Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 

Chapter 16: The Goblet of Fire

• I love Ron’s little fanboy moments regarding Krum. And we saw something similar with Hermione and Lockhart (so really you are in no position to judge). But there is no instance of Harry being star-struck, not in the obvious sense. However he does idolize people, namely Sirius and Dumbledore. Which is quite different to how Ron and Hermione react to Krum and Lockhart respectively. Because they hardly interact with them, whereas Dumbledore orchestrated a huge amount of Harry’s life. Ron and Hermione’s hero-worshipping remains harmless, whereas Harry’s has a direct influence on his life and his choices.

• And then Ron dismisses the foreign food, and with everything I know about British Cuisine, he is in no position to judge either.

• Harry mentions that they are barely twenty more students in the Great Hall, so we can say both Durmstrang and Beaxbatons arrived with ten students each. Which either means that their schools teach less students than Hogwarts, if those are all students old enough to participate, or that they already selected students before arriving at Hogwarts. And then both Karkaroff and Madame Maxime stay for the benefit of ten students at Hogwarts, assumingly leaving their responsibilities for their schools to someone else. In case of both these foreign schools it is really a very selective group that takes part in the Triwizard Tournament. I guess the other students just have to read the Daily Prophet to know what is going on?

• I wonder how the Goblet of Fire works though. How could it tell which student was suited best to compete? Does it work like the Sorting Hat, did wizards put some of their wisdom in the Goblet? And in what categories does the Goblet judge? Also it seems like you can’t adjust the selecting process, or otherwise they would have added the age limitation and Dumbledore wouldn’t have needed to draw an age line.

• “Harry thought briefly of Dumbledore’s insistence that nobody under seventeen should submit their name, but then the wonderful picture of himself winning the Triwizard Cup filled his mind again …” – And then this image gets turned around into a nightmare, the childish fantasy becomes horror.

• “[…]he wondered how angry Dumbledore would be if someone younger than seventeen did find a way to get over the Age Line …” – Depends on if you are dealing with book!Dumbledore or movie!Dumbledore.

• Karkoroff’s favouritism of Krum makes me wonder if he manipulated the Goblet as well in some ways in order to make Krum the champion. We learn that all of the Durmstrang students put their name in the goblet, but maybe everyone except Krum put in a blank page, or they all wrote Krum’s name on it? Like imagine if poor Poliakoff would have become champion.

• Also the movie made it look like Durmstrang is an all-boys-school and Beaxbaton respectively an all-girls-school, but the book clearly states that both schools arrived with students of both genders (though I can’t help but think of Karkaroff as a sexiest asshole… again, can you imagine a female Durmstrang champion?).

• I also wonder how the fact that Karkaroff used to be a Death Eater informed the political worldview of his students? And how they felt at Hogwarts, where Harry Potter learns, and a former Auror teaches and Dumbledore, the face of the resistance, is headmaster? We know the Durmstrang students sat at the Slytherin table, so they interacted with students who assumingly shared the same belief system as their head master. We can assume that at least Krum doesn’t share those believes. He dates a Muggleborn girl, and in book 7 we learn that he lost a family member to Grindelwald and is appalled to see his symbol at Fleur and Bill’s wedding. Both Grindelwald and Voldemort believed in the superiority of wizards above Muggles (and to that extent Muggleborns). From all that we know about Krum his reaction to Voldemort would be similar to his reaction to Grindelwald. And I wonder if there were other Durmstrang students, who resented the ideology of their headmaster as well.

• “‘Bet some of them put in last night after we’d all gone to bed,’ said Harry. ‘I would’ve done if it had been me … wouldn’t have wanted everyone watching. What if the Goblet just gobbed you right back out again?’” – I don’t think the Goblet thought of anyone so unworthy that it would have spit the name out again, but it is interesting that Harry immediately thinks of rejection, the same way he thought Hagrid must have made a mistake when he told Harry he was a wizard. Harry has a deeply rooted fear of not belonging, which I think has a lot to do of how the Dursleys treated him.

• “‘We can’t have a Slytherin champion!’” – But imagine if they did and how it would have changed the inter-house-relationships. Oh wait, somebody did. 

• “‘And all the Hufflepuffs are talking about Diggory,’ said Seamus contemptuously. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought he’d have wanted to risk his good looks.’” – Seamus isn’t the only one mentioning Cedric’s attractiveness in a negative way, others have done it as well, though all of them boys. Because attractiveness is so strongly associated with femininity, and ‘real men’ neither look good or care about their looks (see also how Lockhart’s attractiveness had negative associations). They can’t get him down because he is good at Quidditch or school or a general kind person, so the only thing left is his physical appearance. Which speaks lengths of how intimidated and jealous they are. (And yeah, women/girls are the same, we will always dismiss good looking women as shallow, and it is a kind of behaviour I had to unlearn).

• “‘It’d be doin’ ’em an unkindness, Hermione,’ he said gravely, threading a massive bone needle with thick yellow yarn. ‘It’s in their nature ter look after humans, that’s what they like, see? Yeh’d be makin’ ’em unhappy ter take away their work, an’ insultin’ ’em if yeh tried ter pay ’em.’” – The way Hagrid voices it makes it sound like House Elves deeply care about their masters – and some do, like Winky. But others resent their masters, like Dobby did, and are bound to them anyway. Hermione tries to change the nature of House Elves and Hagrid is right that she can’t, but I think it might be more important to change how wizards see House Elves and treat them. To see them as beings that have feelings and needs and opinions and deserve their respect and kindness. If their masters can see them like that House Elves might see themselves as that as well. And how Harry treats both Dobby and later Kreacher with kindness becomes massively important for the plot and even for his own survival.

• “They couldn’t hear what Hagrid was saying, but he was talking to Madame Maxime with a rapt, misty-eyed expression Harry had only ever seen him wear once before – when he had been looking at the baby dragon, Norbert.” – I don’t like what this implicates about Hagrid’s relationship to Norbert. #menwholovedragonstoomuch