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Matilda and Harry were both significant \u00a0parts of my childhood, in that I’d spend hours watching those \u00a0movies from the floor of the living room \u00a0while I \u00a0knocked \u00a0back \u00a0thirty tiny boxes of \u00a0raisins. But it really never occurred to me that their stories had so many parallels \u00a0until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled upon the frame of Matilda playing telekinetic 52-pick up (above). It \u00a0looked just \u00a0like the scene in Sorcerer’s Stone<\/em> where the Dursleys’ living room gets hit with a locust plague of \u00a0Hogwarts letter duplicates.<\/p>\n Matilda has a great work ethic and is wise beyond her years, while Harry doesn’t give \u00a0a rat’s ass about learning \u00a0(which, why) and is a little angstier than I’d have liked, but I do \u00a0wonder \u00a0if J.K. Rowling borrowed \u00a0some of Harry’s story from Roald Dahl. Let’s explore.<\/p>\n Magic<\/strong>. \u00a0They both realize something’s *up* before they’re eleven. The difference is that \u00a0Matilda’s telekinesis develops because she’s not being challenged enough in school, whereas Harry gets his magic handed to him on a silver platter. This is incidentally a metaphor \u00a0for society’s problems at large.<\/p>\n Home situations. \u00a0<\/strong>Matilda’s family is slimy and insane, Harry’s adopted family lock him in a closet for the majority of his childhood, and each has a \u00a0brother at whom I’d love to slingshot frozen grapes. Mr. Wormwood bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Dursley. \u00a0Both bear an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Potato Head.<\/p>\n School<\/strong> \u00a0is the escape from their daily purgatories, though both encounter major obstacles there, including, but not limited to: \u00a0mutant \u00a0snakes, impostors, professional educators \u00a0with \u00a0vendettas, \u00a0torture chambers, and math. \u00a0Even though Harry seems to never check his privilege of receiving free, private education with a seemingly 10:1 student-teacher ratio, school empowers both characters.<\/p>\n Trunchbull and Umbridge<\/strong>. \u00a0Both \u00a0are out to get our protagonists for things their parents did, e.g., birthing them.<\/p>\n I’m not sure what’s worse\u2014Umbridge forcing Harry to carve \u00a0I<\/em> \u00a0must not tell lies<\/em> \u00a0into his own flesh, or The Trunchbull locking first-graders in a closet full \u00a0of shrapnel.<\/p>\n Each woman possesses a \u00a0stable of life skills that would’ve been put to better use at a correctional facility, but a story \u00a0crumbles without the plot device of unbelievable misery, I guess.<\/p>\n Fairy godmothers. \u00a0<\/strong>Ms. Honey and Sirius are \u00a0definitely \u00a0the only characters that kept ten-year-old me \u00a0from \u00a0crying into tiny raisin boxes. They’re the role models, the mentors, and the ones who keep these kids from boiling over as they navigate \u00a0(pre-)adolescence. \u00a0Only (spoiler alert), one of them dies, leaving a dog-shaped void \u00a0in my stone cold heart.<\/p>\n Good vs. Evil<\/strong>. Evil is omnipresent in both of their lives\u2014in Matilda’s, it’s her authority figures; in Harry’s, it’s his authority figures and also prophesied archenemy who seeks to destroy him over the course of seventeen years. \u00a0Both are successful in purging their lives of the evil, though I honestly think Matilda worked a lot harder for it.<\/p>\n What did I miss?! Probably a lot.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matilda and Harry were both significant \u00a0parts of my childhood, in that I’d spend hours watching those \u00a0movies from the floor of the living room \u00a0while I \u00a0knocked \u00a0back \u00a0thirty tiny boxes of \u00a0raisins. But continue reading<\/span>