Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Chapter 18 & Chapter 19)
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 discusses his predicament with Hermione. He writes a letter to Sirius to inform him of the development. Later, Harry discovers just how deep Ron’s grudge runs and how angry the rest of the school is with him.
At the Weighing of Wands ceremony, Harry encounters Rita Skeeter. This leads to her writing the puff piece about him that worsens his situation with Ron and leads to further mockery from the school. Thankfully, he also receives a reply from Sirius, who requests a face-to-face meeting.
The night Sirius requested for their meeting follows a Hogsmeade visit. Harry goes with Hermione, albeit under the invisibility cloak. This leads to their encounter with Mad-Eye and Hagrid. Hagrid invites Harry to visit him that night, leading to the reveal that the First Task will involve overcoming dragons. Harry narrowly makes it back to the Gryffindor common room to meet Sirius, who has set up a Floo-facilitated fireside chat. Harry spills his insecurities to Sirius, who in turn warns Harry that Karkaroff is a former Death Eater. They debate the possibility of Karkaroff having entered Harry into the Tournament. Sirius then suggests that Voldemort may indeed be involved in events, though he isn’t sure.
Their chat is interrupted when Harry hears someone coming. It turns out to be Ron. The two of them snipe at each other before Harry storms off to bed.
ANALYSIS
Narrative Momentum
After several chapters of setup and the spike in tension that was the selection of the Triwizard champions, Rowling steps back and more or less allows the book to coast during these two chapters. There’s certainly stuff being set up and revealed, along with plenty of character drama, but compared to Chapters 16 and 17, things are rather mellow. We are once again being given a moment to mentally reset.
Moments like these are important in a story to avoid desensitization and burn-out. A story that is non-stop tension and action will dissolve into meaningless noise. Rowling is giving us a chance to step back and take a deep breath so that the First Task, coming in Chapter 20, will feel appropriately weighty.
Establishment
These chapters formally introduce Rita Skeeter and transform her from a insect buzzing in the background to an antagonist (however minor) to Harry. We learn about Mad-Eye’s ability to see through Invisibility Cloaks, which will come into play down the line. And, of course, we learn the nature of the First Task and see Harry’s initial reaction to that information.
Payoff
Ron’s reaction to Harry’s name being chosen builds upon not only his earlier expression of frustration at what Harry has versus what he has but also a foundation that has been laid over the previous three books. As Hermione points out to Harry, Ron has always been in Harry’s shadow. The Tournament was simply one blow too many for him to take.
While this conflict between Harry and Ron won’t last beyond the First Task, I think it is a nice moment of characterization for the both of them. This feels like a natural evolution of their relationship in response to the events at hand. The same could be said for the animosity of the rest of the school towards Harry.
Mysteries
Voldemort’s plans / Bertha Jorkins / Mad-Eye’s history with Snape and Karkaroff
I lump these three mysteries together because they are all spawned from the same pieces of information.
While discussing the Tournament with Harry, Sirius provides the following information.
The fact that Karkaroff is a Death Eater, and that Dumbledore likely recruited Moody as a teacher to keep an eye on Karkaroff.
The Tournament would indeed be a good means to kill Harry while making it look like an accident.
Bertha Jorkins disappeared in Albania, and she would have been in a position to know about the Tournament, and thus it is plausible that Voldemort knew about the Tournament prior to the start of the school year.
Rowling does not deceive the audience by pretending that the mystery has been tied up. Karkaroff is brought up as a likely suspect for having entered Harry’s name in the Goblet, with his objections to Harry being selected being explained by the fact that he is a skilled liar who convinced the Ministry to let him out of Azkaban. However, Sirius admits that they have no way of knowing for certain that Voldemort does indeed need know about the Tournament, and he further points out that Karkaroff would need a good reason to ally with Voldemort again.
Ultimately, while Rowling is feeding us clues that we can start to piece together, she is maintaining an air of uncertainty. Nothing is known yet. We have just enough to maintain engagement and an awareness of the existential threat as Harry continues to stumble along in the dark.
Rita Skeeter
We are still at the groundwork stage with Rita. Her behavior at the Weighing of Wands ceremony and the article that follows both provide a framework for understanding who she is and how far she will take things to get her hands on a major story.
COMPARISON TO FOURTH WING (Chapters 15 & 16)
Narrative Momentum
In the aftermath of Threshing, Yarros gives us a chance to reset. I think that this was a wise decision. Threshing was an intense couple of chapters. Furthermore, while the chapters before it weren’t non-stop intensity, this is the first time since Chapter 7 when things hit a proper quiet patch. We’re getting much needed time to catch our breath, process what’s happened to Violet, and prepare ourselves for the next big event.
Except … wait a minute … what is the next big event? Nothing has been set up for after this point. All indicators pointed towards the story ending now, yet we’re only about a third of the way through its length.
