Hey everyone and welcome to my book review for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. So it has been a while since my last Harry Potter book review, but in case you don't know, I am reviewing all the Harry Potter books from beginning to end.
So I've already done book reviews for Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban and today I'm going to talk about... Goblet of Fire, obviously. If you want to catch up on my other book reviews before you watch this one, I will leave links to them down below in the description box. And yeah, hopefully you will enjoy them as well and then come back to this one and then you can hear me talk about Goblet of Fire.
So first of all, I'm going to do a tiny bit of a non-spoiler review, but that's going to be really short because there's really not much I can say. about this book without spoiling things. But the summary of that basically is that Goblet of Fire is my all-time favorite Harry Potter book.
It always has been, like from the first time that I've read it, I was completely in love with it and no other Harry Potter book has ever replaced it as my favorite. It's just my all-time favorite. So this book especially has a very special place in my heart.
I mean, the entire Harry Potter series has a very special place in my heart, but... This one is definitely the most special. And I think that's mostly because this book is definitely more of a turning point within the series.
The world gets a lot bigger, there are more characters, the story really gets a lot darker and more adult with this book. And I just always really love that. The first three books are amazing, but this one is definitely sort of, as I said, the turning point within the series.
And there's so much more to it. Also it's a lot bigger than the first three books. And of course as always the writing style is amazing. And with this book especially I think the story is the most amazing out of all of the Harry Potter books.
Yeah what else can I say? I just love this one so so much. That's all I can say about it without spoiling stuff. But yeah now I'm going to talk all spoilers. So yeah I'm going to put the book behind me because it's way too heavy to hold the entire time.
But from now on spoilers, spoilers for the entire book. From this point onwards, you really shouldn't watch if you haven't read the book yet. Please don't, because this book is amazing.
If you haven't been spoiled, you really should not know anything about it before you read it. So please go away if you haven't read it, and then come back once you have read it. But for now, spoilers. You are warned. And yeah, let's begin with my discussion.
So yeah, right off the bat, the opening of Goblet of Fire is already quite different than from the other books, because... We start within this muggle village and we have an old man named Frank and it's about the riddle family who has been murdered and Then the old man Frank gets murdered by Voldemort who is there in sort of a weird creepy form and worm-tail and everything I remember the first time reading it. I was so confused because the only thing I recognized of course was the name riddle Which is of course Voldemort's real name and I was so confused But I also loved it to sort of get thrown into this book without like knowing what you're into. And I always feel really bad for Frank.
Yeah, because like he didn't deserve that. But it's a good way to start this book to sort of make clear that this book is going to be a bit different from the other books. And then also what I really love is that we spend a lot more time with the wizarding world outside of Hogwarts.
Because of course, we have the Quidditch Cup where the Weasleys go with Hermione and Harry and... we see so much more actually we don't really see anything of the wizarding world outside of hogwarts and diagonally before this and i guess that's sort of the theme of this entire book like the world is expanding there are more characters it feels so much more alive somehow and more real like less like a children's book even though again the first three books are amazing but more like a real world that is vibrating and that has stuff going on there's this world cup which of course course is very relatable even though we don't have Quidditch in real life although we do I saw there are Quidditch teams in real life but without flying as such but the festivities and the watching of a game together that's of course very relatable in the real world so that makes this relatable but also new at the same time and of course I always loved the part where Harry, Ron and Hermione walk over the camping site and they meet lots of different people and It's just so much fun to see more of it and that's again I think something that makes this book new within the series. And the Quidditch World Cup itself is also so much fun to read about. I'm so sad they cut it out of the movie because it's a really fun scene.
Within the book like you have the entire scene, the entire match and I always love it. But then of course after that we have the dead eaters who are like punishing or torturing the muggle family of the camping site and... This is the first time we hear the term Dead Eaters, but definitely not the last time within the series.
And yeah, again, this is sort of the start of a darker tone, of darker themes, of like more dangerous stuff happening. And yeah, as I said before, I really love to see more of the Wizarding World, people from other countries, which is of course also with the... Triwizard Tournament with like the Beauxbatons school and the Durmstrang school. So like the world gets bigger. It's not just Hogwarts anymore.
The world gets bigger. There are more people from different countries, more cultures, more stuff and I just really love that. And I think that might be a good segue into like talking about the Triwizard Tournament which is of course like the main thing of this book with the Goblet of Fire who chooses the champions.
And I remember reading Goblet of Fire for the first time and already thinking like Harry's going to be in the tournament somehow, right? Because that's just going to happen. Otherwise, it wouldn't be in Harry Potter book.
