NINJA BOOK CLUB: Chapter 20 THE FIRST TASK

First Paragraph: Harry got up on Sunday morning and dressed so inattentively that it was a while before he realized he was trying to pull his hat onto his foot instead of his sock. When he’d finally got all his clothes on the right parts of his body, he hurried off to find Hermione, locating her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, where she was eating breakfast with Ginny. Feeling too queasy to eat, Harry waited until Hermione had swallowed her last spoonful of porridge, then dragged her out onto the grounds. There, he told her all about the dragons, and about everything Sirius had said, while they took another long walk around the lake.

Sorry to have missed you last week, Esteemed Reader. I found myself jolted with a story inspiration and decided to pursue it rather than write for this blog. Not to worry. I promise every Esteemed Reader here a full refund on their subscription fee:)

I love blogging, but I consider myself a fiction writer who happens to blog, rather than a blogger who happens to write fiction. Which is to say, from time to time, my fiction will come first, and since we had Hugh Howey here last week, I figured we could take a little break from Harry Potter. But I'm back this week and ready for more if you are, Esteemed Reader.

As you know, we've been looking at some indie authors just recently and I plan to keep it up intermittently. We're still going to talk with traditionally published authors, of course, but I find the indie author revolution fascinating. I can't help speculating how Harry Potter might do if it were self-published now. At the time the first book came out, ebooks were not as viable an option as they are currently, so it would have to be now, or better yet, a few years from now once more first generation ereaders have been handed down to kids.

Some might argue that Robert Galbraith didn't do as well without the Rowling name, but I don't think that's a fair basis for comparison. I'm very much enjoying The Cuckoo's Calling and I found The Casual Vacancy to be dry and preachy, but still worth reading. However, neither of those books are Harry Potter. As there's no way to ever prove an argument one way or another, I don't suppose it much matters, but I think Harry Potter would have still found readers, whatever manner it was published. 

Maybe I'm naive, but I believe nothing succeeds like a great story, well told. Indie publishing likely would've taken Rowling longer to find readers and no doubt the book would've suffered without the insights of editor Cheryl Klein, but Howey's Wool was edited by his mother and it's an unqualified success on it's way to the science fiction hall of fame. Granted, that book has a major publishing house behind it now, which I'm sure is helping, but that's not why that book's a tremendous success. The movies and theme park attractions came after Rowlling crafted a great story, well told that found readers, not before.  

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is also a great story, well told, and Chapter 20 is one of the high points of the series. Harry does battle with a dragon at long last, wins the first task in the Triwizard Tournament, and makes friends with Ron again. I'm not going to reproduce those passages, as wonderful as they are. I'm assuming, since you're here, you've read the book, and you know how awesome those moments are. But those are the firework explosions in the sky meant to dazzle readers and we're viewing this book on the ground as writers watching how Rowling lights the fuses. 

And Chapter 20 is all about lighting a long fuse. From the start of the chapter, Harry and Hermione are preparing for the dragon battle:

They walked three times around the lake, trying all the way to think of a simple spell that would subdue a dragon. Nothing whatsoever occurred to them, so they retired to the library instead. Here, Harry pulled down every book he could find on dragons, and both of them set to work searching through the large pile.
“‘Talon-clipping by charms . . . treating scale-rot . . .’ This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy. . . .”

No matter what else happens this chapter, the anticipation of Harry's battle royal looms large in every scene:

He therefore had to endure over an hour of Professor Trelawney, who spent half the lesson telling everyone that the position of Mars with relation to Saturn at that moment meant that people born in July were in great danger of sudden, violent deaths. 
“Well, that’s good,” said Harry loudly, his temper getting the better of him, “just as long as it’s not drawn-out. I don’t want to suffer.” 
Ron looked for a moment as though he was going to laugh; he certainly caught Harry’s eye for the first time in days, but Harry was still feeling too resentful toward Ron to care

I especially like that passage as it not only builds anticipation for Harry's impending doom, but re-establishes Harry's need for Ron and Ron's love for Harry. When Harry and Ron are finally reunited at the end of this chapter, the happiness we'll feel then is in direct correlation to the sense of loss we feel here and in other passages from previous chapters. Such moments are never won in the moment, they're earned in all the scenes leading up to them.

And so it is with this dragon fight. We talked on this in Chapter 19 and I don't want to belabor the point, but the reason Rowling's action sequence is so exciting is not the sequence itself. Granted, after so much build up, the scene has to deliver and it does. Harry zooms about on his broomstick and out flies the dragon. But without the anticipation built before the scene, it would be just another quidditch match.

Here's a passage everyone who's ever had to face something unpleasant, which is to say, everyone, will be able to relate to:

Harry felt oddly separate from everyone around him, whether they were wishing him good luck or hissing “We’ll have a box of tissues ready, Potter” as he passed. It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn’t just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to his dragon, and start trying to curse everyone in sight. Time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment he seemed to be sitting down in his first lesson, History of Magic, and the next, walking into lunch . . . and then (where had the morning gone? the last of the dragon-free hours?), Professor McGonagall was hurrying over to him in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching.

