Harry Potter, Eragon, and Star Wars

Three elements of popular that express different viewpoints, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Eragon each have a different perspective and environment that makes them very different from each other. All three revolve around a hero facing off against someone who has destroyed the harmony, and seeks to rule their world, or worlds.

Star Wars express a very different viewpoint from either Harry Potter or the Inheritance Cycle. The six movies, and subsequent books, cartoons, comics, all have one thing in common. There are many values that Star Wars impart sot its audience: redemption, piety, sacrifice and heroism. While Harry Potter and Eragon all have plots were the hero destroys their nemesis, Anakin Skywalker does not immediately succeed and instead joins Sidious. While the other two exemplifies redemption, Harry Potter and Eragon stress the success of the heroes. And so, this is much different from the values impart by either Harry Potter or Eragon. Also, the Jedi renounce all attachment but neither Harry nor Eragon is forced to.

Harry Potter, while similar to Star Wars, is very different. While Harry Potter celebrates the unlikely hero, it focuses more on the success of the hero, rather than the failure.  It focuses on the growth of a character, mostly because it happens over the span of Harry’s adolescence, and the pressures that are placed upon him. The dueling values are very different from either Star Wars or Eragon. Harry Potter centers more on the growth of the hero: the growth of character to be more precise. It is about perseverance and restraint and the refusal to accept evil in any shape or forms. While the other two focus on the struggle between good and evil, Harry Potter centers more on the struggle between the antagonist and the protagonist. Everything written in the book exemplifies this struggle, and the two sides are sometimes seen as a mere afterthought. There are no great battles like the kind in Star Wars and Eragon.

 

And finally, Inheritance Cycle reveals a very from the previous two.  Eragon, the main character, around the same age as Harry, embarks on a journey of discovery, but his is very different from Harry’s. While Harry is much more reserved, Eragon is more hotheaded and can be much more dense then Harry. The Inheritance Cycle focuses more on the struggle one faces when they acquire power, and the restraint to keep from using it for evil. In the other two works, Anakin is swayed to the dark side, while Harry is never offered the chance to join in the first place. Another value more prominent here is the world Eragon lives in, which is much more logical then either Harry Potter and Star Wars. There is no Force or fate to guide the lives of the characters.

All in all, these three creations each have a unique viewpoint that is expressed in how the characters interact with each other, and with the world. Their individual personalities, and their actions both shape how they achieved their goals, or if they even did so.  Each of these works has appealed to its audiences in different ways, but in the end, it worked for them.