Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Published on July 8 2000, the release of this book was surrounded by more hype than any other children's book in recent times — outdone only by its successors, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. At 636 pages (hardback British edition) it was fairly large for a children's book. The book attracted a lot of attention owing to a pre-publication warning from J.K. Rowling that one of the characters would be murdered in the book. This started a stream of rumour and speculation as to who the murdered character would be. The publication of Goblet of Fire caused unprecedented heights of Pottermania to be reached internationally.
This novel won a Hugo Award in 2001.
Editions
- Bloomsbury (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada etc.)
- ISBN 074754624X Hardcover
- ISBN 0747550999 Paperback
- ISBN 0747569401 Hardcover (adult edition)
- ISBN 0747570736 Paperback (adult edition)
- Scholastic (United States etc.)
- ISBN 0-439-13959-7 Hardcover
- ISBN 0-439-13960-0 Paperback
See Harry Potter in translation for foreign editions
Info on Book Prior to Release
For a short while, the fourth book was tentatively titled Harry Potter and the Doomsday Tournament by numerous bookstores. However, this title was dropped closer to the release date, and eventually the name Goblet of Fire surfaced.
Plot overview
Template:Wikibookschapter Harry spends the end of his 1994 summer holidays with the Weasley Family and Hermione Granger before going to the Quidditch World Cup. After the match, a group of Death Eaters attack a number of Muggle bystanders and Voldemort’s sign, the Dark Mark, causes terror amongst wizards when it is seen again.
Back at school, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is retired Auror, "Mad-Eye" Moody. The wizarding world's Triwizard Tournament is to be restarted, and to be held at Hogwarts. The names of all intending participants will be put into an legendary goblet - known as the Goblet of Fire - which will shoot out one name from each of the three competing schools (Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang). The Goblet selects Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour, and Viktor Krum, as the respective champions. Mysteriously, the Goblet also spits out Harry's name and he is forced to participate. Harry realizes that he has been deliberately put in grave danger, but Ron, along with the majority of the school, refuses to believe Harry did not enter himself.
Hagrid reveals the secret first task to Harry and Madame Maxime, Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy. The champions must battle a dragon in order to retrieve a golden egg. Igor Karkaroff, Headmaster of the Durmstrang Institute also sees the dragons, leaving only official Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory who does not know what awaits him. Harry feels this is unfair and informs Diggory, but still goes on to jointly win the first task (with Viktor Krum). The task is terrifying for Harry's friends Ron and Hermione, and Harry's friendship with Ron is saved once Ron realises just how dangerous the Tournament will be.
A temporary relief from the tension in the novel is provided in the form of the Yule Ball, the Christmas dance hosted by Hogwarts for its students (fourth year and above) and guests. Harry is terrified when he is told he must find a partner to open the dance with (the Triwizard champions open the dance). Harry musters the courage - eventually - to ask the attractive Ravenclaw fifth year Cho Chang to the Ball, only to be told she already agreed to go with Cedric Diggory. Whatever friendliness Harry felt towards Cedric vanishes, and he ends up asking his classmate Parvati Patil to go with him. Ron loses his head and subconsciously asks Fleur Delacour to the Yule Ball, accidentally screaming instead of "asking." He runs away before she can say anything, which leaves Ron in a bumbling mess, much to his sister Ginny's amusement. Eventually Ron goes with Parvati's twin Padma, and both boys are shocked - along with the rest of the school - to see Hermione on Viktor Krum's arm, and having made herself over beautifully to boot. The first signs of Ron's feelings for Hermione are evident at the ball in his behavior towards her, and his marked jealousy of Krum. Fleur's partner at the ball is Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain Roger Davies.
In the Second Task, Harry is sent into the Black Lake, on the Hogwarts Grounds to rescue Ron, who has been placed underwater under guard of the merpeople who reside in the Lake. Likewise, Hermione is rescued by Krum, and Cho Chang by Cedric. However, Fleur Delacour is unable to rescue her hostage, her younger sister. To his own cost, Harry remains behind to rescue her as well, earning Fleur's respect, and finishing second. At this stage, he is tied for first place with Cedric Diggory.
