Foil / Harry Potter

"Harry, it isn't how you are alike. It's how you are not."

— Albus Dumbledore discussing Harry and Voldemort, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

In a series where characters are defined by their choices, there are naturally many characters who contrast each other.

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Harry & Voldemort

Dumbledore specifically comments that the two are very similar, except that Harry always chooses good while Voldemort chooses to only care about himself. However, as Dumbledore also notes, their choices, rather than their abilities, define who they are, and there are plenty of contrasts between them as a result.

• Both Harry and Voldemort grew up as half blood orphans in troubling situations, until a wizard came to them with an invitation which would give them space to unlock their potential. However, during their upbringings, Harry just became withdrawn, but still compassionate. Voldemort meanwhile became an Enfant Terrible, using his latent magic to scar the children around him.
• Harry is an All-Loving Hero who sees the potential for good or some sympathetic qualities in just about everyone, while Voldemort is incapable of love or empathy. Harry inspires genuine Undying Loyalty from friends who fight and die for him because they believe in him, even continuing to declare that they will fight in his name after his apparent death, while Voldemort rules his Death Eaters through fear, with Bellatrix being the only one who doesn't abandon him when it becomes clear he is going to lose.
• Harry hates being famous, and seeks any means to blend in with his peers. Voldemort hates the idea of being ordinary, even hating his original name, Tom, for being too common, and seeks any means to stand out. Accordingly, Harry becomes fearful of his ability to speak Parseltongue when he hears of this power being common to dark wizards, while Voldemort is proud of having such a rare gift.
• Harry's signature spells are defensive spells like the Patronus, which is designed to protect oneself and others from Dementors, and Expelliarmus, which causes no harm to its victim other than making them drop their wand. Voldemort's is Avada Kedavra, which instantly kills its victim.
• Harry seeks the Elder Wand only as a means to defeat Voldemort, and willingly gives up the world's most powerful weapon once he's defeated him, while Voldemort seeks the wand's power for its own sake and grows obsessed with it to the point that he stubbornly insists on using it even when Harry explains point blank that doing so will kill him.

Classmates

Harry & Ron

Harry and Ron may be best friends, but they are very different people.

• Harry comes from a wealthy family and is always able to buy the best school supplies and broomsticks, while Ron comes from a poor family and almost everything he owns is second-hand.
• Harry grows up with his extended family who despise and abuse him, and knows nothing about the wizarding world due to being raised by Muggles. His home is a place where anything magical is completely unwelcome and the Dursleys pride themselves on being completely ordinary. Ron grows up with a loving family and knows a lot about the wizarding world from growing up in it since birth. Everything about his home is visibly magical, to the point that it's obvious that it wouldn't even be able to stay standing without magic.
• Harry tends to get tunnel vision when he has a theory about who the villain is and jumps to conclusions, Ron is more down-to-earth most of the time, almost never jumping to wild conclusions.
• Harry is a Nice Guy while Ron is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Harry is an only child, and often felt lonely growing up due to never knowing his parents and his Friendless Background, while Ron has six siblings and often feels overshadowed by them. Highlighted in the Mirror of Erised scene in the first book: when looking into the Mirror, Ron sees himself alone, being honored with prestigious awards and titles, making him, as Dumbledore notes, the greatest of all his siblings, while Harry just sees himself surrounded by a loving family.
• Harry is embarrassed by the fame he receives for being The Chosen One, and seeks a normal life, while Ron wants to stand out and feels like nobody notices him, milking his 15 Minutes of Fame from his near-death experience with Sirius in Prisoner of Azkaban for all it's worth and frequently being jealous of the unwanted attention Harry receives.
• Harry becomes a Chick Magnet almost entirely by accident due to his fame and heroism, despite only ever showing any interest in Cho and later Ginny, while Ron is something of a Chivalrous Pervert, but gets less attention from girls and doesn't gain any actual dating experience until long after Harry.
• Harry feels at his most comfortable on a Quidditch pitch, to the point that he thinks the sport is the only thing he's any good at, while Ron is a talented player but becomes a Nervous Wreck whenever he has to play a match.
• In Philosopher's Stone, one of the first things we are told about Harry is that spiders appear so frequently in the cupboard where he sleeps that he treats them with utter indifference. Ron is deathly afraid of spiders, which he similarly attributes to a childhood experience, namely Fred and George turning his teddy bear into a giant spider as a prank.

