Who wrote the Goblet of Fire?

Who wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?

Sounds like a silly question, doesn't it? Of course J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Her name is right there on the cover, she has publicly claimed it and accepted credit for it.

But I am not sure that the J.K. Rowling who wrote the four Harry Potter book was the same person as the J.K. Rowling who wrote books one, two, three and five.

The Rowling who wrote most of the Potter books is a master story teller, a clear and technically perfect writer, a person who cares about the details as much as she cares about the grand themes of her work.

The Rowling who wrote The Goblet of Fire, on the other hand, seems to me at least to have been a different person: a person in a rush, under pressure to take advantage of the building success of her first three books and publish book four as soon as she could. 

The first three Harry Potter books were published in consecutive years -- 1997, 1998 and 1999 -- and each came in at between 200 and 300 pages. That's a remarkable creative pace but, considering the relatively brevity of the books and the simplicity of their plots, eminently reasonable. And these books are masterpieces, technically perfect in the details and creatively impressive in their overall achievement.

Goblet comes in at a whopping 636 pages but was still published only a year after The Prisoner of Azkaban. And, if you read it carefully, it is a sloppy sloppy book.

At a macro level, the plot is hyper-convoluted and nonsensical: once Voldemort manages to place Barty Crouch Jr. at Hogwarts with access to Harry, the entire Triwizard Tournament is rendered unnecessary. Crouch could simply port-key Harry to the graveyard on any one of the many occasions he had access to our young hero and, in the process, Crouch himself would not have had to be sacrificed.

Further, as I have pointed out elsewhere, there are significant problems with key points in this book, problems that should have been caught by Rowling in the writing:

1. Wormtail killed Cedric Diggory with his own wand and yet, when Harry's wand forces Voldemort's wand to regurgitate its most recent spells ("priori incantatem") in reverse order, Cedric emerges as if Voldemort's wand had killed him;

2. In the same "priori incantatem" scene, Harry's parents emerge from Voldemort's wand in the wrong order: it is made clear throughout the books that Voldemort murdered James Potter first, then was forced to murder Lily Potter in order to get to infant Harry, and so Lily should have emerged from Voldemort's wand first -- but James does; and

3. Rita Skeeter must have overheard the entire scene involving Harry, Dumbledore, Fudge, Snape, McGonagall, Sirius Black and the others in the Hospital Wing at the end of the book, including the confrontation between Fudge and Dumbledore -- once Hermione catches her at the very end of that scene, Skeeter could have been forced to write and publish the entire true story immediately so as to force Fudge to admit the truth. And render much of the plot of Book Five unnecessary.

Even so, it is in the details of the writing that the sloppiness becomes unhappily apparent.

I have chronicled in previous posts how skilled Rowling is at providing the reader background information from previous books in interesting ways while still moving the plot of the current book forward effectively. In Chapter 2 of the Goblet, however, she simply slaps it all into the story in long expository paragraphs. This continues in Chapter 3 and, despite a promising opening chapter, we are almost 40 pages in before the main plot even begins.

The book is also rife with the kind of small grammatical errors (for example, subject-verb disagreements, especially when she uses collective noun such as "group of students" but then uses the verb in its plural form "group of students were") that Rowling usually avoids, with run-on sentences (... and ... and ... and ... but) and with examples where she tells us something rather letting us discover it through action and dialogue.

For example, I opened the book at random and came up with this quote as an example of a run-on sentence:

'Lovely,' said Rita Skeeter, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned finger's had Harry's upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering him out of the room again and opening a nearby door.

 It is possible, of course, that the failure is on the part of Rowling's editors -- perhaps all of her draft manuscripts arrived at the publisher's office replete with errors and the editors whipped them into shape.

Whoever it was, the fourth Harry Potter book fails to live up to the exceptional quality of writing of the other six. And I think it's because Book Four was a significant rush job. Even though it is a mammoth tome, neither Rowling nor her publishers saw fit to take the time necessary to make sure it was of the same quality as her earlier novels in their rush to publish it for their adoring and lucrative public.

I just noticed that Rowling made a boo boo

People seem shocked when I tell them that I am constantly in the process of reading a Harry Potter novel -- that there is not a day that goes by when I am not somewhere at the start, in the middle or nearing the end of one of the seven novels by J.K. Rowling.

I've lost count of how many times I've read them (though conservative estimates place the number at 25).

So how is that I missed this?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the chapter entitled "Veritaserum". Page 594 of the Canadian first edition, published in 2000. Eighth line from the bottom.

Barty Crouch Jr. has already transformed back into himself after being stunned by Dumbledore and deprived of his next dose of Polyjuice Potion. The real Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody has been discovered in the bottom of his own magical chest and Barty Crouch Jr., under the influence of three drops of Veritaserum, is explaining everything to Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Harry and Winky, the house elf.

Crouch's transformation back into himself is complete and Rowling has been referring to him as "Crouch" for almost an entire page. Then Dumbledore asks him:

'How did your father subdue you?'

And, in the eighth last line of page 594, Rowling writes the response:

'The Imperius curse,' Moody said. 'I was under my father's control....'

"Moody said" is the tag. Not "Crouch said". "Moody said". Even though Crouch has fully transformed back into himself and Rowling has been referring to him as "Crouch" for more than a page, somehow "Moody" sneaks back in when it is clearly Crouch who is speaking.

How did I miss that error in all my 24 previous readings of the book? How did Rowling miss it in her original writing of the scene, in her numerous reviews and revisions? How did her editors miss it?

To be frank, I missed it because I am always, even after more than 20 readings, so caught up in the action at this point that I speed read the entire chapter. This is the first time I've been able to slow myself down enough to notice things... including continuity errors.

Wow. I'm sure a million other Harry Potter fans have spotted this error in the past but it's the first time I've seen it. It's like Harry Potter is new to me again... after 24 readings.

Ah, the stories Bellatrix's wand could have told!

So I'm reading The Deathly Hallows in French and I have come to the scene at Shell Cottage where our hero trio are about to apparate to Diagon Alley to attempt to break into Gringott's.

