The Way of the Wizard

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In 2004, Forbes Magazine declared J.K. Rowling, author of the wizard-themed Harry Potter series, a billionaire. That was the year the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was released, earning $795.6 million worldwide in the box office and grossing millions more in licensed merchandise. It can be hard to explain the appeal of the wizard in cinema and literature, but when reduced to the brute language of dollars and cents, it is clear that in the realm of the imagination, the wizard is king.

Stories of magic have tantalized readers and listeners since the dawn of language. Myths are dotted with enchanters and witch-doctors. The fairy tales of the Grimm brothers were stories rich with witches and sorceresses and magicians. Homer’s ancient epic, The Odyssey, depicts one of the first magic-users in all of literature: the wicked sorceress Circe. Even Shakespeare featured wizards in his fiction, from the Weird Sisters of Macbeth to Prospero in The Tempest.

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