Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Chapter 20)
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
Armed with knowledge of a dragon in his future, Harry spends his Sunday frantically researching a way to overcome a dragon, aided by Hermione. When Monday arrives, he sees Cedric, and realizing that Cedric is the only champion who won’t know about the dragons, he seizes an opportunity to warn Cedric, telling Cedric that it’s only fair that they all know. This noble act is witnessed by Mad-Eye, who drags Harry to his office. We are shown Mad-Eye’s collection of Dark Detectors, and then Mad-Eye coaches Harry into figuring out a solution for the task. Harry and Hermione then work furiously to help him master the Summoning Charm overnight.
The day of the First Task arrives. Harry struggles with nerves in the hours leading up to the task. At the pre-task assembly of champions, Ludo Bagman gives them their instructions, then pulls Harry aside to offer Harry some discrete help, which Harry refuses.
Harry takes on the Hungarian Horntail and successfully steals the golden egg from her by Summoning his Firebolt and out-flying her. He and Ron reconcile in the aftermath of the task. Bagman then tells the champions when the Second Task will be and that the clue to what the Second Task will be is inside the golden eggs. On the way back to the castle, Harry brushes off an interview attempt by Rita Skeeter.
ANALYSIS
Every time I reread Goblet of Fire, I forget just how much is packed into this chapter. The chapter is barely longer than those around it, but it covers so much at a breakneck pace, while at the same time not feeling rushed. Everything is fleshed out exactly at much as it needs to be, resting upon a foundation of everything that came before.
Establishment
The introduction of Mad-Eye’s Dark Detectors is going to get a payoff when his true identity is revealed. I want to wait on talking about their role in foreshadowing that twist until we actually get to that point. For now, I’ll just say that Rowling has a habit of bombarding the audience with worldbuilding fluff, as we saw back in the lead-up to the Quidditch World Cup. This moment that might stick out as obvious foreshadowing therefore feels unremarkable. Had Rowling chosen not to pay off this moment, it wouldn’t have felt like a loose end.
This chapter also establishes the Second Task … or, at least, it would have, if the Second Task were not clearly established at an earlier point in the story. Instead, Rowling is taking an event that she already told us to expect, assigned a date to it so that we would understand its proximity as the story progressed, and assigned Harry with a challenge to help generate tension within the intervening period.
This chapter also marks the first point where Bagman displays overt favoritism to Harry. I’ll go into more detail on this in the Mysteries.
Payoff
The big payoff in this chapter is in the conflict between Harry and Ron. Upon seeing the danger Harry is in, Ron finally accepts that Harry would not willingly throw himself into such a scenario and tries to apologize. Harry brushes the apology off. He never needed Ron to admit to being wrong - he just wanted Ron’s support.
I suppose the use of the Summoning Charm could be seen as somewhat of a payoff, at least in the sense that Rowling making use of a pre-established element to resolve a conflict. It was introduced all the way back in Chapter 6, when Mrs. Weasley confiscated the joke sweets from Fred and George, and mentioned again in passing in Chapter 18. Rowling integrated something into her world in a natural manner and then made use of that element rather than pulling something entirely new out of thin air to solve Harry’s problem.
Mysteries
This chapter does not advance any of the mysteries directly. Instead, it builds up characters who will contribute to the mysteries.
Ludo Bagman
Bagman’s discrete offer of help to Harry doesn’t seem important in the moment. Harry is certainly too distracted by his own anxiety to dwell on it. Given Bagman’s personality prior to the World Cup, he does seem like the type who might play loose with the rules to help someone he likes.
The reason this moment is ultimately important is that Bagman will be set up as a red herring down the line. When Bagman’s history of being investigate as a Death Eater comes up, it raises the possibility, however, slim, that he was the one who put Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire, or at least that he could be helping Voldemort in some other way. His offers of help therefore become suspect, at least until Fred and George give his behavior new context while explaining their grievance with him.
Also, regarding how Bagman explains the mystery of Fred and George’s own suspicious behavior, there’s a great line from Bagman right when Harry retrieves the golden egg.
“Look at that!” Bagman was yelling. “Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!”
In this moment of excitement, Bagman’s façade slips, and gambling leaps to the forefront of his mind.
Rita Skeeter
Skeeter’s dogged determination to get her next scoop is on full display here. She doesn’t try to approach Harry openly - she jumps him in hopes of catching him off-guard. As we’ll see in the next chapter, Harry’s refusal to speak to her won’t deter her in the slightest.
COMPARISON TO FOURTH WING (Chapters 17 - 20)
It’s incredible how Goblet of Fire accomplishes so much in Chapter 20, yet Fourth Wing accomplishes so little in three times as many pages.
Throwing Spaghetti at the Wall
In fairness to Yarros, these two sections are not analogous at the start. Goblet of Fire is hurtling towards a plot milestone. Fourth Wing is trying to reset the plot after Threshing exhausted the established story threads. Some allowance for a slower pace is necessary. However, that is not the main issue with those chapters.