Hermione expresses her horror at having to carry the captured wand of Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry tells her it should help her live the part. Ron tells her to imagine all the powerful magic that has been done with that wand.

Ron's comment only serves to make matters worse as Hermione points out, with absolute disgust, that  Bellatrix had used that exact wand to torture Neville's parents into madness and then to kill Sirius Black.

Harry's immediate reaction is one of revulsion. He expresses the wish to throw the wand away, to get as far from it as he possibly can.

It's too bad he didn't remind himself of Priori Incantatem, the spell that forces a wand to reveal the spells it has previously cast in reverse order.

We saw Priori Incantatem in the graveyard in The Goblet of Fire when Voldemort returns to bodily form -- Harry's wand forces the Dark Lord's wand to spit out shadows (albeit talking shadows) of its most recent victims, including (I believe erroneously) Cedric Diggory and Harry's parents -- and, earlier in the seventh novel, Harry reminds Hermione and Ron that, by using Priori Incantatem on Hermione's lost wand, the Death Eaters will soon learn that Harry's original wand had been broken.

In that graveyard scene, remember, the shadows that emerged from Voldemort's wand of his recent victims were actually able to speak to Harry and to take steps to protect him as he made his escape. In a way, while simply shadows of spells past, they were also thinking beings.

So it's too bad that Harry doesn't think to perform Priori Incantatem on Bellatrix's wand so as to get a chance to speak, at least briefly, to his godfather. I'm not sure what good it would have done any one, to be honest -- it's not like Sirius would have any great insights into the Deathly Hallows or how to break into Gringott's or what the last three Horcruxes were -- but it might have given Harry, Hermione and Ron a welcome moment with their beloved mentor.

Why does no one blame Harry for Cedric's death?

I hereby apologise to J.K. Rowling for all of the nitpicking in which I indulge in this blog. She has created a remarkably complex, fascinating and consistent world in the seven Harry Potter novels and, considering the intricacy of the many plots and subplots, she leaves surprisingly few holes for detail-oriented people with all the time in the world (like me) to exploit.


That being said, let me ask this:
1) if the official stand of the Ministry of Magic is that Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory were not transported to the graveyard, that Cedric Diggory was not murdered by Peter Pettigrew in that graveyard and that Voldemort did not return to full power at the end of The Goblet of Fire; and
2) if the Ministry wishes to discredit Harry Potter for claiming that Voldemort has, in fact, returned; and
3) if Cedric Diggory died at the end of Tri-Wizard Tournament when the only person, according to the Ministry's version of events, who was near or with him was Harry Potter;


WHY HASN'T THE MINISTRY BLAMED HARRY POTTER FOR CEDRIC DIGGORY'S DEATH?


Fleur Delacour had already been removed from the maze. Victor Krum had been stunned and was out of action. It would seem an easy thing for the Ministry to lay the blame for Cedric's death at the feet of Harry, the only other person then inside the maze.


Even if they didn't want to charge him with murder (and face the possibility of being forced to admit they could not prove the charge), at least they could use the power of the press and the power of public opinion to suggest that he was in some way to blame. And to suggest that Harry's insistence that Voldemort has returned is simply an attempt to throw the blame for Cedric's death elsewhere.


I don't recall a single moment in the fifth, sixth or seventh books when anyone (friend, foe or Death Eater) even implies that Harry might be responsible for the death of Cedric Diggory. I wonder why.

Spare parts and Diggory's death

Death is a part of Harry Potter. We all know that. The entire series of novels is set into motion by the brutal murder of Lily and James Potter and an almost unspeakably ruthless act -- the attempt to murder an infant, just over a year old.

I would argue, however, that it is the matter-of-fact, entirely needless murder of Cedric Diggory at the end of book four that provides the series its most brutal moment.

Diggory does not need to die. Rowling could have spared him simply by having him touch the Tri-Wizard Cup a split second later than Harry and get left behind in the maze while Harry is hurtled hundreds of miles to the graveyard to face the Dark Lord. Voldemort could have spared Diggory simply by ordering Wormtail to stun him and forget about him, rather than kill him. Wormtail could have refused to kill him, could have chosen to stun Diggory simply because his murder is such a brutal, needless, cruel act.

Diggory's death is not necessary to the rest of the plot of The Goblet of Fire. After Harry brings his body back to Hogwarts, we see one immediate scene as the shock of Diggory's murder spreads through the crowd and sends his father into grieving hysterics, but no plot point, no future development hinges on Diggory being dead.

Diggory's death is important, however, and perhaps my comment above that "Diggory does not need to die" is not entirely accurate. Cedric dies because Rowling needs to send a clear, ruthless message -- to the characters who are on the side of good in the books and to us as readers -- that Voldemort is back and as brutal as he ever was. With this scene in the graveyard, everything changes.

We are no longer reading simple young-adult fiction where, if death occurs, it occurs off stage, it is crucial to the plot and it occurs for a reason. No, we're reading stories about the most evil sorcerer the world has ever seen, under whose rule death is a common-place, everyday thing, death occurs as often and as casually as the arrival of the owl post, the teaching of classes, the eating of meals.

When Voldemort, still in his almost powerless, infant form, hisses to Wormtail, "Kill the spare," the universe changes. We, as readers, learn that Rowling will pull no punches from here on out. Evil will be evil in every sense of the word. And we learn that Voldemort's cruelty knows no bounds. He will kill with impunity, almost without thought, certainly without remorse. And finally, we learn that Voldemort's followers will carry out his most cruel, most senseless orders without question, without consideration of morality.

And the word "spare" is important. It hits us like a hammer. In the Dark Lord's mind, Cedric Diggory is not a young man, filled with hope of a bright future, kind, funny, handsome, beloved by his family and his friends... he is a spare part to the story, an accidental element that must be swept aside for Voldemort to achieve his goals.

In the French translation, Voldemort hisses "Tue l'autre". This translates, as far as I understand, as "Kill the other". It makes sense, sure, but I'm not sure it has the impact of "Kill the spare." I'm not sure it sends the same ruthless message.

