Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The fourth book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire gives us a complete surprise when it starts not with Harry, but with a history of a man we've never heard of in a town we've never seen. However, as with most everything Rowling puts in her books, it's an intrugal part to the overall plot. This is the longest adventure to date, and many people didn't think that children would have the patience to read all of it. How wrong they were! Most kids couldn't put it down, and there were several cases of kids reading until three or four in the morning just because they didn't want to stop! I myself thoroughly enjoyed every single smackeral of it! The longer the better, that only gives us more hours of enjoyable reading in Harry's specail presence! The fourth book is also easily the scariest book to date. Rowling came into a lot of criticism for writing the death of a person into this book. I would just like to point out that death has been rampant throughout the books. In the first chapter of the first book, Harry's parents die! It's a fact of life. A reality that most kids are touched by sometime or another in their lives, and let's face it, everyone is going to die. I myself support Rowling in writing her adventure the way she sees fit to write it. This world is her creation, and if we start dictating how things should be and how they should happen, what good is it to have her write the story at all? If you don't think you can handle charactors dying, my advice is to go and read some nice Beatrix Potter and leave us to enjoy our novels.

Synopsis

The fourth book starts with an obscure history, that becomes intregal to the plot later on. It seems as if it were only a nightmare that Harry had when he wakes up on Private Drive. We're treated in this book not only to another visit to the burrow, (where we get to meet the two older Weasley boys, Bill and Charlie), but to the Quidditch World Cup as well. In fact that is where the reign of terror begins.

When the kids make it to school they get another surprise and we find out about more wizarding schools. The students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are delightfully written in a thorough, if somewhat stereotypical (for the magical world) fashion. The Triwizard tournament is to go on all year, and the fun and games really begin.

I really can't say much else without giving major spoilers, so just know that you need to be prepared for magic, dragons, mermaids, mazes, giant blast ended skrewts, nosy reporters, unwanted press attention, bad publicity, lies, deciet, cheating, impersonation, alliances, dates, dances, fighting, betrayal, surprises, and all around good fun. (Not necesarily in that order)

If you don't wish to run into spoilers, then, I suggest you stop here and go on to a different page.

My ranking and favorites

OK, this one is my favorite of them all thus far. Why? It's so full of everything! Harry really develops a lot in this one, and he has to face so much and do it on his own. You get to see a lot of his charector shine through when he and Ron are on the outs. Plus it's so exciting and packed full of action! He gets his first crush and we get to see what kind of girls he's interested in. (Although I wouldn't pick Cho for Harry, she's better than Ginny) Not to mention the total creeps you get towards the end. We get to see Dumbledore's power shine through for maybe the first time. He is usually described as old, and wise, but we get the sense that he's not out of the running yet! His wisdom will lead them to a victory if his troops will fall into order and stop fighting amongst the ranks (Snape! and Sirius among others). Voldemort has never been more evil, Harry has never been more courageous, and nothing has ever been so exciting before! Need I say more?

Some of my favorite parts in here are:
• Mr. Weasley's arrival to Private Drive
• The Quidditch world cup (Old Mundungus Fletcher is a riot)
• Mrs. Weasley (always)
• The triwizard tournament announcements (Wood is especially amusing)
• Hermione's House-Elf-Liberation gambit (slave labor that's what it is)
• Harry's name coming out of the goblet
• Harry and Rita Skeeter in the closet (I have not got tears running down my cheeks!)
• The wand weighing ceremony
• Ludo Bagman
• The tasks (all of them, all of them!)
• Ron making up to Harry
• Hagrid and Madame Maxime
• Dobby's Christmas present (ha ha ha ha)
• The Yule Ball
• Ron during and after the yule ball
• Hermione dating Krum!!!! (so funny after all the things she said about him)
• The trio and dumbledore talking to Hagrid
• Hagrid's trust in Harry
• Moody acting like Lupin
• Dobby helping Harry save his Weezy!
• Harry in response to Prof. Trelawny's predictions (Just so long as it's not drawn out)
• *shudder* The third task ending and all chapters thereafter
• Dumbledore's triumph
• Sirius turning from a dog into himself (shutup mum it's all right!)
• Sirius and Snape shaking (touching) hands
• Dumbledore telling the students the truth
• The trio and the twins hexing Malfoy and his cronies!!!!

Above are the differing illustrations of Harry from the fourth book covers. I was more staisfied with these than the others, but Daniel Radcliffe still comes the closest to my idea of what Harry looked like, so I added him in.

Mistakes in book 3

We'll start off with the covers and you can see them by visiting another site via the links page.

Covers

I think it's awful how little attention some of these artists paid to Rowling's descriptions. Harry is still seen in most of the covers with muggle clothing on. If wizards wore muggle clothing all the time they wouldn't be wearing robes. (And the fiasco at the Quidditch world cup wouldn't have been quite as humerous) Uncle Vernon dislikes these "weirdos" for a reason! Secondly, even though most of the artists have caught on that Harry has black hair now, one of them still looks blond! Most of the covers are actually really good despite the former errors. They depict the mermaids, or the dragons, and none of them look exactly alike. I do have complaints about the mermen though. Rowling describes them in pretty good detail, yet they are mostly still romanticized just like the one in the prefects bathroom painting. The dragons are all different too, and one cover has them all flying on a leash with two little people holding them down....I don't think so! One has the triwizard egg open with a paper and a bunch of blue, red, and yellow flames. The egg is empty! And of course we still have our cover that dresses our hero like a joker, though the other champions look fairly normally dressed.

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Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 5

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