Harry Potter Is Just Star Wars With Crappier Lightsabers

I have a theory.

It's going to irritate two of the largest groups of nerds on Earth simultaneously, which is generally how you know you're doing important work.

Harry Potter is Star Wars.

Not similar to Star Wars.

Not influenced by the same classic storytelling archetypes as Star Wars.

No.

It's Star Wars.

They just replaced spaceships with broomsticks, the Force with magic, and lightsabers with little wooden sticks that aren't even capable of cutting someone's arm off.

Which, objectively, is a downgrade.

Let's examine the evidence.

Our Hero Is an Orphan Who Doesn't Know He's Special

Meet Luke Skywalker.

Luke is an orphan living with his aunt and uncle in the middle of nowhere. He knows very little about his parents and spends his days dreaming about escaping his boring life.

Meet Harry Potter.

Harry is an orphan living with his aunt and uncle in the middle of nowhere. He knows very little about his parents and spends his days dreaming about escaping his miserable life.

Okay.

That's probably a coincidence.

I'm sure everything will diverge dramatically from here.

Then an Old Bearded Guy Shows Up

Luke meets Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Obi-Wan reveals that Luke's father belonged to an ancient order of powerful warriors and that Luke possesses the same mysterious abilities.

Harry meets Hagrid.

Hagrid reveals that Harry's parents belonged to a hidden magical world and that Harry possesses magical abilities himself.

Then Harry eventually gets Dumbledore, who takes over the wise old mentor who knows way more than he's currently telling the protagonist position.

So now we've got orphan boy, mysterious dead parents, hidden powers, and old bearded mentor.

Nothing suspicious happening here.

Moving along.

There's an Ancient Order of Magic People

The Jedi are an ancient order whose members can manipulate a mysterious energy that ordinary people cannot.

They train young students to control these abilities.

They have special weapons.

They have masters.

They have ancient texts.

They wear robes.

Harry Potter gives us witches and wizards.

They manipulate a mysterious power ordinary people cannot.

Young students attend a school to learn how to control it.

They have special weapons.

They have professors.

They have ancient texts.

They wear robes.

THEY EVEN GAVE EVERYBODY ROBES.

Apparently robes are mandatory whenever your fictional universe contains people capable of violating the laws of physics.

Our Villain Is an Extremely Pale Dark Lord

Darth Vader is a terrifying dark wizard who became obsessed with power, embraced forbidden abilities, and became responsible for the deaths of countless people.

Lord Voldemort is a terrifying dark wizard who became obsessed with power, embraced forbidden abilities, and became responsible for the deaths of countless people.

Both eventually become so consumed by evil that they barely resemble normal human beings anymore.

Both command armies of devoted followers.

Both inspire so much fear that people are reluctant to even say their names.

Vader gets a cool breathing apparatus.

Voldemort gets no nose.

Advantage: Star Wars.

The Villain Murdered the Hero's Parents

Now we're getting ridiculous.

Voldemort killed Harry's parents when Harry was a baby.

Vader didn't technically kill Luke's parents, because Star Wars decided the situation wasn't sufficiently fucked up and made Vader Luke's father instead.

But both stories revolve around our hero slowly discovering that his family's history is deeply connected to the villain he's destined to confront.

And the adults around him?

They know.

They've known the whole fucking time.

They just keep giving him information in tiny installments because apparently neither Hogwarts nor the Jedi believe children should receive a complete briefing.

Our Hero Has Two Best Friends

Luke has Han and Leia.

Harry has Ron and Hermione.

One is the loyal, funny friend who occasionally thinks charging directly into danger sounds reasonable.

The other is intelligent, capable, and frequently responsible for keeping everyone alive.

I'm not going to tell you which is which because I enjoy being alive.

But here's where things get even better.

There's romantic tension within the trio.

Eventually two of them end up together.

The third does not.

Star Wars briefly considered making Luke part of that romantic triangle before remembering that Luke and Leia were siblings.

Whoops.

Harry Potter avoided this particular problem by having slightly better genealogical recordkeeping.

The Wise Old Mentor Has to Die

Obi-Wan dies.

Dumbledore dies.

Why?

Because the hero eventually has to face evil without his mentor standing beside him.

This is storytelling law.

You cannot become the legendary hero while Professor Grandpa is still hanging around fixing everything for you.

So the mentor gives the hero some final guidance and then exits the mortal plane.

Except neither of them really leaves.

Obi-Wan keeps talking to Luke from beyond the grave.

Dumbledore gets an entire post-death conversation with Harry.

Apparently death in both universes is less of an ending and more of a change in communication provider.

The Villain Has a Weird Connection to the Hero

This is where Harry Potter stops merely resembling Star Wars and starts photocopying its homework.

Luke and Vader share a powerful connection because they're father and son.

Harry and Voldemort share a powerful connection because part of Voldemort's soul lives inside Harry.

Our hero isn't merely fighting the villain.

The villain is literally part of him.

And ultimately the hero has to confront the darkness within himself before defeating the external villain.

Luke has to resist the Dark Side.

Harry has to accept that he carries part of Voldemort and willingly walk toward death.

Which brings us to...

Love Saves Everybody

For all the lasers, explosions, magic spells, giant snakes, space battles, and British children repeatedly being placed in situations that should absolutely cause Hogwarts to lose its accreditation, both stories ultimately land somewhere surprisingly sentimental.

Luke saves his father through love.

Harry survives because of his mother's love.

The heroes win not because they're more powerful than the villains, but because they retain something the villains abandoned.

Compassion.

Loyalty.

Friendship.

Love.

Apparently the true superweapon was emotional intelligence.

Gross.

But Star Wars Has Lightsabers

And this is where I must unfortunately declare Star Wars technologically superior.

A Jedi gets a lightsaber.

An elegant glowing blade capable of cutting through metal, deflecting laser fire, and producing the greatest vwoom-vwoom noises ever created by human civilization.

Harry gets...

A stick.

Yes, it's a magical stick.

It can do impressive things.

But visually?

Harry and Voldemort are essentially two angry British people aggressively pointing twigs at each other.

Imagine Darth Vader entering the hallway at the end of Rogue One holding Harry's wand.

Not quite the same, is it?

So Let's Review

Orphan hero raised by aunt and uncle.

Mysterious dead parents.

Hidden supernatural abilities.

Wise old mentor.

Ancient order of magic users.

Robes everywhere.

Pale evil Dark Lord.

Hero has two loyal best friends.

Mentor dies but continues offering advice afterward.

Hero discovers a profound personal connection to the villain.

Final confrontation requires hero to reject hatred.

Love ultimately defeats evil.

Come on.

Harry Potter is Star Wars.

And before someone angrily explains Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces to me, yes, I understand that both stories use the Hero's Journey and that these storytelling patterns existed long before either franchise.

I have considered your thoughtful literary analysis.

I have also chosen to ignore it.

Because one franchise gave its magical knights laser swords.

The other gave them wands.

Therefore, after an exhaustive academic investigation conducted primarily for my own amusement, I have reached the only reasonable conclusion:

Harry Potter is Star Wars with crappier lightsabers.