So I had to write this essay for my English class, I thought it was a really good comparison and so did my teacher. I did have to put in some really obvious details for the outside world though, it was aimed for people who have never read Harry Potter so just bare with me..Other than that I hope you guys enjoy reading it, and I hope you review with your own comparisons, that would be great, enjoy :)
A Great and Terrible Beauty (A comparison to the Harry Potter series)
Throughout the novels of A Great and Terrible Beauty and the Harry Potter series the main characters exhibit awesome traits of courage and love. Although they are tempted by power, they find the strength to resist. Even in loosing so much, these characters still have the ability to love in the end, and they learn to forgive the events of the past and move on.
In the very beginning of the novel, Gemma is suddenly and violently ripped away from her mother. She has a vision of something evil going after her mother. She describes it "as if the dark has begun to move...with a cold slithering sound" like a snake (15). Then suddenly her mother stabs herself. Now the story is set in motion and Gemma is sent to London to attend the Spence boarding school for young ladies and is cut off from the rest of her family and left alone there. Similarly the greatest evil in Harry Potter is related to snakes. Lord Voldemort, although having the shape and knowledge of a man, has snake like qualities such as hissing. He has slits for eyes and slits where a nose should be. His greatest pet too is a snake named Nagini, and he uses her to do his evil bidding. Also similar to what happened to Gemma, Harry's mother and father are both killed by Lord Voldemort and he is left to be raised by his reluctant aunt and uncle.
Gemma has a very good sense of right and wrong that was instilled upon her by her parents. When she first arrives at Spence she immediately sees the order that is established by popularity. She sees some of the popular girls, Felicity and Pippa, picking on a girl named Ann. Now Ann in this society was an outcast. She was an orphan with no family and she had been brought to Spence on Scholarship money, making her a charity student. Several times throughout the book it is stated that in the Victorian order of England she would never really amount to anything (44). Gemma being the bigger person has the courage to stand up to Felicity and Pippa when they attempt to fabricate a scene where Ann has stolen Felicity's ring. Gemma sees what is happening and understands that Ann's life would quite literally come to an end if the prank were conducted correctly and so Gemma steps in and saves Ann, therefore sacrificing any hopes of fitting in at her school (65).
Harry does the same thing when he enters his own boarding school for witchcraft and wizardry, Hogwarts. Here Harry is already famous, however, known as the "Boy Who Lived" being the only person to have survived a direct hit with a killing curse, especially coming from the most powerful dark wizard that ever existed. Draco Malfoy, an arrogant nasty pure-blood boy with a similar character to Felicity, tries to befriend Harry, but Harry too sees the flaws in his pure-blood superiority. He stands by his friend Hermione Granger who is a muggle born (born from non-magical people) and greatly discriminated against in the wizarding world (often being called the foulest of all names a 'mud-blood' for having 'dirty' blood) Harry stands beside her and Ron Weasley a bloodtraitor (pure-blood families who 'betray' other pure-bloods by befriending muggle-borns) making himself an outcast by doing the right thing.
In the beginning of the novel, Gemma has visions of future events, but it one of her visions she seems to enter a world and she sees her mother running. She chases after her dead mother and a piece of her mother's dress rips off on a branch. Gemma picks up the piece of fabric and wakes up. She thought it was all a dream until her roommate Ann pointed out the ratty piece of cloth in her hand that was the dress scarp from her mother. Kartik warns Gemma that she should not be using her power and that Circe, the evil force that was behind the death of her mother, is just tempting her with these images of her dead mother. Gemma doesn't want to believe it and she keeps using her powers to find her mother (118). Lord Voldemort also tempted Harry in the same way. He promises Harry, in the first book, that if he joined him, together they would have the power to bring back his dead mother and father. Harry unlike Gemma sees through these lies and is able to resist the first time he is tempted at the age of eleven.
As time goes on Gemma gains control over her strange power and she becomes friends with Felicity, Pippa, and Ann. Together the four of them journey into the realms where they can make anything possible. They become so intoxicated with this power that Gemma does the one thing her mother made her promise never to do, touch the ancient runes and bring this power back to the real world. Gemma gives in to this temptation of power, but for noble reasons she believes, like saving Pippa from marrying Mr. Bumble and all the other injustices in their world (320). In the end though, this power releases Circe and Pippa is trapped in the realms. Gemma has to return to the realms to stop Circe and save Pippa. During this final battle Gemma touches the ruins again and is intoxicated with the power, it's so temping she doesn't want to let go. The creature Circe offers Gemma power over London, but Gemma has learned and she knows that the creature would control her, not the other way around. She knows she cannot just abandon her family and her life to forever live in this magical place. Gemma fights off the monster by forgiving her mother, Mary Dowd, for killing that innocent gypsy girl. Even though forgiving her mother would be allowing her to move on, Gemma faces her fear of losing her mother and forgives her out of love which drives the monster of Circe, or Sarah away (391).
Harry's last stand is extremely similar. He is sort of killed by Lord Voldemort and he too is reunited with a lost person he loves who has been dead, his teacher Albus Dumbledore. In the world Harry is in there is no more suffering from the war. He no longer fears how many more dead bodies he will find back at Hogwarts, the bodies of the very people who stood up to protect him. Here he has to make a choice too. He has to choose to go back to the real world full of suffering and hardships, or to stay in the happy limbo he's in and just move on. Harry pulls up all his courage like Gemma and decides that his friends in the real world are more important, and that he can endure a little more suffering on their behalf. Harry faces his fear of loss and returns to the real world where he defeats Lord Voldemort.
These heroes worked through hardships, overcame fear and temptation and thwarted evil, though the price was high. They both lived outside stereotypes of the time, and faced their fears to save the ones they loved.