#wizard's hall

[greentrickster]

Today feels like a good day to mention my undying love and support for the story from my childhood about a boy going to magic school unaware that he's the one destined to defeat a powerful dark wizard and save the school and its members in the process.

I am, of course, talking about Wizard's Hall by critically-acclaimed author Jane Yolen, author of over four hundred novels. Whose book I read first, and can and will loudly and proudly recommend to any and everyone to this day as a lovely read that came out an entire six years before any TERFs Who Shall Remain Nameless crashed onto the scene.

No idea why I felt like talking about this today, guess I was just in the mood. Oh well! <3

[mask131]

I saw again another post implying that J.K. Rowling "invented" the idea of a "school for wizards/school for witches" in fiction... *sigh*. Again, while Hogwarts definitively marked the cultural landscape and changed our modern vision of what a "school of sorcery/magic school" is supposed to be... Rowling invented nothing, and there were many, MANY, magic schools in fiction long before the first Harry Potter book was released. As much in fiction for adults as fiction for children. Let me recap some big points:

The Invisible College, from Diana Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, one year before Harry Potter - AND which forms a parody/reference to most of the schools listed below.

Wizard's Hall, from the titular Wizard's Hall book by Jane Yolen - six years before Harry Potter.

Groosham Grange, from the novel of the same name by Anthony Horowitz, nine years before Harry Potter.

The Unseen University, from Terry Pratchett's Discworld - 14 years before Harry Potter.

Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, from Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, 23 years before Harry Potter

The island of Roke, from the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin - 29 years before Harry Potter.

We can even go back to Dom Daniel, from T.H. White's original version of The Once and Future King, 58 years before Harry Potter.

And I am not even counting the various "magic colleges" and "sorcery academies" that appeared in role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons long before Harry Potter came out...

Conclusion: Hogwarts is interesting and influential... But not inventive.

[anghraine]

I was idly thinking of some of my early formative influences as a writer, and it’s like:

my aunt’s She-Ra: Princess of Power books

various Disney Renaissance films

Secret of Mana (I devotedly watched my parents play it from 1993 on)

Jane Yolen’s Wizard’s Hall (don’t remember when, but I was quite young)

Heroes of Might and Magic II & III + Might and Magic VI & VII (1996-1999)

inevitably, P&P (I first imprinted on it in 1997)

Tamora Pierce’s Emelan books (they came out when I was in middle school in the late 1990s and were my first Pierce; I liked Tortall, but wasn’t impacted in the same way)

Piers Anthony’s Xanth books, despite myself (I received and read a gazillion of them when I was hospitalized and then housebound for several months in 1999-2000)

Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, esp the early ones

Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books (my school library had them and I adored them)

Also inevitably, LOTR (after several attempts, I got through the first half of FOTR and then couldn’t stop reading until the end in ~2001)

In various respects, the original SW films, which my best friend pressured me into watching around 2003; I eventually fell in love

David and Leigh Eddings’s Belgariad, Malloreon, associated works, Elenium, Tamuli + The Redemption of Althalus

The first ... eight or so of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time books through high school, and then New Spring (which I got in hardback and loved when it came out the year I graduated)

(I’m sometimes ambivalent about the fact that I mainly write generic high fantasy customized to my personal tastes and priorities, but it’s also not surprising.)

[greentrickster]

One of the most oddly strange parts of my life is that I actually spent several years playing at being wizards and going to wizard school with my friends in a world that was based on a book I read... but it wasn't Harry Potter. That one hadn't been published yet, leaving my fantasy-loving self to obsess over Wizard's Hall by Jane Yolen. Found it in my teacher's little classroom library in second grade, read it multiple times, found a hardback copy at a bookstore sale, still own that copy. It's bound in plain blue with a darker blue spine, and the words 'Wizard's Hall' stamped on the cover in silver, and on the spine too in all caps, along with 'Yolen', also in all caps. I threw out the dust jacket; it was inferior. The plain blue and simple silver better encapsulate the words inside. It is still the best book I own.

And like... regardless of the everything that's come out about HP's author since, I enjoyed that series while reading it. I enjoyed Hogwarts.

But I attended Wizard's Hall.

[mask131]

I do agree with Ursula Le Guin opinion that while the “Harry Potter” series has many qualities, being innovative is not one of them. I precisely mention this because I saw yet again another discussion online where people assumed that the idea of a magic school has been invented by J. K. Rowling.

Never forget that Rowling was the inheritor of an older literary tradition of magic schools. It is true that the Harry Potter series cemented the wizarding school concept in popular culture, but it was far from being the first literary work to explore it, and it certainly was not where the magic school concept began. 

Let’s not forget Wizard’s Hall. Let’s not forget the Earthsea Cycle. Let’s not forget “The Worst Witch” and let’s not forget the Unseen University of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. There were many more different magic schools, of all types, levels and genres before Hogwarts.

... and I actually have nothing more to say so I’ll end my speech here. I wanted to find a cool sentence or catchphrase for the ending but couldn’t, so I’ll just leave with honesty and a tiny bit of dignity left. 

[anghraine]

@heckofabecca replied to this post:

OH MY GOD I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REMEMBER THE NAME OF WIZARD’S HALL FOR YEARSSSSSSS

Glad to help! I haven’t read it since I was a kid, but it’s always stuck with me—maybe because it was such an influence on what I decided to write.

[melissaduck]

WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T WIZARD'S HALL BY JANE YOLEN TAKE OFF INSTEAD OF FUCKING HARRY POTTER

WIZARD'S HALL WAS FIRST AND IT'S BETTER BY MILES FIGHT ME

[roseunspindle]

Wizard's Hall