Harry & Hermione

Both grew up with Muggles and were ignorant of their magical abilities, but while Hermione is Muggle-born, Harry's parents were a witch and wizard. Hermione was raised by her loving parents, while Harry was raised by his extended family who hate and abuse him. Harry usually is surprised by new concepts in the wizarding world, while Hermione reads so much that she tends to already know the answers to his questions. Harry gets decent grades in most subjects but excels at Defence Against the Dark Arts, even mastering the Patronus Charm at a young age, while Hermione aces every subject except Defence Against the Dark Arts, and the Patronus is the only spell she struggles with. Harry is immediately well-liked by his peers thanks to his fame and being a Nice Guy, while Hermione initially struggles to make friends due to her bluntness and nerdiness. Harry is an ace flier and Quidditch player, Hermione is unathletic and very uncomfortable on a broom. Harry is willing to slack off and break rules, while Hermione takes school seriously to the point of absurdity.

Harry & Draco

Harry's parents are dead and so he grows up with the Dursleys, who are fairly well-off, but he doesn't get the benefit of that as they force him to sleep in a spider-infested cupboard and wear Dudley's hand-me-downs, while Draco grows up with a rich family and has loving (and alive) parents. Harry is humble, friendly and selfless, while Draco is arrogant, selfish and cold. Harry understands the muggle world due to having grown up in it, has a muggle-born mother and thinks the wizard prejudices of blood status are stupid. Draco grows up in a prominent pure-blood wizard family and is a pure-blood supremacist who despises muggle-borns, calling them "mudbloods". Even their physical appearances are opposites: Harry's scruffy black hair vs. Draco's perfectly combed white-blond hair, Harry's warm green eyes (from his mother Lily) vs. Draco's steely gray eyes (from his father Lucius).

Harry & Neville

Neville has all of Harry's troubled past with none of his fame or respect, he has to overcome being treated like a joke before coming into his own as a wizard, and he would have been the Chosen One if Voldemort had attacked him as an infant instead of Harry, and could have been Voldemort's equal in the prophecy.

Ron & Hermione

Harry's two best friends and each other's Love Interest have many contrasting qualities. Ron grew up in a magical, Pure-blood wizarding home, while Hermione is Muggle-born and grew up in a very mundane home. Ron is impulsive and emotional, Hermione is cold and logical. Ron occasionally grows jealous of Harry's fame and abandons him twice, while Hermione always remains loyal to Harry and, in Goblet of Fire, is the one to explain Ron's feelings to him. Ron is gluttonous with food thanks to growing up with his mother's well-cooked meals, Hermione is more restrained with how she eats thanks to having dentists as parents. Ron has, in Hermione's words "the emotional range of a teaspoon", and often fails to notice the feelings of people around him, while Hermione in the later books becomes The Social Expert, immediately noticing Harry's crushes on Cho and Ginny and giving him relationship advice. Ron is Brilliant, but Lazy and a little Book Dumb due to putting no effort into school, while Hermione is Book Smart and takes her studies too seriously to the point of stressing herself out.

Ron & Draco

Both are the sons of old pure-blood families, but while Ron's family is poor and rejects notions of blood purity, Draco's family is rich and believes in blood purity. Moreover, Ron is the sixth of seven children and feels like he is The Unfavorite, while Draco is a spoiled only-child who receives all of his parents attention. Also, both of them compare themselves to, and, in a way, define themselves by Harry. They are his Best Friend and rival respectively, but are both bitterly jealous of the attention he receives. While Ron resists the urge to become The Resenter and gets over his issues in Deathly Hallows, it takes Draco 20 years to come around.

Hermione & Luna

J.K. Rowling has commented on Luna being Hermione's foil, even describing her as "The Anti-Hermione". Luna has all of Hermione's intelligence with none of her pragmatism or social skills, she relies on faith where Hermione relies on cold logic, and she comes from a family whose insatiable curiosity about magic put their safety and sanity at risk. They don't get along... at first, anyway. Hermione derides Luna's father's magazine The Quibbler as a sensationalist publication who'll print anything if it's interesting enough, never mind if it's actually true or not, whereas Luna is frustrated with Hermione needing to almost literally have proof staring her in the face before she can accept things as real.

