Hogwarts Vs. Forks: A Comparison Between the Harry Potter and Twilight Series

When fantasy books become popular within a few years of each other, especially with the fanatic following of series like "Harry Potter" and "Twilight", people look for comparisons. What made these books pick up? What made the films as well so popular? They also point out what makes them different and still both successful within the fantasy fiction genre. Here are a few points to illustrate what makes both series independently interesting as well as how they changed the face of modern fantasy literature.

First, thematic comparisons between the two are limited to, fantasy setting with supernatural creatures and watching the main characters grow up within the pages of the books. While I do not think that makes them terribly similar, I will describe the few similarities between the characters.

Both main characters, Harry and Bella are normal everyday people with, in most cases uneventful and mundane lives. Through situations that seem to unfold completely outside the protagonists' control, they come to know that the normal world around them is greater than they thought and with many more surprises and dangers. Harry is plunged into the wizarding-world when he learns he is a living legend, when he had never even known magic existed. And Bella found herself in a small town filled with hot-blooded werewolves and ice-cold vampires.

Both went through a period of adjustment after realizing these facts, but the second similarity is how we watched them grow because of it. In Harry, we were able to watch he and his classmates start off as young, impressionable eleven year olds and grow into young men and women who were willing to fight with or fight for good or evil. Bella, however is only seen over the course of her High School years and through her reckless love with a vampire. But this is where the general commonalities end.

What separates these series in their content. The first installment of the "Harry Potter" series ("Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" as it was titled in the United States) was written by J.K. Rowling in 1998. It was written for all age groups, but was marketed to readers around the age of eleven, the same age Harry was when the series started. It starts out very hard for the protagonist, an orphan living with his unbearable aunt and her family. It leads us through his adolescent years up until he is seventeen. We see him grow, be brave, be weak, alienate himself, find his friendships again and find love. It is a fairly in-depth look into the changes that Harry and his friends undergo.

Whereas Bella is already in her teen years when the series opens. Moving to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her divorced father. She makes new friends, albeit reluctantly, immediately, but the story doesn't pick up until she falls in love with the handsome vampire, Edward Cullens. The world around her shifts completely as she is thrown into a deadly world of vampires and werewolves. Bella is a self-absorbed teenager who seems to be blinded by her all-consuming desire to live with and love a vampire and possibly live as one forever.

To further separate these series, are the author's takes on their heroes. Harry, who always tries to do the right thing, finds himself occasionally faced with tough decisions that help to shape him morally. Bella, on the other hand, seems to think fairly one-sided and often hurts the people she cares about inadvertently to get what she wants. Harry is the reluctant hero where Bella seems to be more of a self-centered protagonist. She tries to do what she thinks is right, but she lacks the foresight most pointedly to see how her actions will effect others.

Also, J.K Rowling has been criticized for her choices to kill prominent members in he cast of characters. While Stephanie Meyer seems to have no end to the pain her characters will be put through, but all seem to come out, in the end unscathed. That is a very drastic difference in the themes of both books. The "Harry Potter" saga lost quite a few characters from both sides of the good vs. evil debate, whereas "Twilight" always sees the "good guys" through, even if they suffer in the process. The tones of the books are very different when people you care about and have followed through several thousand pages finally meet their end. It completely effects the entire tone of a book when an author takes their cherished characters and can let them go for the sake of the story.

What makes both of these series, as different as they are, so profoundly popular that they create a cult-like following? That is the simplest part of this debate. Both series have characters that people relate to. People care about Harry Potter, his friends, their family. The stories are both heavily character driven and both authors fill their world with realistic characters, friends, families and antagonists.

Both characters have personality flaws with which people can easily identify. Bella is repeatedly clumsy and is often thinking in the small picture. Some people consider her selfish and short-focused, but what makes her interesting is that she's real. She's a person with desires that often outweigh logic. Harry is consumed with trying to prepare the world for Lord Voldemort's return and trying to be the wizard many people assume he should be. He is pulled in many directions, between friends, Hogwarts Houses, loyalty and his drive to try and be more than just "The Boy Who Lived".

It is the characters that drive the series and our ability to recognize and identify with a part of them that has such an impact on readers. We want to see Harry achieve greatness with his friends and defeat evil. We want to see Bella find happiness with her love (and maybe with Jacob, her werewolf best friend) and to see if eternal love really can work for her. They are, despite their flaws, in some cases due to them, people we want to follow. We care about them and are anxious to go along for the ride with them.

Fans and bibliophiles alike are excited that books, let alone fantasy books have been able to cause such an uproar in the novel and film industry. It gives young readers (and old as well) a new look on sitting with a book. Anything that gets people reading and talking about books is a fantastic commentary on the appeal and rebirth of literature.