Death-Defying Triwizard Tournament Task
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Explained
DISCLAIMER: If you have not read the fourth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, please look away now. This blog definitely contains spoilers!
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in this series. It follows Harry’s adventures in his fourth year at Hogwarts, fighting his way bravely through the Triwizard Tournament tasks. The Triwizard Tournament is a huge gathering of wizards from three schools and a witch or wizard is chosen as the champion. The selected Goblet of Fire champions are each subjected to three tasks, each growing in difficulty and danger. Whoever has earned the greatest number of points from the judges wins the Triwizard Tournament and receives 10,000 Galleons.
This blog has been separated into different sections so that it is easier to read and navigate.
First, I start with a little about J. K. Rowling, followed by a summary of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and then my top three funniest moments from the book.
From here, I continue with my top three darkest moments of the book, my top five favorite quotes, and a section where you get to know the characters a little better.
Next, you will be able to take a closer look at Harry’s growth in this book.
Finally, we end with my rating and review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
A little about the Author
J. K. Rowling is a British author who is best known for her popular and much-loved seven-book Harry Potter series. Jo trained as a teacher and began instructing in various schools, but continued writing every spare moment that she had. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. Other well-known books by this author are Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Ickabog.
Since the release of the first Harry Potter book, the series have found great popularity and success worldwide. As of February 2023, the books have sold more than 600 million copies, making them the best-selling book series in history. Rowling has won many awards for her work. She has received an OBE and was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature.
Summary
Unlike the previous books, this story does not start with Harry spending his Summer with the Dursleys. Rather, it is set fifty years before the present day, with a description of how the Riddle family was mysteriously killed.
Their groundskeeper, Frank Bryce, was suspected and then declared innocent. Frank, now an elderly man, wakes in the night and overhears Voldemort and Wormtail plotting to kill a boy.
Frank is discovered and killed by Voldemort on the spot. This causes Harry to wake up, his scar hurting him, which usually was a sign of Voldemort being close. Rowling definitely starts this book with a bang. These books are definitely getting darker.
Before heading to Hogwarts, Harry attends the Quidditch World Cup with the Weasleys. The campsite is attacked by Voldemort’s former followers, known as Death Eaters. Nobody is killed, but the Death Eaters set off the Dark Mark to cause a panic.
Harry starts his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the first mystery of the year is surrounding the entry of Harry’s name into the Triwizard Tournament. Harry does not meet the age requirement to enter the tournament, so it is a shock to everyone when the Goblet of Fire releases his name. Harry is therefore forced to compete in the Triwizard Tournament tasks.
“The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector … the Goblet of Fire.”
The competing schools are Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. The students perceive Harry as cheating his way into the tournament and they quickly turn on him. Hagrid believes Harry’s innocence and shows him the dragons involved in the first task. The second task requires saving a close friend or relative from the lake. The third task demands that the champions overcome a maze filled with deadly obstacles.
When Harry and Cedric reach the Triwizard Cup, they touch it together and are transported outside Hogwarts to a graveyard. Wormtail arrives with Voldemort and kills Cedric with his wand. He then uses Harry’s blood to restore a frail Voldemort back to his full, physical body. Voldemort then summons his Death Eaters and tries to kill Harry in front of them. He fails and Harry manages to escape back to Hogwarts using the Cup.
“He heard Voldemort’s scream of fury at the same moment as he felt the jerk behind his navel that meant the Portkey had worked – it was speeding him away in a whirl of wind and colour, Cedric along with him … they were going back.”
At Hogwarts, Moody pulls Harry into his office to question him and Harry realizes that he is a Death Eater. Harry is saved by the arrival of Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape, who force Moody to reveal himself to be Barty Crouch Junior, a Death Eater who was presumed dead.
Harry recovers from his ordeals in the hospital wing, surrounded by Ron, Hermione and the Weasleys. Dumbledore makes plans to prepare the wizarding world for Voldemort’s return and the school year ends with Harry returning to live with the Dursleys again for the summer.
Top Three Funniest Moments
1. Ron’s note to Harry regarding Quidditch World Cup
“If they say yes, send Pig back with your answer pronto, and we’ll come and get you at five o’clock on Sunday. If they say no send Pig back pronto and we’ll come and get you at five o’clock on Sunday anyway.”
The complete disregard for the Dursley’s decision is hilarious.
2. Fred and George attempting to enter into the tournament
“For a split second, Harry thought it had worked – George certainly thought so, for he let out a yell of triumph and leapt after Fred – but next moment, there was a loud sizzling sound, and both twins were hurled out of the golden circle as though they had been thrown by an invisible shot-putter.”
