Parallels Between Keeper of the Lost Cities and Harry Potter

The Keeper series was modeled after the Harry Potter series.  Many ideas from Harry Potter were incorporated into the Keeper series under different guises. 

I just finished reading through all seven Harry Potter books for the fourth time overall.  I have read the earlier books up to seven times each, but the final two books have been read just four times each.  This fourth read-through of the entire series was the first time I had revisited Harry Potter since becoming a Keeper fan.

I consider the Harry Potter series to be a masterpiece of juvenile fiction.  I find that the separation of years and additional readings have caused me to see what I thought were flaws as nothing of the sort.  The only quibbles I have with the entire series are that I still don't like the epilogue and that I still find some parts of Half-Blood Prince to bit a bit slow.  Otherwise, the Harry Potter series is just about perfect.

When I first read the Keeper series, I saw the obvious similarities to Harry Potter.  Reading Harry Potter again has caused me to notice even more of them.  Shannon Messenger usually cites X-Men and Lord of the Rings as her inspirations.  I'm not sure if Shannon has ever specifically mentioned Harry Potter, but she certainly hasn't since I've been following the fandom.  Even so, it's apparent that Keeper has strong echoes of Harry Potter.

Here are parallels that I noticed.  I assume that readers are familiar with both series, so I won't be explaining who all the characters are.  This post contains important plot spoilers for both series.  

Last warning:  Quit reading now to avoid spoilers.

Sophie lived with an overweight human family.  Harry Potter lived with the Dursleys, and two of them were extremely overweight.  In both series, the family's other child was obnoxious.

History is boring in both series.  

Harry isn't good at Potions, and Snape hates him.  Sophie isn't good at Alchemy, and Lady Galvin hates her.

Sophie tells the other kids that she's taking remedial studies to cover for her Telepathy sessions.  Harry takes Remedial Potions as a cover for Occlumency.  

Dumbledore and Forkle are the mentors to the protagonists.  Dumbledore is Headmaster, and Forkle is Principal as Leto.  Dumbledore dies, and one Forkle dies.

Alden explains his job:

"Humans are always doing crazy, dangerous things.  If they're not lighting something on fire, they're spilling oil in the ocean or blowing something up.  Every time they do, I investigate to make sure things don't get out of hand."  (Keeper of the Lost Cities, page 85)

Alden's counterpart is Arthur Weasley, who works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.  

In Harry Potter, potions are used to achieve certain results, and in Keeper, they are called elixirs. 

The light leaping in Keeper is usually compared to apparating from Harry Potter.  While that comparison is valid, I also see apparating as similar to teleporting.

Hermione twisted in midair and the thundering of the collapsing house rang in Harry's ears as she dragged him once more into darkness.  (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 21)

That sounds like teleporting to me.  Apparating parallels light leaping in another sense.

...a small wizard whom Harry took to be the Apparition instructor from the Ministry.  He was oddly colorless, with transparent eyelashes, wispy hair, and an insubstantial air, as though a single gust of wind might blow him away.  Harry wondered whether constant disappearances and reappearances had somehow diminished his substance, or whether this frail build was ideal for anyone wishing to vanish. (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 18)

Apparating excessively might cause fading, and too much light leaping causes fading.

Harry Potter is The Boy Who Lived.  Both Alvar and Keefe are The Boy Who Disappeared.

The names Cassius and Lucius are eerily similar, and both names are used for the unpleasant parent of a school acquaintance.

Dumbledore's Pensieve serves the same purpose as Kenric's cache with the Forgotten Secrets.  In both series, the plot device is used brilliantly.

Squibs can't do magic, and Talentless elves have no ability.

Both elves and wizards think they are better than humans/Muggles.

Exile is the elves' version of Azkaban.  When an elf is sent to Exile, their memory is broken, leaving them in a vegetative state.  The Dementors guard Azkaban and punish wizards by using the Dementors' Kiss to suck out the soul, leaving the wizard in a vegetative state.

In Keeper, Prattles candy comes with Prattles pins, featuring different kinds of animals.  In Harry Potter, Chocolate Frogs come with trading cards.  Both the Prattles pins and Chocolate Frog trading cards are collected by kids.

