Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Chapter 21 to Chapter 23)
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 celebrates with his friends in the wake of the First Task. He makes an initial attempt to solve the golden egg’s clue, only to be bewildered by the screeching coming from the egg. It is during this celebration that Hermione learns how to get into the Hogwarts kitchens to speak with the house elves.
Later, Hermione returns from her visit to the kitchens to fetch Harry and Ron. This leads to Harry being reunited with Dobby. During this reunion, Harry discovers that Winky is also working in the Hogwarts kitchens.
Harry learns of the impending Yule Ball. This leads to angst and drama over him and Ron finding partners. Neither of them is able to go with the people they want to; additionally, Ron is dismissive of the idea that Hermione had someone ask her to the ball.
The Yule Ball arrives. Harry and Ron learn that Hermione was asked to the ball by Viktor Krum. This, coupled with the reveal that Percy Weasley has been sent to represent Mr. Crouch at the Yule Balls, leads Harry and Ron to ditch the dance and prowl the grounds. It is here that they overhear Snape and Karkaroff discussing the Dark Mark as well as Hagrid revealing to Maxine that he is a half-giant.
As the Yule Balls winds down, Harry is approached by Cedric, who gives Harry a hint on how to solve the golden egg. This delays Harry’s return to the common room; he arrives in time to see Hermione and Ron screaming at each other over the fact that Hermione went to the ball with Krum instead of Ron.
ANALYSIS
Establishment
These chapters establish the presence of Dobby and Winky at Hogwarts, facilitating their contributions to the plot down the line. Winky’s outburst about Bagman in Chapter 21 sets up the more sordid details of his past, which will synergize with the other oddities of his behavior to better sell him as a red herring down the line. Additionally, Chapter 23 shows us the moment when Mad-Eye learns of the connection between Harry and Dobby, which will come into play when his identity is revealed down the line.
Chapter 23 marks the first point where a direct connection is made between Snape and Karkaroff. Additionally, Harry observes that the pair are on a first-name basis.
After Hagrid reveals that he is a half-giant to Madame Maxine, Ron tells Harry (and the audience) the key exposition about giants, particularly their reputation and the stigma that would fall on Hagrid if his true parentage got out.
Payoff
Cedric helping Harry with the golden egg clue is a form of payoff. While the relationship between Harry and Cedric doesn’t get a lot of focus in this book, it is rewarding to see their gradual development from Quidditch rivals to allies. It makes their decision to team up at the end of the Third Task (and the tragedy that spawns from that) a bit more compelling.
Mysteries
Voldemort’s plans
The events of these chapters don’t relate to Voldemort in any overt way. However, Rowling makes sure that this mystery doesn’t slip out of focus entirely. In Chapter 23, Sirius writes to Harry to congratulate him about the First Task. This letter ends with a warning that Harry should remain vigilant for danger. While this is a rather overt reminder to the audience, Rowling softens the blow with Harry’s reaction.
“He sounds exactly like Moddy,” said Harry quietly, tucking the letter away again inside his robes. “‘Constant vigilance!’ You’d think I walk around with my eyes shut, banging off the walls . . . .”
I feel that this dismissal strikes a perfect balance. Harry isn’t asserting that Sirius is wrong or that nothing sinister is going on. He’s reacting with the sort of exasperation one might expect from a teenager who’s sick of people talking down to him. This waters down the reminder so as to preserve reader immersion without taking things so far as to tell the reader that the warning doesn’t actually matter.
Snape and Karkaroff
The conversation with Snape and Karkaroff, much like the one between Voldemort and Wormtail in Chapter 1, is sparse on details. It is a conversation between two people who both know the core information and know that they might be overheard, so they keeping it to the essential beats: Karkaroff sees a sign of some impending threat, and Snape is dismissive of his concerns, telling Karkaroff that he is free to run away. It’s obvious on a second read that Karkaroff is referring to the Dark Mark on their arms, but Harry lacks that information, so all he (and we) have to work with is the mystery of this emotional tension between the two professors. If anything, the only hard fact gleamed here is that the two are on a first-name basis.
I feel like this mystery teeters on the edge of being too overt. Rowling is drawing attention to a mystery just to tell us that the mystery exists. That’s why I think that the inclusion of the first-name basis is an important element here. Harry might not be able to make sense of what Snape and Karkaroff can talk about, but he (and we) know that professors using one another’s first names is a sign of personal history between them. The main takeaway for the audience is that Snape and Karkaroff, two people that Mad-Eye has separately displayed dislike for, now have a direct connection between the two of them.