The idea that Fred and George thought that they could fool a spell Dumbledore himself put around the Goblet of fire, is as absurd as it is funny.
3. Professor Moody turning Malfoy into a ferret
“Professor Moody!’ said a shocked voice.
‘Hello Professor McGonagall,’ said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher.
‘What – what are you doing?’ said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret’s progress through the air.
‘Teaching,’ said Moody.
‘Teach – Moody, is that a student?’ shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms.
‘Yep,’ said Moody.”
Anytime Draco Malfoy gets what he deserves is noteworthy. But a teacher turning a student into a ferret? Only Mad-Eye can do that. Major points to the professor.
Top Three Dark Moments
1. The Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup
“A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing straight upwards, was marching slowly across the field … they didn’t seem to have faces … then he realized that their heads were hooded and their faces masked.”
“High above them, floating along in mid-air, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes.”
“One of the marchers below flipped Mrs. Roberts upside-down with his wand; her nightdress fell down to reveal voluminous drawers; she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd below her screeched and hooted with glee.”
I feel like I don’t even need to add anything here, these quotes are enough of a glimpse into the scene for us to see how dark this moment is in the book. Prior to this, we knew there were people who supported Voldemort and now we have a name for them: Death Eaters – a chilling name in itself.
2. The arrival of Professor “Mad-Eye” Moody
“A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak … A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step … Every inch of his skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing.”
The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher used to be an Auror. Basically, the wizarding world’s equivalent of a federal marshal. His entire job involved catching dark wizards. He’s gruff, eccentric and is not shy to teach his students lessons in somewhat of an exaggerated manner. An example of his darker nature is him teaching his students the Unforgivable Curses in their first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson with him.
“Now … those three curses … Avada Kedavra, Imperious and Cruciatus – are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban.”
3. Voldermort’s rebirth
“But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a #man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.”
“Lord Voldemort had risen again” may be the creepiest line in all 617 pages of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This rebirth of the most powerful evil wizard of all time does, of course, make the list of top three dark moment from the book.
“The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry had not seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face – no child alive ever had a face like that – was flat and snake-like, with gleaming red eyes.”
Excuse me while I shudder for a few minutes! This description gets me every time. Isn’t it just horrifying? This is definitely the darkest moment in the entire book for me.
Top Five favourite Quotes
“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak we are divided.”
“Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.”
“Difference of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.”
“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!”
Get to know the Characters
Harry Potter
In this book, Harry’s name is entered into the Triwizard tournament and he is chosen as the fourth champion. He has no choice but to compete with the other older competitors. Harry’s bravery shines through in every task, every interaction and especially when he comes face to face with Lord Voldemort at the end. More about Harry will be discussed when we look at his growth in this book.
Ron Weasley
This book shows a true test in the friendship between Harry and Ron. When Harry’s name jumps out of the Goblet of Fire, Ron is convinced that Harry put his name in deliberately.
Ron felt left out, but it’s not until Ron sees Harry almost get killed by a dragon in the first task that he apologizes and once again becomes a supportive friend.
Just as things get sorted with Harry, Ron’s troubles with Hermione start. He has always taken Hermione for granted. When he cannot get a date to the Yule Ball, he asks Hermione as a last resort, who tells him she is going with someone else. Ron is utterly jealous of Hermione’s partner and cannot figure out why it bothers him so much.
It is a point to note that Ron has plenty of reasons to be jealous. He has a loving family and great friends, but he is also terribly poor and his family is of a relatively low social standing in the wizarding world. From the beginning, he has been best friends with the famous Harry Potter, who is also quite wealthy, so he hasn’t had it easy at all. Ron’s good-heartedness outshines all his other qualities and this can be seen throughout the book.
Hermione Granger
Since the first book, Hermione has been called a know-it-all. This know-it-all streak comes out in this book in her founding of S.P.E.W – the Society for Protection of Elvish Welfare. While it is true that some house elves are mistreated, as can be seen in the case of Dobby and the Malfoys, not all house elves are treated poorly. Hermione’s heart is in the right place but she is too stubborn to admit to anything that goes against her worldview.
A change in Hermione that takes place in this book is that she suddenly turns beautiful. A change Viktor Krum notices before her good friends, Harry and Ron. Viktor starts hanging around the library, hoping to catch her eye. They become close enough that he asks Hermione to the Yule Ball. Seeing Hermione all dressed up at the Yule Ball excites a whole bunch of feelings in Ron that he’s not ready to deal with.