At Foxfire, the DNA strip on each locker changes flavor each day, and the flavor is sometimes gross.  This parallels Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

Hermione introduces herself to Harry and Ron by rattling off a bunch of information before saying her name.  She says it all very quickly (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 6).  Jensi introduces himself to Sophie in the same fashion.

Both Snape and Alvar are treated similarly in parallel scenes from the two series.

Harry went right after Sirius, who was still making Snape drift along ahead of them; he kept bumping his lolling head on the low ceiling.  Harry had the impression Sirius was making no effort to prevent this.  (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 20)

"Here," Biana said, letting her mind take control—and smacking Alvar's body against the metal railing in the process.  "That was an accident," she insisted.  But a few minutes later she banged his shoulder.  Then his head.  (Nightfall, page 446)

Sophie can't read runes, and neither can Harry (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 16).

Nox is the spell to turn off the light at the tip of a wand.  In Keeper, Noxflares are fire-resistant, and fire is a source of light.

Hermione puts protective enchantments around the trio's camp:

Harry saw little disturbances in the surrounding air:  It was as if Hermione had cast a heat haze upon their clearing.  (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 14)

This is very similar to what happens when illusions are put in place in Keeper, and both plot devices serve to hide a location from everyone else.

He had made his choice while he dug Dobby's grave, he had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust.  (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 28)

Harry's thoughts remind me of what Oralie says in Legacy on page 157:

"And keep in mind," Oralie added, finally turning her azure eyes toward Sophie, "true trust does not require absolute transparency.  There is incredible power in accepting that there are some things you cannot know—and being willing to maintain your commitment to that person despite the secrets."

In Keeper, the Washers modify the memories of Sophie's human parents and sister so that they don't remember her.  The Fosters are given new names and are moved to a new house.

Hermione does the same to her parents to protect them from Voldemort.

"I've also modified my parents' memories so that they're convinced they're really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins, and that their life's ambition is to move to Australia, which they have now done."

In Chapter 17 of Half-Blood Prince, Harry learns that Slughorn tampered with his own memory to hide what he told Tom.

In Keeper, Kenric tampers with Forgotten Secret #4 with Fintan to hide what he learned when he entered Fintan's mind.

"Wizarding history often skates over what the wizards have done to other magical races, but there's no account that I know of that says Gryffindor stole the sword." (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 25)

In Nightfall, Mr. Forkle reveals that the elves experimented on humans in ancient times.  The elves then buried the information and pretended that humans caused the rift between the two species.

Voldemort is confident that Harry will come to him because of what he perceives as Harry's weakness.

"I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw.  He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens.  He will want to stop it at any cost.  He will come."  (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32)

Vespera has a similar opinion of Sophie.

"...you are still trying to save everyone.  It is why you will always lose—time and time again.  You will always delay.  Always try for the impossible while ignoring the most logical options... every time you allow yourself to care... will only make you weak and vulnerable." (Nightfall, page 701)

Everything I've mentioned are the obvious similarities that most all fans should agree on.  There are more, of course.

Let's now cover the parallels concerning my belief that Forkle is Kenric.  I know he is, but the rest of the fanbase is in complete denial and refuses to believe it until Shannon directly reveals it.  She's actually already revealed Forkle's identity indirectly through the Forgotten Secrets, but fans will require a direct statement before they will accept it.  They steadfastly continue to ignore the classic literary clues.

Kenric is Forkle, and Forkle is a pair of twins.  More specifically, Forkle is a pair of redheaded twins.  The older twin dies in Lodestar.  

The Harry Potter series features Fred and George Weasley, who are a pair of redheaded twins.  The older twin, Fred, dies in Deathly Hallows.

Kenric is a lighthearted, smiling, and joking character.  And so are the Weasley twins.

I've mentioned this parallel once before on Reddit.  The response was that Kenric has more layers to his character than the Weasley twins do and so isn't much like the Weasleys.  That doesn't change my statement that the sets of twins parallel each other.  Just like Forkle and Dumbledore are parallel characters, but they aren't at all the same.  The Forkle twins and the Weasley twins have obvious parallels, but they aren't exactly the same.

The two series have parallel anagrams as well.  I discovered that "Kenric Elgar Fathdon" rearranges to form the phrase "Forkle grin and teach."  In the Harry Potter series, "Tom Marvolo Riddle" rearranges as "I am Lord Voldemort."