Barty Crouch Sr.
Winky’s outburst in Chapter 21 calls attention to the Crouch family having secrets that she was instrumental in protecting. Furthermore, Crouch’s absence from the Yule Ball is another bit of erratic behavior from him that will be explained later.
I think that Percy explaining away Crouch’s absence is a good example of how to mislead the audience properly. The fact that Crouch is home due to failing health is going to be revealed as false information later. However, it makes sense for Percy to wholeheartedly believe this falsehood and broadcast it to the world. Percy’s ambition has been his driving character trait throughout the book, and he received a promotion so that he could run Crouch’s affairs. It is completely within his character as the audience understands it to both blindly believe the falsehood and also repeat it to anyone who will listen.
Ludo Bagman / Fred and George’s shady behavior
As mentioned above, Winky’s outburst about Bagman sows the seeds for when his shady behavior comes into focus down the line. Much like with the reminder about Voldemort, I think Rowling strikes a good balance here. She establishes this information for the audience, then softens the blow by how the characters react to the information.
“Doesn’t think much of Bagman, though, does she?” said Harry. “Wonder what Crouch says at home about him?
“Probably says he’s not a very good Head of Department,” and Hermione, “and let’s face it . . . he’s got a point, doesn’t he?”
“I’d still rather work for him than old Crouch,” said Ron. “At least Bagman’s got a sense of humor.”
“Don’t let Percy hear you saying that,” Hermione said, smiling slightly.
All three of these characters are reacting to the information they’ve been given in a way that makes sense for them. They have interacted with Bagman, they have interacted with Crouch, and they are drawing their own conclusions based on those experiences. What’s more, since Rowling has not established any of these three as always being right about every conclusion they draw, the audience at least subconsciously understands not to completely write off what Winky says just because they do.
Rita Skeeter
In Chapter 21, Skeeter crashes a Care for Magical Creatures class in an attempt to dig up more dirt on Harry, convincing Hagrid to give her an interview in the process. It is during this scene that we learn that Dumbledore has banned Rita from the school (and see her flippant attitude towards the ban). The ban will plan into the mystery of how she’s getting her interviews, since the means by which she could come and go from the school without Dumbledore detecting her are limited.
Skeeter is present in beetle form when Harry and Ron overhear Hagrid talking with Maxine.
Harry definitely didn’t want to listen to this; he knew Hagrid would hate to be overheard in a situation like this (he certainly would have) — if it had been possible he would have put his fingers in his ears and hummed loudly, but that wasn’t really an option. Instead he tried to interest himself in a beetle crawling along the stone reindeer’s back, but the beetle just wasn’t interesting enough to block out Hagrid’s next words.
It’s a small detail, yet it will pay off when the explanation to the mystery comes at the end of the book. We can reread this moment and draw a direct line between it and the article coming in Chapter 24.
The Golden Egg
I mention this primarily for completeness. While I don’t think the golden egg really counts as one of the book’s mysteries, it’s worth mentioning for how Rowling handles the information.
Harry needs to solve the riddle inside the golden egg to properly prepare for the Second Task. When he opens it in Chapter 21, all he gets out of it is screeching. Neither Harry (nor the audience) knows about the Mermish language at this point. There isn’t a way for him (or us) to solve the egg with the available information.
Then Cedric gets involved. If he had outright given Harry the answer, or if the help he gave allowed Harry to instantly figure out what the egg was hinting at without any further effort, I’d say this is contrived and unsatisfying. Yes, Cedric would be paying Harry back either way, yet doing so would invalidate a narrative obstacle. As it is, Harry will still need to solve the riddle inside the egg and then devise a solution to breathing underwater.
What Rowling effectively did here was present Harry with a mystery in stasis. He had no way to solve it, so he procrastinated. When his past kindness to Cedric pays off, he is finally able to begin solving the mystery. The timing of this procrastination therefore allows for the quieter events of the Yule Ball to take place without interfering in Harry’s progress towards the next plot milestone.
COMPARISON TO FOURTH WING (Chapters 21 - 24)
These chapters fill the time between Amber’s execution and the Squad Battle … and the plot continues to spin its wheels the whole time.
What I find particularly frustrating about this is it didn’t need to. With proper setup and proper focus, the events of these chapters could have driven the narrative forward.
Classified
Chapter 21 shines a glaring spotlight on the rider leadership (or the scribes, depending on who Yarros feels like blaming today). Violet sees non-classified information on an unsecured scroll that she is supposed to deliver to Markham, then that information is not discussed during Battle Brief. Violet is briefly confused by this, then writes off the battle as classified information, aided by Liam.
