What mythological figure appears to be the basis for much of the stories in...

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Jlseagull

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...Harry Potter?
There is a SINGLE mythological figure with stories that relate to many of the features in Harry Potter. Took me a while to figure it out too.
The correct answer predates King Arthur stories.
 
And some might say that the essence of the story is the struggle between good and evil, which is the basis of so many myths, actual events, and holy books. One can even see Jesus as a source--how did he come to understand who he was in those years between his temple appearance and his baptism?
 
There are too many mythological creatures (I'm assuming you mean creatures) to pick from. In the second book, the phoenix was key because Fawkes was the one who helped Harry out of the Chamber of Secrets. In the third book, the hippogriff was important because Buckbeak helped Sirius Black escape. Fourth book, I think there are too many because this is when the series starts to get more complicated.

But keep animaguses in mind, too. I don't know if you meant creatures that Rowling *didn't* make up, but the animaguses were pretty important. They were there from the very beginning, with McGonigall periodically turning into a cat. Well, not periodically. But she's done it.
 
"I found the Family Romance of King Arthur (particularly as reincarnated in T.H. White's Sword in the Stone) in the magic weapon that no one but Harry can wield, and in the gift of talking to animals, that White's Merlin gives to Arthur (Harry just does snakes). Where Mary Poppins gave the children a medicine that tasted different for each of them (each one's favorite taste), Rowling gives us Every Flavor Beans, always a surprise. The talking chess pieces from Through the Looking-Glass appear here as small pieces on a conventional board, but they talk back when you move them: "Don't send me there, can't you see his knight? Send him, we can afford to lose him." Snow White's talking mirror appears, but Rowling transforms it both with humor (the mirror over the mantelpiece shouts at Harry, "Tuck your shirt in, scruffy!" and whispers, "You're fighting a losing battle there, dear," when he attempts to plaster down his cowlick) and with something deeper: there is a mirror that shows you your heart's desire (Harry imagines his mother, "a very pretty woman ... her eyes are just like mine," and his father, whose hair "stuck up at the back, just as Harry's did"). And where both Peter Pan and Mary Poppins taught children to fly or float by thinking happy thoughts, Rowling takes the concept into a more sinister arena: Harry learns that the only way to defend himself against the Dementors, who will destroy him by assuming the form of what he most fears, is by mentally conjuring up a Patronus, "a projection of the very things that the Dementor feeds upon--hope, happiness, the desire to survive"; and Harry overpowers one Dementor by imagining life with a loving father figure who has offered to adopt him.
 
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