But still, even though it does sort of make sense and it does fit with the story, I always found it quite weird how he's sort of like pushed within the tournament as a fourth champion, which has never happened and he's way too young and everything. It sort of feels weird and I also just don't really understand. why he has to compete. I believe there's some small line about the cup being a binding magical contract and that like you die if you don't participate and that's weird because Harry didn't sign up for it himself so he's like in this binding magical contract that he didn't sign for that he didn't ask for so that's sort of a flaw within the tournament I guess. That's sort of again a theme for the entire tournament.
This tournament like it's no secret that there's this massive plot hole of having these trials, tests, whatever. And only the first one is like watchable for other people. Like the second one is underwater.
The third one is in a maze where no one can see a thing. So like people have complained about that. But yeah, we as readers see everything. So we don't really notice it all.
But yeah, like that's something people have talked about before. But what I really noticed this time and what really made me think is how dangerous this is. When it really doesn't have to be... that dangerous like with the first task with the dragon like people are on standby and i can understand that but like with the second task why is nobody else underwater and to help these students when it's necessary i don't get it and then especially the third task with the maze why aren't there any teachers on brooms watching and looking what's happening with the students because like there's really no reason why that couldn't be possible the only safety measure they have is that you have to like Throw red sparks in the air with your wand and then they will come and help you.
But that's like, why? That's so weird. Because this makes it possible that Harry can grab the wizarding cup or like the trial wizard. Oh my god, I'm so difficult with pronouncing words today.
Like the tournament cup, how he can grab it and how it's like a portkey without anyone seeing it, without anyone noticing it. Harry and Cedric were gone for quite a while and nobody noticed it? That's just weird. I mean, I understand that a lot of stuff has to be that way for the plot to work. But still, it's just, if you think about it, it's not logical.
But yeah, again, not everything can be logical. It's a magical world. The story has to work in some way, but like... that sort of bothered me this time because it's just really not necessary to be that dangerous and then also what i said with like the other schools we have durmstrang which is from the north even though victor crumb goes to it and he's from bulgaria or he just plays for bulgaria i don't know then we have beau baton from france um but the thing is everything from that school seems to be french and i don't know like i live in the netherlands and i'm wondering to which school i should go if i would be like a witch because i don't speak french So yeah, I don't think I could go to Beauxbatons, but you never see any students from other countries at Hogwarts. So that sort of made me think, but yeah, again, don't think about it too hard, I guess.
I can understand that this book doesn't have the time to give you all the details, especially because it's already so big. But yeah, I do like that there are more schools, like the world is expanding. And even Harry says, like he's surprised when he hears that there are more schools.
But of course, like there are... cannot be just one school in the world for witches and wizards but yeah okay so that's like some of my thoughts on the general story now i also really want to talk about um some of the plot points or like no not the plot points some of the characters because this book definitely has a huge increase in characters and bigger character plot points and like bigger stories within these characters and yeah first of all Mad-Eye Moody who's actually uh Barty Crouch jr you oh my god i think that's the best plot twist of any harry potter book ever the first time i was so shocked but also so amazed and i loved it and it's amazing i did not see it coming even though like the first time i read it i was like eight or nine years old so yeah i don't know if i would guess it if i would read harry potter for the first time now maybe not but i love it it's amazing like this is definitely the book that you just read differently when you reread it because Everything makes so much more sense if you know that Mad-Eye Moody is actually Barty Crouch Jr. It's weird because I like Moody within the book sort of and it still feels like Moody like the real Moody that we will meet in later books like not really spoiler but he does come back as really himself and he still feels like the same character even though he isn't so like I guess Barty Crouch Jr. is just a very good actor and also something that I noticed is Moody teaches his students the unforgivable curses so that's also the first time we hear about that the cruciatus curse the imperious curse and the avada cadaver curse and harry is like the only one who starts to resist the imperious curse like moody is training him somehow to resist it but that's actually helping harry in the final battle with voldemort because he's able to resist the imperious curse because moody taught him but moody was actually voldemort's servant so I don't know if he really thought that through.
I also just don't know why Impostor Moody wanted his students to learn about the Unforgivable Curses in the first place. Because it is something that actually really helps them to know about that. They're quite dangerous.
Like, it's helpful to know the dangers of those curses. And he is a servant of Voldemort, so I don't know. That's the only thing in his character that doesn't really make sense. And also, other people have said that it's weird that he has this elaborate plan. of Harry competing in the tournament, surviving everything and then winning and that's how he's going to grab a portkey and get transported to Voldemort when in reality he just he could just give him a book like at the beginning of the year and Harry would disappear.
