Erin Minear
ENGL 210: Children's Fantasy Literature
The College of William and Mary
April, 2009
Among the many works both historic and modern which have helped shape J. K. Rowling's tales of the young wizard Harry Potter, perhaps none has provided as colorful an influence as has the Star Wars film franchise of writer-director George Lucas. Rowling's seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in many ways parallels the Star Wars movies, whose status as key cultural phenomena Rowling's books have arguably inherited. As a close reading of Deathly Hallows reveals, Harry mirrors the protagonist Luke Skywalker in terms of his origins, his companions and his desire to protect them, and his relationships with his deceased mentor and their joint arch-nemesis. In the fate of this final figure, the murderous Lord Voldemort, however, Rowling deviates substantially from the model provided by the Star Wars villain Darth Vader, whom in other aspects the Dark Lord greatly resembles. Amidst such close parallels, Rowling's treatment of Voldemort highlights his difference from Vader, which in turn articulates the author's views on remorse and the nature of evil.
Although not the earliest entry in the Harry Potter series, Deathly Hallows nevertheless provides a prime example of the franchise's parallels with the Star Wars films, which after all begin at Episode IV – A New Hope. In this seventh book, Harry is introduced to new readers as a young man coming of age in the home of his aunt and uncle, from whom he is soon "parting – probably forever" (36). In this regard, he greatly resembles the science-fiction hero Luke, who begins his own story in a similar fashion. Harry and Luke are moreover each presented in these early moments as the target of an evil organization, which attempts to attack and murder the young man's relatives in an effort to get to him. While Luke arrives home to find the charred remains of his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, Harry is able to warn his own relatives to leave their house to avoid such a fate, reminding them that Lord Voldemort's followers, like the agents of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, "will torture and kill [them] like they did [Harry's] parents" (35). Luke's parents are also presented as having died prior to the events of the story at hand, and he is even told by his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, "A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father." Thus, as Harry's relatives do indeed heed his advice and leave him forever, both Harry and Luke are in essence doubly orphaned as they set off upon their respective quests.
As Harry embarks upon his adventures in Deathly Hallows, he is joined by his erstwhile schoolmates, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. While these characters themselves are not perfect analogues for Luke's companions, Han Solo and Princess Leia Organa, it is in the emerging dynamic between the three central characters that the true parallel lies. Each trio is comprised of two men and a woman, young but post-pubescent, traveling largely without overt supervision in a heteronormative society1. In each case, however, the potentially thorny matter of a 'love triangle' is defused with the revelation of fraternal feelings between the main character and his female companion. In Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, Leia answers Han's question, "You love him… Don't you?" with a matter-of-fact "Yes," but then responds to his, "Alright. Fine, I understand. When he comes back, I won't get in the way." by revealing, "It's not like that at all. He's my brother." In the Harry Potter books, Ron is plagued with similar worries about Hermione and Harry, doubts made manifest by a haunted locket which says in Hermione's voice, "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you beside Harry Potter? …Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him" (376-7). Yet, while Harry and Hermione are not biologically related as Luke and Leia are, Harry is quick to inform Ron, "She's like my sister… I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It's always been like that. I thought you knew" (378). In this fashion, the protagonist in each tale is able to extricate himself from the problematic social dynamic, and the romance between his companions is given the chance to blossom. Harry's close friends thus exist, as do Luke's, in supportive and not romantic roles along his journey, further strengthening the parallel between the two heroes.
