ROWLING THE GREAT...THIEF

I am supposed to be studying but I can’t. I re-watched the Lord of the Rings movies yesterday and the only thing that has been on my mind for the last 18 to 24 hours is the thought “JK Rowling is a big fat liar”. You might be thinking “what?” or “what the fuck does JK Rowling have to do with Lord of the Rings?” I will tell you in detail.

First of all and most conspicuously, we have Gandalf and Dumbledore; both great wizards and both mentors. They both never tell the whole truth and speak in riddles, desiring to nudge their wards towards the right direction and never helping them directly. Their physical appearances (the beard!) are also cunningly alike. They are both old.

Then we have Harry and Frodo. Both are chosen by fate to destroy their respective dark lords. Both have friends who help them along the way and both are portrayed to be ordinary and with lots of human flaw. Harry is not the greatest wizard in his world while Frodo is not the greatest warrior in his own world. They are both very humble. Tolkien exaggerates through Frodo that even the ordinary can do great things. JK Rowling does exactly the same thing through Harry. Both characters have disastrous fights with their closest friends during the course of the tale; Frodo with Sam and Harry with Ron.

We have Sauron and Lord Voldemort. Both have been defeated before, exist as “mere spirit” and come back to dominate. Both are prepared for by their adversaries. In Harry Potter, waiting for Lord Voldemort is the Order of the Phoenix. In Lord of the Rings, waiting for Sauron is the Fellowship of the Ring. Both are destroyed not by skill but by small important objects. Sauron by the One Ring and Voldemort by the Elder wand. Both overlook little but important details to ensure the victory of the good side. Voldemort ignores simple wandlore while Sauron ignores the perseverance of a small hobbit, Frodo. They are both enormously arrogant.

Lastly, most subtly, and most importantly (important to their respective tales), we have Smeagol and Wormtail. Both are spared some way through the tale, and both become instrumental to the success of the protagonists. Wormtail is spared by Sirius and Lupin through Harry while Smeagol is spared first by Bilbo and then by Frodo. Wormtail hesitates in the Malfoy manor helping Harry to escape from almost certain death, while Smeagol grabs the One Ring from Frodo at the edge of Mount Doom and in the process falls into the lava doing what Frodo could not muster the strength to do. Most strikingly, both Gandalf and Dumbledore foretell the potential usefulness of sparing the lives of both traitors.

I love Harry Potter to the death and some credit should be given to JK Rowling for creating the world of Hogwarts. It has entertained me immensely. However, it utterly annoys me when I remember her saying it all came to her in a “small café in Edinburgh”. I love the lady but really, she is a lying, credit-hogging, crazy rich, plagiarizing bitch.