Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Chapter 2 to Chapter 4)
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
In Chapter 2, Harry reflects on the nightmare he had about Voldemort and about the pain in his scar. We get a full chapter of recap exposition about Harry being a wizard; who the Dursleys are; and who Ron, Hermione, and Sirius are. The chapter ends with Harry deciding to write a letter to Sirius about the dream and the scar pain.
Chapter 3 is more exposition about the Dursleys and introduces the idea of the Quidditch World Cup, the latter being prompted by the Dursleys receiving a letter from the Weasleys that invites Harry to stay with them for the remainder of the summer holiday. Harry uses psychological manipulation to get Uncle Vernon to give permission.
Chapter 4 has the Weasleys pick up Harry via Floo Powder. This is used to provide character reintroductions for Ron, the twins, and Mr. Weasley. It is also the first introduction to Weasley’ Wizard Wheezes via the jinxed toffee that the twins trick Dudley Dursley into eating.
ANALYSIS
Recaps
I’m sure you may have noticed a trend with these chapters: namely, that they are vehicles for feeding exposition to the audience, the bulk of which is recycled information from previous books. This is a necessary step because Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in an ongoing series, and as we have previously covered, it is important to refresh the audience’s memory of key information from previous books while setting the story of the current book in motion.
I feel like this is something that Rowling is quite good at. In fact, she is so good that one can easily skip previous books. The first Harry Potter book that I actually read with Prisoner of Azkaban, which I picked up after my second grade homeroom teacher read Sorcerer’s Stone to us but before she read Chamber of Secrets. Rowling provided so a detailed and effective recap in the opening of that third book that my lack of exposure to the second book simply wasn’t an issue.
While there are recaps and reintroductions after Chapter 4, the heaviest lifting is done by the end of Chapter 4. This is also the moment the Harry transitions from the mundane, Muggle world of the Dursley household back to the magical world, in this case reflected by the Burrow. I think that this was good planning on Rowling’s part. There is a clean transition from catching the audience up on where the story is and the true start of the story at hand.
Establishment
Aside from the recap, there are three new elements that are introduced within these chapters.
First, we get Harry dreaming about Voldemort. The link between Harry and Voldemort is established at this point in the series. The pain in his scar as a result of this connection is also something that was established back in the very first book. However, this is the first point in the series where Harry begins to see and experience what Voldemort is up to. This is an element that is important not only to the plot of this book but also to Order of the Phoenix and The Deathly Hallows.
Second, the Quidditch World Cup is established as an event. The World Cup itself occurs in Chapter 8, while the aftermath of the Cup is more or less wrapped up by the end of Chapter 10. Nevertheless, despite being a short-lived event, we are given plenty of lead time. We know this event is coming, and from the importance placed upon it, we are prepared for it to play a role within the plot.
Third, this is our first introduction to the Weasley twins’ joke shop ambitions. While neither the name of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes nor the joke shop idea will be introduced until Chapter 5, the demonstration of the jinxed candies is a very effective demonstration of the twins’ inventiveness and ambitions.
Mysteries
Rather fittingly for a bunch of recap chapters, no new mysteries are introduced, and the existing mysteries aren’t really advanced. However, the existing mysteries do get acknowledged, ensuring that the audience is aware that they will come into play down the line.
First, Harry’s reflection upon his dream and the scar pain is a very direct reminder of Voldemort’s secret plans. It may not amount to more than saying, “Yes, Voldemort is up to something, and now the protagonist is aware of it,” but it is nonetheless effective. Now Harry can engage with this mystery within his own POV.
Second, the mention of the Quidditch World Cup triggers a flag. Voldemort is waiting until after the Cup to start something. This is a very amorphous threat, but now the audience has an expectation that something will happen after we reach that milestone.
COMPARISON TO FOURTH WING (Chapter 1)
While I have no shortage of criticisms about Fourth Wing, I feel that Chapter 1 is decent. I wouldn’t say that it’s quite as strong as Chapters 2 through 4 of Goblet of Fire, but it does get the job done.
Establishment
New Information
In that first chapter, Yarros quickly and effectively spells out foundational elements of the narrative, such as:
Violet’s physical condition
Violet’s dynamic with her family
Violet’s literal plot armor
Violet being obsessed with books
what venin are
several tidbits about rider culture and regulations
what Threshing is
who Dain is and why he is important to Violet
what Basgiath is
the military culture of Navarre
what the Parapet is
who Xaden is
who Rhiannon is
A lot of this information is going to be contradicted or undermined down the line, yet for now, it holds together. We are given a clear enough understanding of the world to follow Violet onto her adventure.
Also, while this is a small thing, I do like how this establishment chapter ends with Violet about the enter the Riders Quadrant by crossing a physical bridge. It’s less magical than Floo powder, but it is just as effective for demonstrating that Violet is leaving the familiar and (relatively) mundane world behind.
Threshing
A mentioned above, one of the things Yarros establishes in Chapter 1 is that Threshing is a major event within the Riders Quadrant.
General Sorrengail mentions it as the next time she will see Violet once Violet leaves her office.
Violet references it as the source of Mira’s only scar.
Mira uses it to warn Violet about the risk of cadets killing her in order to claim a dragon.