The anagrams parallel each other, but they do not have the same composition.  This is the crux of the problem.  Fans have said that if the Kenric/Forkle anagram were a direct statement like "I am Errol Loki Forkle" then they would believe it.  Since it doesn't, they think Shannon's anagram is meaningless.

This statement, which I know is just coincidence, is remarkable:

"Well, you weren't the first person riddle wormed things out of,"  Harry muttered.  "He could be charming when he wanted..."  (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 31)

Oralie makes this statement about Kenric on pages 222 of Stellarlune:

"He could be quite charming when he wanted to be."

I do not consider Tom Riddle/Voldemort and Kenric/Forkle to be parallel characters, but they are the two key characters whose names are plot-relevant anagrams.  It's interesting that each character is described as "charming when he wanted."

All of my past Keeper posts are linked from this page:

Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories

I appreciate those who have commented on my posts.  If you ever want to comment, you can do so at the end of every post using a screen name.  First, click in the text box but don't type anything.  Look right above where you clicked to see a drop-down menu where one option is "Name/URL."  Enter a name (no URL needed), and that name will display on the comment.  

AI, Modern Technology, and Declining Reading Levels

In this post I use words like tend, some, and many as qualifiers in front of the word youth.  Please note those words and understand that I do not suggest that all youth fall under the umbrella of this commentary.

AI has turned education on its head.  Around 10 years ago, schools pushed for work to be done on Chromebooks or iPads.  That transition quickly finalized with the pandemic.  AI has worsened the situation.  Those devices—the Chromebooks and iPads now ubiquitous in schools—have become cheating devices.  Teachers cannot block all of the AI websites or the AI content.  Google has even embedded AI into its search engine as the default result.

Universities have pushed both faculty and students to embrace AI, and public schools have done the same.  Some universities have purchased ChatGPT for their students.

Companies are also embracing AI.  I mentioned in my previous post that eBay's default listing tool is now AI.  Hospitals are turning to AI for some tasks and are reducing staff to save money.  I have been to AI trainings offered by my school district.  AI is everywhere, and we have gone a bridge too far with it.  

While administrators are pushing for teachers and professors to integrate AI into everything, many educators are pushing for a return to paper and pencil.  Reading and math skills have substantially declined over the last 20 years.  The trend has considerably worsened since the pandemic.  

All students now in grades K-12 were born after the release of the original iPhone.  Their world is completely different from ours.  They know nothing other than constant attachment to phones and apps.  Children now become addicted to devices at a very young age.

Professors report that the average college student knows less about computers than people in the older cohorts.  Since youth use apps instead of computers, they often don't know where to save files or how to find them.  They struggle with sending messages containing attachments.  If an app does it, then they are fine.  Otherwise, they run into problems.

Youth tend to have a very short attention span.  They are used to watching 20 second video clips on TikTok and reading messages consisting of partial sentences.  Netflix has started making its programming very repetitive so that viewers can follow the story while on their phones.  Schools have changed their reading curriculum so that students analyze short passages instead of novels.

Even those of us in the older cohorts have a lower attention span than we did 20 years ago.  The pervasiveness of modern technology has impacted everyone.

Changes are underway, and schools are working to increase the amount of time students spend reading.  But this mess will take years to overcome.

Meanwhile, AI isn't going away, and the anti-AI zealots viciously attack anyone who dares to mention that they have used AI.  They attack because of the damage AI causes to the environment.  I don't disagree about AI damaging the environment but attacking me isn't going to change anything.  

Last year I created a subreddit for a certain modern series.  In April, some people said that something was "settled years ago" without explaining what they meant.  These people were almost certainly somewhere between the ages of 10 and 25, all part of the smart phone generation.  

I find it hard to understand what many of these people write, because they use partial sentences that contain lots of text-speak.  The overuse of phones and tablets has caused many people to now lack both communication and reading skills.  The people saying that the topic was settled made vague statements expressing annoyance and failed to offer any specific information.

After several Google searches, I couldn't figure out how this topic had been "settled years ago."  I used ChatGPT to figure out WHAT they meant and got my answer immediately.  I made the fatal error of mentioning in a post that I had used ChatGPT.  

