Talk:Harry Potter influences and analogues/the Attic

The Attic
A place for uncited material to reside until it can be properly cited. In this case, "properly cited" means a reliable source specifically mentioning a similarity between a work listed here and the Harry Potter series. Please be sure that the work was published before Harry Potter, ie, before 1997. I should note that the Attic only has space for sane comparisons; fancies such as this will be handed an express ticket to oblivion.

Literature
Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree books, beginning with 1939's The Enchanted Wood, contain a number of elements which later appear in Harry Potter: These include magical sweets which have unusual effects when eaten, and the use of owls to deliver letters.

Another similarity with The Sword in the Stone is the sword of Godric Gryffindor which is pulled out of the Sorting Hat, much like the sword to be pulled out of the stone. The one who deserves the sword will be the only one who could pull it out.

Theodore Cogswell's 1953 novel The Wall Around the World takes place in a world of magic, and it's protagonist is an orphan boy living with his aunt and uncle, who learns magic in school, flies on a broomstick and is constantly persecuted by a nasty cousin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yrtgm (talk • contribs) 15:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The painting of the charismatic, yet inept knight Sir Cadogan, who is first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, may be modelled on Don Quixote de La Mancha.

In Andrew Matthews's Dr Monsoon Taggert's Amazing Finishing Academy (first published in 1989), Arabella's parents feed their daughter "until she swelled up all round and shiny like a pink balloon". On her tenth birthday, she receives a magical invitation to attend Dr Monsoon Taggert's Finishing Academy. The letter directs her to go to platform 22 at Reading station. A porter tells her the platform does not exist but she eventually arrives at platform 22 and finds there "a gleaming, green steam-engine sighing and smoking alongside platform 22 like a tame dragon". During her journey to the Academy, she encounters a talking armchair and various talking animals. Towards the end of the book, Dr Monsoon Taggert, Head of the Academy, shows her a "long looking glass" and invites her to "take a look". Arabella sees "it was not really the same Arabella at all"; she is still large "but it was a strong sort of large instead of a podgy one". She has also acquired "a determined glint in her eyes that had not been there before". "That's the person you came here to find, I think", said Dr Taggert. Though the protagonist of Frances Hodgeson Burnett's The Secret Garden is a young girl, the novel takes place in the English countryside and features a character named Lily who was loved by two men, one of which she married. The protagonist, Mary Lennox, was also said to have Lily's eyes.

Diana Wynne Jones' book Witch Week is set in a boarding school where many of the students turn out to be witches, in a world where witches are persecuted.

The Earthsea books, while hugely successful, were not the first to propose the idea of a school for wizards. Magical education appears in Eleanor Estes' 1960 book The Witch Family and in Patricia Coombs' Dorrie series (1962+)

Roald Dahl's The Twits and The Enormous Crocodile feature a monkey named Muggle-Wump. Lavender Brown, a character in Dahl's novel Matilda, shares a name with a character in Harry's class. Some readers of Dahl's James and the Giant Peach have commented that James' full name, James Henry Trotter, is similar to the name Harry  James Potter.

There are further echoes of Rudyard Kipling in Rowling's work. Like the Harry Potter story, Kipling's classic The Jungle Book opens with an attack by the principal villain (Shere Khan) upon a year-old infant (Mowgli) and his parents. Shere Khan is unable to kill Mowgli because Mother Wolf (a figure analogous to Lily Potter) is willing to die to protect him. Mowgli grows up a virtual orphan until he is eleven, when he learns that either he must kill Shere Khan, or Shere Khan will kill him (as with Harry and Voldemort). Other tenuous similarities include Bagheera, a black panther, who, like Sirius Black, is an escaped prisoner, and acts as an uncle figure to Mowgli.