Decisions, descisions: what if Harry had failed at the second task?

J.K. Rowling writes suspense scenes very very well. Even after more than 20 readings, there are still sections of her books that I simply cannot force myself to read slowly. I get so caught up in the suspense, I just fly through the section.


One such passage is the part in The Goblet of Fire where Harry, Hermione and Ron rush to figure out a way for Harry to gain the ability to breathe under water for at least an hour for the second task of the TriWizard Tournament. As you will recall, the three work desperately together in the library for about a month, then, the day before the task, Hermione and Ron are called away and Harry continues to research, even as the final hours before the task fly past.


Finally, Dobby saves the day, first by waking Harry in the library ten minutes before the task is to begin and second by providing Harry with the magic plant gillyweed, that gives him gills.


After dashing through the section, however, and forcing myself to start to get ready for work, it occurred to me: what if J.K. had decided to let Harry fail on this task? Would it have made any difference at all to the outcome of the book?


As a writer of middling success, I am fascinated by the writing process of talented and successful authors. I am amazed at the number of decisions writers have to make with almost every paragraph of their books, decisions that will have a significant impact on the rest of the novel.


So we have Ms. Rowling, planning out her fourth Harry Potter novel, and deciding: Harry has to be successful in all three tasks; he has to be the fastest to get the egg from the dragon; he has to show his moral fiber in completing the second task; and he has to agree to a tie with Cedric Diggory at the end of the third task.


The book is fantastic so I have no quibble with these decisions but... how would the book have changed if J.K. had decided to have Harry fail in task one or two or both?


The structure of the third task is such that even a failure in one of the two earlier tasks does not eliminate a champion from the competition. Fleur does not complete the second task but the result is only that she is penalized in having to wait to enter into the maze for the third task until some time after the competition leaders, Harry and Cedric, have already gone in.


Fleur still has a chance to win.


Dobby comes through and saves the day for Harry in the second task. But what if he had not done so? What if Harry had been forced to go to the lake, stick his head under the water and yell at the MerPeople to release Ron, as Ron had suggested earlier?


Clearly, we would lose Harry`s demonstration of moral fiber in deciding to sacrifice time at the bottom of the lake in order to save all of the captured kids. But we would also lose the questionable decision of the judges to award him extra points for his moral fiber, since the rules of the Tournament never mentioned anything about the possibility of such extra points being earned. Who knows, if Cedric or Viktor or Fleur had known that such points were available, they might have approached the task differently.


I have never been comfortable with this arbitrary awarding of points in the second task so, from my point of view, it would have been nice if it could have been avoided.


Had Harry failed in the second task, he would have been the last to enter the maze for the third task. He would have followed Cedric, Viktor and Fleur into the bushes. But is that so big a deal? He would still have been able to make up the time, especially since Viktor falls victim to a spell and Fleur falls victim to Viktor. All Harry would have had to do was catch up to Cedric. No problem in a maze of this kind.


I would think further that, had Harry failed at the second task, the pressure would have been on Barty Crouch Junior to be even more aggressive in intervening in the third task to make sure Harry got to the Goblet-Port Key first. That might have made the third task even more exciting.


My best guess is that Rowling treated each task as a separate little plot that required its own conflict, its own rising action and suspense, its own crisis point and its own climax. Further, she must have felt that, given the extremely unhappy resolution to the entire novel (Cedric is dead and Voldemort has returned to full power), she wanted to have the first two mini-plots resolve in positive ways (Harry is successful in each of the first two tasks) so as to make the final scenes in the graveyard and Harry`s ultimate failure (to save Cedric and to stop Voldemort) that much more surprising and effective.


It`s a brilliant strategy -- as the novel develops, Rowling puts a series of significant obstacles in Harry`s way and permits him to overcome them successfully, creating a false sense of security and positive energy entering the final task and the triumph of evil over good in the graveyard scene.


Still, I wonder if Rowling ever considered letting Harry fail at one of the early tasks, of ramping up the pressure on him (Fleur would feel vindicated in her belief that he was too young, Cedric supporters would be even more aggressive, Slytherin people even more nasty, Rita Skeeter would have had even more about which to write, Harry`s supporters would have been even more under pressure to buoy his spirits and Barty Crouch Junior even more desperate to get Harry to the finish line).


That`s the wonderful, challenging thing about the creative art of writing -- every decision the writer makes impacts the novel in significant, often unexpected ways.

Viktor goes for an icy swim

I am a huge Harry Potter fan (why else would I have this blog?).


I have read each of the seven Harry Potter novels at least 20 times and likely more often. I have listened to the novels on CD several times and am now in the process of reading them again in their French translations. I have watched the eight movies numerous times too.


You would think that, after all that, it would not be possible for me to learn something new about the stories in a subsequent re-reading.


Well, you would be wrong to think that.


I am currently reading The Goblet of Fire in French. It's great. It's fun and face-paced and the first really complicated, more adult of the novels.


I am at the point in the novel where Rita Skeeter has revealed to the wizarding world Hagrid's scandalous secret -- that he is a half-giant. Hagrid is in hiding. Harry decides he wants to go to Hogsmeade on the Saturday in hopes of finding his massive friend and telling him to stop being silly and to come back to work.


As Harry, Hermione and Ron walk across the frigid grounds of Hogwarts towards the gates, they see Viktor Krum emerge onto the deck of the Durmstrang ship, strip down to his bathing suit and dive into the icy waters of the school's lake. In response to Harry's expression of shock at Krum's decision to brave the cold, Hermione explains that Durmstrang is located in a much colder climate and that Krum probably finds the water to be quite temperate.


And off they go to Hogsmeade, Krum's odd behavior drifting from their minds -- and from mine as well.


Did you know that, after all my readings of the novel, this is the first time I made the connection that Krum's decision to go for a swim must be connected to the clue in the golden egg for the second task? That he might just be out for a swim to explore the lake and perhaps scout out the path to the Merpeople's village?


I permitted Hermione (and Rowling) to convince me it was just quirky behavior on the part of the Durmstrang champion and to think nothing further of it.