Hermione & Lavender

Lavender and Hermione are this in terms of being Ron's girlfriend in Half-Blood Prince. Lavender is extremely clingy, failing to notice that nothing but kissing and hugging just drives Ron away. When Ron and Hermione finally hook up, they share a few intimate moments, but there is a decided lack of endless snogging. According to Rowling, she deliberately wrote Ron's relationship with Lavender so that he could realize what he didn't want in a relationship, namely for it to be purely physical.

Harry/Ron/Hermione & Neville/Ginny/Luna

For a multiple-character example, the later books in the series actually frame Neville, Ginny and Luna into a secondary trio of heroes to the primary Power Trio, with each of them subtly contrasting Harry, Ron and Hermione, respectively.

• Harry & Neville (see above)
• Ron & Ginny: Ginny is the passionate emotional center of the trio, but she has all of the confidence that Ron lacks, and doesn't have the emotional baggage of believing that she was The Unfavorite in the Weasley family.
• Hermione & Luna (see above)

Previous generation

Snape & James

While both are tall, thin, and have black hair, Snape is Slytherin, poor, and Lily's best friend; James is Gryffindor, wealthy, and initially disliked by Lily. James gets better; Snape gets a lot worse.

Snape & Peter Pettigrew

They have opposite arcs, as well as opposite personalities. Snape is a brave Slytherin whose undying love for Lily caused his remorse and subsequent Heel–Face Turn, leading to his role as a spy for the Order in the ranks of the Death Eaters. Pettigrew is a cowardly Gryffindor, who backstabbed Lily and James as their Secret Keeper, and then joined the Death Eaters for real.

Snape & Sirius

Rivals who went to Hogwarts together who ironically are also two sides of the same coin. Sirius Black is a pure-blood wizard who becomes a Cultural Rebel against his family and the Dark Arts. Snape is a half-blood who develops an fascination with pure-bloods and the Dark Arts. They both share the same Fatal Flaw, never growing past their preconceived prejudices from their childhood, leading them to lash out at others.

James & Sirius

James was a proud descendant of the legendary Wizard hero Ignotus Peverell, and he relished the chance to prove himself as a hero through brave deeds; Sirius was a scion of the infamous House of Black—an aristocratic family filled with Dark Wizards and Pureblood supremacists - and he defied his family lineage by getting sorted into Gryffindor and joining the Order of the Phoenix. James sacrificed himself in the Wizarding War, and was remembered as a hero; Sirius lived, and was wrongly remembered as a murderous traitor. James started a family with the love of his life, Sirius remained a tormented loner even after he escaped from Azkaban.

James & Remus

James was an impulsive hothead who craved the limelight, and he was remembered as a Head Boy and a Quidditch star; Remus was a more restrained, bookish boy who grew up to be a teacher, and he learned to keep a low profile because of the inherent risks of living as a Werewolf. James apparently came from a wealthy family, and managed to leave his son Harry with a small fortune; Remus struggled with poverty through his entire adult life because of the prejudice against Werewolves. James was the quintessential family man; Remus is very insecure about being a father, and seriously considers leaving his son Teddy because he doesn't believe he's fit to raise a child.

James & Pettigrew

James was a beloved leader figure; Pettigrew was a follower who latched onto anyone who could shelter him. James died in the line of duty in the fight against Voldemort; Pettigrew sold the Potters out to save himself.

James & Harry

James came from a privileged, loving home which made him spoiled and arrogant; Harry was instead treated with nothing but disdain by the Dursleys, and ended up being a humble and kind young man, albeit one somewhat lacking in confidence. While James had a rivalry with Snape, just like Harry did with Draco, James had more in common with Malfoy, both being wealthy pure-bloods picking on an isolated, vulnerable half-blood. James was a mischief-maker on par with the Weasley twins, while Harry, although far from a model student, is more averse to breaking rules simply for the sake of it. Sirius comments on this contrast in Order of the Phoenix when Harry refuses to allow Sirius to put himself in harm's way by meeting him near Hogwarts, stating that Harry is less like James than he had thought as the risk is what would have made that idea fun for James. The fact that Harry very much takes after James in looks and is presumed by people who don't know him well to be a Generation Xerox of his father makes the contrast all the more apparent.

