Does it seem that the more you learn about her and the series, the less creative she becomes? More and more it feels like the series became a hit over others out of pure dumb luck
A lot of people get success through dumb luck.
She also wrote something that felt resonant and in a manner where the flawed logic of her universe doesn’t make itself readily apparent, which takes some skill.
Part of the problem in creating a canonical universe over a piece of fiction is that it takes a lot more thought to create the world and few people who can create that world can write compelling stores in said world. She wrote a compelling story. That said, a lot of writers can compelling stores that don’t get the kind of press that Harry Potter did.
IMO the architecture stuff seems pretty standard as far as getting inspiration for a book goes.
The real hack writing was calling the Chinese character “Cho Chang”.
