Goblet of Fire - Part Two (the good stuff)

Location: Beginning of book 5

Pages read: 1819, 2281 to go. 

I finished book 4 last night and started this blog post this morning as a word document but never got a chance to finish or post it. Went and saw Cars 2 -- it was pretty good. :P I'll be reading late into the night.

General Story Stuff

• Some of you may have heard this before, but there’s this theory that Jo uses Ron and Hermione to sort of let you know what’s coming. Whenever Ron is serious about something, he’s wrong, and the opposite for Hermione. Ron is SO sure that Crouch Sr. attacked Krum, but Hermione thinks it was someone else. The most interesting example of this has to do with Snape. On multiple occasions, Ron is so certain Snape is “evil,” but Hermione says we should trust Dumbledore’s judgment.
• When in the Pensieve, this is how he realizes that he’s in a memory: “Dumbledore did not blink, look around at Harry, or indeed move at all. And that, in Harry’s opinion, settled the matter. Dumbledore wouldn’t ignore him like that.” This reflects his growing bond with Dumbledore, but it also foreshadows just how hard it’s gonna be when Dumbles *does* ignore him in book 5.
• Fudge frustrates me SOO MUCH at the end of this book. UGH. He won’t believe Voldy’s back, he won’t remove the dementors from Azkaban…Bleh. Not really an evil character, just stupid. In an interview, I think Jo discusses that one of Jo’s main themes in these books is choosing between what’s right and what’s easy. Fudge is a prime example of a weak character who doesn’t do evil, but refuses to do what’s right because he’s selfish.
• So much of this ending foreshadows book 5. Telling Hagrid and Maxime they have a task, Dumbledore sending messages to the “old crowd,” Fudge claiming Dumbledore and Harry are crazy, Dumbledore having to work in secret against the ministry’s wishes, Harry never getting to stay with Sirius as long as he wants to... even Arabella Figg is mentioned. Jo has to wrap up SO many loose ends in the last few chapters – explain the Crouches’ story, Ludo Bagman, Rita Skeeter – and she does it so well… but she also opens up this whole new can of worms that makes you so excited for the next one. In the same way that book 6 sets you up for book 7, 4 really sets you up for 5.
• I thought this cool. “The weather could not have been more different on the journey back to King’s Cross than it had been on their way to Hogwarts the previous September.” Symbolic weather! Everything has changed now that Voldemort’s back.

Horcrux/Voldemort  Stuff

• “It was Voldemort, Harry thought, staring up at the canopy of his bed in the darkness, it all came back to Voldemort…. He was the one who had torn these families apart, who had ruined all these lives….” Sure, there are other evil characters to blame for some stuff, but sometimes the good characters blame themselves for things. At the end of this book, Harry almost begins to blame himself for Cedric’s death; he also blames himself for Sirius’s death in OotP. But something Dumbledore said in book 3 is important here (I don’t have the exact quote) – that the consequences of our actions are so diverse and unpredictable that we can never know for certain what’s going to happen. It all comes back to Voldy.
• Voldemort: “…and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death…” More useful than Harry realizes, actually. He not only helped his son regenerate; his death was used for a Horcrux.
• Some Voldemort analysis. “Listen to me, reliving family history…” he said quietly, “why, I am growing quite sentimental… But look, Harry! My true family returns….” We get a taste of Voldemort’s sentimental nature; this becomes important when figuring out what the Horcruxes are and where they’re hidden. Second: his *true* family? Voldemort doesn’t want a family, he doesn’t care about them. He does a nice job of keeping them all afraid of him, and that’s how he holds onto power. The only reason people do what he wants is out of fear of him, or to get a slice of power themselves. The Death Eaters are united out of fear and selfishness; the Order of the Phoenix is united out of love and selflessness. Harry and Voldemort are juxtaposed in the same way.
• “You know my goal – to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked…” This goal, to “conquer death,” brings the Deathly Hallows to mind. He ends up so desperately wanting the elder wand because he thinks it’ll take him closer to immortality, but ironically, his quest for immortality leads to his death. This reflects his 2 key weaknesses – he fears death and tries to avoid it, and he discounts those he sees as inferior or weak. He’s blind to the fact that Draco was the one who actually conquered Dumbledore and his wand.
• “Only one power remained to me. I could possess the bodies of others.” As I read this, it struck me that this is very consistent with what we now know about Voldemort and his horcruxes. After trying to kill baby Harry, all that was left of him was the fragmented *piece of soul* that had remained in his body before the curse rebounded. The way horcruxes work is that the *piece of soul* inhabits an object or living thing, human or animal, and “possesses” it (i.e. he has control over Nagini, he’s able to make Harry see what he wants him to see in Book 5, the soul in the diary possesses Ginny…) As a *piece of soul*, the weakened Voldemort could do just that – inhabit and possess things and creatures (snakes, Quirrell…). This is further evidence that Jo knew exactly how the magic of horcruxes worked before she wrote this, and it foreshadows the concept of horcruxes.
• As Harry is escaping, right before he “Accio”s the cup: “Voldemort’s red eyes flamed in the darkness. Harry saw his mouth curl into a smile, saw him raise his wand.” Remember how in an earlier post I discussed how his “eyes gleam red” when he really wants something? I don’t think this passage was just Jo being dramatic; I think it’s consistent with the red gleam thing. Since Voldy’s eyes are totally red now, the gleam of red has turned into a “flaming,” or getting brighter red.
• Perhaps the most important bit of foreshadowing in this book... when Harry tells Dumbledore that Voldemort used his blood: “He said the protection my – my mother left in me – he’d have it too. And he was right – he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face.” For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes. “WOAH! Why is he happy about that?” thought young Zachary the first time he read this book. Well, now we know! It’s yet another connection between Harry and Voldy, and the reason Harry doesn’t die in book 7. The keys to Voldemort’s downfall are all foreshadowed in this book. 

And a pretty significant error I found interesting: "Hermione turned away, smiling at the horseless carriages that were now trundling toward them up the drive.” What!! Harry should be able to see Thestrals now.


Onto Order of the Phoenix! *insert Hedwig's theme* (Whenever I start a new book, Hedwig's theme pops in my head... xD)