There are multiple similarities between "Cob," the wizard who is the villain of Ursula le Guin's third Earthsea book, The Farthest Shore, and Voldemort. Cob is obsessed with death and is willing to destroy the world to obtain his own immortality, ultimately because he fears death above all things. Cob calls himself "king" and "lord." He is pale, tall, and skinny, with long arms and fingers, and his body is twisted as a result of the evil magics he has practiced upon himself. The early life of Voldemort, as Tom Riddle, is quite similar to the early biography of the series protagonist (until a dangerous spell got out of control, making him think more about the consequences of his actions). The protagonist of the Earthsea novels possesses a lot of arrogance at first, as well as pride of his abilities, but changes after a traumatic experience, not unlike Dumbledore.

J. K. Rowling is often compared to Enid Blyton, if only because both women became household names in Britain through their writing for children. While no single work of Blyton's is much like the Harry Potter books, Blyton's influence is occasionally felt in the construction of school life. Blyton wrote several famous series set in boarding schools, such as Malory Towers; she also wrote series about children who form secret societies, solve mysteries and have adventures together, such as The Famous Five. Blyton's heroes and heroines are notorious for enjoying "lashings of ginger beer", a possible inspiration for butterbeer. While Blyton also wrote series about children who undergo magical adventures (for instance The Magic Faraway Tree), the similarities to Rowling's works are felt less in the magic than in the social and cultural interactions of the children. (Note also similar book titles.)

Other books by Eva Ibbotson with similarities to Harry Potter include Which Witch? (First published in 1979) and The Great Ghost Rescue (First published in 1975). In Which Witch, Terrence Mugg, an ordinary, unloved orphan boy much like Harry Potter, suddenly discovers he's actually a wizard - and not just any wizard, but a surprisingly powerful one. In this story there are also witches/wizards descended from humans, as well as "good" and "bad" witches/wizards. They also have familiars (personal pets) as well as ordinary and funny relationships with other supernatural entities such as ghosts. In The Great Ghost Rescue, Humphrey, like Neville Longbottom, is a wizard whose family have almost given up on his ability to perform magic. He also ends up proving to be a greater hero than he first appears.

John Bellairs' Lewis Barnavelt books also have points in common with the Harry Potter stories. They concern a boy, orphaned when his parents die in a car crash, who goes to live with peculiar Uncle Jonathan and housekeeper Mrs. Zimmermann. Both are wizards, and their house is a Hogwarts-like construction of moving pictures and secret passageways. Big, bearded, affectionate Uncle Jonathan is only somewhat magical (like Rowling's Hagrid), while the shrewder, stricter Mrs. Zimmermann is actually a powerful sorceress, similar to Headmistress McGonagall. Her wand, similar to Hagrid's wand, is hidden in a purple umbrella. The opening novel The House with a Clock in Its Walls features a magical item left in a secret chamber by an evil wizard, and its sequel, The Figure in the Shadows, places Lewis in cofrontation with a black-robed, cowled, dementor-like ghost.

There are also parallels between Harry Potter and Lord Dunsany's fantasy short stories, in which the magical lands at the Edge of the World are reached via a special train from Victoria Station using a purple ticket "that they only give if they know you".

Mio, my Mio (published 1954), by Astrid Lindgren has a very similar plot to the Harry Potter series. Mio, my Mio starts by introducing Bosse, a young boy who has been adopted by an elderly couple that do not really like kids. They harass him, and tell him to stay out of their way. One day he receives a golden apple and a postcard from one of his adult friends; he mails the letter, but not until after he has thrown a glance at the card. It is addressed to a king, and it says that his son will soon be coming home. Soon after, Bosse finds a bottle with a genie trapped inside. Upon freeing it, the genie recognises the apple and takes Bosse to another world, far, far away. Upon arriving, Bosse is told that his real name is Mio, and that he is son of the king and thus prince of the land. He finds a new best friend, and is even given his own horse. However, he soon learns that not everything in this world is as wonderful as it first seemed. In the lands beyond that of the king lives an evil knight named Kato, whose hatred is so strong that the land around his castle is barren and singed. He has kidnapped several children from the nearby villages, and he poses a constant threat to the people living there.

