Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Chapter 10 to Chapter 15)
STATS
Title: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Series: Harry Potter (Book 4)
Author(s): JK Rowling
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy (Urban)
First Printing: 2000
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
SPOILER WARNING
Heavy spoilers will be provided for the entire Harry Potter franchise. Heavy spoilers will also be provided for the entirety of both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame (but not Onyx Storm, which has not yet been released at the time of this post). I will be confining the Fourth Wing and Iron Flame spoilers to the sections where I analyze the plot of Fourth Wing and compare it to Goblet of Fire. All spoilers shall otherwise be unmarked and can pop up at any time.
STORY
Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys return to the Burrow in the aftermath of the cup. Once Harry has some privacy with Ron and Hermione, he tells them about his scar hurting and the dream he had about Voldemort. Over the week that follows, we learn of the fallout from the Cup, including the introduction of Rita Skeeter’s articles and Hermione getting worked up about house-elf rights. We also get the scene that introduces the dress robes. When the day comes to return to Hogwarts, Harry sees the Floo-facilitated fireside chat because Mr. Weasley and Mr. Diggory about Mad-Eye Moody. Later, on the Hogwarts express, Harry learns about the wizard school of Durmstrang and is goaded by Malfoy over the Triward Tournament.
Upon returning the Hogwarts, Harry and the others learn about the house-elves in the school kitchens, which greatly upsets Hermione. Mad-Eye Moody arrives at the school just as Dumbledore is about to tell the school about the Tournament. (This is, of course, Barty Crouch, Jr. in disguise. In the interest of clarify, I will be referring to this character as ‘Mad-Eye’ from now until his true identity if revealed. Any time you see ‘Moody’, it is in reference to the real Mad-Eye Moody.) Dumledore then exposits about the Tournament, delivering the following pieces of pivotal information:
The Tournament will feature Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang, with the two foreign schools sending their candidates in late October.
The Tournament will have three tasks.
Underage wizards will be barring from submitting their names.
The next three chapters reestablish the status quo of school life at Hogwarts. We are introduced to Hagrid’s Blast-Ended Skrewts. We also get strong characterization for Mad-Eye through both the Malfoy ferret scene and his Unforgiveable Curses class. During a scene in which Hermione official announces the formation of S.P.E.W., Harry receives a letter from Sirius, wherein Sirius announces that he will return immediately. Harry tries to deter him by sending a follow-up letter to claim that he’d imagined his scar pain, an effort that Sirius sees through and rebuffs in another letter.
In Chapter 15, we get the arrival of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. These moments characterize both the schools and their headmasters, Madame Maxime and Igor Karkaroff. The scene and chapter conclude on the reveal that Viktor Krum is a Durmstrang student.
ANALYSIS
Establishment
Plot
The most pivotal element introduced in these chapters in the Triwizard Tournament, which defines the trajectory of the rest of the book. I feel like Rowling did an excellent job with this. While the teases the audience received prior to this reveal were ham-fisted, Dumbledore’s announcement spells out all of the most important facts for the audience in a reasonable time frame.
The creation of S.P.E.W. is also an important step within the narrative. While S.P.E.W. itself doesn’t accomplish anything within the series, it is what motivates Herminone to take the actions that will reintroduce Dobby and Winky.
Rita Skeeter (or, rather, her articles) appear in Chapters 10 and 13, and the fear of her writing the article that she ultimately does write in Chapter 13 is what prompts the fireside chat in Chapter 11. These small moments clearly illustrate her writing style and the obstacle that she will become down the line.
The dress robes scene does a good job of setting up Ron’s frustration with his family’s money issues. This was teased back during the Quidditch World Cup, but the direct contrast between his used robes and Harry’s new ones, coupled with his reaction, paints a much more vivid picture.
Character
While Maxime and Karkaroff do first appear in Chapter 15, I wouldn’t consider this introduce to be strong characterization for them. Harry mainly makes surface judgements of them based upon their appearances.
The bulk of the focus on characterization is given to Mad-Eye. A very strong impression of him is built through not only his arrival at Hogwarts, the Malfoy ferret scene, and the class he teaches on Unforgiveable Curses but also through how other characters react to him: the reverence Fred and George show after their first class with him, Snape’s evident fear of him, the fact that Mr. Weasley thinks well of Moody. Mad-Eye’s characterization in these chapters is particularly interesting once you know who he actually is. Little details about him take on a whole new meaning. His hostility towards Snape and Lucius Malfoy is a good example of this. There is also the matter of him using the Cruciatus Curse after confirming that Neville Longbottom is in the class. Given that Mad-Eye uses this opportunity to traumatize Neville and then make him feel better, thereby planting the Herbology book that could help Harry with the Second Task, it’s hard to tell whether he planned this encounter from the start or just indulging his appetites and then spinning it into something that could serve Voldemort’s ends.
Worldbuilding
The Blast-Ended Skrewts are more or less a running gag throughout this book, but Harry will get a showdown with one in the Third Task, so I’d count this as setup.