Like Luke, Harry is largely defined by his friends and how they relate to him. Each protagonist is also strongly motivated by a desire to protect these companions, rushing to rescue them from harm when he senses a threat. Training in the mystic abilities of the Force in Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, Luke sees his far-off friends in pain and exclaims, "I can't get that vision out of my head; they're my friends and I've got to help them… Han and Leia will die if I don't!" Although the ghost of Obi-Wan warns him, "It is you and your abilities the Empire wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer," Luke's response is a simple, "That's why I have to go." He rushes headlong into the trap laid out for him by Vader, which does indeed have disastrous consequences for the Jedi and his companions. It is this heroic model which Rowling seeks to emulate in her portrayal of Harry, who also experiences "fragmented visions… breaking across the surface of his mind" (453) which show him the actions of his nemesis Lord Voldemort. And according to Hermione, these visions can be just as treacherous as Luke's. She reminds Harry "that Voldemort had once used this selfsame connection between them to lead him into a trap… [and] that it had resulted in [his godfather's] death" (173). Harry's impetuousness in defense of his loved ones is one of his defining characteristics, and it is one adapted closely from the Star Wars movies.
In reminding Harry of just why he should not trust his visions, Hermione does not merely reference the death of his godfather. She also mentions their slain professor Albus Dumbledore, saying, "Harry, Dumbledore didn't want you to use that connection, he wanted you to shut it down… Otherwise Voldemort can plant false images in your mind" (ibid.). Like Obi-Wan, Dumbledore exerts an influence over the central character2 that only grows after his own death, obliquely fulfilling the Jedi's prediction to Vader in A New Hope. "You can't win, Darth," says Obi-Wan, giving himself up to be killed at the hands of the villain. "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." As Harry learns, Dumbledore's death at the hands of Voldemort's servant Severus Snape was similarly "planned between them… Dumbledore intended to die" (742). While Obi-Wan and Dumbledore already act as mentors to their young wards before their intentional deaths, the role of each is greatly expanded postmortem. The elder Jedi appears to Luke as a ghost of sorts, offering regular advice from beyond the grave, while Dumbledore's intentions for Harry and the fight against Voldemort take on primary significance to the young wizard and his friends after his death.
Throughout Deathly Hallows, Harry regularly reflects that "he had missed irreplaceable opportunities when he had failed to ask Dumbledore more about himself" (21) and repeatedly justifies his actions with the assertion that "Dumbledore left [him] a mission" (211). Although Harry's actual interaction with the deceased wizard is limited to one brief final moment before his talking portrait (747-9), Dumbledore's plans for Harry after his death are constantly discussed throughout the text. Harry is "frightened… that he might have misunderstood the living Dumbledore's intentions. He felt that he was still groping in the dark; he had chosen his path but kept looking back, wondering whether he had misread the signs… From time to time, anger at Dumbledore crashed over him again… anger that Dumbledore had not explained himself before he died" (503). This anger and frustration at the man twisting his fate from beyond the grave is another parallel of Luke, who in Jedi asks Obi-Wan's ghost, "Why didn't you tell me [the truth]? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father!" Luke has discovered that his father is Vader himself, and like Harry, he resents the lack of candidness from his dead mentor, which has caused him to grope in the dark for answers on his own.
Even Vader himself is in some sense translated into the Harry Potter books. While Lord Voldemort is not strictly speaking Harry's father, there is nevertheless a strange connection that binds them, for when Harry escaped the killing of his parents as a child, the Dark Lord "left part of himself latched on to [the child], the would-be victim who survived… A part of his soul was still attached to [Harry's]" (709-10). As he works throughout Deathly Hallows to end Voldemort's reign of terror, Harry must, like Luke, come to terms with the mantle of evil he has inherited from the generation before him. For Harry, this surfaces in his struggles against Voldemort's influence, in addition to the gradual realization that the young wizard's much-idolized father is, in the words of the man's future wife, "an arrogant toerag" (674). Deathly Hallows therefore retains the familial nature of the Luke-Vader dynamic in a somewhat removed capacity, and allows for Lord Voldemort to otherwise parallel Vader without being directly related to Harry. Like the Star Wars figures, Harry and Voldemort fight their climactic battle among green and red sparks (743), although there is a break in these when Harry offers himself up to be sacrificed. As he comments to Dumbledore later, "I should have died – I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!" (708). Thus echoing Luke's declaration, "I will not fight you, Father" (Jedi), Harry remains in his interactions with Voldemort a close parallel for the Star Wars hero.