Yarros tries to do what Rowling did by using this quiet time to slip in some more setups, but she’s too far behind the curve. It’s not that any of the things she sets up are terrible. The reveal that Violet gets two dragons could have been a source of tension and intrigue. Furthermore, the fact that Violet and Xaden now have their fates tied by the mated bond could have been a source of tension going forwards. There’s also the evolution of Violet’s relationship with Dain. Now she is aware that she has changed as a person and no long wants to be with him. The problem with these setups is that none of them have the same weight to them as the initial plot thread that brought up to Threshing. They could certainly work as sequel hooks. Yarros could have ended the book here, reset, and then started a new story where these elements where the audience was given a clear expectation that these things would be the focus. It’s just that they aren’t substantive enough to maintain the momentum in the story that is already being told.
Yarros also is going to squander these setups in short order.
Violet getting two dragons is a flash-in-the-pan moment to make her look special. Afterwards, Yarros has no idea how to use a second dragon. She simply milks Andarna for conflicts that don’t make sense and otherwise makes excuses to write Andarna out of the story.
Violet and Xaden having this mated bond is really only used for tension of both the sexual and danger varieties. The consequences of the latter as also conveniently ignored when they get in the way of the climax of Iron Flame.
Any further evolution of the relationship between Violet and Dain is ruined by Yarros’s desperate efforts to demonize Dain.
I honestly doubt that modifications to Chapters 15 & 16 could address this issue of narrative momentum. It’s possible that Squad Battle and War Games could have been introduced by either Dain or Xaden in Chapter 16, but introducing them now would feel tacked-on. Imagine if Goblet of Fire has completely neglected Voldemort, Bertha Jorkins, and Karkaroff being intimidated by Mad-Eye until Sirius abruptly introduced it in Chapter 19. It would feel random. The clues only work because the mysteries were already established. Momentum is being preserved, rather than injected.
What Yarros needed (and perhaps intended) was for the audience to have adequate narrative momentum at the end of Chapter 14 to coast all the way to Chapter 17, allowing these two chapters in the middle to focus on characters reacting to what’s passed. Rowling is able to spend two chapters dealing primarily with Harry’s emotions because the audience knows where the story is going. We know the story is not spinning its wheels in a desperate attempt to find traction. We can relax and enjoy the moment because we know things will pick up soon. When things do pick up, first with the reveal of the dragons and again during the chat with Sirius, it’s not an unexpected lurch into unfamiliar territory. We recognize that things are firing up again.
This is where early establishment of Squad Battle and War Games would have paid off enormously. We might not have known what was in Violet’s immediate future, but we would understand that she still has challenges ahead and things to work towards. We would have the expectation that the story is still going somewhere. I’d like to say that a venin-related prologue would also help here, but given their lack of footprint in the main narrative thus far, it would really only help if Violet characterization were reworked to make folklore a focus of her character. Even then, the expectation would be far less focused than what we’d get from academic milestones.
That said, there is one change that I think could be made to these chapters that would have been enormously beneficial going forward.
Rainbow Mystery
In the present version of the story, Violet being selected by two dragons, one of whom is a golden feathertail, is presented purely as a means to make her more special. Neither of these two special circumstances are a mystery to be solved. They reflect a conflict that are briefly brought up and that is handwaved away once the Empyrean votes on it.
If they had been a mystery, problems with both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame would have been alleviated to some degree.
Let’s say that emphasis was placed on the bizarre circumstance of Andarna being allowed to select Violet. I’m not talking about the outrage from the rider leadership - this should be a question that Violet, the “rational woman” chosen for her “intelligence”, who was trained as a scribe at Basgiath itself, should ponder and engage with. This should be something that she should feel compelled to learn more about and understand.
The answer shouldn’t present itself to her in these chapters, but the question should be asked. An expectation should be established for her to interrogate and investigate this going forward. Even if it takes her all the way to the climax of Iron Flame to learn the truth, this could be a thread that would help to draw the audience onward through slow chapters such as these. (It would also go a long way to sell the idea that Yarros did indeed have “the whole series is plotted out and arced and all of that,” rather than hurling ass-pull twists at the audience in a desperate bid to hit a minimum word count.)
FIRST TASK, TASKLESS
Next time, we engage with Chapter 20 of Goblet of Fire and Chapters 17 through 20 of Fourth Wing.
It’s impressive just how much Rowling packs into a mere 26 pages (hardcover edition) / 18 pages (e-book). There’s character work, personal growth, and meaningful action that drives events forward. By contrast, Yarros accomplishes next to nothing in 55 pages (e-book). Things happen, and characters and elements are introduced, but there is a palpable sense that the story has stalled, rather than moving forward.
We’ll get into it on December 27th. I hope to see you all then. Have a good week.
