History Literature / WizardingSchoolMysteries

** According to Polybeus, the romantic tale of Achilles and Patroclus was sullied by author Forr Kydd's translation turning them into cousins. You know, as in Creator/FourKidsEntertainment, masters of bowlderization?

* AffectionateParody: Of the entire genre of WizardingSchool stories, especially Literature/HarryPotter.

** When Serena declares that she wants to fight Margot in the arena one day, she shakes her fist while stating "our battle will be legendary!", just like Tai Lung in the much-memed scene from WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda where he declares the same upon hearing about Po.

* ExtranormalInstitute: The AAAM, [[WizardingSchool as one might guess.]]

''Wizarding School Mysteries'' is a series of books written by Creator/WilliamDavidCope, the same author of Literature/TheAtomicTimeOfMonsters. It can best be described as the answer to the question, "What if Literature/HarryPotter was both not written by a TERF, had a way more diverse main cast, and that cast was made up of a group of [[YouMeddlingKids meddling kids]] out to solve the mysteries of their school?"

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The dorms have two dominant colors each. Yellow and orange for Choleric, blue and white for Phlegmatic, green and black for Melancholic, and red and grey for Sanguine.

So far, the only book released is ''The Meddlesome Youths (2022)'', in which James meets his friends, and they attempt to solve the mystery of disappearing kids. The next part was ''Tournament of Death'' (2023), involving the gang investigating fatal foul play in the Ultimate Wizard Battle tournament. "Wicked Witchcraft" is the next book to be released. As a whole, eight books are planned.

* AllLovingHero: James is unendingly forgiving and kind to just about every being he encounters. It helps him make lots of friends, make nice with several monsters, [[spoiler: and even causes some beings to turn on their masters.]]

* AscendedMeme: A pixie's reaction to Gretchen and Serena meeting as roommates is "Oh my gods, they were roommates!", a reference to a very famous joke Vine.

* ChekhovsGag: Ivan ends up summoning a FlyingCarpet that happens to be a vicious predator. [[spoiler: Later, while the gang is running away from the elven army, he creates his own army of man-eating carpets after finding many in the tapestry room of the school.]]

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: Dean Dermberder is one to Albus Dumbledore, as if the name wasn't an indicator enough. Unlike the kindly headmaster wizard, the dean is extremely unhelpful, and completely disregards James' friends while grooming him to be TheChosenOne for his own goals. Also, unlike Dumbledore with Voldemort, he has no good reason to be Lord Dhenregirr's enemy other than "he's evil". Then again, we don't know the whole story.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Dean Dermberder appears to be a crazy old wizard at first, but he's more than capable of putting others in his place with his presence and sheer power.

* DealWithTheDevil: Four years ago, Dermberder made a deal with TheFairFolk to build the AAAM in their turf. A mostly sound deal, except that [[spoiler: the Summer Prince found a loophole so that he could spirit away students to Fairyland without anyone raising a fuss via the main archway acting as a portal.]]

* DynamicEntry: Fafgander appears before all of the new students while performing a display full of fire in the sky. The rest of the wizard faculty follow suite with their own, capped off with Dermberder's. Presumably, they all do this for every new student gathering.

* FantasticCasteSystem: Wizards are generally categorized into two different titles based on their latent gifts. There's sorcerers, who can do spells out of thin air, and then there are conjurors, who require special ingredients and alchemy-based methods to produce magical potions and powders. Naturally, there is some conflict between these two factions, as conjurors are sometimes looked down upon by sorcerers as being mere magicians, which are just wizards only capable of a few parlor tricks.
** TheFairFolk, meanwhile, are divided into Seelies (fairies of light) and Unseelies (fairies of dark). The Seelies are ruled by a King of Day while the Unseelies get a Queen of Night. The Princes of Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter serve the Seelies and Unseelies respectively. As of now, all of the royals are high elves. There are lesser royals below them, but then we'd be here forever.
*** To give at least one example, the Summer Prince rules the yellow court divided between the King of Coins and the King of Cups. There are many royals below that too.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''The Meddlesome Youths'', Serena points out various details about what Gretchen is studying in the library, helping her focus on what's important for the investigation (that she doesn't know about yet). This hints at her HiddenDepths regarding her intellect, which comes into play later when she figures the gang all out on the subject of their goal, earning her a spot in their ranks.

* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: The guards of [[spoiler: the Summer Prince's castle]], or at least the elven ones, are quite bad at their jobs, as most of the spells they know are not designed for combat, and they're really bad negotiators. The rest of the creatures guarding the castle, on the other hand, are much better at fighting, but the orcs stop when [[spoiler: Margot gains their respect.]]

* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Fafgander is a minor example. Once, he was the ruler of where the AAAM stands. Now, he's just the groundskeeper living on the outskirts. He doesn't seem to mind, all things considered.

* MagicCarpet: Ivan tries making one in order to secretly impress Rodrigo. He succeeds...but ends up creating a sapient cloth-made predator that at first doesn't take well to having others ride on it. [[spoiler: It returns to Ivan's side rather quickly though, teaming up with Fafgander to get food easier as well.]] He decides to name it Rugg for future reference.