I guess you can argue that it was very important that Harry wouldn't survive it and that they could blame that on the tournament and that no one would know that Voldemort would survive, but he could just blame it on real uh Mad-Eye Moody right because he wasn't real Mad-Eye Moody he could just disappear blame it on real Mad-Eye Moody um and then Harry would be dead Fallen Lord would be back everything was done but again that's also something like it doesn't work in a book if that happens at the beginning um it's also a bit more thematic if like the big battle always happens at the end but again this entire plan definitely backfires because Harry becomes so good at defense against the dark arts because of Moody because of participating in this tournament he learns a lot of new spells for the maze he becomes a very good wizard like because of this and that's actually not very helpful if you're a servant of Voldemort or if you're Voldemort himself so yeah safe to say that that plan didn't work but i still love the plot twist there are so many little hints throughout the story if you read it again and everything makes sense and i just love that so much then another thing i really want to focus on is the fight between harry and ron once harry is chosen to be the fourth champion within the tournament and like i always have a bit like sort of difficult feelings toward this because especially when i was younger i was also really angry at ron because why wouldn't he believe harry of course harry wouldn't lie they're best friends and everything and now i can sort of understand now that i'm older that ron is like he has a hard time with it because he's always second best he's always like overshadowed by his older brothers by harry by everything he's never the best never the most popular Yeah, but still that's not a good reason to completely abandon your friend like that. But then again, he's 14 and 14 year olds aren't always logical or reasonable. He's acting out. I'm not saying that it's good, but I can now understand it better.
Because sometimes that just happens. And I guess it's not easy if you're always sort of overshadowed by everything and everyone. And I guess it also doesn't help that both Harry and Ron are like stubborn as hell. And no one wants to apologize. Yeah, I never like it because Harry Potter books are just so much better when Harry and Ron are friends and talking.
Yeah, the fight never really sits well with me. Yeah. And then we have Hermione. And oh my god, I have so many thoughts on Hermione within this book. And then especially with her house elf organization called Spew or S-P-U-E-W.
S-P-E-W. Okay. Fun fact, in the Dutch translation, Spew is just called...
shit. Like S-H-I-T. It's like, that's the name of it.
It's just called shit. But okay, I have thought about Hermione and the house elves and the house elf rites for a long time. Because, I don't know, it's so complex and it's so hard for me to sort of summarize my thoughts.
But I'm going to try. Because first of all, I can completely understand Hermione's point of view. Because technically, the house elves are slaves.
They do work. for the wizards and witches and they don't get paid for it and they're also basically owned by their wizards because they have to obey every command that is technically slavery so i can completely understand that it's not fair and in the case of like dobby When the wizards treat their house elves badly, there's nothing that can be done and they just have a horrible life. But then of course we have the other side and that is that most house elves are actually really happy with being house elves, with working everything. And they really don't want a house elf organization, they don't want to be freed. And yeah, Hermione's help really isn't welcome to them, like they don't want it.
And I've thought about it and like my conclusion is that Hermione's intentions are very good and I can support that. but the way she goes about it is really not the right way she wants to do way too much too soon like she wants to just like stop house elves existing or not existing but like stop house elves working completely all at once she goes like in way too hard way too quickly and i also think she isn't directing it in the right way because the house elves at hogwarts are happy and well treated of course they don't want to be freed at hogwarts you have a good life as a house elf lots of work like you can be treated well dobby gets payment and vacation from dumbledore so like those aren't the ones hermione should help i think what she really should focus on is house elves like dobby so house elves who are mistreated abused everything um because there are probably more out there like dobby who are not treated very well so i think a better goal wouldn't be to just um like stop house elves working but more like Make it illegal to treat your house elf in a very bad way. And like make it illegal to give them very cruel commands.
Or abuse them everything. That would be a better way. And I also think that it would be a lot better if Hermione would take it a bit more slowly. So you know maybe read about it.
I like I don't think Hermione is the first one ever who had these thoughts. There are probably more wizards or witches who have had these thoughts about house elves. But like haven't gone very far yet. I think Hermione should read more about it. be a bit more calm about it because she can be really pushy and that's kind of her mind is like flaw she's really pushy she's really convinced of herself and that doesn't always make her very likable and that makes her annoying with this case especially because no one wants to hear a talk about house elves and i mean not even Hagrid wants to support her and Hagrid loves all creatures so i think that is saying enough if most house elves were really treated badly then Hagrid would say something about that so i think that's sort of a clear understanding that like Hermione isn't completely in the right here but still she definitely has a point and I think she just she should have done it a little bit differently and yeah I don't think she goes like she's so extreme with this and that's like what I love about her but also what makes this sort of hard to really support like with her SPEW stuff and that's sort of what I like about all the Harry Potter characters or like our main three that they all have some flaws so Ron can be very insecure and he doesn't like being overshadowed and yes that's his flaw in this book and then we have hermione who is very kind and wants to help everyone and she's very sweet and very smart of course but she also can be a bit extreme and she doesn't like to be wrong and she cannot admit that she's wrong at least she has kind of trouble with that and she also doesn't really understand that sometimes you have to be a bit more subtle in some things and Yeah, that's sort of her thing, but still I find it very relatable.
And we have Harry, who is a bit too much of a noble hero. That's also pointed out within this book, like, that he has the tendency to play the hero. And that also sometimes he can be a bit short-sighted and a bit direct.
