The first book's cover
"The Science Of Winning" is a Russian children's book trilogy written by (allegedly) a Greek man named Nikos Zervas.
The series' plot follows two Russian cadets and their mentor, an adult Russian soldier, fighting against, well, basically everyone who isn't an Orthodox Christian, starting with goths, Islam terrorists and greedy journalists and ending with Captain Ersatzes of J.K. Rowling and her characters.
The first book, "Children VS Wizards", got published in 2004. It soon was followed by two far less known sequels, titled "Cadets Dot Ru" and "Greek Flame", both released in 2007.
In 2016, an animated adaptation of the first book was released.
:This book series provides examples of the following tropes:
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General
- Always Chaotic Evil: Everyone who happens to not be an Orthodox Christian is depicted as an irredeemable villain. And even if you practice the right (in Zervas' view) religion, you still would be portrayed as evil if you're not fundamentalist enough, as shown with Osip Kuroedov.
- Evil Redhead: The author seems to really hate redheads for some reason, since every single red-haired person in this series happens to be a villain.
- The Fundamentalist: Zervas himself is an extreme example, resulting in all "good" characters also falling squarely into this trope.
- Hate Fic: The series illegally features Harry Potter characters in order to bash them.
- Magic Is Evil: The series in general is one hell of an anti-magic tract. Magic is portrayed as demonic, and some forms of it explicitly require one to abandon certain moral principles - flying, for instance, requires one to "lighten the soul" and "abandon the native soil" (that is, Russian patriotism).
- Meaningful Name/Punny Name: Almost every single character has one:
- Ivan Tsaritsin's name is an allusion to an "Ivan Tsarevich" (literally "Prince Ivan") character that plays the role of the protagonist in many Russian fairytales.
- McNagaina, the surname of the local Minerva McGonagall Expy, is a Shout-Out to Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book''.
- Take That!: The whole series, especially the first book, is a huge Take That! to the Harry Potter series and even The Lord of the Rings to a minor extent.
- Vocal Dissonance: Petrusha, despite his tall and burly frame, is noted to have a high-pitched, almost girly voice.
Children VS Wizards
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Most of the foreign Merlin students' names fall under this, the most egregious examples being a Hawaiian girl named Aluluhala Maunaloa and a Japanese boy named Seko Mutagochi.
- Composite Character: Dumbledore and Gandalf are the same character in this book.
- Related in the Adaptation: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger are sisters in this book.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Harry Potter is revealed to be a girl.
Cadets Dot Ru
Greek Flame
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Ivan is tricked into starring in a play that turns out to be this.