How clever are they? How stupid am I to be so easily led astray? And what of Harry?


Cedric Diggory has already given him the cryptic clue about taking the egg into the bath, a clue neither Harry nor we as readers are ready to accept as being legitimate and honest.


And here is a second champion making a very strange decision, one that is also directly related to immersing oneself in water.


I can't believe I missed this. I can't believe Harry missed it. If Harry had shared Cedric's hint with Hermione, I am sure she would have connected the dots and pointed out to Harry that Krum's mid-winter swim must be related to the egg and the second task.


So, while I find myself amazed that I have failed to make this connection until now, I am somewhat comforted by the fact that Harry didn't make the connection either.


Once Krum worked out the clue, his ability to swim in the cold winter water of the Hogwart's lake must have given him a distinct advantage over the other champions in that he had months to explore the lake and plan his strategy.


It seems so obvious now...

From love interests to mother figures to school marms

I have to tread carefully here. I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest. As all of the other 300 or so posts on this blog will prove, I have a great deal of admiration and respect for J.K. Rowling and I don't want anything I say here to suggest otherwise.


But... I can't help but feeling that her portrayal of female characters in The Goblet of Fire is somewhat problematic.


There, I said it. Sorry.


Hear me out on this. I think we can all agree that the Harry Potter series is overwhelming male in its main characters. Two out of three of the central child characters are male. The main mentor characters for Harry are all male (Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Rubeus Hagrid among them). The central villains are all male: from Dudley and Draco, to Quirrell and Lucius, to Voldemort, Snape and Peter Pettigrew.


Yes, there is Hermione... but, in Goblet, Harry admits that having Hermione as a friend is fine but is nothing compared to having Ron at his side. Read the passage that follows immediately upon Harry's successful completion of the first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Though Hermione has stood staunchly by him through the trying past several months (while Ron has abandoned him in a fit of jealousy), Harry only has eyes for Ron when their relationship is suddenly repaired. In fact, Rowling herself completely writes Hermione out of the next several scenes.


Yes, there is McGonagall. But her role is almost always secondary to Dumbledore's role. In many cases, she is reduced to playing the stern school marm.


Yes, there is Mrs. Weasley. But her role is almost always secondary to that of Mr. Weasley and her boys. In almost all cases, she is reduced to playing the doting mother.


Yes, there is Bellatrix Lestrange. But she is never anything more than a lieutenant in Voldemort's army, overshadowed at first by Lucius Malfoy.


Cho Chang and Ginny Weasley are love interests and little more.


When you think about it, the three women who stand out most strongly as individuals in the entire series are Petunia Dursley, Luna Lovegood and Dolores Umbridge. And each of them plays a limited role overall.


If that's the background, let's look more closely at the depiction of women in The Goblet. Hermione plays a major role in preparing Harry for the first task but is then basically cast aside when Ron returns to the table. Hermione is left pursuing the house-elf rights subplot while Ron, Harry, Cedric, Mad-Eye, Crouch, Dumbledore, et al continue with the Tournament.


Even though she proves key to taming Rita Skeeter, the focus of the book with regard to Hermione is much more on her appearance (isn't she pretty now that she's shrunk her front teeth and put on a dress!), her romantic life and whether or not she is loyal to the boys. Even Mrs. Weasley turns on her in reaction to Rita Skeeter's fabricated article suggesting that Hermione has thrown over Harry in favour of Viktor. What ever happened to the strong relationship Hermione had developed with the Weasley family and the many instances in which she has proven herself to be a smart, capable and loyal friend to all?


The one female champion, Fleur, is a real disappointment in this book. She is portrayed as haughty and stuck up, known more for her looks than for her skills. Her performance in the first task is given short shrift while she fails to complete either the second or third tasks. Instead of coming across as a real threat to win the tournament, she is presented instead as a vain girl of limited talents who frets over her sister more than her own performance.


The fact that Hermione delights in Fleur's failures, going so far as to make fun of her for failing to get past the Grindylows, makes this portrayal all the more problematic.


Rita Skeeter is portrayed as a scheming, lying, deceitful abomination who will do anything to attract readers.


And don't even get me started on depiction of the idol-worshipping way the girls at Hogwarts react first toward Viktor Krum, then toward Cedric and finally to Harry when he proves himself in the first task.


The fact of the matter is that the female characters in this book gain their identities almost entirely as a result of their relationships with the male characters (they are loyal friends, love interests, mother figures, school marms) rather than as independent beings. This is not true of all of the Harry Potter novels but comes through very strongly, and disappointingly, in The Goblet.

Lost in Translation: on horses, hares and hairs

Hey, remember that scene in The Goblet of Fire where Madame Maxime, having just arrived at Hogwarts with her students, tells Dumbledore she wants to make sure her horses are okay and Dumbledore assures her that her hair is coiffed to perfection?  Remember how funny that was?

No?

You don't remember that scene at all?

Well, maybe that's because it never happened. Not in the original novel. Not in the film made of that novel.

Unless you read Harry Potter in the French translation.

Then it happens.

The French words for "horses" and "hair" are very similar: "chevaux" and "cheveux", I believe. And, in an attempt to capture the fact that Madame Maxime speaks English with a heavy accent in the original novel, the French translator, Jean-Francois Menard, has her speak French with a thick accent in the French translation of the novel.

That accent involves the addition of a number of Es and Us to many of her words, which means, when she wants to refer to the massive horses that pulled the Beauxbatons carriage to Hogwarts, she uses the word "cheveux" rather than "chevaux".

Hence, Dumbledore's confusion.

It's only the second time, as I read the Potter novels in Menard's wonderful translations, that a section has jumped out at me as being quite clearly new, not in the original. And that's because the cheveux/chevaux pun could only exist in the French translation: "horse" and "hair" don't sound similar in English (though it raises the interesting prospect of the Beauxbatons carriage being drawn by massive hares, which may have led Rowling to introduce Dumbledore's confusion in the original English novel but would, ironically, not have permitted Menard to use it in the French).