The last part of the tournament is a grueling maze, in the middle of which has been placed the Triwizard Cup. Whichever champion retrieves this magical item first will be the victor of the tournament. Harry and Cedric arrive at the Triwizard Cup first and decide, because of the help they provided to each other, to grab the cup at the same time. However, the cup turns out to be a Portkey, a magical object which transports them to a graveyard - where they find Peter Pettigrew and Lord Voldemort. Pettigrew kills Cedric, then uses Harry's blood as part of a macabre ritual to restore Voldemort’s body. Voldemort summons the Death Eaters and attempts to kill Harry, but Harry escapes, and carrying Cedric’s body uses the trophy to return to Hogwarts.
Back at the castle Professor Moody is revealed as an impostor, Barty Crouch Jr., who has imprisoned the real Moody in a trunk. Crouch had been the one who placed Harry’s name in the goblet. He is captured but a dementor takes his soul before he can be made to repeat his story to Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, who refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned.
Detailed Plot
The Quidditch World Cup
In this book, Harry Potter spends the end of his summer with the Weasleys in anticipation of the Quidditch World Cup. During the World Cup, a group of Death Eaters attack a number of Muggle bystanders, but flee when the Dark Mark - Voldemort's sign - mysteriously appears above them. The sign was determined to have been conjured by Winky using Harry's stolen wand. Winky is a house elf that serves Barty Crouch, a respected official at the Ministry of Magic and is fired by her master at once. Crouch's treatment of Winky prompts Hermione to start campaigning for elves' rights.
The Triwizard Tournament
There is a surprise in store for Hogwarts students at the start of the new school year. The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is famed Auror (a wizard trained to fight the Dark Arts) Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, an old eccentric who manages to simultaneously terrify, awe and amuse the students with his combined paranoia and astonishing knowledge and intelligence. What is more, the Triwizard Tournament, a centuries-old interschool competition that was banned for years due to its increasingly dangerous "tasks" is to be restarted, and to be held at Hogwarts. The reward of this tournament, to the winner, is 1000 galleons. The names of all intending participants will be put into a goblet - known as the Goblet of Fire - which will shoot out one name from each of the three competing wizarding schools (Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang). After choosing famous international Quidditch player and Durmstrang student Viktor Krum, eerily beautiful Beauxbatons student Fleur Delacour, and Hogwarts Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory, the Goblet spits out Harry's name - although he is too young to have added his name to the Goblet and a Hogwarts champion has already been selected. Harry is forced to participate although he suspects that he has been deliberately put in grave danger. Many students are outraged (particularly as their best efforts to put their names in the Goblet failed) and to Harry's intense dismay, his best friend Ron Weasley is suddenly jealous. To make matters worse, his attempts to deflect his new unpopularity are foiled by Rita Skeeter, a revolting journalist who decides to write false stories about Harry.
The First Task is an unknown challenge, but Hogwarts gamekeeper Hagrid reveals it to Harry as well as to Madame Maxime, the enormous, elegant Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy. For the First Task, the champions must battle a dragon in order to retrieve a golden egg from among her own eggs. Igor Karkaroff, Headmaster of the Durmstrang Institute sees the dragons, although from a hiding place. This leaves Cedric Diggory as the only champion not knowing what awaits him. Harry feels it is unfair that all the other champions are aware of what awaits them in the First Task, and informs Diggory. He is surprised when, after Diggory walks away, Professor Moody calls Harry into his study and, not only praises him for telling Diggory about the task, but then hints at how Harry can successfully complete the First Task. At the start of the First Task, the champions randomly draw a numbered miniature dragon from a silk bag, which indicates which species of dragon they will face and in which order the champions will complete their task. Harry is number four, and draws the Hungarian Horntail, supposedly the most dangerous dragon of them all. Harry, with the aid of his broomstick, outmaneuvers the dragon and manages to steal the golden egg with only one injury in his shoulder. The task is terrifying for Harry's friends Ron and Hermione, and Harry's friendship with Ron is saved once Ron realises just how perilous the Tournament will be for Harry.
