Harry Potter and the Re/Read of The Goblet of Fire

Charlas75 Books Challenge for 2014

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Harry Potter and the Re/Read of The Goblet of Fire

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1leahbird
Editado: Ago 13, 2014, 2:18 pm

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Welcome to our group re/read of the Harry Potter series for 2014! There aren't any hard guidelines as to when you should read or what format you should use, we're just happily revisiting (or enjoying for the first time) this wonderful series of books together!

I'm hoping that we'll not only share that we ARE reading, but will celebrate the moments that we love and have a lively discussion of what makes these books mean so much to us!

That said, I would like to see some information when everyone posts, so please use this form when starting your posts:

Format: (book, ebook, audio/ US version, UK version)
Chapter: (mentioning the chapter you are currently discussing will help us keep up with each other and let new readers avoid spoilers!)

example:

Format: Audio/UK
Chapter: 2, The Vanishing Glass


Threads for all the books:

The Sorcerer's Stone
The Chamber of Secrets
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Goblet of Fire
The Order of the Phoenix
The Half-Blood Prince
The Deathly Hallows
The Supplemental Reading List

Otherwise, LET THE FUN BEGIN! Invite your friends!

2Deedledee
mayo 8, 2014, 9:55 pm

This is my favourite Harry Potter. The Tri-wizard tournament has lots of adventure. Harry isn't too whiny. Hermione blossoms.

3crazy4reading
mayo 9, 2014, 7:25 pm

Well I listened to this book. I love this book for the Tri-wizard tournament. The dragons the many different characters we meet. I will be starting the 5th book sometime soon.

4CDVicarage
mayo 10, 2014, 4:15 am

I've just finished re-listening to this as well and really enjoyed it. I still find the beginning, with the World Cup, a bit slow but I do like the way all the clues are there - as we find out at the end! I certainly didn't pick them up on my first reading.

5crazy4reading
mayo 10, 2014, 7:20 am

I know CDVicarage. This was my first time listening to the audio and I picked up on things that I missed when I had read the book.

6foggidawn
mayo 14, 2014, 2:23 pm

I finished reading this last month, but didn't have a lot of comments on it.

7leahbird
Jun 12, 2014, 1:58 pm

Format: UK Audio
Chapter: complete


I too finished this last month but never got around to posting. I don't love this book because I don't like how Hogwarts life (something I love reading about so much) is glossed over for the challenge. But there are a lot of interesting things going on here.

Why in the world is fake Moody so helpful to the students? He helps builds Neville's self-esteem and apparently treats him nicely. I mean, Crouch Jr was in Azkaban for helping to TORTURE Neville's parents! Why does fake Moody teach Harry and his classmates to resist dark spells like the Imperious curse when he should want them weak? Why does he push Harry to consider a job as an Auror? He could have still been a good teacher in their eyes that would have gained Harry's trust without all the extras.

My fondest memories of this book, however, are of how I acquired it. In the summer of 2000, I was 17 and attending the Pre-Collegiate Scholars program at the University of Chicago. It was my first time really away from home alone (I'd been to summer camp for years but it was a mile from my house). It was a really cool experience, dorm life, taking classes with college students, exploring a big city all by myself. We were pretty free to do what we wanted expect that we had an 11pm curfew. We had to check in with our floor monitor by then and not leave the building again. Which was fine.

Except for Harry Potter midnight release night! I had never had the chance to go to a midnight release party because my small town didn't host them but I was in CHICAGO now and you bet I was going to take advantage. I found a small bookstore near campus that was having a party and I was determined to make it.

So I snuck out right after check in. I actually had to climb a tree and drop over a wall to get out unseen. It was very exciting. I ran down to the bookstore and there was this great big party going on. I mingled around, chatted with some people, tried some themed snacks, and waited impatiently until I could get my book at midnight. I was going to curl up in the study lab and read until breakfast when I could get back in my dorm.

At about 11:45, I was talking to some people when a girl approached us. I didn't pay much attention, just kind of glanced at her. And then I did a double take. It was my floor monitor. She looked really mad. And then she started laughing and asked me how I got out. I told her and we had a good laugh. Turns out, if I had just asked about going she would have given me official permission and we could have come together.

We got our books not long after midnight and went to the 24hr cafe down the road and read until the sun came up. I finished the book over the next few days. It's far from my favorite HP, but it will always be the one I remember acquiring the most!

8norabelle414
Jul 8, 2014, 11:38 am

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published FOURTEEN years ago, today. I can't believe it's been so long!

