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.