The golden egg provides the clue to the Second Task, which takes place in February.
A brief break of sorts is given in the form of the Yule Ball, a sort of get together for witches and wizards. As a champion, Harry is required to attend with his fellow champions, but both he and Ron have difficulty finding dates. Harry tries to ask his crush Cho Chang, but she gently rebuffs him because she's going with her boyfriend Cedric, the other Hogwarts champion. At one point Ron, after making a fool of himself trying to ask out Fleur and finally realizing that Hermione is a "girl", and having offended her earlier with his less than admirable view of girls, asks her to come with either him or Harry, but she flatly rejects him because she's already said yes to someone else, but she won't say who. Harry eventually arranges for himself and Ron to date the Patil twins, Parvati and Padma, both of whom are considered very beautiful, if not the most beautiful girls in the 4th year.
On the night of the Yule Ball, it is discovered that Hermione is Viktor Krum's date, stunning everyone with both her unexpected attachment and also with her suddenly beautiful appearance. Seeing Hermione with Krum provokes jealousy in Ron, and he, along with Harry, spends the night ignoring his actual date while glaring daggers at Hermione and Krum. When an elated, jovial Hermione comes over to Harry and Ron and tries to start a friendly conversation, Ron loses control of himself and lashes out at her, accusing her of "fraternizing with the enemy" and referring to Krum derogatively as "Vicky". Shocked and appalled, Hermione and Ron get into a violent argument that draws stares from onlookers.
Despondent, Harry and Ron take a break from the ball to hang out outside where they overhear Hagrid talking to Madam Maxime, and learn that she and Hagrid are half-giants, which Ron finds unusual as giants are not exactly "nice".
At the end of the night, Hermione ends her argument with Ron by telling him that the next time there's a ball he should ask her "before someone else does and not as a last resort!" before storming off into the girl's dorms, leaving Ron stunned.
Harry is unable to understand the egg's clue at first. Then, with Cedric's help, he learns that he must retrieve something stolen by the merpeople, who live in the Black Lake adjoining Hogwarts. Dobby gives Harry some gillyweed which allows him to breathe underwater. At the task the champions were informed that their most valuable things have been stolen from them. The people who were stolen were Ron (for Harry), Hermione (for Viktor), Cho Chang (for Cedric), and Fleur Delacour’s younger sister, Gabrielle. Although Fleur was eliminated in the task, Harry, Cedric and Victor reached the hostages easily. Harry was left with Fleur Delacour’s small sister and Ron so he tried to rescue both. The mer-people tried to prevent him from taking two people, but Harry threatened them with his wand, escaped to the surface with both and was rewarded for his "moral fiber."
In the last part of the Tournament, the four competitors must run through a maze filled with dangerous creatures and spells, in which the Tri-Wizard cup is placed somewhere within. Harry and Cedric arrive at the cup first, and decide, because of the help they provided to each other during the Tournament, to grab the trophy at the same time, since it will be a Hogwarts victory anyway.
Little Hangleton's Graveyard
The trophy turns out to be a Portkey, a magical object which transports them to a graveyard - where they find Peter Pettigrew and Lord Voldemort. Wormtail kills Cedric ("Kill the spare!") using the Avada Kedavra curse, then uses Harry's blood as part of a macabre ritual which restores Voldemort and grants him a protection from the charm which had prevented him from harming Harry twice in the past. Voldemort then summons the Death Eaters and attempts to kill Harry, to prove that "the Boy who Lived" will not be his undoing again.