Two direct similarities are a) the main character Mio uses an invisibility cloak, b) the main enemy Kato cannot be killed directly, as he has his heart/soul stored outside his body. Baumpf (talk) 21:49, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the earliest characters remeniscent of Harry Potter is the boy magician Kullervo, from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala. But he is the literary opposite of Harry. Like Harry, Kullervo is profoundly magically gifted from an early age, his family are killed in a raid on his home when he is an infant, and Kullervo is raised as a slave by unloving, spiteful people. Like Harry, after Kullervo grows up, he discovers a remnant of his family (in Harry's case, his godfather), who die a year or two after the reunion. But whereas Harry grows up to be a good-tempered, moral boy, who is rather the "joiner", Kullervo is a "loner" who becomes an ignorant, vengeful young man. Kullervo's spontaneous magical acts cause his tormentors to die horribly, whereas Harry has yet to kill or even seriously injure anyone.

Similarities can be found between Harry Potter and the "Wheel of Time" series. The Dementors in Harry Potter are similar to the Draghkar in Wheel of Time, both creatures of evil that can suck out the soul of the person they attack. Naming Shai'tan, the Dark Lord, in the Wheel of Time world causes him to focus his attention on the person doing so. This is similar to what happens to a person who utters Voldemort's name, after the Taboo was placed upon it in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Aathichoodi is a 13th century C.E. work by Avvaiyar. Albus Dumbledore's famous quote to Harry "To the well organized mind death is but the next great adventure" is possibly taken from this work. Aathichoodi is taught even today in primary schools in Tamil Nadu along with the Tamil alphabet. Dobby the house elf, first introduced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, has a striking resemblance to Hobberdy Dick, the house elf from the book of the same name by Katherine Briggs. The Harry Potter universe shows some possible vague influences from The Face in the Frost, including an animated, talking wall hanging, together with the general concept of a wizarding universe that is somehow existing in parallel with a larger, non-wizarding world.

Other similarities to The Lord of the Rings include Marvolo Gaunt's ring, which is pratically identical to the One Ring, since they both are rings which contain a piece of their master's soul, and must be destroyed in order to kill him. It's curious that when the One Rings was destroyed the dark tower Barad-dûr collapsed, while at the end of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince it is he who wears it (Albus Dumbledore) who falls from a tower. Narsil is similar to the Sword of Gryffindor, as are the father-figures Gandalf and Dumbledore. Both Tolkien's Dark Lord Sauron and Rowling's Lord Voldemort (both of whom exist at some point as spiritual entities . Phial of Galadriel very much like the dis-luminbrator (sp?) and given with similar words: "May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out." (Elf lady to Frodo). Elves' near-invisibility cloaks. Large, talking, dangerous spiders in a dangerous forest (The Hobbit). "Fang" the name of a dog. Re-ordering of a name. Special kind of magical basin of water to see the past, present, and future. The hobbits smallness relative to the dark lord, their special friendships, and role are similar to the Harry Potter and his close friends. The ring and the scar are the parallel. Dark lord's ability to see through the mind's eye of "the one" and vice versa, to a small extent, as a result of the ring/scar. Both Dark Lord's not exactly in a physical body as a result of when the ring was lost and the scar created. Both Dark Lords' primary minions can mysteriously suck out your "life" or "soul" when they are near

Bram Stoker's Dracula (first published in 1897) features a woman, "Mina", who is scarred on her forehead and can see into Dracula's thoughts, gaining information on what he is doing. Harry repeatedly has visions of the same kind about Voldemort through his connection. Mina (in Dracula) becomes one with Dracula much the same way that Harry joins with Voldemort. Mina is forced to drink Dracula's blood, while Harry's blood is used in the resurrection of Voldemort. In both cases this connection is used to the villain's advantage as well. The search for and sterilization of the coffins is also similar to the search for the horcruxes in the Harry Potter books. Dracula has the intention of spreading out his resting places all over town so he always has a safe place to hide during the day. The end of the book finds the main characters leaving London (much the same as the leaving of Hogwarts) to find the last box.

