STAR WARS & HARRY POTTER

Beyond Laser Swords and Magic Wands

by Paola Forcellini

Two wonderful sagas. Two different universes. But they reflect each other, because both are mirrors of our world, with all its contradictions, its values, its tragedies and its conflicts . Harry Potter is a fairy tale, and Star Wars, though we consider it a sci-fi product, is actually a fairy tale as well. Indeed, its beginning states it clearly: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….” Fairy tales always present a typical and well-defined plot: the protagonist is discovered to be “the one”, he leaves home, he’s trained (very often by someone who failed in training the future antagonist), he clashes with the antagonist to whom he’s often linked by something; by clashing with the antagonist he also clashes with the dark part dwelling in himself, and manages to overcome it, which the antagonist wasn’t able to. And, of course, at last he defeats him. Nobody can tell for sure if J.K. Rowling was inspired – consciously or unconsciously - or not by Star Wars; however we all have noticed some analogies between the two sagas and, if we study them carefully, we will notice that there aren’t many: there are countless! Besides, both tales present – and this time their creators stated it openly - a Tolkenian matrix, so resemblances would not be even that surprising. The major parallelisms concern the main characters, but they can be found in the supporting ones as well. As all those who have already discussed the resemblances among SW/HP and other tales, I absolutely don’t want to talk about plagiarism or similar things. My aim is just to emphasize the analogies between the characters of the two modern tales I like best. After all, who has never longed for a light sabre and a wand?

The Little “Lords”“Lords”

The most evident analogy can be found in the characters that personify evil in the two sagas: Lord Voldemort and Darth Vader, previously known as Tom Riddle and Anakin Skywalker. Thanks both to the new trilogy of Star Wars and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, whose filming is at present in progress, we could follow them through their evolution.

Tom Riddle is the son of a Muggle, who took his name, and the witch Merope Gaunt, who belongs to a family whose members, well known for their wickedness and unbalances, are the last heirs of Salazar Slytherin, who co-founded Hogwarts. Merope is an ugly, awkward girl who too soon surrendered to his life full of humiliations. She spends most time locked in house, subjected to her father’s and brother’s harassments. Her rare good times are those when she sees, through the window, Tom Riddle Senior, her handsome neighbour. Eventually, thanks to a charm, she manages to make him fall in love with her and leave home. As her relatives are pure-blood wizards, they clearly don’t approve the marriage. After settling in London, she doesn’t want to lie any longer. Maybe because she’s pregnant and maybe because she believes that, little by little, Tom has really ended up loving her, she stops spelling the charm through which she managed to subdue him. Unfortunately her wish doesn’t come true: once he discovers the trick, Tom leaves her and joins his parents back home. Abandoned and moneyless, Merope stops practicing magic and weakens more and more . She asks for hospitality in an orphanage. An hour later she gives birth to the baby boy, and after another hour she dies. Not even her son proves to be a valid reason to survive. But she would not have been strong and brave enough to be a mother anyway. Before dying, she expresses one wish only: that the baby’s name would be Tom Riddle, like his father, hoping that he might be as handsome as him.

Anakin Skywalker is the son of an unknown father – it seems he didn’t exist at all - and Shmi Skywalker, a slave - as Merope was somehow as well - who, like her, hopes that her son might have a better life. Anakin is raised by her on the planet Tatooine until he is 10-11 years old, when Master Jedi Qui-Gon and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi land there. Qui-Gon notices at once Anakin’s potentials (“He shows Jedi’s traits. […] This is not a coincidence,” he says) and manages to take the child with him. In spite of the deep relationship between him and his mother, Anakin is enthusiastic about leaving to be trained as a Jedi and easily obtains her permission. Tom is Anakin’s age when the great wizard Albus Dumbledore visits the orphanage. Like Qui-Gon, he’s fascinated by the boy’s extraordinary powers and suggests to Tom that he might follow him to Hogwarts. On the other hand “Well, his name has been down for our school since birth,” Dumbledore says. And Tom, as Anakin did, looks forward to leaving.