9leahbird
Jul 8, 2014, 12:28 pm

JK Rowling published a short Rita Skeeter gossip column in The Daily Prophet today about Dumbledore's Army, now in their 30s. Iknow it's timed to the World Cup, but maybe this story came out today in honor of this anniversary?

10scaifea
Jul 9, 2014, 9:00 am

14 years?! Dang.

11norabelle414
Editado: Ago 11, 2014, 2:51 pm

Format: British Hardcover
Chapter: Complete


Here's my review:



Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling - At the beginning of his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry learns much more about wizard culture. He attends the Quidditch World Cup and meets foreign wizards, and also sees some remnants of Lord Voldemort’s followers. Once back at school, it is announced that there will be a tournament between representatives of Hogwarts and two other wizarding schools. But underneath the excitement and anticipation, Harry’s burning scar and terrifying dreams indicate something sinister waits just beyond the horizon.

The fourth book in the series is simultaneously the most likeable and the least likely of them all. (Which seems appropriate, since it’s right in the middle.) First, the bad: If there aren’t other wizarding schools in Britain, how can the country sustain a league of at least 12 professional quidditch teams? Why would anyone force a child to compete in a dangerous competition he didn’t volunteer for and is unqualified for, just because a (clearly tampered-with) cup told them to? Why didn’t "Moody" portkey Harry to the cemetery like, the first day of term? Why didn’t any of the THREE competitors who are proficient with a broom think to fly over the maze while it’s growing to see what the layout is? Why does Harry keep using a spell to make his wand face north in a maze? That’s not at all useful. It was also entirely too convenient that a woman who gets captured on vacation in Albania happens to be the one person in the world who knows about Barty Crouch Jr.
And yet, the good is oh so very good. Who doesn’t love a good international competition?? The world-building steps up a notch with the addition of other cultures, and the tournament tasks are the perfect combination of puzzles and thrills. And the plot twist: Barty Crouch Jr.’s disguise as Mad-Eye Moody is oh-so-perfect. Moody is already weird, drinks from a flask, has lots of magical surveillance equipment, and “hates a Death Eater that walked free”. I love rereading and spotting all the lines and plot points which have completely different meanings when you know who Moody is. Just brilliant. Despite its shortcomings, the fourth volume lives up to the expectation of perfect plot intricacies that the previous books have set.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m reading some of the series (including this one) as British editions. As with the previous two volumes, I’ve noticed pretty much zero difference between the editions, which makes me feel a little resentful that Americans were made to wait so long for “translated” editions of the first four books.

12epischel
Ago 28, 2014, 9:00 am

Goblet of Fire is one of my favourites Potter book. If I remember correctly, the audio book introduced me to the world of Harry Potter.

leahbird: Why in the world is fake Moody so helpful to the students? Because that is what everybody, especially Dumbledore, expects from him. Teaching students to resist dark spells. Also, in help Neville he is able to "plant" that special book in Harrys reach (although Harry did not use it). He is not kind to Malfoy because his parents chooses to renounce Voldemort instead of going to Azkaban (like he did). Same with Snape.

norabelle414: Why didn’t "Moody" portkey Harry to the cemetery like, the first day of term? I have always asked that myself. I guess the book would be too short, then :-) Could it be that Crouch Jr. could have got out of Hogwarts without being suspected if Harry had been killed by Voldemort? -- Brooms in the maze: that would not been allowed because the maze would no be a maze anymore.

13norabelle414
Ago 28, 2014, 10:22 am

>12 epischel: If HPatGoF was a comedy (and, you know, nobody DIED in the cemetery) I'd like to think that Moody followed Harry around for the whole year, making things into Portkeys and leaving them in strategic places for Harry to touch. But it was always some other student who touched them instead, and got transported somewhere.
My thought about the brooms wasn't necessarily during the task itself. That maze took months and months to grow, and at any point during that growth process Harry could have flown his broom high up in the air nearby and seen the entirety of the maze. Or possibly even just gone up to the top of one of the castle towers? The layout of the Hogwarts grounds is never very clear (which is probably for the best).

14foggidawn
Ago 28, 2014, 10:36 am

>13 norabelle414: I think that Dumbledore, or perhaps one of the official game-runners, would have put up spells that made it either impossible to fly over the maze area, or impossible to properly see what the maze looked like if you flew over it. But it would have been nice if that had been stated in the book -- Bagman could have said something like, "Now, don't try to fly over it and memorize the way through, because it's enchanted to appear as just a dense thicket from above!"

15norabelle414
Ago 28, 2014, 10:39 am

>14 foggidawn: Indeed, or some variation of the unplottable charm that works on wizards as well. Maybe you could see the maze all you wanted to, but you'd forget what it looked like in 10 seconds.