It is safe to say that everyone has heard of Harry Potter. Love him or hate him, Potter is one of the most well known fictional characters in the world. But what would you say if I told you that long before Harry was even a twinkle in J.K. Rowling's eye, there was another magical, bespectacled, disgruntled teenage boy wandering around Britain? Tim Hunter, created by author Neil Gaiman, bears some uncanny resemblances to The Boy Who Lived, but they have crucial differences that make them that make them two fundamentally different characters.Physically, Tim and Harry are almost indistinguishable. They are scrawny, unkempt boys with the look of having been too long without a mother's care. They both wear thick glasses constantly in need of repair. Being unfortunately teen aged, Tim and Harry are both subject to irrational anger and violent outbursts. The boys are also both permanently marked by their magical escapades, though in very different ways. While Harry bears the infamous lightning bolt scar on his forehead, Tim has a, enchanted tattoo of a scorpion fighting a butterfly across his chest.
Magic is the biggest commonality between Tim and Harry, but the way it is received and used is one of the most crucial differences. Harry is informed of his magical lineage and whisked away to Hogwort's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry to receive a strict, structured education in the ways of magic. Tim finds out about his powers from four strange men in trench coats while skateboarding through a dark alley in East London. Tim never receives any instruction and his magical education comes entirely through trial and error. There are shadowy prophecies surrounding the births of both the boys, making them targets for magical rivals. However, while Tim battles his way through countless enemies and obstacles, Harry has the benefit of only one arch-nemesis in The Dark Lord, Voldemort.
People say you are known by the company you keep. If that is true, then it is the biggest difference between Tim and Harry. Harry's best friends and constant companions are his school mates. Ron and Hermione posses important qualities that Harry lacks, and together they provide him with a balance he could not achieve on his own. Dumbledore is Harry's doting mentor and father figure, providing him with wisdom and comfort when times are hard. Aside from the rare appearance of the acerbic, chain-smoking John Constantine, Tim has no one to council him in times of uncertainty and despair. Tim is an outcast at school and his only human companion is his sometime girlfriend Molly, but their relationship is frosty at the best of times. Tim is a loner, though he has been known to pal around with demons, faeries, the occasional succubus and Death. Both of our heroes have owls as pets and confidants, but Tim's owl is actually a transfigured yo-yo.
Tim Hunter's story was first published in 1990 while The Sorcerer's Stone did not hit the shelves until 1997. Tim's seven year head start have some people some calling Harry's originality into question. Both Gaiman and Rowling have acknowledged the astounding number of similarities between their two creations but claim that it is their fundamental differences that really make them who they are. Truly, there are several literary characters that could be endlessly compared to these two; Peter Parker as Spiderman is the most obvious example. I would like to suggest that that this is an example of collective cultural consciousness. People who live in the same cultural schema are likely to beatify the same qualities, in this case a mousy, angst-driven kid as an unlikely hero.
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