In order to learn Magic and the Force’s powers, lots of courage, care, sacrifice and constancy are required. Above all, it’s important to control them. Both Obi-Wan and Dumbledore realize this, and, though they try to develop the children’s powers at their best, they constantly keep an eye on them. Both seem calm, but they are also instinctive and arrogant, and little by little they start being intolerant of their teachers’ attitude, too cautious for their tastes. “He (Obi-Wan) won’t let me move on. He’s overly critical. He never listens. He never understands,” Anakin complains to Padmé. For the same reason, Tom expresses his feelings to Harry in the Chamber of Secrets. “Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did.”

On the contrary, someone seems to appreciate them: Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and Professor Horace Slughorn, the Potions teacher. “You will be invincible.You are the most gifted Jedi I have ever met. I see you becoming the greatest of all the Jedi, even more powerful than Master Yoda,” Palpatine tells Anakin. “I confidently expect you to rise to Minister of Magic within twenty years,” Slughorn tells Tom. Of course the professor can’t be compared to the wicked and Machiavellian Chancellor. However, it’s significant that both tend to collect ‘celebrities’. Another detail must be considered: Slughorn is Head of Slytherin House. For these reasons they represent a model of power to the boys, the first a charismatic Chancellor whose authority is not open to discussion, and the second a professor whose ascendancy over his students is indeed remarkable. During the years spent at Hogwarts and on Coruscant, Tom and Anakin discover themselves, and a fixed idea begins to rise in both, though in two different ways: the fear of death. Anakin has not seen his mother for a long time and he misses her desperately. He’s afraid she could be in danger. Moreover, he has fallen in love with Senator Padmé; he met her on Tatooine when he was a child and now has the task of protecting her. He would do anything for her. At Hogwarts, Tom investigates his past. He discovers he belongs to the Gaunts, having had a Muggle father – which he considers a dishonour - and that he is Salazar Slytherin’s last living heir. So he convinces himself that he is destined to become the greatest wizard of all time. Though the reasons are opposite - altruistic in one case and egotistic in the other - the effect is the same: they want to become the most powerful Jedi/wizard ever, so that they can defeat death. For both, here starts the path to omnipotence – and collapse.

“I’m Darth Vader, Anakin no longer has any meaning for me… I’ m not Tom any longer, my name is Lord Voldemort now

The way in which their change starts and little by little consolidates is indeed significant: they both commit their first murder.

Anakin disobeys Obi-Wan, who had ordered him to stay with Padmé and not to concern himself about other matters, and goes for his mother, who in the meanwhile has been freed and has a family on her own. Anakin visits his new relatives, who tell him she has been kidnapped. He manages to find her, but she dies in his arms. Blinded by anger and the wish for revenge, Ani kills all the inhabitants of the village where his mother was kept prisoner.

Same path for Tom: after finishing school, he asks to become a teacher, but the answer is negative and, like in the case of Obi-Wan, behind the refusal there is Dumbledore, who thinks that the boy is still too young and inexperienced. So he leaves Hogwarts and, as Anakin, goes for those he has discovered to be his relatives. Uncle Morfin tells him the rest of his story: his mother died and his father, who had abandoned her, lives with his parents in a nearby house. Tom doesn’t think twice about it and, driven by the wish for revenge, reaches the house and kills his father and his grandparents. He has several reasons: because his father had left his mother, because he didn’t want him, and because the Muggle branch of his family had to be eliminated. Both soon commit their second murder. Anakin, driven by Palpatine, pitilessly kills Count Dooku, who, in the former clash, had cut Anakin’s right arm. Tom, in order to take possession of some relics which will prove to be very useful to him, kills Hepzibah, a noble and rich heir of Helga Hufflepuff, who co-founded Hogwarts. After several vicissitudes, Hepzibah got Salazar’s medallion, which the Gaunts owned previously. So, also in this case, they both take their revenge again. This has become their new way of doing justice. Tom is Salazar’s descendant, his origins are noble and for this reason he doesn’t want to keep his old Muggle name any longer. So he chooses something more powerful: Lord Voldemort, the deadly Lord, stronger than death itself. It is Professor Slughorn who reveals to Tom the secret to reach this aim. In order to get immortality, it’s necessary to tear one’s own soul, by smashing it in several parts and inserting them into special objects, the Horcruxes. Thanks to them, even if the body should die, the soul would survive. Chancellor Palpatine, who realizes very well Anakin’s weakness, manages to turn him to his side, by promising to reveal him the secrets of the dark side of the Force. One of them is the power of becoming immortal and giving immortality. Anakin could not save his mother, and this keeps gnawing at him, and he’s afraid of losing Padmé as well. He also has his name changed – though in this case it is the Chancellor that chooses it for him: Darth Vader, the invader Sith. Moreover, he will often be addressed as “Lord Vader”, a term that, considering the other tale, sounds rather familiar...Tom is afraid of death as well, he cannot and must not die. Then, both Anakin and Tom part from their teachers for a bit. The last time Tom goes back to Dumbledore, once more in order to get his permission to work at Hogwarts as a professor – as a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, of course – this is the way his old Master describes him to Harry: “They were not as snake-like, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, (which reminds us of Darth’s mask) and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look. […] He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.”