I glance left and right, watching the other riders begin to take notes. Surreal. This is just…surreal. Even Rhiannon is writing intensely.
None of them knows what we do, that an entire village of Navarrians was ransacked last night along the border and supplies looted. And yet, we’re discussing a battle that happened before the convenience of indoor plumbing was invented.
“Now, pay close attention,” Markham lectures. “Because you’ll be turning in a detailed report in three days and drawing comparisons to battles from the last twenty years.”
“Was that scroll marked classified?” Liam asks under his breath.
“No,” I respond just as quietly. “But maybe I missed it?” The battle map doesn’t evenshow activity near that mountain range.
“Yeah.” He nods, scratching his quill against the parchment as he begins to take notes. “That has to be it. You missed it.”
I blink, forcing my hand through the motions of writing about a battle I’ve analyzed dozens of times with my father. Liam’s right. That’s the only possible explanation.
Our clearance isn’t high enough, or maybe they haven’t finished gathering all the information needed to form an accurate report.
Or it had to have been marked classified. I just missed it.
Yarros proceeds to double down on this idea in the opening to Chapter 22.
The rest of November passes without mention of what happened at Sumerton, and by the time the howling winds bring snow in December, I’ve given up hoping command will release the information. It’s not like Liam or I can directly ask the professors without incriminating ourselves for reading what was obviously a classified report—even if it wasn’t marked.
It makes me wonder what else doesn’t make it to Battle Brief, but I keep that to myself. Between that and my growing frustration over my inability to channel—unlike three-quarters of my year—I’m keeping a lot to myself these days.
As far as building a mystery … actually, not even that. As far as foreshadowing is concerned, this is terrible.
The Mary Sue Is Always Right
Violet, the “rational woman” chosen by her dragon for her “intelligence”, who warps realty so that every conclusion she jumps to is the correct one, has once again written off information that should be mysterious and intriguing as not being important. Therefore, by the rules Yarros herself has set, it must not be important.
Compounding this problem is how Violet writes it off. How would Violet, who was trained by the scribes, ever mistake a classified document for a non-classified one? Remember, Violet won’t acknowledge her actual flaws. Why would she assume that she’d gotten this wrong? The only way it makes sense for Violet to write this off in the way that she does is if she is 100% correct to do so.
There’s also the matter of how Yarros doubles down on this conclusion. She ends the chapter on the conclusion, then opens the next chapter by restating the conclusion and then showing us that Violet let the matter slip out of mind. This isn’t a reminder to keep a mystery in mind. This is Yarros taking the audience by the hand and walking us away from the mystery to ensure that we don’t think there are any loose ends.
What’s frustrating about this is that Yarros could have had Violet remain a Mary Sue while making this into a mystery. She just had to have Violet refuse to accept the easy answer and instead engage with this as a mystery.. If Violet had started investigating this matter, or even if she at least dwelt upon it constantly throughout the story in a meaningful way (more on that later), that would assert to the audience that there is something here we need to keep in mind and care about. The reality of the story would be warping to keep the mystery in sight, rather than sweeping it under the rug.
The Rebel Contribution
As with the shenanigans of the rebel children in Chapter 7 and again in Chapter 19, this moment is not going to go anywhere in terms of driving the mystery of the rebel children. Unlike those moments, there is a bit a wonky characterization at play.
Liam knows the truth. He and the other first-year rebel children are also under strict orders from Xaden to keep their heads down. Why would he call attention to the irregularity by asking if the scroll was classified before feeding Violet a reason to write it off? He is risking drawing attention to himself and thus Xaden by giving someone outside of their circle more reason to think about this. We know Violet will do nothing with this information and will blindly accept the alternative explanation he proposes, but Liam doesn’t know that. Why take the risk?
This is such a wasted opportunity. If Yarros wanted to have Liam call attention to the irregularity, she should have leaned into it. Liam is being fast-tracked as Violet’s friend, someone she will grow to trust and who has an identity outside of being a rebel child. He doesn’t just help and protect Violet because he’s ordered to do so - he does so because he values her. Yarros could have leaned into that agency. Liam could have been deliberately sowing seeds of doubt in Violet’s mind so that she would dig deeper into the mystery and discover the truth for herself. This could be argued as one of Xaden’s followers acting in a manner that he thinks would help Xaden; after all, if Violet knows the truth, then she ceases to be a loose end whom Xaden has to tiptoe around. In doing so, Yarros would finally bring the mystery properly into focus and give Violet something meaningful to do between the milestones that she has not properly set up.
