The Powerless Series - Copied?

Lauren Roberts

powerless

The Powerless series is written by Lauren Roberts and came out in 2023. It is an enormious rage on booktok, thanks to the amazing story. The series contains 5 books, the 3 main books and 2 novella's:

• Powerless -- novel

• Powerful -- novella

• Reckless -- novel

• Fearless -- novel

• Fearful -- novella

It all starts inside the Kingdom of Ilya. Many years ago, the people were haunted by the Plague. This Plague gave some people powers, but not all of them. Everyone thought it was a sign of the gods. Those who got powers deserved to live, the others didn't.

Peadyn Gray lives inside Loot, the slums of Ilya. In a kingdom full of Elites, she is an Ordinary. But she's

smart, and she makes everyone she's a Psychic, someone who can see parts of people's lives. In reality, her dad taught her to observe and make conclusions.

With her friend Adena, she lives in a place they call 'The Fort'. Peadyn steals, Adena sews.

But one day, Peadyn robs someone special. Prince Kai, the future Enforcer of Ilya. Later, he almost dies, but lucky enough, Peadyn can save him. Or maybe not so lucky after all, because after saving the prince, Paedyn is sent to the Purging Trails, a bloody competitions to test the powers of the Elites... Only one problem: she isn't an Elite.

Warning: There might be spoilers in here!!!

Booktok

The book was immediatly very popular. But how is that possible? Well, Lauren Roberts shared her writing journey online and build a community of people who liked her book before it was even published. They wanted to buy the book the moment it was out, and maked fanart and videos about the books later. Personally, I found out about the book because of Instagram. And so many others did to, because when you say enemies to lovers, almost everyone thinks of Powerless.

But it weren't only good video's, like with every book. But these 'bad' video's claimed something. They said Lauren Roberts copied or even plagiarised the series Red Queen.

Red Queen

The series is a little bit older, it came out in 2015, but you will still find a lot of Red Queen - fans out there. It's written by Victoria Aveyard and I personally haven't read the series yet, but I did some research for you.

There are 8 books, divided in a half. Four novels, four novella's:

1. Red Queen -- novel

2. Queen Song -- novella

3. Steel Scars – novella

4. Glass Sword – novel

5. King's Cage – novel

6. War Storm – novel

7. World Behind – novella

8. Iron Heart – novella

It all starts in a kingdom where the people are divided by blood. Most have Red blood, normal blood.

These people have small jobs and don't mean anything in the society. But those with Silver blood have and mean everything. They have powers like controlling water or metals. And most of all: they don't share.

Mare Barrow is 17 and she has Red blood. So when she turns 18, she'll have to go to war. But when she meets the king, she discovers that she has powers. It should be impossible, so when the king finds out, he tells the people that Mare is a long lost princess. But Mare doesn't like the way the Silver familys rule. So she bonds with the Scarlet Guard, rebels against the Silvers. She is a spy, but one wrong move and she's a dead spy.

Copied?

When you hear the plots above, there aren't very much simularities. But I made a list!

• Silver hair

  This one isn't intirely true, quite literally. Where Peadyns hair is fully silver, Mare's is only graying at the ends.

• Thieves

  Mare and Peadyn are both poor thieves, stealing for a living.

• Stealing from a prince

  They both have their first encounter with a prince in an alleyway, where they both try to steal coins from a prince, without knowing it is a prince.

• 'They broke her sewing fingers'

  The guards break the fingers from a person close to the main character, altough in Red Queen it happens at the start and in Powerless at the end. The person is also a skilled steamstress.

• Secret exception

  Mare has Red blood, but she still has powers. The king says she has to hide the Red. Peadyn is an Ordinary, wich means she will die if anyone finds out. They are both the exception in the kingdom.

• Love triangle with the princes

  Mare is in a love triangle with Cal and Maven, Peadyn with Kai and Kitt.

• Betrothed to a prince

  Both Paedyn and Mare are to mary the prince they don't love, to eventually end up with the other prince. Kitt and Maven later both tried to kill them.

• Forced trials

  Mare and Peadyn have to compete in dangerous, public trials.

• Murdered king

  The two books have a murdered king.

I think that's all, but if you find any other similarities, let me know!

Wrong direction?

The weird thing is, some people assumed Victoria Aveyard copied Lauren Roberts. And not just once, because Victoria made a video about it. She had to remember people that Red Queen came out in 2015 and Powerless in 2023, wich made it impossible for her to copy Lauren Roberts.

Powerless on TV

A lot of people find this unbelievable, seeing that they think Lauren Roberts copied Victoria Aveyard, but Powerless gets its own tv-show. But there is a logic explanation. If you read the books, you know what a DREAM Kai Azer is.

Maybe the plot and main character are copied, Kai Azer is not. He is such a poët and the interactions with Peadyn? Gosh! I think a lot of people liked Powerless so much because of this amazing character and the tension between him and Peadyn.

In Powerless is romance the center, while in Red Queen the politics are more important.

What do you think? Should Lauren Roberts be sued, or are Red Queen and Powerless different enough?