Eden

Well, maybe it's not that strange. I guess it's kind of a fantasy novel type thing. The similarities are: a big city, with large poor areas, with a guild of thieves who control everything, are willing to protect people, and do spy work and sometimes work with people who have more official positions in the city. Then the magicians' guild... I suppose it could also be compared to Harry Potter (blech) in terms of it being a magic school and there being a rivalry between the main character and an annoying snobby brat, but I was already thinking in terms of Raymond E. Feist, so I thought of the magicians on Kelewan in his Riftwar Saga. In Trudi Canavan's books the magicians have meetings which reminds me of the Assembly in Feist's books and there's the same sort of conflicts over whether Sonea should be taught/kept around as there are about Pug.

So... quite close similarities, but probably just born of having the same kind of requirements out of the fantasy city/guild.