Mechanics
Even if the previous two issues hasn’t existed, the irregularity that Yarros chooses to emphasize doesn’t make sense on its own merits.
The moment that is supposed to tell us that the rider leadership / scribes are lying to the cadets is … Markham doesn’t feel that the information in that non-classified report (that Violet writes off as being classified) is the most pressing topic that could be discussed in a class about honing the cadets’ critical thinking skills.
There’s nothing sinister about this. The scroll bearing this information was not secured or sealed in any way; anyone could have read it. It was delivered to Markham to use at his discretion, which means that the rider leadership and scribes must have been comfortable with the possibility of the information being shared. Markham, in his position as the teacher of this class, then decided that there were more productive uses of his class’s time. Battle Brief isn’t just about current events, after all. He does need to teach them to analyze historical battles.
As an assistant teacher, myself and my JTE (the head teacher I support) follow a textbook give to us by the Board of Education. We are meant to cover all of the content in every chapter of said textbook, and we are indeed encouraged to go page by page through the book (which is structured so that you can do one or two pages every lesson). However, many times, we’ll look at the textbook and decide, “We really don’t have time to do this activity,” or, “Maybe this isn’t the best activity for this particular class. Let’s use the time another way.” We don’t do this because we are part of a sinister cabal who want to deny children the privilege of writing the sentence, “Where is the library?” into the allocated space inside the textbook. We do this because sometimes the best thing for the growth of the students is to skip the nonessentials.
So when I see Markham deciding not to distract the class over the destruction of a village, all I see is prioritization. The teacher looked at the material, decided that the only lessons to be learned had already been learned, and took the class in another direction.
For this moment to really point to something sinister, Violet would have had to see classified information that is fundamentally at-odds with the lesson. Not simply Markham saying all is quiet on the front while a village was destroyed - she needs to see something that points to a fundamentally opposite situation. It could be something about Navarre launching offensive strikes into Poromiel, or maybe reference to the wyverns along the front, or even something about the alloy daggers appearing in Poromish hands. Almost anything relevant to the later twist could have worked. It just has to be (A) relevant and (B) something that could not be easily written off.
Memorize This for the Test
What I find so frustrating about Yarros’s handling of mystery and foreshadowing in this book is that she’s going out of her way to undermine the audience’s ability to see the twist coming.
I read Fourth Wing twice prior to the start of this Goblet of Fire series: once for fun, and again with a magnifying glass as I wrote the review. I have revisited the text multiple times during the Iron Flame review to look up key elements. Despite this incredibly close analysis, I am finding scenes and interactions that I completely forgot ever happened. I certainly didn’t remember that Chapter 22 opened with Violet reiterating her conclusion about seeing classified information. There’s also a moment with the rebel children in Chapter 10 that I did remember previously but then forgot about while writing this series (the moment where Violet gets a pep talk from Xaden to help her overcome the Gauntlet).
Written well, the moments of foreshadowing that Yarros introduces could work. If they were given adequate weight and focus, if they weren’t treated as background noise that Violet tunes out as soon as the scene ends, if they weren’t swept under the rug, they could have sown seeds in the audience’s mind. They could have pointed to the impending twist.
Except … Yarros didn’t give them weight. She didn’t give them focus. She is always in a rush to brush them aside to put focus on Violet wanting to have sex with Xaden, despite the fact that these weightless moments need to support the entire plot when the climax arrives.
Moments like these are why books of The Empyrean feel like first drafts with second-draft foreshadowing sprinkled in. The moments that should set up the big twists, that should serve as a mystery to keep the audience invested, feel like an afterthought. Yarros knows she needs to set twists up, but she doesn’t want to actually tell that story (or, really, any story). She just wants to get back to indulging her sexual and power fantasies as quickly as possible. As a result, these pivotal details that should stick in our memories should be forgotten. Why bother remembering flash-in-the-pan moments in these bloated narratives when the author clearly doesn’t care about them?
By contrast, the reason I think that Rowling’s foreshadowing sticks with the audience is that she makes it part of the story. Even if these elements won’t be relevant for many, many chapters, the characters still react to them. The character still discuss them. Perhaps most importantly, characters remember them, thereby encouraging the audience to also remember them. Dozens of otherwise random and insignificant events mesh together into a cohesive whole that the audience can reflect back upon and understand because Rowling actually goes the extra mile to make these things part of Harry’s journey, rather than having him rationalize them away and sweep them under the rug with absolute authority.so that he can go off and do other things. They don’t feel like lazy afterthoughts to make it seem like an ass-pull was pre-planned.
