Question

Differences and similarities between tom riddle and harry potter

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

Some would say that Harry Potter is a Bildungsroman story, about the growth of the protagonist (Harry) from childhood to adulthood. Others argue that it is a fantasy story containing a quest, magical powers and an Other World. Many include Harry Potter in the boarding school genre of stories with lessons, school houses, rule-breaking and friendships all playing an important part in the stories. The Harry Potter books encompass all of these things, but at the very core of the story is the connection, the struggle and the looming battle between Tom Riddle and Harry Potter.

While representing the two polarities of good and evil, the two characters share many similar experiences and have many things in common from the circumstances of their childhoods, their school years at Hogwarts, their relationships with peers and friends, and their personality traits. It goes without saying that there are also many differences which set them apart but take away the roughly fifty years that separate them in age, and you will see that J.K. Rowling has given us a hero and a villain who are remarkably similar. The similarities and differences between them mean that one is almost a mirror image of the other. They share enough things in common to appear to be the same person, and yet the differences between them show us that they have chosen different paths in life.

General Similarities

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets gives us the first direct link and comparison between these two characters with Tom Riddle stating:

There are strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike.1

Tom Riddle himself formulates this comparison. He notes similarities in their wizarding "blood' orphaned state, childhood, Parselmouth abilities and appearance. He makes Harry aware (uncomfortably so) of the things they have in common. This knowledge and awareness will come back to Harry later on (repeatedly in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and may be the key to defeating Voldemort. The fact that Harry can relate to and understand so many aspects of Riddle's life will definitely assist him in carrying out this task. In Chamber of Secrets, Harry is understandably troubled and a bit disturbed by these revelations.

Answer 2

Similarities :

• They were both orphans
• They both had same kind of affection towards Hogwarts (First place they could home)
• Both were parselmouth
• Both were Half blood
• Both were powerful wizards

Differences :

• Harry knew how to love, Tom did not.
• Harry had friends, Tom did not.
• Tom was affectionate towards Dark Arts, Harry did not.
• Tom wanted to conquer death, Harry did not.
• Harry had no problems with Muggles and Muggle-borns, Tom had.
• Harry was a Gryffindor but Tom was a Slytherin.
• Tom had followers, called Death Eaters, but Harry did not have followers, he had friends.