of Slytherin House, that would let them get away with such behavior. Only the Slytherin students would, if caught by another teacher, attempt to justify the theft of another's work by telling that teacher it was their right to steal the work of another student. Without blinking an eye, a Slytherin student would point at direct quotes and attempt to convince their judge that those words were entirely different. They would tell the judging instructor that their work was completely their own because their outline was alphabetized. Therefore, they should be able to turn in their stolen report for credit because their use of someone else's hard work was completely fair.
The Slytherin student would hate citing their sources and quotation marks for the extra work research involves and would want to keep the credit for the writing all to themselves. Their Slytherin friends would back them up and argue in their defense because they all share the same Machiavellian tendencies. Theft, lying about the theft, and profiting from that theft are what Slytherins do. Steve Vander Ark and his publishing company, RDR Books, are Slytherins. Vander Ark is attempting to publish FOR PROFIT, his alphabetized version of the Harry Potter series. He has taken Rowling's words, verbatim, organized the names of items, people, places, creatures, etc. alphabetically and is now trying to convince those that caught him in his burglarization of the novels that his theft and ability to profit from it are Fair. It would seem also that a group of Slytherins from Stanford are still harboring grudges for being caught at plagiarism and lack of source citations in their college essays, reports and term papers. The Slytherin student would not do the hard work to research a project. A Slytherin would simply steal it and call it their own.
Obviously, Vander Ark, self-professed superfan of the books and their author, missed the many non-subtle points of the Potter stories and should go back and reread. If someone would like to mail Vander Ark, RDR Books, Judge Patterson and the little Slytherins at Stanford a clue taken from the books here are several:
You do not violate the rights of others in order to achieve or enjoy power or to accrue wealth.
What is right is never easy.
Evil may prevail temporarily, but sooner or later the train leaves without your corrupt and twisted soul.
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