Two things pop out at me, however, as a result of Madame Maxime's thick accent in French in general and the cheveux/chevaux pun in particular:

1. Since I am reading these books, which I know so well in English, in the French translation to help me improve my French comprehension, the introduction of Madame Maxime's accent is NOT HELPING! I am already having to look up numerous terms in the French dictionary as it is, and I am already struggling to recognise when a word is a made up magic word and won't actually appear in any dictionary, so it doesn't help me one bit when the only significant character in the book who ACTUALLY SPEAKS FRENCH speaks it poorly. Arghhhhh!!!!
2. I wonder how often Mr Menard indulges himself in this way, adding his own little jokes and comments into the French translation. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Menard had added some dialogue among the Beauxbatons students in the darkened wood at the Quidditch World Cup -- now he's adding little jokes of his own later in the same book. Hmmm.... If I am a French-speaking Harry Potter fan, who reads the books solely (or primarily) in French, would these little additions of Menard's be considered canonical? Also, does this mean I have to read the books in all the other languages into which it has been translated, just to make sure I have read all of Potter? What does J.K. Rowling think of these kinds of translationary indulgences?

On a final note, I have to admit, this situation I find myself in where English speaking characters speak French in the French translation of the novel and French speaking characters speak French in the French translation of the book and yet they don't understand each other and then some French speaking characters speak French with a strong accent such that they are difficult to understand....

Wait a minute. Characters who speak English in the original speak French in the translation. Characters who speak French in the original speak French in the translation. Yet the first set of characters cannot understand the second set of characters and vice versa. At times, however, the second set of characters actually speak accented English in the original, which, in the translation, becomes accented French such that the first set of characters understand them better than when they are speaking normal French but not perfectly.

I am beginning to think that French readers of Harry Potter must be a heck of a lot smarter than I am in order to figure all this out.

All of that being said, Menard does a wonderful job on this translation. I found the "Unforgivable Curses" ("des Sortileges Impardonnables") scene with Moody and the fourth year class even more gripping in translation than I did in the original... and that's saying something.

Rowling shows great care in orchestrating her climactic scenes

As I finished reading The Chamber of Secrets (actually, La chambre des secrets, since I read it in French) the other day, it occurred to me that J.K. was very careful to ensure that Harry faced the final confrontation in each novel alone.

And, since I have been highly critical of the fact that the film makers did everything they could to make the ending of the final movie, The Deathly Hallows, Part 2, a duel between Harry and Voldemort with the fate of the entire world hanging in the balance (where I felt Jo made it very clear 1) that the battle was not Harry's alone and 2) that the tide was actually turning in favour of the defenders of Good before Harry duels the Dark Lord), I wondered why Rowling took such great pains to separate our hero from Ron and Hermione at the end of each of the first two books.

I doubt the following summary is necessary for anyone who is into Harry Potter enough to be reading this bug but, for anyone not familiar with Books 1 and 2, here is what happens:

In The Philosopher's Stone, Hermione and Ron are with Harry when he first sets out to get past all of the protections around the Stone to save it from the antagonist but Ron drops off after he gets injured in the chess match while Hermione solves the potions riddle for Harry only to be forced to turn back since there is only enough of the move-forward potion for one. Harry is, clearly, the one who must go on (as Hermione points out) so he is alone for the final battle.

Meanwhile, in The Chamber of Secrets, Hermione has already been petrified, leaving Harry and Ron to use the information she has collected to find the Chamber and save Ginny. But Harry loses Ron when Ron's wand backfires on Lockhart and causes a cave-in that can't be shifted in tie to save Ginny. Harry is past the wall of rubble; Ron trapped behind it with the befuddled Lockhart. Once again, Harry must face the final battle alone.

The question is: why?

Rowling makes it a clear point of focus as the novels move on that, while Harry is at the centre of the storm that is Lord Voldemort's return, the battle against the Dark Lord and his minions is shared by everyone. Hermione and Ron, in particular, show continued dedication to the battle throughout the rest of the books.

I thought about this question for some time and I think the answer is quite clear. And fairly simple.

When Harry finally faces Voldemort with a companion in tow (Cedric Diggory in the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire), Voldemort is cold-blooded about what he requires his disciples to do with anyone who shows up other than Harry. While the Dark Lord's instructions with regard to Harry are clear and consistent ("Leave him to me"), Voldemort does not hesitate in the graveyard in book 4 when Harry shows up with a friend: "Kill the spare," he orders and Diggory is summarily dismissed.

Rowling recognised in the first two books that it was in the Dark Lord's character simply to kill anyone who gets in his way. She could not permit Hermione or Ron to be there at the end because they would die instantly. Not only would that be an incredible waste of these wonderful characters, it would be a great deal too much for the young readers in the target audience to bear.

As a result, she arranged things to ensure that Harry met Voldemort alone in Books 1 and 2. Book 3 involved only the Dark Lord's henchman and not You Know Who himself, so Hermione and Ron could take part in the climax of the story.

Then, when Jo felt her readers were mature enough, she ends Book 4 with the death of Harry's companion at the climactic scene. And she makes darn sure it's not one of her readers' beloved inner circle.

Adrenaline? or swimming lessons?

When did Harry learn to swim?

In the fabulous cave scene at the end of The Half-Blood Prince, Harry swims through treacherous sea waters, from the rock onto which he and Dumbledore had just apparated, across a narrow stretch of water and into a fissure that eventually leads to a set of steps onto a rocky shore in the middle of a cave.

Rowling says that Harry was weighed down by his waterlogged clothes as he swam, that he "struck out" to follow Dumbledore (who, quite charmingly, was doing "a perfect breaststroke" with his wand held between his teeth), that he "continued to swim" in the "icy" water with "benumbed fingers" before seeing Dumbledore "rising out of the water ahead" and then following him.

What with the dangerous, icy water, the weight of his clothes, and the fact that Dumbledore is able to get quite far ahead of him, this sounds like quite a challenging swim.

Even more impressive, on the way back, Harry must carry the weight of a weak, faint Head Master as he swims back from the cave to the rock before apparating back to Hogsmeade.