In many ways, this setup is similar to the one for the Quidditch World Cup, to the point that I almost considered organizing this series such that I could compare the Quidditch World Cup and Threshing side by side. (The reason I didn’t do this comes down to the pacing of the two books. It was a better fit to compare Threshing to the selection of the Triwizard Champions.) We now have the expectation that Threshing will be a pivotal event within the story.
Where I feel Yarros slipped up here was in not providing more information about what happens after Threshing.
The thing about the Quidditch World Cup is that the audience knew, up front, that it would not be the climax of the story. It is event taking place during Harry’s summer holiday. He will be going back to school after this. We know the whole school year is ahead, so we don’t expect the story to end as soon as the Quidditch World Cup is over.
Fourth Wing doesn’t do that. At this point in the narrative, the only thing we have to look forward to is Threshing. It is the only milestone General Sorrengail set. It is the only one Mira used to mentally prepare Violet. The major plot beats after Threshing, namely the Squad Battle and War Games, aren’t even mentioned until shortly before they occur (with the Squad Battle not mentioned until Chapter 20 and War Games not mentioned until Chapter 27). As a result, this buildup ends up being rather awkward when we actually hit Threshing and discover that we’re barely a third of the way through the book. (And, as mentioned in the Fourth Wing review, that fact that Yarros kept a running death tally that aligned with her estimated death total for a whole year didn’t help matters.)
What would have been nice here would be if Yarros had thrown some more information about the events of the school year. At minimum, a passing statement that mentioned both the Squad Battle and War Games would at least prime the audience for the existence of major milestones in the story after Threshing is done.
Recap
Given that Fourth Wing is the first book in the series, there is nothing to recap here. That said, Iron Flame does have recap in Chapters 1 and 2. As I said back when reviewing those chapters, I feel like Yarros does a good job at balancing the need to refresh the audience’s memories against the need to build momentum for the new narrative. I would argue that Goblet of Fire is more effective at this, but that is less a function of quality of writing and more a matter of complexity. Rowling was working with far simpler ideas and gave herself fewer balls to juggle than Yarros did.
Mysteries
The first glimpse we get of information pivotal to the big twist of this book is this small exchange while Mira is helping Violet pack.
“Ditch the books.”
“Dad gave this one to me,” I murmur, pressing the book against my chest. Maybe it’s childish, just a collect of stories that warn us against the lure of magic, and even demonize dragons, but it’s all I have left.
She sighs. “Is it that old book of folklore about dark-wielding vermin and their wyverns? Haven’t you read it a thousand times already?”
“Probably more,” I admit. “And they’re venin, not vermin.”
“Dad and his allegories,” she says. “Just don’t try to channel power without being a bonded rider and red-eyed monsters won’t hide under your bed, waiting to snatch you away on their two-legged dragons to join their dark army.”
This is the first of the many sticky notes slapped onto the text to call the audience’s attention to how the venin are important. In isolation, it’s fine, but as the other examples pop up, it gets more noticeable and more frustrating.
The issue with these references to venin is that they don’t mesh with the story around it. Neither venin, wyverns, nor channeling without magic get much focus outside of these isolated moments. Furthermore, they aren’t justified by characterization. Violet isn’t a more grounded version of Luna Lovegood, quoting obscure folklore that no one else takes seriously at every opportunity. She doesn’t reflect on how much she misses her father every time heavy-handed exposition is delivered. This is exposition that exists solely to emphasize information with no relevance prior to the climax. It doesn’t feel natural.
Imagine, if you would, if Harry’s scar had hurt in Chapter 2, he acknowledged that it had something to do with Voldemort … and then, rather than writing to Sirius, rather than considering contacting his friends or even Dumbledore, he simply shrugged and said, “Well, that’s weird. Time to go eat some grapefruit.” It would be screamingly obvious that the scar pain is incongruous with everything around it, and that the author wants us to think it is important. If Harry kept having scar pain and dreams throughout the book, but kept brushing them off, then problem would have compounded. If Rowling had presented Voldemort’s resurrection as a big twist after such a setup, it might be shocking for a second seconds on the first read, but when we looked back, it would feel hollow. All those moments meant to set up the twist would feel tacked-on.
You know what would have gone a long way to fix this? A prologue that definitively established for the audience that venin and wyverns are a real threat.
If the audience were armed with said knowledge, then this sticky note would not feel obtrusive. It would not be shoved critical information in our faces in a manner that tells us that said information is important without actually integrating the information into the story. Instead, the exchange between Violet and Mira would end up serving the same purpose as Harry reflecting on his dream: it would transfer the established threat into the POV of the main character. We would understand what Violet (and, by extension, Navarre) knows / believes about the venin while being reminded of what lurks outside of Navarre.
A THRESHOLD CROSSED
On October 18th, we continue our journey with Chapters 5 through 8 of Goblet of Fire, comparing them with Chapters 2 through 6 of Fourth Wing.
These respective sections serve as the (re-)introduction of the POV character to the magical world. They introduce a collection of new concepts and new characters within a relatively low-stakes environment. While the events within this chapters won’t drive the plot forward, they do provide necessary setup for the story to come. While I feel Goblet of Fire is ultimately more successful in this, how Fourth Wing does things isn’t terrible. Yes, the worldbuilding issues are already piling up, but in terms of getting the plot in gear, I think that these chapters are functional.
I hope to see you all then. Have a good day.