Romantasy(?)
I realize I’ve pummeled this topic pretty hard over the past month, yet I do have a reason to bring it up again.
Romance Does Not Drive This Narrative
These chapters are where Yarros properly shines a light on the Romance subplot, such as it is. A lot of time is sunk into ratcheting up the sexual tension between Violet and Xaden. There’s even a moment of emotional softness in Chapter 24 when Xaden and Violet discuss her relationshp with General Sorrengail. Were I to read these chapters in isolation, I could see how someone would mistake The Empyrean for a Romance, and thus a Romantasy.
The thing is, even in the midst of this focus on Violet’s sex life, the Romance isn’t driving the narrative. It is not what is most important. It is incidental to the actual narrative. Every moment where it could have driven the narrative is squandered because Yarros chose to explain away every potentially romantic character choice by outside factors. I’m sure she intended this as an Enemies to Lovers scenario where circumstances force the Enemies to remain in close proximity to each other. In execution, this just makes the romance … well, it makes it impotent.
Xaden isn’t assigning Violet a bodyguard because he can’t bear to see her hurt. He isn’t getting the rebel children to train her because he’s paralyzed by the thought of her body failing her in a fatal moment. He isn’t having a sexy fight with her and giving her special knives because she is constantly on his mind, to the point that the only way he can sleep at night is if she’s armed to the teeth with weapons he’s personally approved of. He isn’t overriding her objections and giving her additional flight training lessons because the world only spins for him so long as she’s still in it. He isn’t kissing her because he’s genuinely attracted to her - technically, with how their dragons bond work, it’s hard to really say he even gave consent for that kiss.
Those emotional beats may be reality for him … but Xaden would have to do all of these things regardless of his feelings. He and Violet are joined by the mated bond between their dragons. If Violet dies, Xaden will die, too. Not because of heartbreak, but because her dragon will die, so his dragon will die, so he will die. His only hope for survival is to keep her alive.
And hey - if this were the entirety of the book, that would be fine. A romance blossoming between these two characters due to their forced proximity could make for a compelling story and a proper Romance. It would just need to be the focus.
Except this isn’t the focus. The actual narrative is a horrendously written Magical School story with badly executed hints of a sinister government conspiracy. Everything Xaden does for Violet is a reaction to events that nearly get him killed. He has her trained and provides her with weapons because she is nearly killed in her sleep and needed to be bailed out with magic. He gives her additional flight training (and, later on, gives up and makes a Special Snowflake dragon saddle for her) because she can’t stay on Tairn’s back without help. The plot drives this Romance. The Romance does not drive this plot.
(No, Violet lusting after Xaden doesn’t count as driving the plot. That leads nowhere. It just suffuses the scenes.)
I felt more romance in the year my brother gave his wife a massive pile of roadway emergency gear for Christmas. As I watched her unwrap a battery-powered tire pump, emergency flares, a multitool that looked like a murder weapon from a slasher film, and other assorted gear (including a standard roadside emergency kit that included generic versions of a lot of these other items), I asked her what had possibly happened to her to make all this gear necessary. In response, my brother looked at me and said, “Nothing - and it’s never gonna happen.” My brother’s life was not bound to his wife by some magical dragon bond. He had a genuine protective instinct and acted proactively to show how much he cared.
Goblet of Fire Did This Properly
What I find rather hilarious about the comparison of Chapters 21 through 24 of Fourth Wing with Chapters 21 through 23 of Goblet Fire is that the book for children - a book in a series that is criticized for how badly Rowling executes romance elements - actually manages to present us with a scenario where the plot is driven by the romance, such that it is. In these chapters, Goblet of Fire has a stronger case for being Romance that the supposed Romantasy does.
The adolescent drama of finding dates to the Yule Ball is, in a sense, a Romance subplot that is reactionary in the narrative. The thing is, it doesn’t stop there. After Ron learns that someone else asked Hermione to the ball, he becomes determined to coax the name of this mystery person out of her. This marks a shift from the Romance being a reactionary element to one proactively pursued by the characters. Furthermore, when Ron shows up at the dance and realizes Hermione'’s dating Viktor Krum (i.e. someone who is far more desirable than him), his emotional reaction is intense jealousy. This pushes him and Harry off the dance floor, which leads to them talking to Percy, which in turn drives them out onto the grounds to overhear important conversations.