Amidst the fog of elf politics and hormones, Hermione is still Hermione. She loves a good puzzle and this year the puzzle that has caught her attention is Rita Skeeter. After Hermione crosses Rita publicly, the journalist writes an article about Hermione’s relationship with Krum, implying that she is breaking Harry’s heart. While Hermione does not care about her reputation as a heartbreaker, she does wonder how Rita Skeeter overhears her private conversations with Viktor Krum.
Hermione is clearly the brains of the trio. She teaches Harry how to use a Summoning Charm just before his first Triwizard Tournament task. When Harry is preparing for his third task, Hermione drags out as many books as she can to help him master useful curses.
Professor “Mad-Eye” Moody
Moody bears a lot of scars from his career fighting the Dark Arts, including a chunk taken out of his nose and a peg leg. We only meet the true Moody at the end of the story but we have to assume that Barty Crouch Junior’s characterisation of the real Mad-Eye Moody is pretty accurate, since nobody notices anything off about “Moody”.
Moody is gruff and forbidding but he is also kind at heart. When Neville Longbotton looks miserable after seeing a demonstration of the Cruciatus Curse, which drove both of his parents insane, Moody brings him to his office for a cup of tea and a chat about magical plants, which Neville loves.
Still, at the end of Goblet of Fire, we are left wondering if our impressions of Moody are accurate. Guess we will have to read book five to find out!
Rita Skeeter
Rita is the worst kind of journalist because she is more interested in generating an exciting story than in telling the truth. She also has absolutely no problem with discrediting or exploiting someone to sell her story. In Goblet of Fire, when she “interviews” Harry about being the second Hogwarts Triwizard champion, she presents him as a sad, tragic orphan, which is the last public image Harry wants.
Later, when Hermione shouts at Rita Skeeter for outing Hagrid as a half-giant, making it sound like he is dangerous, Rita publishes an article saying Hermione is stringing along two famous young men, Harry and Viktor Krum.
Worst of all, when Harry firmly turns his back on Rita Skeeter, she writes an article claiming that Harry is dangerously unbalanced. She claims that he is lying about his scar hurting in order to get attention. Cornelius Fudge uses Rita Skeeter’s article to cast doubt on Harry’s account of what happened in the graveyard.
Harry’s growth in this Book
It’s amazing to see Harry grow from book to book. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry is starting to discover girls but he is also still a child in many ways. One of Harry’s defining traits is his courage and bravery, which we often see when he’s competitively playing Quidditch. However, in this book his courage is at its peak when we see Harry take on a feisty Hungarian Horntail dragon with nothing but a flying broom in his corner.
At the same time, Harry isn’t the most emotionally courageous character we have seen. He spends a lot of time worrying over whom to tell about his bad dreams because he is afraid of embarrassment and also does not want to worry his friends. Also, Harry really has to work up the courage to ask Cho Chang to the Yule Ball. So, while Harry is courageous in the face of danger, he struggles to express his feelings, like most fourteen-year-olds.
Harry’s courage gives him the ability to accomplish the bravest thing we see in the entire book. At the end, in the graveyard, in the middle of his duel with Voldemort, Harry decides “he was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek, he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort’s feet … he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself”. He decides to face Voldemort directly, even if the chances of him winning against Voldemort are slim. This decision leads to the Priori Incantatem spell that saves Harry’s life.
The final trait of Harry I want to mention, which I believe is highlighted in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is his sense of fair play. When it really matters, Harry believes in loyalty, honour and truthfulness. An example of this is Harry telling Cedric the secret of the first task so that they have an even playing ground. This is why Harry is considered the ‘hero’, not only because he wins or is the center of attention, but because he represents the good in the fight between good and evil.
My Rating and Review
There is no way I can rate this less than five amazing stars! It is the perfect transition book, in terms of both plot and Harry’s growth, from finally seeing the threat of Voldermort becoming a living being and Harry becoming an adult.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has one of the most interesting set of characters in all the Harry Potter series. It has several new characters from the Triwizard Tournament, the Quidditch World Cup and the Pensieve. Also, this book extends our knowledge of the
wizarding world. So far, we have only seen Hogwarts, one wizarding school, but in this book, we are introduced to major sporting events and even see two other wizarding schools.
There is so much plot packed into this book and it is not rushed at all. This book is filled with the Quidditch World Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, the fight for elves’ freedom, the beginning of the rising of evil and the terrible destiny of Cedric Diggory. There is literally nothing more you can expect from this book. The plot of this book sets up the rest of the series in the direction of a battle between good and evil.
If it was not highly obvious, I would definitely recommend this book, for children, teenagers and adults. I will end this by saying this may be my favourite book of the series.