One reason The Arcane Prophecy works as a Harry Potter-inspired academy fantasy is that the character comps are not one-to-one copies. That would be boring. Yote Diamondback isn’t Harry Potter with rust-colored hair, Storm Sharpe isn’t Draco Malfoy with better abs, Dr. Grimbane isn’t McGonagall wearing a different coat, and Cassara Darkwood isn’t Snape in…
One of my favorite parts of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is that Dumbledore’s Army emerges and the classroom gets useless. In Order of the Phoenix, the students at Hogwarts need Defense Against the Dark Arts more than ever. Voldemort’s back, the Ministry’s lying, danger’s spreading, and the one class that should…
The smartest Harry Potter fans in the room will say that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the best in the series. Ask most Harry Potter fans for their favorite book and you’ll usually hear Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, or Half-Blood Prince somewhere near the top. Mine has always been…
Every magical-school story gets dragged toward the same Harry Potter comp. sooner or later, regardless of its subgenre and theme. That can get lazy fast. Toss a kid into an academy, add school divisions, throw in a dangerous forest, and everyone wants to slap a Hogwarts sticker on it and call the job done. That…
There’s a reason Harry Potter still owns so much mental real estate for readers who grew up loving magical schools, even in the 2020s. It was the promise that school could be dangerous, personal, competitive, mysterious, and alive. That’s the lane Arcane Elemental Academy walks into. Yote Diamondback’s story’s built for readers who still love…
Readers have likened Terrian Chronicles to Harry Potter, so why not list each major character from the first four books and their HP equivalents? While I didn’t intentionally create each character (or any, really) with a Harry Potter-equivalent in mind, it wasn’t hard to make connections. Some were obvious, and others took more digging, but…
A contingent of fans aren’t even calling him Severus Snape. He’s Black Snape to them, and he may go down as one of the most infamous castings in history. When the Harry Potter trailer first unleashed, we knew we were going to see at least a snippet of Black Snape (the fans’ take, not mine), and my…
Racism is collectivism, and it doesn’t matter what the endgame is: whether it’s prioritizing race representation and vice versa. Some may find it ironic that I’m writing about this one day after I admitted I’m still stewing over the producers of the Harry Potter TV show casting Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape. But for a character so…
Harry Potter has become an ageless series that we can now claim impacts generations. But why are we, after so many years, still going back to Hogwarts? How many times have you read Harry Potter? And how many times have you watched the movies? If you’re anything like me, chances are, you read the books and watched…
I have not one but two Harry Potter-inspired book series. But the “other” series fuses genres like you wouldn’t believe, rendering it a true mash-up. If a few sticklers read Tarja Titan, they’d immediately scream “Harry Potter.” Hell, a lot of reviewers caught “Harry Potter vibes” when they first read and reviewed Titan back in 2022. Some even…
I’m no Harry or Dumbledore. I’m Sirius Black. Rebel, loyalist, and libertarian spirit who rejects authority and fights for freedom. When you grow up on fantasy, sooner or later someone asks: “Which Harry Potter character are you?” I’ve thought about this a lot. Not in the Buzzfeed-quiz, “What’s your Patronus?” way, but in the “Who…
Harry Potter may bring unapologetic libertarian vibes, but The Arcane Prophecy transforms them into unapologetic, no B.S. territory. Young protagonist you’ll relate to unless you hung out with that preppy clique in public school? Check. Kick-ass story with shock value? Check. Harry Potter vibes, but with a main character that shares one too many traits…