It's an excellent, exciting part of the novel and leads directly into the incredible climax involving Death Eaters in Hogwarts.

But when did Harry learn to swim?

In book four, The Goblet of Fire, Rowling writes the following passage to describe Harry's reaction upon deducing that the second task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament would involve swimming into the lake on the grounds of Hogwarts:

But [Harry] suddenly realized what he was saying, and he felt the excitement drain out of him as though someone had just pulled a plug in his stomach. He wasn't a very good swimmer; he'd never had much practice. Dudley had had lessons in their youth, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, no doubt hoping that Harry would drown one day, hadn't bothered to give him any. A couple of lengths of this bath was all very well, but that lake was very large, and very deep...

In two years, Harry has gone from someone whose stomach drops at the thought of being required to swim any distance to someone who can swim a fair distance through frigid, dangerous waters, carrying the weight of a fully-grown adult who is incapable of swimming on his own.

I guess you could argue that, when the need is that great, adrenaline would permit Harry to swim that distance, carrying Dumbledore... but it seems our beloved author missed something between these two stories, doesn't it?

Just what does "a few" mean?

A little thing. A little, tiny, nit-picky little question about a scene in The Goblet of Fire that turns on how we might interpret the word "few".

About three-quarters of the way through the book, in a chapter called "The Egg and the Eye", Harry attempts to return to the Gryffindor Common Room after a late-night visit to the Prefects' Bathroom when he becomes trapped on a staircase, his leg caught in the trick step that often catches Neville. He drops the slippery Tri-Wizard Egg, which promptly tumbles down the stairs and breaks open, its loud wail attracting the attention first of Filch, then of Snape and finally of Crouch/Moody.

Harry is hidden beneath his invisibility cloak but still is in real danger of being caught out of bed.

I've already written some time ago about Harry's surprising failure to use the summoning charm "Accio" to recover the egg as soon as he lost his hold on it. After all, he had so recently learned "Accio" and used it to such great effect in the first task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

That aside, there seems to be a little bit of a miscalculation of distances on the part of the author in this scene. A miscalculation the editors missed as well.

Remember the scene: Harry is half-way down the stair case, invisible but trapped. He has dropped the egg, which tumbled down to the corridor below and broken open. He has also dropped the Marauders' Map, still active, and it too has floated down the stairs.

1. Rowling tells us, in fact, that the Map "slid down six stairs" from where Harry stood, trapped.

2. When Filch arrives, he finds the egg and immediately starts to climb the stairs toward the invisible but trapped Harry. Rowling tells us that "Filch stopped a few steps below Harry" when Snape arrived.

3. Despite the fact that Filch is only "a few" steps away from Harry, he does not see the Map, which we know is six stairs below Harry. Apparently, for Rowling, "a few" is more than "six".

I'll stop right there for a second. I don't agree that "a few" means more than "six". When I read the phrase "a few", I think three to five. A few is more than "a couple" which is, by definition, two. But "a few" is also intended to suggest, in my opinion, "not many". You don't use "a few" when you mean "many". And more than six is "many".

4. Snape arrives and he too climbs the stairs, stopping beside Filch and, therefore, "a few" steps from Harry. He does not see the Map either. I think this is significant. Okay, it might be dark on the staircase so the Map could be only "a few" steps above Filch and Snape and they would not see it.

5. When Moody arrives, he remains at the foot of the stairs. Even from there, however, he is able to see the Map lying on the stair. He points it out to Snape and Filch. Snape and Filch turn and see it behind them. Snape has to reach out for it, leaving enough time for Moody to recognize Harry's warning and summon the Map to himself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if the Map is six steps below Harry and neither Filch nor Snape see it before Moody arrives, then Filch and Snape must be at least seven and probably more like 10 to 15 steps away from Harry. That's not, in my opinion, just "a few" steps away.

Just after Moody points out the Map, Rowling writes, "Snape stretched out his hands like a blind man, and began to move up the stairs... Harry leant backwards, trying to avoid Snape's fingertips, but any moment now --"

By my calculations, for Snape to get close enough to Harry to force Harry to lean back to avoid Snape's fingertips, Snape must get to within say three steps of Harry. So he must climb at least four steps and probably between 10 and 12 steps to get within striking distance of the boy before Moody stops him.

I've gotten myself quite confused as I write this but my point is, I think the editors missed something when they reviewed this scene. The use of the term "a few" is misleading and confusing. Rowling uses it to increase tension -- the bad guys are very close to our hero -- but it creates problems for the rest of the scene.

And, yes, this entire entry is proof positive that I have read the Harry Potter books way too many times and have started to focus on details that are, truly, much too trivial to worry about.

Did Voldy grow mouldy in the Potter home?

I will admit it: I have not done my research on this so the answer to my question might be set out clearly somewhere in the seven Harry Potter novels. But the question jumped out at me this morning as I listened to Jim Dale reading the duel scene from late in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and I just have to ask it:


Voldemort says that, when his own curse rebounded off the infant Harry and hit him instead, it "ripped me from my body" and he fled. So what happened to his body at that point in time?


Was it left behind in the blasted Potter home? If so, what was done with it afterwards? Was it buried? burned? placed in a museum somewhere? Why wasn't it mentioned anywhere?


Or was it blown to bits by the curse such that there was nothing left of it to recognize, collect, bury even?


My guess is that, since, as Hagrid says in The Philosopher's Stone, some people believed that Voldemort died on that pivotal day but many others believed that he survived in a greatly reduced state, there must not have been any recognizable body left behind in the Potter home.


If there had been a body, after all, I would guess most people would have accepted that as proof the Voldemort was dead and gone for good.


What do you think?

Percy Weasley and the capacity to joke (or recognise one)

"Percy wouldn't recognise a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobbie's tea-cosy." Ron Weasley, The Goblet of Fire.

"You're joking, Perce... You actually are joking, Perce... I don't think I've heard you joking since you were..." Fred Weasley, The Deathly Hallows.