The best scene for me in this chapter is not Harry actually fighting the dragon, although, again, it is very cool. I prefer the scene before the big fight in which Harry waits his turn while listening to the other champions battle their dragons. I think it may be the best scene in the whole book:


It was worse than Harry could ever have imagined, sitting there and listening. The crowd screamed . . . yelled . . . gasped like a single many-headed entity, as Cedric did whatever he was doing to get past the Swedish Short-Snout. Krum was still staring at the ground. Fleur had now taken to retracing Cedric’s steps, around and around the tent. And Bagman’s commentary made everything much, much worse. . . . Horrible pictures formed in Harry’s mind as he heard: “Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow” . . . “He’s taking risks, this one!” . . . “Clever move — pity it didn’t work!”

When Harry's turn comes and he exits the tent to face the dragon, the reader is so pumped full of anticipation, Rowling's work is done for her. She has to deliver an exciting battle, but the hard part is done. The reader is primed to respond to whatever action she decides to write. She has to deliver on our expectations, but that's the easy part. Getting the reader to cry when a character dies is not a matter of writing a sad death, but of building a character worth crying for in all the scenes that lead up to his demise. And so it is with suspense. 

I've got two more thoughts for you and then we'll have to call it a day. First, note that just because this chapter is all about the dragon battle, Rowling still makes time to drop in clues for readers trying to solve the overarching mystery surrounding Mad-Eye Moody:

“What’s that?” Harry asked, pointing at the squiggly golden aerial. 
“Secrecy Sensor. Vibrates when it detects concealment and lies . . . no use here, of course, too much interference — students in every direction lying about why they haven’t done their homework. Been humming ever since I got here. I had to disable my Sneakoscope because it wouldn’t stop whistling. It’s extra-sensitive, picks up stuff about a mile around. Of course, it could be picking up more than kid stuff,” he added in a growl.

Second, Rowling shows us in Chapter 20 how to impart morality to young readers without preaching. In later scenes and books, she's not always so subtle, but in Chapter 20 she shows us Harry doing a moral act:

“Hi,” said Cedric, picking up a copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration that was now splattered with ink. “My bag just split . . . brand-new and all . . .” 
“Cedric,” said Harry, “the first task is dragons.” 
“What?” said Cedric, looking up. 
“Dragons,” said Harry, speaking quickly, in case Professor Flitwick came out to see where Cedric had got to. “They’ve got four, one for each of us, and we’ve got to get past them.” 
Cedric stared at him. Harry saw some of the panic he’d been feeling since Saturday night flickering in Cedric’s gray eyes.

From a plot perspective, it's important Cedric be aligned with Harry because later he'll help him solve the mystery of the golden egg and later still he'll help Harry "win" the tournament. Also, remember that thing I said about building a character worth crying for when he dies? 

But one of the reasons we read stories at all is to learn how to live. In telling a story, the writer inevitably reveals her morality, and the right way to do this is through the actions of the protagonist. Harry tells Cedric about the dragons because it's the right thing to do, not because he knows he'll later need Cedric's help. Harry does the right thing because that's who he is as a character. More, because Harry does the right thing, he's later rewarded for it.

Rowling doesn't slow the story down to explain this or preach and she doesn't have to. The reader picks it up automatically: Harry Potter = good guy. Harry Potter is fair and does the right thing =  that is what a good guy does. Helping Cedric helps Harry = being fair and doing the right thing comes with rewards.

And that's going to do it for week 20 of our never-ending discussion of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. See you next week for chapter 21 and every week until this post series is done, and then I'm not going to look at another Harry Potter book for a long time--unless Robert Galbraith writes a new one:)

Last Paragraph(s): It was Rita Skeeter. She was wearing acid-green robes today; the Quick-Quotes Quill in her hand blended perfectly against them. 
“Congratulations, Harry!” she said, beaming at him. “I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?” 
“Yeah, you can have a word,” said Harry savagely. “Good-bye.” 
And he set off back to the castle with Ron.

NINJA BOOK CLUB: Chapter 19 THE HUNGARIAN HORNTAIL

First Paragraph: The prospect of talking face-to-face with Sirius was all that sustained Harry over the next fortnight, the only bright spot on a horizon that had never looked darker. The shock of finding himself school champion had worn off slightly now, and the fear of what was facing him had started to sink in. The first task was drawing steadily nearer; he felt as though it were crouching ahead of him like some horrific monster, barring his path. He had never suffered nerves like these; they were way beyond anything he had experienced before a Quidditch match, not even his last one against Slytherin, which had decided who would win the Quidditch Cup. Harry was finding it hard to think about the future at all; he felt as though his whole life had been leading up to, and would finish with, the first task. . .

Hi there, Esteemed Reader. I've taken up a new hobby: reading books to Mrs. Ninja's stomach:) Our little ninja seems to enjoy it and that makes me proud. "I'm not born yet" is no excuse for not reading:) So far the little ninja has enjoyed the work of Hugh Howey and J.K. Rowling, but he or she has only had ears for about  a week. 