The first chapters of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, are almost identical in plot to those of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone A young girl, Jane Eyre, whose parents are dead, is brought up by a cruel aunt, and mistreated by a robust, bullying cousin, whose part the aunt always takes, unfairly,  calling Jane a liar when she tells the truth. Jane is then sent to a school for orphans, where she also spends the holidays, and where she eventually finds contentment. This may not be intentional. Jane Eyre is one of the most seminal novels in English (directly influencing, for instance Daphne Du Maurier's  Rebecca,  and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys) and may have influenced J.K. Rowling through the media of other works.

In Andrew Matthews's Dr Monsoon Taggert's Amazing Finishing Academy (first published in 1989), Arabella's parents feed their daughter "until she swelled up all round and shiny like a pink balloon". On her tenth birthday, she receives a magical invitation to attend Dr Monsoon Taggert's Finishing Academy. The letter directs her to go to platform 22 at Reading station. A porter tells her the platform does not exist but she eventually arrives at platform 22 and finds there "a gleaming, green steam-engine sighing and smoking alongside platform 22 like a tame dragon". During her journey to the Academy, she encounters a talking armchair and various talking animals. Towards the end of the book, Dr Monsoon Taggert, Head of the Academy, shows her a "long looking glass" and invites her to "take a look". Arabella sees "it was not really the same Arabella at all"; she is still large "but it was a strong sort of large instead of a podgy one". She has also acquired "a determined glint in her eyes that had not been there before". "That's the person you came here to find, I think", said Dr Taggert.

Film and television
Young Sherlock Holmes displays similarities to the Harry Potter series. The three leads bear a strong physical resemblance to the Harry, Ron and Hermione of Rowling's description (as does a character named Dudley to Draco Malfoy). They investigate a supernatural mystery in a Gothic boarding school, where staff include the Professor Flitwick-like Waxflatter, and sinister Rathe. Trophy-room duels, scars, a hooded Dementor-like apparition, Death Eater-style cultists, and ultimate sacrifice for love are other elements in common.

Hogwarts-like witches - one of whom is played by theatre actress Hermione Gingold - appear in the 1958 movie Bell, Book and Candle.

The 1960s television series Bewitched features a society of 'witches' and 'warlocks' who live separately and hidden from non-magical 'mortals'. Throughout the series, protagonist and witch Samantha Stephens is visited by guest-starring relatives and other witch folk, who are comically unfamiliar with mortal society and usually dismissive toward mortal technology. References to Samantha's aunts running a boarding school for witches, the recurring character Dr. Bombay, and episodes featuring the 'Witches Council' indicate that witch society has schools, medical technique and government of their own. Samantha faces disapproval from the witch community for her decision to marry a mortal; her mother Endora in particular, played by Agnes Moorehead, displays a contempt for her non-magical son-in-law worthy of any Slytherin graduate.

The sitcom  Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, based on the comics cited below, features a similar hidden society of witches (who also refer to the non-magical folk as 'mortals'). With the focus on a teenage witch attending a mortal high school, the series touches on some of the same concepts as Harry Potter's adventures in a lighter-hearted vein: legal restrictions on underage magic, mortal memory being erased or re-written (which happens to Sabrina's boyfriend Harvey too often to be entirely healthy) and the heroine stealing a relative's flying vehicle.

Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro  (released in 1988) features the magical bus that is invisible to everyone but kids. The trees move and give way to the magical bus as it passes through. This is similar to the magical bus in the Harry Potter books.

Comic Books
The Circle of Magic series, by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald, is about a boy, Randal, who goes to a school of magic (The Schola) where he gradually unlocks his great potential.

Archie Comics' Sabrina the Teenage Witch (first appearing in the 1960s, later resurrected in the 1990s in response to the success of the live-action television series) also features a young magical protagonist, and other similarities.

Mike Magnola's comic book series Hellboy, features a supervillain Grigori Rasputin (Hellboy), who takes a fragment of his soul and hides it in an Yggdrasil to become immortal, in a manner identical to Lord Voldemort's attempt to seek immprtality by hiding fragments of his soul in the Horcruxes.