Given the aforementioned similarities between Harry and Luke, it seems clear that Rowling has been influenced by the Star Wars movies in her writing of Harry's adventures. It is telling, therefore, that she chooses to deviate from that established framework so strongly in her treatment of the final fate of the villainous Lord Voldemort. He and Vader, two evil lords with such close parallels in other regards, are also both explicitly presented in the closing moments of their franchises with the option of repenting of their sins. Luke tells his father in Jedi, "I feel the good in you – the conflict. You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before, and I don't believe you'll destroy me now." In similar fashion, Harry informs his foe, "[B]efore you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done… Think, and try for some remorse… It's your last chance… all you've got left… Be a man… try… Try for some remorse" (741). The key difference between the two figures, then, is that Vader does eventually turn away from his wickedness in the face of his son's torture, whereas Harry's words make no impact on Voldemort whatsoever.
Each Dark Lord has before this moment been portrayed as the epitome of evil, but in Lucas's worldview, even such a figure can show true repentance and be redeemed. Vader's last words are, "You already have [saved me], Luke. You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right." In stark contrast, Voldemort uses his final moments to shriek the "Avada Kedavra" Killing Curse, which rebounds back upon the caster, killing the Dark Lord (743-4). Directly given, like Vader, the chance to turn aside from his iniquity, Rowling's villain denies it, and so is slain. Thus despite Voldemort's other parallels with Darth Vader, readers who "turn to children's stories with the expectation that morals and lessons will be forthcoming" (Tatar xv), will gather from the Harry Potter books that true archetypal evil simply cannot be redeemed. While Luke tells Obi-Wan in Jedi, "There is still good in him," Rowling seems to side with critic Bruno Bettelheim that we may "want our children to believe that, inherently, all men are good. But children know that they are not always good; and often, even when they are, they would prefer not to be" (7, emphasis in the original). By treating Voldemort's death as it does, Deathly Hallows sends Rowling's readers the message that some men have no good in them whatsoever. This statement presents a heavy contrast from the work of Lucas, who seems to see that spark of possible redemption in even the darkest of villains.
Throughout Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling draws many parallels between her work's eponymous hero and the character Luke Skywalker from George Lucas's Star Wars films. Each lad comes from a similar background, orphaned and traveling with two platonically close companions whom he feels he must protect through his mystical visions. As he approaches his climactic showdown with the evil overlord, each character is furthermore guided posthumously by an elderly mentor who has gone to his death willingly at the hands of the villain, a dark figure in some way tied to the hero's fate. Nevertheless, Rowling's ultimate treatment of Lord Voldemort marks a significant deviation from the Star Wars model, in which his analogue Darth Vader shows repentance for his actions and is ultimately redeemed. Voldemort is, like Vader, given the option of showing remorse for his sins, but he instead chooses to go Iago-like unrepentant to his grave. In the context of the close parallels which Rowling has drawn with the Star Wars franchise prior to this point, Voldemort's fate can be seen as a purposeful indication of her view on the nature of absolute evil, and its inability to repent. Unlike Lucas, Rowling seems unable to present a universe in which the evil villain heeds the protagonist's advice and turns to the light side before his death.
1. That is, according to the seven published Harry Potter novels and the six Star Wars films alone, no character is shown to be a member of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender community. Subsequent material in each universe has weakened this claim, but these later works are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Based on the material presented in the core novels and films, there is no reason to believe Luke, Harry, Han, Ron, Leia, or Hermione are anything other than heterosexual in their sexual orientation. [BACK]
2. The wizard's interactions with Harry's friends are tangential at best, for like Han and Obi-Wan, "Ron and Dumbledore had never been alone together, and direct contact between them had been negligible" (125). [BACK]
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007.
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Dir. George Lucas. Lucasfilm, 1977.
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. Dir. Irvin Kershner. Lucasfilm, 1980.
Star Wars: Episode VI –Return of the Jedi. Dir. Richard Marquand. Lucasfilm, 1983.
Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992.
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