Plagiarism, Harry Potter & Dracula?

I'll admit I've never read any Harry Potter book and have no plans to do so. But, a post at a message board led to a search which turns up some interesting parallels between Bram Stoker's Dracula and J.K. Rowlling's Harry Potter.

So, when we arrived at the hunt for Voldemort's horcruxes in order to vanquish him, as made clear in HBP, I knew I'd met this plot device before.

I've read Dracula but not Harry Potter so my opinion is only half-formed ;)

There have been other accusations of plagiarism directed at J.K. Rowling before though.

Harry Potter was a character in a 1986 movie called "Troll." In the movie "Troll" Harry Potter was a dark haired, ordinary boy that discovered magic and battled a troll.

Many see striking similarities between "Harry Potter" and "The Worst Witch," by Jill Murphy. Murphy wrote the first "The Worst Witch" novel in 1974 when only 18. This book was made into a 1986 movie.

"The Worst Witch" is the original story of Mildred Hubble and her life at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches," which Jill Murphy based on own school. A pointed hat was added to her normal school uniform, and spelling class actually became SPELLing class. "Miss Cackle's Academy For Witches." "The Worst Witch" was written almost 20 years before the first Harry Potter book, and the movie was made 15 years before "Harry Potter" was filmed.

Again, I have not read either but it's interesting if true.

Two Heads, One Idea

It's funny how some people far away from one another will basically have the same idea. Take the idea of a hero without a head.

The first time I heard of an idea like this was for a videogame called "Dead Head Fred" where:

The core gameplay revolves around Fred's missing head. By progressing through the game the player can collect an assortment of different heads which all have different abilities.

But then a while later the Sci-Fi channel aired a pilot for a show called simply enough, "The Amazing Screw-On Head" where:

[The author] imagined a robot with a head that screwed onto different bodies to suit the occasion-hence the "Screw-on Head".

Just thought it was interesting.