Professors

Snape & McGonagall

Both are incredibly strict teachers, very competent in their respective fields, and are very close to Dumbledore. However, while McGonagall is a fair teacher who is actually a big 'ole softie beneath her strict attitude, Snape is a Sadist Teacher, especially to Harry and Neville. Though he does have a heart; it's just buried under decades of angst and the fact that Harry is basically the embodiment of his biggest regret.

McGonagall & Umbridge

The both are strict, opinionated, ambitious women, who serve a number two position to men in the two most important organizations in Wizarding Britain. In the fifth book they were both in line to become headmistress of Hogwarts. However McGonagall is deeply loyal to Dumbledore, while Umbridge's loyalty to Fudge is questionable (even going behind his back to torture students while interrogating them about the location of Sirius Black, because "what Fudge doesn't know won't hurt him"). And while McGonagall is indeed strict, she is normally also fair and well-meaning. Umbridge though is a total sadist, who doesn't actually care for the well being of the students.

Dumbledore and Snape

Both are halfbloods but different kinds. Dumbledore's mother was a muggleborn witch and Snape's father was a Muggle. Snape is an only child and had a neglectful mother and abusive father but Dumbledore has two younger siblings and had a good family life until his sister was attacked. Both were brilliant students but in the opposite houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin. Both fell in with bad guy(s) out of Pride as teenagers but there is a bit of Freudian Excuse on the former's end since what happened to his family/sister whereas Snape was just an asshole. Both of these dalliance got someone they loved killed and affected them for the rest of their lives and were never able to forgive themselves. The former turned this youthful catastrophe into being a an empathetic person, the latter never learned his lesson and stayed a bitter adult who takes his issues out on two innocent children.

Others

Dumbledore & Aberforth

The brothers sharply contrast each other: Albus is a sophisticated child prodigy, has an exemplary reputation and is the headmaster of Hogwarts, while Aberforth is maybe not even literate, did some magical experimentation on a goat, and tends a bar on the seedier side of Hogsmeade.

Umbridge & Percy

Ambitious children of Ministry of Magic worker fathers who are described as "unambitious" (Mr. Umbridge was a janitor who never got a raise or a promotion and didn't seem to care about it, Mr. Weasley refused to toe the line and lie about his opinions resulting in his regularly being passed over for promotions) and do their best to rise above their fathers' reputations and their embarrassing families (after he retires, Dolores basically bribes her father with a nice cottage and small allowance to stay out of her life forever, Percy on the other hand realizes the error of his ways and reconciles with his father and family).

Harry's friends & The Marauders

Harry and James were the leaders of their respective groups. Ron and Sirius were the best friends and stuck by their sides at everything they did. Hermione and Remus were the smart ones who often tried to keep them in line (with mixed success). To a lesser extent, Neville also fits with Peter as the "hanger on" friend who everyone tends to underestimate and showed more potential than everyone gave him credit for. Harry doesn't like being the center of attention while James liked to be a showoff. Ron loves and is loved by his family dearly despite some minor issues, unlike Sirius who hated them to the point of running away from home and got blasted out of the family tree for it. Hermione is more than willing to call Harry and Ron out if she thinks they're overstepping the line, unlike Remus who often refused to rein James and Sirius in on their bullying. Finally, Neville eventually learns to stand up for himself and remains a loyal friend to the trio through thick and thin, while Peter never outgrows his Dirty Coward nature and pays the price for it.

Snape and Ron

They're both poor and unpopular in their school years. They're both friends with and in love with a talented Muggleborn witch. They're both taunted by a group headed by a rich Pureblood. They're both feeling overshadowed by a Potter boy (Ron for his comparatively lacking ability, Snape for his attitude and company). Snape, however, hates James Potter and is a Pureblood supremacist, while Ron is Harry's best friend and gets over his envy, and is a staunch opponent of Pureblood supremacy. Snape's bigotry was the chief reason he had a falling out with Lily, while Hermione was drawn by Ron's compassion for those weaker than him.

Remus & Fenrir Greyback

Both are Werewolves, both having been treated with cruelty by the general Wizarding World. However, while Remus was ashamed of his status, and desperately strived to have a normal life, Greyback fully embraced his savage side, cutting himself off from mankind, and preferring the company of fellow Werewolves. Also, while Remus dreaded his transformations and the damage he could cause, Greyback was an unrepentant sadist, actively enjoying attacking and infecting innocent people, most notably young children, one of them being Remus himself, even when not currently in wolf form.