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Re-Reading Harry Potter


Razors Edge

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14 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

...since one of my younger nieces is working her way through the series, and I am AMAZED at how my memory is SHIT.  I blame it a bit on the movie adaptations, and a lot on my aging and a decade of other nonsense replacing the HP nonsense. :(

Funny you should mention it. Someone, um, "gave" me a bunch of Harry Potter ebooks, including the 7-books plus other stuff including Harry Potter: The Ultimate Quiz Book; Harry Potter for Nerds: Essays for Fans, Academics, and Lit Geeks; The Complete Idiots Guide to the World of Harry Potter; The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles; The Riddles of Harry Potter: Secret Passages and Interpretive Quests; Charmed Knits, Projects for the Fans of Harry Potter (sweaters, socks hats, mittens, etc.); and several more.

But I'm also re-reading the books that J.K Rowling copied to create Harry Potter: about a young boy who didn't realize he had wizard powers who had a particular animal (hawks) with whom he could communicate, and when his powers were disclosed to him he ended up traveling to a wizardry school where he became close friends with a boy wizard and later the friend's sister, a girl wizard/witch - a family that also included a non-wizard.  The center of tension in the books, resolved at the end of book 3, was when the dark shadow that was constantly following and threatening the young wizard is defeated

Almost the same exact outline of the Harry Potter books, right? But the books are written more for adults (no kiddie-friendly names like the House of Slitherin ("slither in"), Hogwarts, Diggery, Dimble, Dumbedore, Weasley, etc.), it gets more bogged down in detail ("mien" is the true power word for the "sea") instead of being light escape fiction, and it doesn't end with the clean results of Harry Potter.

It's Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy - to which she later added 3 not-so-great additional books as sequels and a prequel.

The young wizard is named "Ged," but it's a secret: other wizards can gain power over you if they know your true name, so he's known by others as "Sparrowhawk,"

They did make a movie and a mini-series from the Earthsea trilogy, but they butchered the original story so much, it was almost unrecognizable. Le Guin was furious she had not demanded creative control. Tenar, played by hottie and often scantily clad Kristin Kreuk, was much more a main 2004 miniseries character than in the Trilogy, where she's introduced in the beginning of the 2nd book:

2097376720_ShawnAshmore(Ged)andKristinKreuk(Tenar)inEarthsea(2004).jpg.37ccf8c517ec2b763eecdfee3ce41f59.jpg

The first book begins, "...many Gontishmen have gone forth...to serve as wizard or mage,..Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was a man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. His life is told in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but this is the tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made...."

Later:

"(After his witch aunt with whom he lived - he was an orphan, as J.K. Rowling copied onto Harry Potter decades later - discovered he had wizardry powers and taught him magic words) "When he found the wild falcons swooped down to him from the wind when he summoned them by name...he hungered to learn more such names...the sparrowhawk and the osprey and the eagle..."

Harry Potter could communicate with snakes.

"[The wizard] Ogion knelt down and built the fire on the hearth and lit it, for the house was cold. Then still kneeling he said in his quiet voice, "Ged, my young falcon, you are not bound to me or to my service. You did not come to me, but I to you. You are very young to make this choice, but I cannot make it for you. If you wish, I will send you to Roke Island, where all high arts are taught."

"Master," he said, "I will go to Roke."

Harry Potter went to Hogwarts

[At the Wizardry School} "I am Ged," he said aloud. Stepping forward then he entered the open doorway. Yet it seemed to him that though the light was behind him, a shadow followed him in at his heels."

The "shadow' - like Voldemort being part of Harry Potter

"Jasper looked at him, and his look said without words, "What could you possibly know about what I, son of the Lord of the Domain of Eolg on the Isle of Havnor, am or am not used to?""

The model for Malfoy in Harry Potter

Vetch had dropped down to the ground, and now he came between them, grim of face. "Duels in sorcery are forbidden to us, and well you know it. Let this cease!" Both Ged and Jasper stood silent, for it was true they knew the law of Roke, and they also knew that Vetch was moved by love..."

Vetch: the model for Ron Weasley

Ged's temper gets the best of him and he awakens something unnatural, a dark shadow. This ‘being’ attacks Sparrowhawk and nearly kills him. His friend, Vetch, not yet powerful enough to intervene, watches helplessly.

The shadow: the basic idea behind Voldemort.

"Ged also spoke...Vetch heard, perhaps, something more than simple gladness in his voice...This is my sister, the youngest of us, prettier than I am as you see, but much less clever: Yarrow she's called. Yarrow, this is the Sparrowhawk, the best of us and my friend."

Yarrow: the partial-basis for both Hermione and Ginny in Harry Potter.

"Come home, Tenar! Come home!"
...The mother waiting in the doorway...scraping clean an earthclotted hoe, the father said, "Why do you let your heart hang on the child? They're coming to take her away next month... "She isn't ours, she never was since they came here and said she must be the Priestess at the Tombs..."

Tenar: the main basis for Hermione.

There's much, much more the Harry Potter series borrowed from Earthsea, but I don't want to spoil anything for those who might want to read the books.

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