One of the joys in listening to the Harry Potter audio books is that I am forced to work my way through the unabridged novels at a set rate of speed. Since I cannot rush through the slow parts, or skim sections I believe I remember, or get so caught up in the action that I speed-read through entire chapters, I am catching little details that I have missed in my many past readings of the books.

Like the line from Ron as he, Harry and Hermione leave the kitchens of Hogwarts after visiting Dobbie and Winky, the free house elves.

Talk about consistency. Rowling gives Ron this throw-away line in book four, making fun of his elder brother for his lack of a sense of humour, and then, three full books (and about 2,500 pages later), she circles back, picks up this thread and stitches it into a key moment in the climax of the entire series.

It's really quite awesome.

Misdirection and manipulation from the fireplace

In my last post, I examined the passage in The Goblet of Fire wherein Barty Crouch, Jr., disguised as Mad-Eye Moody, explains in detail how he, himself, put Harry's name into the Goblet and why.

Today, I'd like to look at another brilliant conceived passage from the fourth book as an example of Rowling's skill, her cunning, as a writer.

I am talking about the scene where Harry consults with Sirius Black through the magic of fire-place communications. It's a beautifully written scene and it offers a great deal of information but, as usual, with a Rowling twist.

Sirius first tells Harry to be careful of Professor Karkaroff, the Durmstrang headmaster. He was, apparently, a Death Eater who then sold out many of his former mates in order to gain release from Azkaban. Without actually saying it, Sirius suggests to Harry that it must have been Karkaroff who put Harry's name in the Goblet.

It's a brilliant ruse, dropped in at this point to confuse us. Rowling trots out the perfect antagonist, one she has very carefully developed in our minds as being untrustworthy and rather nasty. It comes from a character we have come to trust and it points the finger of blame on a person we are absolutely ready to hate.

Next, Sirius tells Harry that he shouldn't simply accept that the attack on Mad-Eye Moody that took place the night before he came to Hogwarts, the attack to which Mr. Weasley had to respond, was a false attack, a creation of Moody's paranoia.

"I think someone tried stop him from getting to Hogwarts," Sirius tells Harry. "I think someone knew their jobs would be a lot more difficult with him around."

Another brilliant strategic move on the part of the author. Why? Because Sirius is absolutely right. The attack on Moody was real. The goal of the attack was to remove Moody from the picture entirely and make it easier for the perpetrator, Barty Crouch Jr., to get at Harry.

And yet, in one important detail, Sirius misses the mark. He assumes that the attack, while real, failed. We believe him, because we have been trained to believe him, because we have been manipulated to want to believe him. We believe that the attack was real but a failure.

So we emerge from this encounter with Sirius believing, as Harry does, that Moody is a good guy and that someone else, probably Karkaroff, is after Harry.

Rowling is a master of this kind of misdirection, of manipulation. She gives us so much information in such a subtle way that we don't see it for what it really is but for what she has carefully designed it to seem.

Brilliant. Wonderful. Wicked.

Moody, Crouch and the impact of the truth

"Maybe someone's hoping Potter is going to die for it... It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the boy's name in that Goblet... they hoodwinked a very powerful magical object. It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that Goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the Tournament... I'm guessing they submitted Potter's name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category..."

These are the words of a person who is held out to be Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody in the wake of the Goblet of Fire's dramatic declaration that there would be, in fact, four students competing in the Tri-Wizard Tournament in Book Four.

And these words demonstrate, in my humble opinion, just how great a writer J.K. Rowling really is.

Just think about the first time you read that passage. What did you think? You thought, of course, that Moody was on the side of angels, that he was, as he later declares, trained to think as dark wizards do, and that he is probably absolutely right about how Harry's name ended up in the Goblet in the first place.

And now, when you read it again, knowing what you know about this particular version of Moody -- that he is, in fact, Barty Crouch Jr., impersonating the ex-Auror using the Polyjuice Potion and neck deep in implementing Lord Voldemort's intricate plot to transport Harry via portkey to the graveyard in Little Hangleton at the end of the Tournament -- what do you think of the passage?

Is there one false note in it?

It's brilliant. Crouch, as Moody, stands in front of all the people who might wish to stop him from succeeding in implementing Voldemort's evil plan, and tells them, point for point, exactly how he managed to get Harry's name into the Goblet and why he did it.

He behaves exactly as Moody would and should had he been there. He exposes his own plot.

And no one calls him on it. No one even remotely suspects him. Because he is, in fact, an ex-Auror with a reputation for paranoia, they in fact dismiss his explanation entirely. Absolutely brilliant.

The great leap that is The Goblet of Fire

What happened in Jo Rowling's life between the time she finished book 3 and began book 4?


As I have said before, I LOVE The Prisoner of Azkaban. It is my favourite of the seven Harry Potter novels (though The Deathly Hallows comes a close second). It is deep and dark and beautifully told, with a tightly drawn plot and an amazingly suspenseful climax and conclusion.


But there is something about the opening chapters of The Goblet of Fire that suggests, to me at least, that Rowling started writing the fourth novel in a fit of joyous confidence, in complete control of her craft, finding delight in the mere application of pen to paper.


For the first time in the series, Rowling spends an extended period of time away from Harry Potter at the start of the fourth book. She takes us to Little Hangleton, the mystery of the Riddle house and the plight of poor Frank Bryce. She flexes her authorial muscles in moving her writing up a level, into a more adult narrative voice and approach, creating scenes that seem to leave behind the childlike innocence of the first three novels.


The story of the Weasley's visit to 4 Privet Drive and Harry's time at the Burrow is told with unbridled joy, bringing with it laugh-out-loud moments and crystal clear characterizations.


Then, almost as if she were arriving at a party that she had been eagerly anticipating for several years, Rowling bursts into creative delight with the scenes at the Quidditch World Cup. This is Rowling at her best, as if she had been waiting all her life to write about this event.


This is also where she first begins to show us the depth and detail of the magical world she has created and her absolute mastery of it. She demonstrates her ability to control much more complex plots and much larger casts of characters, creating spellbinding scenes which, we find out later, are literally littered with little, seemingly throwaway details, that will become very important as the stories develop through the fourth, fifth and following novels.


