Is J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter inspired by Neil Gaiman's Tim Hunter (The Books of Magic)?
by 
Rita MariaFelixdaSilva
ANSWERS: 5
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In an interview, JKR said that she is not aware of that book and that the story is her own creation.
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J.K.Rowling admitted that she did not know where the idea came from. But there had been creations in the past based on the 'orphaned child magician' archetype. Neil Gaiman's Timothy Hunter seems the closest to Rowling's Potter. Coincidentally, Rowlings indicated that she first conceived Potter in 1990. DC published The Books of Magic that year. It was said Gaiman was pretty annoyed but softened much when Warner gave him a movie deal. Other alleged sources of Rowling's inspiration were Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea and Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, to name a few. Read here for more details if you're not a diehard Potter fan: http://www.geocities.com/versetrue/rowling.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_influences_and_analogues
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I think that she definitely at least lifted some of her ideas from Gaiman's Books of Magic story. Too much coincidence. I'm not condemning her for it, she's a great writer and the HP series is brilliant. But I think she should have given credit where credit was due. She was "inspired" to create the HP concept the same year Books of Magic came out, written by a famous English fantasy writer (Gaiman) that any young, then-single European aspiring writer would have had an intrinsic interest in reading. Books of Magic was everywhere back then, popular as hell, and riding on the coattails of the Sandman graphic novels. You be the judge. Order a copy of Books of Magic (1990) online, read it, then just imagine if you were Rowling in 1990, reading the same thing. Then tell me you don't think she borrowed elements--actually, the entire concept's core--from Gaiman's Books of Magic.
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The elements both series have in common - a young boy getting a magical education, owls as friends, a picked upon kid who has a great destiny, legendary elements juxtaposed with contemporary details - can all be foudn in T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone, which probably influenced both writers. Certainly Rowling is a lot more likely to have read White than Gaiman. Many of these elements can be found in older stories - White was adapting Mallory's Mort d'Arthur.
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Neil Gaiman has said that the similarities between Harry Potter and Tim Hunter are so superficial that, if anyone was to steal his character, they'd be the things that were changed. http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/gaiman.html And regardless of what the somewhat hysterical Geocities page claims, I can't find any evidence he's ever "squealed plagerism". And, seven years later, the Books of Magic movie he was supposedly "bought off with" shows no signs of happening, so the fact he's still not saying otherwise suggests that wasn't a factor.
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