The mysteries, and thus the plot, of Goblet of Fire are advanced by the budding adolescent romance between Ron and Hermione. That’s more than Violet’s lust ever accomplishes, and it proactively drives the narrative rather than reacting to it as Xaden does.
How Yarros Could Have Fixed This
Properly reworking Fourth Wing into a Romantasy would require a tear-down rewrite that, at minimum, would need to incorporate the changes I recommended back in Chapter 7, using the mystery of what Xaden and the rebel children are up to as a lure to draw Violet closer to Xaden, while also dropping the whole mated-bond-equals-mutual-death business. That said, I do see a way that just these four chapters could be revised to at least make the Romance relevant to the plot:
Have Violet admit that she does indeed need help to survive in the Quadrant, and have her ask Xaden for it.
She could do this out of genuine humility (though this would clash with her rejection of Dain’s help). She could do this because she is actively chasing the mystery of what Xaden and the rebel children are up to and needs an excuse to spend a lot of time around them. She could just do this because she’s admitted to herself that she’s attracted to him and wants to use this to get his attention. Regardless of the actual reaction, it would take reactionary measures driven by the plot and the dragon bond and turn them into a proactive decision by the main character that reflects her personal motivations.
At the same time, Violet’s decision to get Xaden’s help should lead to mysteries being revealed. She should learn about classified information being withheld from the cadets because she went someplace to meet Xaden. She could overhear the rebel children discussing their weapon smuggling for the same reason. Something, anything, that drives the plot forward should at least be revealed to us because of this Romance.
It may not make this Romantasy on its own, but at least it would make the Romance subplot into less of a waste of time.
Jack
Those of you who read Chapters 59 and 60 of the Iron Flame review will know why Violet’s fight with Jack in Chapter 23 is important.
For those who haven’t already read it or don’t want to, the summary version is that Yarros lies to the audience in Iron Flame by retconning this fight. She tries to claim that Jack was already a venin at this point and that the Signet he uses is a venin power, despite the fact that, by the rules she as gone out of her way to establish, that can’t be true. Violet could not have defeated Jack by exploiting his orange allergy if he already had a venin’s constitution, and Jack could not have used a venin power in front of many people without being flagged as an aberration.
Remember - Yarros wants us to think that, “The books are fully potted for five books. The whole series is plotted out and arced and all of that..” That means she is claiming that she knew Jack was a venin the whole time and had planned out the venin twist from the beginning. The fight with Jack would have reflected that.
I already recommended fixes for this in my review of that part of Iron Flame. The only thing I have to add here is that Yarros could have set up Jack’s unnatural powers as a mystery from the start. It didn’t need to be much. A simple scene of Violet being interviewed by Carr regarding the effects of Jack’s pain projection powers, along with the acknowledgement that Jack’s Signet is not in his records, would have at least got us starting down the right path. If Yarros didn’t want to lean too heavily into the mystery off the bat, she could have then transitioned this into Violet asking Carr about when her Signet would manifest, thereby turning her anxiety about not yet having a Signet into something more tangible. This could also have been a great opportunity to characterize Carr so as to better support whatever Yarros wants us to believe about him in Iron Flame.
Squad Battle
In Chapters 23 and 24, the Squad Battle is mentioned a few times. I want to save my analysis for this setup until the next part, as that is when we will actually cover the Squad Battle itself.
THE SECOND MILESTONE
Next time, we’ll tackle Chapters 24 through 26 of Goblet of Fire, taking us through the end of the Second Task, along with Chapter 25 of Fourth Wing, which covers the Squad Battle.
The differences here are night and day.
The Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament is an event we were told to expect a few hundred pages in advance and ramped up towards. The Squad Battle was barely mentioned prior to its inclusion.
The Second Task is (at least in Harry’s mind) a moment of peril that builds upon the fear that someone is trying to kill him. The Squad Battle is a flash of power fantasy.
The Second Task is an integral element of the plot, with consequences that will ripple into future chapters. The Squad Battle could be excised entirely by changing a line of dialogue, and its absence would change nothing that follows it.
What Yarros did feels so hollow compared to what Rowling did, and that’s made all the more frustrating by the fact that it didn’t need to be this way. Yarros had time to set things up and make the Squad Battle matter. We’ve reached the end of the chapters where she could have done so. As we’ve covered already, and will go into more detail about in the next part, she squandered that opportunity.
It’s coming your way on January 24th. I hope to see you all then. Have a great week.