Someone called me out on it and proceeded to post one comment after another criticizing me.  I quickly deleted the comments as they kept coming.  During the barrage, I finally managed to get across the fact that their anti-AI commentary didn't belong in the subreddit.  They took it to private messages and really let me have it.

They called me "lazy" and went on and on about how I should use the brain that they knew I had and how AI use damages the environment.  I told them to please stop.  They continued going off on me.  Finally, I told them I would have to remove them from the subreddit if they didn't stop.  I was giving them one last chance to back down.  

They increased the attack, saying that I was threatening them.  They said that me deleting their comments from the subreddit was "childish."  They told me my little subreddit wasn't that important.  They were making these statements in an attempt to manipulate my emotions.  I removed them from the subreddit and blocked them.

Reddit allows people to use the mod messages tool to contact admins about moderation, so this person used that to keep attacking.  They went to all caps and told me to have a horrible f---ing day and some other stuff I don't remember.  I then blocked them from mod mail and haven't heard from them since.  You can be darned certain that I won't be mentioning AI on Reddit again. 

The kicker is that theories have been posted in that subreddit that were obviously run through and heavily edited by AI.  The telltale signs of AI use are all through those posts, but members love the content.  In fact, they like those posts a lot more than anything I write, and that's because AI composes content that is designed to be addictive.  Since the AI-written posts don't mention AI use, fans readily accept the content with no concern.  Isn't that ironic?  They happily consume AI so long as AI isn't explicitly mentioned.  If someone says they used it, then they launch a war against the perpetrator.

The anti-AI zealots are hypocrites.  All major websites now run everything through AI.  As this person launched their attack on me, each one of their several dozen messages was run through AI.  If these people are as against AI as they claim, then why are they even online?  They might not be using AI directly, but their actions are causing AI to be used.

By the way, the posts in this blog—all 2400+ of them—were not written or even assisted by AI.  I write my own content, thank you very much.  Yes, I do use em dashes, but they are my em dashes.  They are not AI.  Because of the sheer volume of written content that I have placed online, I was deeply offended when this person called me "lazy" for using ChatGPT.  Me, lazy?  Hardly.

I mentioned that youth often have trouble reading more than short passages.  Interestingly, even the youth who love to read tend to have trouble reading between the lines and fail to spot when an author is deliberately misleading readers.  They read only at surface level and tend to take everything literally.    

I've also noticed that when someone like me writes a lengthy post on Reddit in any place frequented primarily by youth that the person posting is often accused of using AI.  Indeed, youth tend to think that good writing is AI.  

Reddit has really opened my eyes about how reading and writing skills have declined over the last decade.  Getting rid of AI is not the answer; rather, we need to strike a balance.

From MIT Says AI Is Forcing a Rethink of College Itself:

The University of Sydney has gone further operationally.  Its assessment system now uses what it calls a two lane model.  One lane contains secure, often in person work designed to verify what students can do independently.  The second permits relevant tools, including AI, so students learn how to use them in realistic settings.

That structure gets at a tension every university now faces.  Graduates need AI fluency as employers are already asking for it.  Yet a university that never verifies what a student can do without AI risks certifying the output of a machine rather than the capability of a person.

Students do need to know how to use AI, but they must first master the skills themselves.

Note:  Not all youth have poor communication skills or low reading skills.  I want to be clear about that.  Many of our youth are remarkably well-educated.  The AI crisis falls into the category of "the more things change, the more they stay the same."  There has always been something threatening the current societal order.  We've survived radio, television, video games, and internet.  Now we face struggles tied to smart phones, social media, and AI.  We will survive this as well, but the 2020s will be remembered as a time of great upheaval and change.

Be Wary of Listings for Strange-Looking Books

Series book format collectors look for variants to collect.  I fall into that group, and my attention is drawn to listings for books that have unusual bindings.  I have spotted a number of AI photos that could easily trick an unwitting collector.  

Click or tap the images to view them at a higher resolution.

The above photo is alluring, since the spines look like a new format.  Closer examination reveals AI hallmarks throughout the image (wrong titles, distorted cover art, and other oddities).

When I first spotted the above listing photo, I thought that the books were library editions.  Enlargement of the photo revealed that AI was used to enhance the edges of the books.  Book buyers just want an accurate depiction of the offered books.  We don't need special effects!

Recently, this image was posted on Facebook.

