Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 

Chapter 13: Mad-Eye Moody

• We learn that Eloise Midgen had tried to curse off her pimples, and later we learn that Hermione had let her teeth magically reduced. So spells to improve at least little beauty flaws are common, though I wonder if more drastic physical changes are common/accepted as well. We have now entered the age of self-awareness. Where Harry notices how much more handsome Cedric is, and witches like Eloise and Hermione feel the need to change themselves. But apart from the Yule Ball and later Bill and Fleur’s wedding (both special events), Hermione doesn’t seem to care about her appearance. Furthermore she is appalled when Ron later admits that he thinks looks are more important than character when he looks for a date for the Yule Ball. But I’m getting ahead of myself, we are not there yet.

• “‘Aaaaah,’ said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, ‘when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry …’” – Nothing to comment, I just love Ron’s humour.

• “‘Can I have a look at Uranus, too, Lavender?’ said Ron.” – This joke was completely lost on me for years because a) the first time I read this book was in the German Translation, where the joke simply doesn’t work and b) I was an innocent child and my mind wasn’t yet in the gutter.

• Whatever you think of Malfoy, the thing Moody did to him was awful and in no way funny. It is the same kind of abusing behaviour Snape show, but whereas Snape uses words, Moody uses physical pain. What is interesting though is that all year nobody suspects Moody to be someone else in reality until the very end, so this kind of behaviour must be typical for the real Moody. Is it possible he tortured suspects? Do the Geneva Conventions apply to the Wizarding World as well? Is this the reason none of the staff was excited to have Moody as a colleague, worried he would act like this? I think that what we see this school year of Moody had to be very close to how the real Moody would have acted, so we can draw some conclusions about the real Moody as well. And there is a certain kind of cruelty to his characters, not just to the people he sees as his enemies, but also in the way he thinks his students have to toughen up.

• The irony of course is that Moody and Crouch Jun.’s enemies are the same, though for different reasons. Crouch Jun. despises Death Eaters, but for abandoning his master rather than the crimes they committed.