Like, he can be a bit more... He can try to place himself in other people's shoes a bit more, I think. But again, this is all stuff that we'll expand more in later books. Yeah, I just love all the characters so much and I love that they are so human, so real and yeah, I've talked about these three now for a long time. So let's get on to some other characters.
So Hagrid in this book, we find out that he's a half giant and I, like Harry, thought well, big deal. But apparently it is a really big deal within the wizarding world. He's supposed to be dangerous because half giants are dangerous. And I was like, okay, we love Hagrid because he's very sweet. And he's always there for Harry, Ron and Hermione.
But he is kind of dangerous. Because in this book we also have the Blast Ended Scrooge. Who are very dangerous for his students.
Yeah, so he can be quite dangerous. And that's something he maybe... Like, maybe something he has to learn. I don't know why Dumbledore never says anything about it.
Because you cannot, like, teach your students that kind of dangerous stuff. But then again, this is Hogwarts. And they're always being taught dangerous stuff. And they're always being put. in dangerous situations so yeah so the entire time i was like they have appointed by Hagrid he's not dangerous because he's a half giant that has nothing to do with it but he can be quite dangerous because he sent Harry and Bronn to the spiders in book two like Aragog and such which was very dangerous he is dangerous animals in his lessons.
Yeah, so yeah. Then next we have Rita Skeeter, the journalist who writes stories with a very sort of creative, interesting touch. Not exactly true, but very like tabloid-y.
Yeah, very much like scandals and such. Even though she's very annoying, I also think she's a very fun character, because it's of course sort of like this stereotypical journalist who doesn't really write the truth but like exaggerate it. I think that's just a fun character to write and I think she does make the story a lot more interesting. Of course I hate her because everyone hates Rita Skeeter but I think with Harry Potter the characters you hate are also always some of the best characters and they're always interesting and fun to read about and they make these stories so much more interesting and I think Rita Skeeter is no exception to that. But I also think it's very found that Hermione in the end discovers her secret and that she knows that she's an animagus and she traps her and everything and also something that she deserves.
I think she just makes this book a lot more interesting. And then the final character I want to talk about is of course Cedric Diggory who is very prominent within this book but then of course sadly dies at the end. And his death is definitely, I think that's the main turning point of the series because Voldemort comes back which is of course also like sort of important and sort of the main turning point of the series but... Cedric Diggory is the first real death of course.
The old man Frank at the beginning of the book also died but we didn't really know him. Cedric Diggory is the first well 17 year old who died, the first Hogwarts student. We spent time with him, we knew him and then he's killed and first time I was so shocked because I was like oh my god he's actually killed, he's actually dead.
It's always such a sad moment of course he didn't deserve it. He's just the first one so that makes him stand out and yeah no spoilers but of course course like in later books more stuff like that happens but yeah i think cedric diggory as a character is a bit one-dimensional um because he does like he's a very um great guy and that's basically his character trait he's nice he's smart he is a very good uh tri-wizard tournament champion he's good at quidditch he's nice to harry and everything like he's just a great guy He doesn't really have any flaws, at least not that we know of. But of course, Harry is not really close to him, so we don't really know.
And yeah, that makes it sort of more painful that this great guy, this nice guy, gets killed instantly for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And yeah, that's, I think, all I can say about his character. Because yeah, there's not much more than that to him. That's basically his thing.
And then at the end, Voldemort comes back, of course. Big thing within the series. He comes back. He has a buddy again.
The Death Eaters come back. I also really love the graveyard scene. Or like not love.
Because it's not a very happy scene. But it's such an interesting scene. And we get so much information.
And I just love those endings. I think I love the endings of Harry Potter books so much. When everything becomes clear. And you know what's going on. And I just I love it so much.
And I cannot get enough of it. And Voldemort being back is of course something that will be dealt later in... with in later books of course and it's very traumatic for Harry um no one believes him of course that's also a thing like um well not no one uh the ministry of magic doesn't believe him at the end of the book um that's also something that makes it more difficult yeah it's just this book is just so incredible and I guess this video could be hours long because I can talk about it for hours but I think this might be a good point to wrap it up because otherwise I just I don't know what I'm talking about anymore um it's also a bit incoherent this video already so yeah let's just end it here i think that would be a good idea so yeah this was it now for my video review a book review of harry potter and the goblet of fire by jk rowling and i really hope you enjoyed it please let me know down in the comments what you think about all this stuff about all these things that i've talked about what are your thoughts on this book in general What is something you notice about Goblet of Fire that you like or that you don't like?
You know, leave everything in the comments and then we can talk about it. And yeah, this was it now for this video. And if you like this video, please go subscribe or maybe give it a thumbs up because I would really appreciate that. And hopefully I will see you again very soon in my next video.
Bye!