The book had been purchased, and it had not arrived.  The buyer asked about the cover art.  

The image is quite convincing, especially with the wear patterns seen along the bottom and right edges.  It looks like a real book.  I didn't think it could be, but it still took me a few minutes to home in on the telltale signs of AI output.

Nancy's left hand has six fingers altogether.  The marionette has extra strings that are just dangling.  Nancy's head has an outline along the top, as if it were cut out of another image.  This is definitely AI.  I am mystified by the seller's actions.  My best guess is that they used AI to create an image, unaware that AI hallucinated a new cover art for the book.  

From now on, we must all be very careful, especially because the online marketplaces are encouraging the use of AI to create listings.  Yes, eBay has no problem with it.  They are just happy to collect the listing fees from sellers.

eBay's listing form now defaults to AI, and sellers have to toggle the option off so that their listings aren't automatically created by AI.  That is where we are at now.

Since photos can no longer be trusted like they once were, I am very wary of listings that are for truly rare books or collectibles.  I am especially wary of listings that feature never-before-seen cover art.  I have come close to missing out on neat purchases because I took time to make sure that the listings weren't some kind of trick.  Here are some examples from recent years.

I saw this Hardy Boys book on eBay in early 2020.

I spent around 10 minutes trying to figure out what the book was before I finally purchased it.  I still wasn't sure when I purchased the book, but I was curious.  It turned out not to be a library binding but most likely a one-of-a-kind binding assembled at Kingsport Press during a bookbinding class.  Read more here:

The Library Edition That Wasn't

Earlier this summer, I saw a listing for a bulk lot of Grosset & Dunlap bookmarks featuring Nancy Drew on one side and Hardy Boys on the other.  The seller estimated that around 50 bookmarks were in the shrink-wrap.  

I considered the listing for a while.  I was pretty sure that the bookmarks were actual Grosset & Dunlap bookmarks, but I still hesitated.  With the bookmarks shrink-wrapped, they most likely were real.  I ended up purchasing the lot, because I wanted to have at least one bookmark.

I still haven't removed the shrink-wrap, because I have had other concerns during the last couple months.  I have examined the stack of bookmarks as best I can, and I believe that I have 100 bookmarks.  Not too bad.  

I also want to point out the age of the bookmarks.  The Hardy Boys bookmark says that the Hardy Boys have been "America's favorite detecting duo for over sixty years!"  Since the bookmark doesn't say "over seventy years," then we can assume that these bookmarks were produced between 1987 and 1997.  

I was a bit skeptical when I saw this photo of a bulk lot offered by an eBay seller.

Devil's Paw had the Mickey Mouse Club promo wrapper.  That wrapper is extremely scarce and has been reproduced by collectors.  The price for the listing was too low, considering that the wrapper was present.  Also, the wrapper was on the wrong book.  The main reason I hesitated is that the listing had already been up longer than I would have expected it to last without being purchased.  Since I am not a Hardy Boys expert, I worried that the wrapper had an obvious telltale sign that it was a copy.

Please read this post for information about reproduction dust jackets and the Nancy Drew promotional wrapper: Identifying Whether a Dust Jacket is a Reproduction.

I tried to figure out if the wrapper was real but couldn't even find photos online.  I've read past discussions about the wrapper, but those discussions likely occurred in the defunct Yahoo! Groups.  I went ahead and purchased the lot, figuring that I could sell the books for enough to cover my cost even if the wrapper was a reproduction.  

I am now fairly certain that it is real, since it doesn't glow under a black light.  Modern paper glows, so the wrapper is printed on vintage paper.  If the wrapper is a copy, then it is a vintage copy of an original.  More likely, it's the original.

The below photo shows a black light at the bottom.  A piece of modern white paper is underneath the jacket and wrapper.  The paper is glowing while the jacket and wrapper are not.

Collectors can easily purchase reproductions unwittingly, and not due to any fraud by the seller.  Unfortunately, reproductions created or purchased by collectors years ago are now appearing in the marketplace.  The sellers might have purchased the reproductions at an estate sale and have no idea that they are selling cheap copies.  All of us must remain vigilant in order to avoid purchasing reproductions.

I could give other examples, but these are sufficient.  I crave variants and scarce items, but I also try to avoid being tricked.