This is where the loss of narrative momentum really starts to bite Yarros in the ass. She is trying to restart the narrative mid-book, and she does it badly.
Danger, Danger, Danger
The idea that other students might be gunning for Violet so that they can take her place as Tairn’s rider could have made for an interesting story going forward, but Yarros squanders it in one action sequence. She then destroys any possibility of a repeat, first by having Tairn watching out for Violet when she is vulnerable (something no other dragon does, since otherwise, the Codex would not need to prohibit sleep assassinations) and again by having Xaden assign Violet a bodyguard after making a very public example of the mastermind behind her attempted assassination. Yarros then doesn’t engage with this conflict after Chapter 20.
This could have worked if we have a clear expectation of a larger story. Goblet of Fire isn’t dead in the water now that the First Task is done. We have the expectation of two more tasks, plus the ongoing mysteries. There is something to keep the story going now that the immediate conflict is resolved.
Fourth Wing does not have that safety net. Yarros went out of her way to shut down any mysteries and denied us any sense of where the story might go from here. When she raises this asassination conflict, it is all we have to go on. When she so thoroughly kills it, we are reset right back to where we were at the end of Chapter 16.
Dragon Agency
Yarros toys with the idea that Violet now needs to be Andarna’s protector. I’m not going to rehash how nonsensical that concept in; you can revisit the Fourth Wing and Iron Flame reviews (particularly the discussion of dragon agency in Chapter 13 of Iron Flame) if you want that breakdown. Instead, I want to emphasize how she wastes the potential of this idea.
The idea of Andarna’s power needs to be kept secret is not actually used to start a new conflict for Fourth Wing. Instead, it is used purely as an excuse for Violet to immediately resolve all conflicts by stopping time. Also, much like with the risk of being killed by rider-less cadets, Yarros doesn’t do anything with this conflict for the rest of the book. It’s therefore an idea that feels flaccid on a first read and like a massive waste of time on a reread.
The Next Task
What Yarros could have done here was set up the next milestone, that being the Squad Battle. We’ve previously covered how this should have established at the start of the story; establishing it now would not preserve momentum, merely jumpstart the story after it stalled. Still, at least it would be something. At least explaining the Squad Battle in these four chapters would make it so that they don’t feel entirely pointless.
…
The Squad Battle doesn’t get established until Chapter 21. It’s mentioned once in these four chapters … in Chapter 20 … in a throwaway line that’s part of Liam’s introduction.
[Xaden] ignores me, facing Dain. “Liam is statistically the strongest first-year in the quadrant. He has the fastest time up the Gauntlet, hasn’t lost a single challenge, and is bonded to an exceptionally strong Red Daggertail. Any squad would be lucky to have him, and he’s all yours, Aetos. You can thank me when you win the Squad Battle in the spring.”
Imagine if we had been given zero information or reference to any tasks except the First Task prior to Chapter 20 of Goblet of Fire, and then the only reference we got to said Second Task in the entire chapter was a passing statement from McGonagall that Harry then didn’t dwell upon at all. We’d end the chapter on a high note and then just be siting there awkward with a stalled narrative.
Rebel Children
I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that Yarros foreshadows the activities of the rebel children in these chapters … and again chooses to sweep it under the rug, rather than building any mystery.
First, after Xaden kills all the cadets who attacked Violet, rebel children show up to help clean up the bodies.
Two other men walk in through the open door, Garrick and Bodhi following closely after. They’re all…dressed. Fully clothed at—I glance at the clock—two a.m.
“Take those two, and we’ll get the last ones,” Garrick orders, and the others get to work, carrying the last of the bodies out through the door. I can’t help but notice they all have rebellion relics shimmering up their arms, but I keep the observation to myself.
And then, as Xaden takes Violet out to the flight field, she asks him about this directly.
Xaden’s arm wraps around my waist, steadying me. I hate how his touch elevates my heart rate as we continue the climb, but I don’t protest. I don’t want to be grateful for anything when it comes to him, but man if that minty scent of his isn’t delicious.
“What were you doing tonight anyway?”
“What makes you ask?” His tone clearly insinuates that I shouldn’t.
Too bad.
“You made it to my room within minutes, and you’re not exactly dressed for sleeping.” He’s strapped with a sword for crying out loud.
“Maybe I sleep in my armor, too.”
“Then you should pick more trustworthy bedmates.”
He snorts, a flash of a smile appearing for a heartbeat. A real one. Not the fake, forced sneer I’m used to seeing or the cocky little smirk. An honest, heart-stopping smile that I’m anything but immune to. It’s gone as fast as it appears, though.
“So you’re not going to tell me?” I ask. I’d be frustrated if I didn’t hurt so damned much. And I’m not even going to touch why he needed to haul us all the way to Tairnwhen I can chat with him anytime I want.
Unless he wants to talk to Tairn, which is…ballsy.
