
Whether it’s a book, a movie, or even a television show, many of these stories and their characters have very similar attributes to fiction stories of the same genre. When it comes to these stories being series, the resemblance really starts to become obvious. For instance, the book and movie series Harry Potter compared to the Percy Jackson series at first glance might appear to be two completely different text, but a closer look can show you the true equivalence.  Even a true fan of both book series and movie series might not realize the insane amount of similarities. Doing the research on some of these fiction novels will blow your mind and even influence you to re-read/watch the text again. Even some of the movies for each series were directed by the same director, Chris Columbus. Throughout this paper the true unity of the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan and the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling is going to be shown in great detail and is going to open the mind of the reader to many possibilities. 

To begin comparing the two let’s start with the characters of these stories. The main character in both the text share a name with the title, so of course Percy Jackson and Harry Potter are the main characters. Percy Jackson is a 12-year-old boy when the movie starts living with his mom and step-dad, his dad has always been a mystery and never really know what happened to him. But he does find out later who his dad really is. His mom knows about who he really is and tries to isolate him from that world. He is a misfit and has ADD and dyslexia and has trouble in school and isn’t liked by very many people. Harry potter is a 11-year-old boy when the story starts and is living with his aunt and uncle in the closet under the staircase, he doesn’t really know what happened he’s just told they were killed in a car accident. Although he does eventually find out they were actually killed by an evil wizard. His aunt and uncle know about what Harry really is and they are terrified of it and try to keep him from knowing about it. He is also a misfit and doesn’t have very many friends in school and doesn’t seem to fit in with society at all. PJ is known as a demigod because his mom is mortal and his dad is the Greek god Poseidon. He doesn’t know that he is a demigod until the age of 12 when weird stuff started happening and ended up in Camp half-blood where he eventually learns who he is and his fate. Harry is a wizard and finds his way to Hogwarts in a similar way, he started developing abilities and he started doing stuff on accident in public and next thing you know it he’s taken from his aunt and uncle and he’s in Hogwarts. Just the introduction of these characters is weirdly similar and makes one think. These two later learn just how important they are in their own worlds of magic. 

Both characters are considered Heroes and display very similar attributes. They display all the characteristics of a hero like bravery, arrogance, being clever, and selflessness. The series of course have several other meanings and events going on but there all about the personal growth and development of the main characters as they go through life as a hero. They each must learn to better control their powered and skills even though they’re quite hard headed. Harry and Percy receive gifts from their fathers to help them with their journey as a hero. When they do end up battling the evil in the stories they are more successful when they really get to use their brains to fight. Another interesting attribute between the two main characters is they both can speak the language of an animal, Percy can speak to horses while Harry can speak to horses. At camp half-blood, there are several other demigods just like Percy, but they are split up into groups and are always competing with each other. The camp is also protected by a force that keeps unwanted or non-demigods out of the camp. At Hogwarts, just like Percy Jackson there are several other wizards along with Harry, and are split up into different and compete like in the Percy Jackson series. This School called Hogwarts for the wizards is protected by a magical field to keep out evil forces. Although the camp and the school both have almost a forcefield around them in both of the second books of these series those forcefields are attacked and the character ‘home away from home’ are threatened.

In both series, there is one main Evil character that they end up fighting an destroying in the end of the book. In Percy Jackson, its Kronos, while in Harry Potter, its Lord Voldemort. Throughout the series, the enemy begins weak, defeated, and powerless and grows in strength as the series continues leading up to the final battle. Each character has a prophecy about them that they’re purpose is to defeat this evil force and it was meant to happen from the beginning. 

However, even though the main characters are the most similar there are many different other characters that are alike in the two series. In Percy Jackson, he has two good friends who are with him throughout most the series. Annabeth is a very smart and clever girl that is the closest to Percy and they get closer and closer as each book moves along. Grover is Percy’s other good friend and is almost like his sidekick, although he is a good friend he does not have a part in every book. Percy also has an older almost guide throughout his growth as a hero/demigod by the name of Chiron who is half-horse.  In Harry Potter, he also has two good friends who stay by his side the entire series. Hermione is also very intelligent more so though the Harry and is also very close to him and helps him along the way. Ron is too Harry like Grover is to Percy except Ron is by Harry’s side for the whole series. Harry also has a guide that helps him in his personal growth as a wizard by the name of Dumbledore. 

In conclusion, you can really see the crazy similarities in these two text when you start to break them apart and really analyze their resemblance. They’re both just about a boy who didn’t fit in at all but then found out just how important he really was and the series was about his personal growth and ended up becoming the hero of his own kind (demigod/wizard). 

 