One of Harry Potter’s Deathly Hallows Takes a Page From Stephen King’s Darkest Story

One of Harry Potter’s Deathly Hallows Takes a Page From Stephen King’s Darkest Story

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Harry Potter and Stephen King share the same dark lesson about the nature of death, with the choices of their heroes separating triumph from tragedy.

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One of Harry Potter’s Deathly Hallows Takes a Page From Stephen King’s Darkest Story

Magic is dangerous, a notion that good fantasy stories always make use of. The ability to effectively bend the laws of reality to one’s liking is ripe for abuse, and without clear thinking and a lot of discipline, it can go disastrously wrong quickly. That lesson has served as the catalyst for the genre’s most beloved staples — everything from The Lord of the Rings to the Star Wars saga is a comment on it — and the Harry Potter books are no exception. Hogwarts exists to teach magically inclined children to use their powers wisely, while the Wizarding World as a whole hides among the Muggle society for fear of what will happen if their abilities ever become public. In truth, the dangers of magic lie extremely close to the story’s surface at all times.

And nowhere can this be seen more than in the Deathly Hallows, which deliver wondrous powers and ironic doom in equal measure. While the Cloak of Invisibility and the Elder Wand could both have beneficial uses in the hands of wise and principled people, the Resurrection Stone was almost too dangerous even for that. In that manner, it closely evokes Pet Sematary, the twice-filmed Stephen King novel about a cursed patch of ground that brings the dead back to life.

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What Is The Resurrection Stone in Harry Potter?

One of Harry Potter’s Deathly Hallows Takes a Page From Stephen King’s Darkest Story

The Deathly Hallows is a tale within a tale — a bedtime story in the vein of the Brothers Grimm that wizard parents read to their children at night. “The Tale of the Three Brothers” recounts how a trio of siblings — all-powerful wizards — each gained one of the Deathly Hallows in a contest with Death. The Resurrection Stone went to Cadmus, the middle brother, who used it to bring his dead lover back to life. But she was only a shade, and her forced presence in the mortal world brought her great suffering. Cadmus ultimately killed himself to be with her rather than continuing to hurt her with the Stone.

As with the other two Hallows, the Resurrection Stone brought tragedy because its user assumed there would be no consequences. Voldemort shares similar conceits — notably with the Elder Wand — that lead to his undoing. But it’s Harry who ultimately finds the Stone in his snitch during the Battle of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. He uses it briefly to speak to the shades of his departed loved ones — including Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and his parents — before dropping the stone to the ground. The move presumably prevents Voldemort from acquiring it, as well as ensuring that it remains lost in the forest forever.

How the Resurrection Stone Evokes Stephen King’s Pet Sematary

Both the Resurrection Stone and the cursed earth in Pet Sematary are variations on “The Monkey’s Paw,” W.W. Jacobs’ classic short story about a cursed artifact that granted wishes at a terrible cost. The story ends with a bereaved mother wishing her dead son back to life, only for her husband to undo the wish when the presumably rotting corpse of their boy begins knocking on the door. It echoes countless other stories with a similar theme, including the Orpheus myth and the original novel Frankenstein. Death is a boundary that can’t be crossed, and doing so brings nothing but suffering.

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Pet Sematary gave the notion a middle American twist, as grief-stricken father Louis Creed buries his dead toddler Gage in the cursed earth. The child comes back possessed by an unholy spirit, murdering the Creeds’ neighbor Jud Crandall and his own mother Rachel before finally being put down. The true horror of King’s story is that Louis then repeats the process with his wife — knowing what it means and yet hoping against hope that it will be different this time — only to learn on the final page that he was wrong again.

Louis’s inability to accept the finality of death leads directly to his undoing, as well as the damnation of his family. That, more than the specific circumstances, makes Pet Sematary one of King’s darkest stories. Harry Potter — humbler and with a stronger sense of how to own mortality — makes the choice that King’s hero couldn’t. He takes comfort and strength from the words of his departed loved ones in order to do what he needs and leaves them to their rest without troubling them again. It’s the smart play and marks the sharpest difference between the triumphant fantasy of the Wizarding World and the horrific tragedy of King’s.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/harry-potter-resurrection-stone-pet-sematary-similarity/

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