Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Book Review

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Schools come together for an ultimate competition of magical ability in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The wizarding world takes begins to take the center stage in this edition of the series as our characters begin their turn into the next phase of the series.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the 4th edition to the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The largest book in the series up to this point clocks in at 734 pages shared between 37 chapters. Harry is thrust into a competition that he did not sign up for that is deadly and he is under qualified for. Along the way new mysteries come to light that Harry and the gang must solve before it’s too late.

Triwizard Tournament

This book introduces for the first time different areas of the wizarding worlds schools that compete in something called the TriWizard Tournament. IT’s a deadly prestigious event that is being hosted by Hogwarts. The tournament is a series of challenges that 3 victors; 1 per school compete in for fame and glory.

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We are introduced to schools of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. These schools like Hogwarts are from different locations in the Europe region of the world. Along with the ministry on magic taking a role in this tournament and the wizard media trying to capture every moment, this becomes an easy way into the full world of magic.

I will have to say though that this book deviates from the normal of the series the most in that it’s very focused on the tournament and not so much on the school side of things. That being said, the character growth in this book is substantial and sets the pace for the rest of the series. We get a true sense that the main characters are becoming fully enveloped into the world at this point and truly care about what is happening inside and outside of the school by the end of the book. In the past if felt that we were only feeling ramifications to the goings of inside Hogwarts, but this has quickly grown from Prisoner of Azkaban to Goblet of Fire.


Goblet of Fire World Building

Another example of this is at the early end of the book when Harry and Ron and Hermione attend the Quidditch World Cup. This is the most popular wizard sport and shows how vast something is as well as some of the interaction that the ministry of magic needs to perform to have such an event. It’s parts like these in this book that show the reader that the world is much larger than we have so far been reading about. It also is a great place to set up events that will follow these characters throughout the rest of the book. Everything from the conclusion to the game and how one team beat the other to the attack on the camp ground that everyone is celebrating in.

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There is a point in this book where Harry and Ron get into a fight that lasts for several chapters. Up to this point, there has not been a falling out yet with the two characters which was starting to feel unbelievable. Harry, being as famous as he is gets everything handed to him and finds himself in unbelievable circumstances year after year, while Ron is the exact opposite. He only gets a taste of that treatment by association to Harry. After several years of the same things happening over and over again to Harry, it’s no surprise that this starts to get on his nerves.

This part of the story that some people may find tedious and annoying, really humanizes some of our main characters. We have all felt something like what Ron or Harry is going through in our lives and that is a strength that this book has. Dealing with the issues and coming to a realization at the end that is down to earth and shows that the relationship is a normal one and that our main cast are not robots through this series.

The tournament throughout this book gives us new magic abilities as well as some really cool brand new ideas to the show such as fully grown dragons, or the magic level of students and the end years of their school experience and how they compare to Harry. I find that this is all really well realized without getting too in my face. At the same time, maybe this is ok with the parents of the students to compete in such a deadly event, but it seems like something pretty extreme with the amount of danger these kids are put through. Let's all take a second to remember that they are ALL kids.

That takes me to my next point. As a YA reader, this may seem fine, but as I age, these stories fall into that YA trap where the events begin to outway the age of the characters. Yes, I understand that the tournament was meant for 17 to 18 year old wizards. But putting a 14 year old into the same situation just seems unbelievable. Harry is barely a teenager and is competing with what we are told are adult level wizards.

New Characters

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With that I want to touch on some of the new recurring characters as this book introduces several of them. We get to meet Ron’s brother Charlie, who works with dragons. We also get to know the champions Cedric Diggory from Hogwats’ Hufflepuff. Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons and Victor Krum from Durmstrang, who also happens to be a professional Quidditch player. Some of these characters will be reoccuring in the future while others are a 1 time read just due to locations the series is based off. All of these characters are unique to the story but do not stand out very much. They are all pivotal to the story though.

Though the challenges are cool they do detract from what we know of the series somewhat. There is much less talk of school and increasing amount about school relationships as well as talk of the tournament. I think that this is a necessary transition going into the later series that was hinted at in the book prior, but is very heavy handed in this book. With that said, this story can be split very easily into 5 parts. The introduction, the first task, the second task, third task, and the end. Where it felt that the previous book was attempting to do this with seasons of the year.

The Start of Something Bigger

I would say that this book is the last in the lighter hearted books of the series, as the end of this book leads to the beginning of a new form to the series. I will not spoil any of that here but I will say that it was well handled and was an epic climax to the story. I am sure that many have ready the book already, but I want to make this a friendly spoiler free review.

It was around this book that I actually picked up the series with and started reading them for myself when I was young, so my opinions may be slightly shared from that age. But this book delivers what it intends to do. It grows the characters at an accelerated pace as really expands the entire world. I think that is one of J.K. Rowling's biggest strengths as a writer. She is able to build a cohesive world that is just enough believable that my mind can fill in the rest. She keeps things growing at a rate with the reader as well. If you were to compare Sorcerer's stone with Goblet of Fire, you would notice a tonal difference and that only grows with the next editions to the series. It’s done in a very subtle way throughout the books that by the end, I got the feeling that the series grew with me.

Conclusion

Goblet of Fire may not be the strongest addition to the series and honestly is in the bottom half, but it’s still a good read. If you are reading through the entire series, you cannot skip this book either. So enjoy the introduction of these new characters and the expansion of the world. This book is worth the read and like all the books in the series is a requirement to read. There are so many new character introductions that will be important and events that will be important to the future books as well.

If you want to find out where this book ranks in the series you can check out our ranking list for the Harry Potter book series here!

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