However, because Harry's and Voldemort's wands are formed from the same core - a feather from Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes - a freak phenomenon known as Priori Incantatem occurs, in which the wands connect by a golden light and Voldemort's wand begins to produce ghostly echoes of its past victims - including Cedric, Frank Bryce, Bertha Jorkins, and Harry's parents. The echoes hold off Voldemort while Harry escapes to the trophy which transports him and Cedric's body back to Hogwarts.
Barty Crouch, Jr. Revealed
On reaching Hogwarts again, Harry lands in the centre of the confusion caused by his disappearance. He is led up to the castle by Professor Moody. Moody reveals himself as a Death Eater, saying that it was he who put Harry's name into the Goblet, and who ensured that Harry made it through the three rounds of the tournament so that he would be delivered to Voldemort. As Moody is about to attack Harry, Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall barge into the room, and stop Moody. With the help of Veritaserum, it is revealed that "Moody" was Barty Crouch's son in disguise. The real Moody had been kept imprisoned in a magical trunk for the entire year.
Having learned that Voldemort had risen again, Dumbledore began proceedings to restart the Order of the Phoenix. Snape and the Durmstrang Headmaster are revealed as ex-Death Eaters. Barty Crouch Jr. has his soul sucked out by a Dementor before he can repeat his story to The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. The Minister refuses to believe that Voldemort has risen again on the word of Dumbledore and Harry, which results in Dumbledore being removed from several important posts within the wizard community, and the reputation of Harry Potter (and Dumbledore) being trampled maliciously in the next book.
Points of interest
This book contains what might be considered only the second instance of narrative not delivered through Harry's point of view - the first chapter, in which the murder of Frank Bryce by Voldemort is described. However, Harry is in fact aware of the events in the chapter to some degree, as they appear to him in a dream. [The first book of the series (Philosopher's Stone) described Uncle Vernon's encounter with various wizards while the sixth book (Half-Blood Prince), published in 2005, contained the next instance of narrative outside Harry's point of view throughout the chapters entitled The Other Minister and Spinner's End].
In this book, Harry's world expands both physically and figuratively. He goes to places he has never been before (the moor where the World Cup is held, the graveyard). In Goblet of Fire, Harry once again exemplifies his valiant bravery. From his battle with the Horntail dragon, to his bold undertakings in the frigid waters of the 2nd task, and to his extraordinary duel with Lord Voldemort in the graveyard, these acts prove the main character’s courage. Harry also meets a vast number of people of various nationalities and all types. He learns some profound lessons about good and evil, and the difficulty in distinguishing between the two. This is particularly exemplified in the fake Moody, but other characters like Bagman, Crouch and Karkaroff are all examples of various degrees of evil, or evil and good mixed in strange and unpredictable ways.
In many ways, this book can be seen as the turning point of Harry's transition into adulthood (which is in fact the topic of this whole series). Harry has certainly left childhood behind – for example, he "discovers" girls in this book. But he also encounters far more unpleasant aspects of adulthood, from unwanted and malicious publicity to the death of a schoolmate.
The magical world takes on an international aspect in this book, with the introduction of the World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament, including the two other large European schools of Magic, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The crisis caused by Voldemort's return in the end also, in a way, helps to bring the world together.
J.K. Rowling promised the Goblet of Fire would be the longest book in the Harry Potter series, but broke this promise when Order of the Phoenix was released. However, Order of the Phoenix has now been said to be the longest book Rowling will write, but this was not confirmed by Rowling.
This book mentions the name of a real person, Natalie McDonald. With the exception of people of ancient times, such as Nicolas Flamel, this is the only book to do so.
There is a moment during the final chapter (when the horseless carriages pull up) that has been considered by some as a rare moment of inconsistency of known facts between books. As Harry has by this time witnessed a death, it is expected that should have been able to see the thestrals pulling the carriages. However as J.K. Rowling pointed out later, to see the thestrals means to have seen and accepted death. As Harry had not quite fully accepted the death of his classmate yet, the thestrals would have remained invisible to him until the following year.
External links
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire extended information
- Book Summary: Goblet of Fire
- Errors & Mistakes: Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