Tom/Voldemort looks exactly like Anakin/Darth in “Revenge of the Sith”, where Obi-Wan reaches him on planet Mustafar: red-eyed with hate, pale face and black cloak. Like Dumbledore, Obi-Wan tries to convince him to turn back to the good side, but Anakin, as Tom, reaffirms his intentions “Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies. […] I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed,” Tom tells Dumbledore, which is more or less what Anakin means to tell Obi-Wan.

“I’m not Anakin any longer, I’m Darth Vader…I’m not Tom any longer, I’m Lord Voldemort.”

“I have failed you, Anakin. You were the chosen one. It was said you would destroy the Sith, not join them. You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you,” Obi tells Ani. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is now. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others' sake as much as his,” Dumbledore tells Harry.

Both meetings, or better, both clashes, end up in this way: after Dumbledore’s second refusal, Tom leaves more furious than ever. It’s a miracle that he didn’t rail against his old Master, though he probably was going to do it; while Anakin, even when burning, still has rage and courage enough to shout “I hate you” at Obi-Wan.

Of course we know exactly what has happened since then. Their transformation will come to a complete end. They will turn into the Dark Lords. Their dismemberment, both physical and psychic, is impressive, though different. It is Obi-Wan Kenobi who cuts Anakin’s arms and legs, and hopes that lava and fire will complete the job. But Anakin/Darth manages to survive, even though he will need artificial arts and a mask. On the contrary, Tom/Voldemort reduces himself to a mask according to his will. Here is the point where the discrepancies between them do start.

Even as a child, Tom showed a cruelty which never appeared in Anakin. He tended to command, by frightening and threatening the other children. On the contrary, Anakin loves and gets fond of people, while Tom doesn’t. He doesn’t consider even his devotees, the future DeathEaters, to be his friends. They are just useful tools to him. Anakin grew up with his mother, Tom was completely alone; all these features take a considerable role in a person’s development. Anakin is somehow naive (Palpatine manages to deceive him. And it is him that gives the new ‘baptism’ to Ani), Tom is calculating (with nobody’s help, he realizes he is an important heir, he longs to become even more important and it is him that chooses his new name). Anakin is generous and altruistic and considers death to be a menace above all to his beloved women. Tom is egotistical and considers death to be a menace to himself. Anakin manages to be objective: he bears responsibility for his crimes. He tells Padmé “I killed them all. Not just the men, but the women and the children,” while Tom doesn’t confess. He’s a liar: through his magic he manages to disguise his faults (Morfin Gaunt self-accuses of killing Tom Riddle Senior, while Hagrid is considered responsible for opening the Chamber of Secrets). And, last but not least, Anakin finally repents; Tom doesn’t.

Of course Darth is not a saint, as he kills people as well and makes them suffer just by using the strength of his mind. He doesn’t say openly “Crucio!” or “Avada Kedavra!”, but this doesn’t change the state of things. On the other hand, it’s evident that he is not autonomous. He’s totally under Chancellor – now Emperor – Palpatine’s control. Sometimes he looks more like a terrified DeathEater when falling humbly on his knees before Voldemort, who, on the contrary, is totally independent, like Palpatine.

I think it’s evident that, because of these divergences, now Voldemort is not comparable to Darth any longer. Now he’s more similar to Emperor Palpatine: pitiless, unrepentant and relapsed. They don’t simply personify evil; they are so taken by their wish for omnipotence that they even want to transcend evil.

So now who, in Harry Potter, could be like Darth? The character exists, and, just like Darth, he’s enigmatic from beginning to end – and dresses totally in black as well: Severus Snape.

SECOND PART --->