* MeaningfulName: All over the place. See the Characters section for more info.
** A non-character example is the Samhain festival, named after the original Gaelic holiday that inspired Halloween.
* MeaninglessVillainVictory: [[spoiler: The Summer Prince's plan to spirit away a ton of students ultimately comes to pass for the most part, and James is forced to give up his old identity so that he'll be persuaded to stop any more. But the real victor is James, as he intentionally let the Prince take his old self so that he could be free from it once and for all. Also, the records of the lost students are found, prompting a mass rescue mission from the higher-ups.]]

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Oomlowt, if only because he actually takes the time to listen to his and other students.

* RedHerring: This is [[spoiler: Dhenregirr's]] name, once the anagram is deciphered. It's more a meta-example more than anything else.

* ShoutOut: Ivan's last name is derived from Ilya Muromets, one of Russian folklore's greatest heroes.

* TakeThat: The main character is trans. That alone is a major jab at the Wizarding World's author, J.K. Rowling, who is now known for her unfortunate views on transgender rights. Not only that, but WordOfGod has explicitly stated that making his expies of Harry and Hermione (whom he views as Rowling's self-inserts) trans was a major act of gleeful (and deserved) spite on his part.

* TitleDrop: Occurs once in ''The Meddlesome Youths'' when the kidnapping plot becomes apparent. Then near the end, Dermberder calls the gang meddlesome youths, while James declares them as such with proper capitalization in the text. Later, this becomes their moniker throughout the series.

* TransTribulations: James was once a girl, but he experienced gender dysphoria while his parents ignored his problems. Using a glamour spell, he became a boy, and ran away mainly to get away from his family's unrealistic expectations. [[spoiler: Near the end of ''The Meddlesome Youths'', he seals the deal he makes with the Summer Prince by offering his dead name, Elizabeth Marlowe, ensuring that no one would remember the person he was before. He's quite happy about it, all in all.]]

* TemptingFate: Outright stated by Ivan no less when James says they'll be absolutely safe in the library. Gretchen then lampshades that [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality things will most likely go wrong when people say they won't.]]

* YourMindMakesItReal: For denizens of Fairyland, assumptions tend to manifest into reality. An example is the weakness to iron. It's only because they almost all believe it to be so thanks to a brutal war that had lots of iron in it.

** ''TournamentOfDeath'' ends with the saboteurs foiled, [[spoiler: Margot winning the UWB tournament]], and James and Margot becoming an item after Ivan and Rodrigo did the same partway through. The bitter part is that multiple participants in the tournament were murdered in front of a live audience, and everyone involved (Polybeus especially) has been emotionally affected as a result and will have to live with the aftermath of the whole experience.

** Richard's opponent in the first round of the tournament, a gnome who's kind is known for their burrowing ability and huge knife-like horn on their foreheads, is named Gyrion (derived from [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Tyrion Lannister]]'s first name, but with the first letter changed as with the names of many of the dwarves in [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings]]), though it's initially presumed to be [[Film/GameraVsGuiron Guiron.]]

** Richard's opponent in the first round of the tournament, a gnome who's kind is known for their burrowing ability and huge knife-like horn on their foreheads, is named Gyrion, thought it's initially presumed to be [[Film/GameraVsGuiron Guiron.]]

** Serena declares that she wants to fight Margot in the arena one day, shaking her fist and stating that their battle will be legendary, just like Tai Lung in the much-memed scene from WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda.

** In ''Tournament of Death'', after Dermberder claims the balloons made in his office as part of a prank are orbs, he offers to have her ponder them with him, which references the "pondering my orb" joke popular around 2021.

** [[spoiler: Richard Rainsford in ''Tournament of Death'' finally finds his WorthyOpponent, but he's had to kill/horribly injure other fellow youths beforehand, and he's too insane to realize that everyone hates him for being a lowly murderer. Also, he gets imprisoned with Miguel by Dermbeder.]]

* TeamMom: Margot.

** Many times, people will claim that the UWB tournament is going to be a safe and good time. It very much isn't. Likewise, at the beginning, the youths look forward to a semester free of peril. As if.

** Serena declares that she wants to fight Margot in the arena one day, shaking her fist and stating that their battle will be legendary, just like Tai Lung in the much-memed scene from Film/KungFuPanda.

* QuirkyTown: Calampen USED to be a perfectly normal village before the AAAM turned it into a bustling, if slightly reluctant, college town full of waring shopkeepers and bustling taverns. They're not completely happy about having a bunch of unstable magical beings coming to their town almost every weekend, but they make the most of it in their own way.

** Margot's Doomstar bears a striking resemblence in both its form and how it's summoned to the SignatureMove of [[Manga/DragonBallZ Frieza.]] Cope even used a picture of him without context to hype up the book it debuts in.

* BrickJoke: At separate points during ''Tournament of Death'', Margot uses catchphrases mentioned by the others during a gag in the last book. Namely, YouTalkTooMuch, and "that spell's called fisticuffs".

* According to Polybeus, the romantic tale of Achilles and Patroclus was sullied by author Forr Kydd's translation turning them into cousins. You know, as in Creator/FourKidsEntertainment, masters of bowlderization?

* GenkiGirl: Serena.

** Sarkani Charmil, one of Margot's opponents who can turn into a swarm of bats, claims to hail from [[VideoGame/Castlevania Kastelvania]].