“Nope. Third-year business.” He lets go when we reach the stonewalled end of the tunnel. A few hand gestures and another click sounds before he pushes open the door.
We step out into crisp, freezingly cold November air.
The question of what Xaden and the other rebel children were up to gets raised … and then answered, and then forgotten. Much like with the meeting in Chapter 7, Violet is not going to think any more about this after this scene. Nothing is left up in the air. There is nothing for the audience to ponder or engage with. If this is foreshadowing, it’s the kind that’s sprinkling in on a second draft to make an ass-pull twist seem planned. After all, if the twist about Xaden and his cohort smuggling weapons had been planned out from the beginning, surely the question of what they’re up to would not keep getting resolved in the same scene where it gets brought up and then forgotten about.
Maybe this could have worked if Violet was not a “rational woman” chosen by her dragon for her “intelligence”. Maybe it could have worked if Violet were not a Mary Sue whose conclusions, no matter how insane, are always right. If Violet were, say, Carly Vanders from Kamen America, I could understand her not dwelling on mysterious things. Carly is a character who, while not stupid, is often lacking in awareness (at least in her earlier stories - I only got through Volume 4 of Kamen America), so her writing something off can’t be taken as a sign that it’s unimportant.
As it is, Violet is the “rational woman” chosen by her dragon for her “intelligence’, a Mary Sue who warps reality to validate her insane conclusions. If she accepts Xaden’s explanation, then that is the reality of the story. This writing off of Xaden’s activities might have still worked if Xaden was indeed doing “third-year business” on behalf of the school, with that being the big reveal at the end of the book, but that’s simply not the case. Yarros is trying to foreshadow a twist by having the absolute authority of her universe conclude that nothing twisty could possibly lay ahead.
Refocusing Expectations
We’ve officially crossed the threshold where fixing just the current chapters of Fourth Wing would not save the story. The previous chapters would need to be reworked to provide a solid foundation. Nevertheless, if we are willing to accept the stalling of the plot, there are some localized improvements we can make to regain momentum.
In a better story, we’d already know about the Squad Battle long before this point. If we didn’t, the moment to introduce it would be in the start of Chapter 17. That chapter opens the morning after Threshing. A brief scene in which Violet and her squad are mustered for an official assembly and get briefed on what the Squad Battle is and when it will be would set a very clear expectation for the audience as to what’s coming down the line.
If Yarros wanted the threat of rider-less cadets to loom over Violet going forward, then there shouldn’t have been just the one attack. More importantly, Amber should not have been immediately identified and killed off. Violet and Xaden should have come out after the assassination attempt with a mystery: who unlocked Violet’s door? This could have then led to more attacks in future chapters, with Amber being unmasked as the mastermind near the end of the book. The mystery of the mastermind would have helped to keep the audience engaged in the plot.
It’s a similar situation with Andarna. A better way to make use of this idea of Violet being Andarna’s protector would be to turn the time stop power into a mystery. Rather than establishing that all feathertails have strange and overpowered magical abilities, Andarna could be the only one. This would then raise the question of why Andarna is so special. Much like with the previously proposed mystery of why Andarna was allowed to bond with a rider, this would give Violet (and the audience) something to puzzle over. It would be both question to keep the audience engaged and a means for Andarna to remain relevant to the plot while Violet dug deeper.
Then there’s the matter of what the rebel children are up to. Violet should really started to dig into what they’re up to after Chapter 7, but now, after Xaden’s timely arrival in the dead of night, is as good a time as any to rectify her inattentiveness. If Violet had actively chased this mystery, it would have made the remainder of the book (and the Romance subplot specifically) far more interesting.
On the whole, I think Yarros would have been better off with just streamlining things. Get rid of the supposedly constant threat of death in the hallways, and get rid of any need to protect Andarna. Let the plot focus on Violet struggling to be a rider while expanding upon the mystery of what Xaden and the other rebel children are up to. It’s better to have one or two ideas that are properly fleshed out than to half-ass many ideas.
LETTING OUR HAIR DOWN
Next time, we dive into Chapters 21 through 23 of Goblet of Fire and Chapters 21 through 24 of Fourth Wing.
Both of these parts focus on interpersonal drama and relationships. This is the part of Goblet of Fire covering the Yule Ball, with all the romantic drama that comes with it. As for Fourth Wing … well, there’s really not anything here except constant escalation of the sexual tension. Yes, there’s a blip that serves as a Post-It note for the venin twist, and yes, we get the sequence that Yarros will later lie about to sell the Jack twist in Iron Flame, but these aren’t really propelling the narrative forward. For that matter, the escalating sexual tension doesn’t drive the narrative forward, either. It could have - the romantic drama in Goblet of Fire does - but it doesn’t. The plot continues to spin its wheels while Violet focuses on how badly she wants to have sex with Xaden.
It’s coming your way in the New Year. I hope to see you all then. A belated Merry Christmas to you all, and have a Happy New Year.