The Unforgiveable Curses are a crucial element to both this book and future ones. The scene where Mad-Eye introduces them illustrates their effects in a memorable way. The later classroom scene where he has them practice fighting off the Imperious Curse will also explain how Harry resists it down the line (though the payoff there is admittedly small).
The introduction of dress robes seems to exist primarily to foreshadow the Yule Ball. Still, I think it’s a nice touch that adds depth to the world. Rowling doesn’t go too deep into wizard fashion, usually limiting herself to describing the color and condition of a wizard’s robes. Acknowledgement that a wizard might have multiple kinds of robes for different functions makes robes feel like esoteric and more like clothes everyday people might wear.
Payoff
I don’t feel like these chapters have much in the way of payoffs, outside of the reveal the Krum is a student (which was somewhat set up by mentions of how young he is). I also don’t think the lack of a payoff is a problem. Rowling is teeing us up for the core narrative.
Mysteries
Voldemort’s plans
This mystery isn’t advanced, but it is kept in focus through Harry telling Ron and Hermione about his dream and through Sirius mentioning in his letter that he has heard “strange rumors” relating to Voldemort.
Bertha Jorkins
Again, Rowling uses Bertha to keep Voldemort from slipping out of focus. During the week following the Cup, we are told by Mr. Weasley that Rita Skeeter finds out about her disappearance and would be writing an article about that.
Fred and George’s shady behavior
In Chapters 10 and 14, there are small moments where Fred and George are observed conspiring together as they write something secretive; the scene in Chapter 14 has Harry overhear George talk about “accusing” someone. Focus isn’t being put on this behavior yet. Rowling is just laying groundwork.
Mad-Eye’s history with Snape and Karkaroff
This is also mostly groundwork. Mad-Eye refers to the history he has with Snape (and Lucius Malfoy), and Harry observes Snape’s anxiety around Mad-Eye.
Rita Skeeter
Again, groundwork. It is established her that Rita is a salacious journalist who twists facts and can dig out any juicy lead to build a story upon.
COMPARISON TO FOURTH WING (Chapter 8 & Chapter 9)
Chapters 8 and 9 of Fourth Wing primarily serve the Romance subplot, building out Violet’s relationship with Dain while also dialing up the sexual tension with Xaden. We get to see Violet’s poisoning plan in action (as well as its failure). We also get exposition on the dragons, setting up Tairn as the super-special dragon for a super-special Mary Sue.
A very important point of comparison here is that, throughout this chapters, Threshing is built up as Violet’s endpoint. When Dain pleads with Violet to take the transfer that he arranged with Markham, he doesn’t warn her about the fact her small size and EDS guarantee that she will die the first time she tries to ride her dragon. (He should know this is a certainty because he knows that all riding is done bareback and that dragons allow riders to fall to their deaths - Tairn catching Violet is exceptional.) He doesn’t express fear that the manifestation of her Signet will kill her. He doesn’t even through to mention the brutality of the RSC. (Obviously, Yarros had not conceived that element yet, but Dain should know about it, and if he’s willing to tell Violet his classified Signet, he has no reason not to warn her about the risk of being tortured to death.) His entire focus is on her being kill by a dragon or a fellow cadet during Threshing. In other words, Yarros passed up a golden opportunity to outline what comes after Threshing and instead built up Threshing as some dragon-themed Hunger Games that would consume the rest of the book.
The scene with Dain would have been a perfect opportunity to lay out the trajectory of the story to the audience. Dain has both the knowledge and the motivation to tell Violet exactly what is coming for her throughout the rest of the school year. He wants her to quit while she can so that she will survive. For him to spell out the later milestones of the plot would set audience expectations in a memorable scene. What’s more, in a better-written book where Violet was not a liability to her wing, earned her place like everyone else, and didn’t actively tear down those around her to make herself feel better, this list of milestones would have been an opportunity for Violet to continually grow apart from Dain by proving him wrong with each milestone she hit.
Moments of reflection on what could have been are why I strongly question Yarros’s honesty when she claims that she outlines things. The most logic explanation for how she could pass up on such a golden opportunity is that, when she wrote the only draft (second-draft “foreshadowing” is not a redraft), Threshing was all she had conceived at the time she wrote Chapter 9.
DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE?!?!
Next week, we review Chapters 16 and 17 of Goblet of Fire. Here the main plot hits what I consider to be its inciting incident: Harry’s name emerging from the Goblet. The story of Fourth Wing likewise takes a turn, with Chapters 10 through 14 finally bringing us to the moment that Tairn selects Violet.
Harry’s name emerging from the Goblet is a payoff to multiple setups - and even in the midst of that payoff, even more is set up for the future. This maintains a nice sense of momentum. By contrast, Violet’s select by Tairn works fine as a payoff … until you realize that you are only a third of the way through the book and that nothing has been set up after this point. More will be set up down the line (and believe me, we will get to that later), but at this point in the narrative, we are just as much in free fall as Violet herself is.
It’s coming your way on November 29th. I hope to see you all then. Have a good week.
