Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Time to review Goblet of Fire. OR Should I say...

The best book in this entire series.

  

I have to admit, until this book, I was still trying to wrap my head around the phenomenon that was Harry Potter. Is this a good series? Oh yes absolutely, but is it: I am going to name my dog Sirius, my child Harry, going to get a tattoo of 56 different HP quotes, write an entire page of the book on a wall inside my house good?

  

This book was the turning point for me. This book developed and cemented my love for Harry. A main character that, until now, I had no emotional attachment to. Their personalities flourished under JK Rowling's otherworldly ability to write about teenage angst and embarrassment.

For the entirety of this book, I was a teen again. I remembered every awkward stage I ever had. I remembered what it felt like to wish you were noticed, while thinking you'd rather die than do be the center of attention. I remembered the ultimate bliss, chaos and disaster that it was to grow up.

Harry, Ron and Hermione are officially little grown people in my eyes. And I not only grew to love them as friends, but respect them as mini adults, which made me extremely emotional. I have always wanted to be a mother, and reading this series for the first time as an adult made me think: Wow, is this what I am going to feel when I see my children turn into teenagers? Confused, but proud?

  

I don't even think I need to get into how fantastic the world building in this book is, how imaginative and utterly insane these characters are. How many layers and levels there are to them. I remember mentioning this on my review for Azkaban, we could spend literal hours debating every single character and we would never reach an agreement.

(*cough* snape *cough* - he's not that bad if you're read this as an adult, you guys are just too attached to the hatred you had for him as a child to let go. you just missed a lot of things about his duality and his capability for love and courage because you were 7 and you had no ability to read between the lines)

  

As for the writing itself, this was the most action packed, exciting, hilarious book in the series so far. It is better than Azkaban for sure, and I barely noticed how long it was.

So yeah, Goblet of Fire is why I can now confidently say:

> You want to spend one thousand dollars on a Harry Potter inspired Christmas tree? I mean, why wouldn't you?

You just bought a 850 dollar Hogwarts Lego set? Understandable.

Do you have the sorting hat tattooed on your forehead? I mean, we all get silly sometimes.

Do you own more Harry Potter merch pieces than you own underwear? Of course you do.

n   So here I am, anointing Goblet of Fire the PEAK of the Harry Potter series. n

Five stars ⭐ Duh.

Excelencia pura. Me encantó. Creo que este es mi favorito de la saga por ahora. En Harry Potter y el Cáliz de Fuego se desarrolla una prosa más madura y oscura. No puedo decir nada más; mi amor por este libro es indescriptible.

—Saludémonos con una inclinación, Harry —dijo Voldemort, agachándose un poco, pero sin dejar de presentar a Harry su cara de serpiente—. Vamos, hay que comportarse como caballeros... A Dumbledore le gustaría que hicieras gala de tus buenos modales. Inclínate ante la muerte, Harry.

Ahhh uwielbiam ten tom.

This is by far, so far, the darkest book of them all. Grim is the beginning of the book, grimmer is the foreshadowing and grimmest is the ordeal through which Harry alone survives.

Harry's trick of conveying only what he sees or dreams of is well poised in the book's narrative. It's the balance of the known and unknown that is intriguing. So many things happen.

One can barely cope with the events in the book. And we have to sort them according to what our theories are. Harry Potter is extraordinary in his ordinariness. Magic is so innately superficial in book 4, that's it's used as a tool rather than a luxury. That's it, from me.

Act 4 of 7, gents! And I’m stuck somewhere betwixt 4 and 5 stars for this one, so I’ll just write this review, pop on back to the beginning and smack a rating on this bad boy. (Disclaimer: I am on Hour 26 post-wisdom teeth surgery, on some painkillers no one should turn their nose up at, and desperate for solid food and human interaction. So in other words, bear with me, because this may be...somethin’.)



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Okay, let’s start with our characters. I always gotta discuss the same collection of several. Both Harry and Ron are pretty consistently eh characters for me (except in the first book, in which I really enjoyed Harry). Here, instead of being eh, I found them...annoying? It drove me absolutely insane that Harry kept procrastinating his clues - like no yeah, do your Divination homework the night it’s assigned, but please put the life-or-death clue off to the side for now. And don’t even get me started on their constant, needless bickering. Ugh. HOW ARE YOU BOTH SOMEHOW EQUALLY ANNOYING HERE?



Neville, on the other hand? Cemented his status as a fave o’ mine. His backstory is great. He really deserves to be in Gryffindor, the brave li’l guy, and I just want to give him a big hug. Snape, meanwhile....Well, somehow he outdoes himself here. I just don’t know how I’m going to hold onto this rant until book 7. God, you guys, get ready for a tsunami of anger, I guess.