My guess is that, after book two succeeded beyond her wildest dreams and book three also showed the same promise, Rowling sat down to write The Goblet of Fire with a new sense of confidence that she would be able to carry out her planned seven-book journey. Whether she felt more relaxed, because the pressure to prove herself was now off, or more tense, because she suddenly had the expectations of the entire world placed upon her, Rowling seems to have hit her stride at the start of Book Four, to have committed herself to her exquisitely detailed overall plot, to have given herself permission to explore more thoroughly her characters and themes, to have learned to trust herself and her instincts as she moved forward.


It's a pretty awesome thing to witness, even now as I read the books again for perhaps the 20th time.

So that's what happened to Karkaroff

I have often commented on how impressed I am with J.K. Rowling's ability to juggle so many characters, so many locations, so much information about her invented magical world and yet maintain absolute consistency in it over the course of seven novels. The continuity mistakes are few and far between in her seven-book adventure.

She must either have a prodigious memory or an amazing filing system or both.

So I am not at all surprised that, after posing a question in this space some time ago about the fate of Professor Karkaroff (the Durmstrang Head Master who plays such a large role in The Goblet of Fire and then disappears late in the TriWizard Tournament, fleeing in fear when his Dark Mark begins to grow clearer), I find my answer early in The Half-Blood Prince.

Rowling didn't forget Karkaroff. No, she followed up on his story with her usual subtlety and grace.

One hundred pages into book six, she has Remus Lupin drop in for dinner at the Burrow with some updates on how the war is progressing.

"...they've found Igor Karkaroff's body in a shack up north," he says. "The Dark Mark had been set over it -- well, frankly, I'm surprised he stayed alive for even a year after deserting the Death Eaters; Sirius's brother Regulus only managed a few days as far as I can remember."

As is typical for J.K., she manages to connect one small piece of information from the past (tying up the Karkaroff loose end) with a much more important piece of information for the future: confirming that Regulus Black was a Death Eater, then had a change of mind, then died.

This will become very important later in The Half-Blood Prince.

Even more impressive is the fact that this one little comment foreshadows and comments upon the events of book seven. Lupin's point seems to be: unless you are Albus Dumbledore, if Voldemort wants you dead, your time remaining on earth is short.

So, in fact, he's commenting indirectly on how miraculous it is that Harry has survived this long and that Harry, Hermione and Ron manage to stay alive throughout the course of The Deathly Hallows, despite the fact that the Death Eaters, the Snatchers and the Ministry are all hunting for them and anyone who might be sympathetic to the trio is too afraid to help them.

Accio, Harry, Accio...

"Harry pulled out his wand and struggled to touch the Marauder's Map, to wipe it blank, but it was too far away to reach."

Did anybody else read this passage from the middle of The Goblet of Fire and think, "Accio, Harry, Accio"?

Harry is on his way back from the Prefects' Bath in the middle of the night. He's solved the egg clue for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament but managed to get himself trapped by the trick step in the hidden stairway, dropping both the Map and the egg in the process.

Even though he's still hidden under his Invisibility Cloak, Harry is in danger of being caught out of bed late at night, with Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris arriving on the scene. Maybe it's too late for him to summon the egg but the Map... well, he still has time if he keeps his wits about him.

Harry spent much of the first part of the book perfecting the Summoning Charm (Accio) for the purposes of the first task in the Triwizard Tournament. He used it effectively while facing an angry dragon to summon his Firebolt and ace that first task.

So why wouldn't he use it again here? Surely he can't have forgotten it. And I can't believe he is feeling more panicked facing Mr. Filch than he did facing the Hungarian Horntail in the first task.

He had his wand in his hand and time on his side. Is it really believable that Harry would forget the Summoning Charm under such circumstances?

Subtle clues should have had us buzzing...

Ahh, J.K., how you do toy with us, your faithful readers!

Here we are, working hard alongside Hermione, trying to figure out how Rita Skeeter managed to listen in on so many private conversations at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament, and you keep dropping subtle little hints all over the place.

It's only when we re-read The Goblet of Fire -- or re-re-re-re-re-re-read The Goblet of Fire -- that we finally start to notice the bread-crumb hints you've been so kindly leaving for us.

First, at the Yule Ball, you have Percy Weasley complain about how hard a life his boss, Mr. Crouch, has had of late at the Ministry: "...And then we had the Tournament to arrange, and the aftermath of the Cup to deal with -- that revolting Skeeter woman buzzing around -- no, poor man, he's having a well earned, quiet Christmas."

Good one, Joanne, very good. Long before Hermione figures out Skeeter is an unregistered animagus who can turn herself into an insect, you have Percy describe her quite innocently as "buzzing around" the way an insect would.

Neat. And, of course, it didn't register with us, your readers. We just thought it was an apt description for the behaviour of the annoying reporter.

Then you have Harry try to distract himself from Hagrid's revealing conversation with Madame Maxime by watching a nearby beetle. Seems innocent enough. Harry doesn't want to listen, so he watches a beetle. The fact that this is one of the first insects you have mentioned in the entire series of books doesn't bother us, doesn't make us wonder why you choose that moment and that insect: nope, you slide it in subtly by giving us another legitimate reason for Harry to notice the bug

So maybe it's okay that we didn't clue in there. You were very subtle.

But we have no excuse for not catching on when, at the end of the second task, you actually have Victor Krum say to Hermione, "You haff a water-beetle in your hair..." That's a dead give away. Two mentions of bugs in the same book when you rarely if ever mentioned bugs before. In fact, two mentions of "beetles" plus the "buzzing" comment. How can we miss it?

Of course, you did explain away Krum's comments as well. You guide our attention skillfully away from the clue you've just dropped by having Harry wonder about Krum's motivation in making the comment, rather than the fact of the beetle itself.

Impressive.

You drop three major clues -- hints that should stand out for a careful reader like neon signs on a dark night -- and we miss them completely. You plant the clue, then steer us immediately in another direction. Very nice.