And let’s discuss that feminist message, shall we? I, first off, love that my perhaps-all-time-favorite character Hermione gets political as hell in this one. Mad respect, girl. And for a cause that she’s laughed at for, even one that would make her life far, far easier in every means if she just backed off it! (I’m seeing some parallels to feminism here….) Plus, her defeat of Rita Skeeter, who taunted her for her appearance and reduced her meaning as a person to the boys she spent time with, is just amazing.



And don’t even get me started on the representation of women in professional sports in this book! Fabulous enough that almost half of the Gryffindor quidditch team is female, but the fact that there are women competitors in the Quidditch World Cup? Amazing! There’s no underestimating the empowerment that representation lent to young, female readers who dreamed of being athletes.



If only this wonderful treatment of women - and we know that Rowling is a tried-and-true feminist - extended to the Triwizard Tournament. But alas, all we get is...Fleur. Fleur’s only trait is her beauty (cough cough, reminds me of someone we know, cough cough, CHO F*CKING CHANG), she (like Rita Skeeter to Hermione) is reduced to the boys she spends time with/thereby must be flirting with (Cedric, the Ravenclaw quidditch captain), and, worst of all, she’s not a good competitor. She gives an eh performance in the first task, receives pity-points in the second, and is ignored and eliminated in the third. Ms. Rowling, my love, couldn’t she at least use her looks cunningly to distract her opponent? If you were only going to give us one girl competitor out of four, couldn’t she at least be, well, good?



There were fewer stupid mistakes in this one, but there were still some. One being that somehow magic-less mermaids painted pictures of themselves on a rock...underwater. Unless they’re sourcing that fancy schmancy under-da-sea paint, they should not be able to do that. Also, the search for Sirius is never mentioned by the many (many, many, many, MANY) members of the Ministry of Magic we are CONSTANTLY seeing in this book. Or by Rita Skeeter. Which doesn’t make sense, because that search was a big f*cking deal. (And don’t you think ol’ Skeeter would want to bring up that failing when she’s writing inflammatory articles about Hogwarts and/or the Ministry?)



But this comes down to the same thing all these reviews come down to: the world. Goblet of Fire gives us the biggest look into the Wizarding World since Sorcerer’s Stone (Quidditch World Cup! Triwizard Tournament! The operations of the Ministry of Magic!), and because I love looking at this world so flippin’ much (plus fewer teeny errors) I have to give this a high rating.



Bottom line: definitely better than the second and third, and maybe (MAYBE!) an almost-tie for favorite-so-far with the first one. The feminism contains some mixed messages, there are a couple things that don’t make sense, and I still haven’t found a way to kill a fictional character (but when I do, watch your back, Severus). But the world, Hermione, Neville’s story, and a couple other great things overcome all that. This book rocks! Hurray!

Sports Star Shocker. Leading Triwizard Champions abducted by Arch-villain! "There's no respect for fair play in the sporting arena these days!" - Hogwart's Herald

JKR pulled out all the stops and weaved together a real multi-layered winner.

But, wait, some of the minor characters have a word or two to say, they always do, never getting enough time on page to express themselves properly.

Beware! Dangerous and possibly indiscreet comments ahead - Read at your own Risk!

The Triwizard Tournament has ended.

The Blast-Ended Skrewt (Speaking to the Sphinx after everyone has gone home) "Hey babe, how about you and I shoot on down to Hogsmeade and get wasted on shots?"

The Sphinx: (Looking prim) "I'll let you know, I'm a good girl."

The Blast-Ended Skrewt (Rolling out his sucker) "Get a load of this little puppy. You'd be surprised how flexible it is."

The Sphinx (Rolls her eyes) "Well, Okay then ... By the way, do you like riddles?"

The Blast-Ended Skrewt (Shrugs his shoulder plates) "What's a riddle?"

The Sphinx (Sighs) (Soto voce) "Not another one... Where oh where am I gonna find a real man?"

Buckbeak (Pops his head around the corner of the hedge maze) "Yoohoo!"

And there it is! Oh, there were a couple of minor hiccups but what the hell - easy to ignore given how good everything else was. Now it's time to get started on The Order of the Phoenix.

Strongly Recommended: A solid enjoyable, 5 'Sports Rule at School,' stars.

Reread this in March 2023 with the fine folk over at Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

“The truth is generally preferable to lies.”
-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

JK Rowling knows how to write highly readable text. She specializes in short, highly digestible paragraphs. The pages flow pretty quickly.

She also elevates the problems of Harry Potter from just one boy to good versus evil.

However, this book was too long. I wish that Rowling shortened the book, cutting out Rita Skeeter, Quidditch, and The Yule Ball. She could have easily sold these bits of Harry Potter as short stories.

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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