By the way, if you're wondering if I'm ever again going to review another book, or if this blog is to be strictly about Harry Potter chapters from here on out, be rest assured. There's a reason I'm reading science fiction sensation Hugh Howey (beyond his inherent awesomeness). It might just be he's going to stop by the blog next week:)

But as it's Wednesday, Book Club Day, this blog is going to be strictly about Harry Potter today. The thing about one chapter a week is we don't always get to discuss a full part of the story. After all, chapters are the building blocks of a book. Chapter 19 wouldn't work on it's own and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire wouldn't work without it. 

Chapter 19 is largely about setting up the events of Chapter 20, which is for me one of the high points of the book as it's the chapter in which Harry finally fights a dragon--from the day Rowling started a seven-book series about a boy wizard in a fantastical world containing dragons, this fight has been inevitable. But Chapter 20 doesn't work without Chapter 19 setting the stage, which we'll talk more about in a moment.

First, I just want to point out how much delight Rowling takes in making Harry's life truly miserable. In her way, she's as bad as Mad-Eye Moody turning kids into ferrets and bouncing them about. She's already given Harry the stress of having to compete in the Triwizard Tournament, but that's necessary for the plot to progress. Then Rowling had Ron abandon Harry and she had most of the school turn on him, thinking he placed his name in the Goblet of Fire for personal glory. Many of the students are now wearing badges reading "Potter Stinks." 

I'd say Harry's had enough, let's stop before someone gets really hurt, but you can't pull Rowling off her protagonist when she's in a truly violent rage:) I'm joking, of course. Whenever a plausible opportunity comes along to twist the knife in your protagonist's back a bit more, a writer should seize it. Rowling introduced Rita Skeeter last chapter specifically to hurt Harry more both in this and future books, and now it's hard out here for a wizard:

In the meantime, life became even worse for Harry within the confines of the castle, for Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of Harry.

Rita Skeeter had reported him saying an awful lot of things that he couldn’t remember ever saying in his life, let alone in that broom cupboard.

Now students are following Harry around quoting the article to him, and Harry is feeling, understandably, a bit defensive:

“Hey — Harry!” 
“Yeah, that’s right!” Harry found himself shouting as he wheeled around in the corridor, having had just about enough. “I’ve just been crying my eyes out over my dead mum, and I’m just off to do a bit more. . . .” 
“No — it was just — you dropped your quill.” 
It was Cho. Harry felt the color rising in his face. 
“Oh — right — sorry,” he muttered, taking the quill back. 
“Er . . . good luck on Tuesday,” she said. “I really hope you do well.” 
Which left Harry feeling extremely stupid.

And now Harry's love life is in the toilet to boot. The passage above is great because it not only tortures Harry further, making the book that much more readable, but also makes Harry relatable to the reader. Young readers will have surely had or at least witnessed awkward interactions with the opposite sex (or same sex person to whom one is attracted, if I'm going to be all politically correct and junk). Older readers will no doubt recall their own awkward interactions with the person of any race, gender, or creed, to whom they felt attraction:)

If I were to write an outline of this story, which would surely be less time-consuming than these weekly chapter breakdowns, I would write this for Chapter 19: Harry deals with the fall out from Rita Skeeter's article, Hagrid shows Harry the dragons he'll have to face in the first task of the tournament, and Sirius has a forbidden fireside chat with Harry about necessary exposition to further the mystery of who put his name in the Goblet of Fire. 

Some may say Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is too long, but not me. Rowling's story breathes and takes the time it needs to work. As I've said, there are three major events in this chapter, but the reason we care about them at all is because they involve characters we care about. Dragons have to take a back seat to the ongoing soap opera that is Ron and Harry's broken friendship:

Hermione was furious with the pair of them; she went from one to the other, trying to force them to talk to each other, but Harry was adamant: He would talk to Ron again only if Ron admitted that Harry hadn’t put his name in the Goblet of Fire and apologized for calling him a liar. 
“I didn’t start this,” Harry said stubbornly. “It’s his problem.” 
“You miss him!” Hermione said impatiently. “And I know he misses you —” 
“Miss him?” said Harry. “I don’t miss him. . . . ” 
But this was a downright lie. Harry liked Hermione very much, but she just wasn’t the same as Ron. There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging around in the library when Hermione was your best friend.

There's a lot of telling in that passage, but that's okay because Rowling also shows us Harry's loss in action:

Viktor Krum was in the library an awful lot too, and Harry wondered what he was up to. Was he studying, or was he looking for things to help him through the first task? Hermione often complained about Krum being there — not that he ever bothered them — but because groups of giggling girls often turned up to spy on him from behind bookshelves, and Hermione found the noise distracting. 
“He’s not even good-looking!” she muttered angrily, glaring at Krum’s sharp profile. “They only like him because he’s famous! They wouldn’t look twice at him if he couldn’t do that Wonky-Faint thing —”
“Wronski Feint,” said Harry, through gritted teeth. Quite apart from liking to get Quidditch terms correct, it caused him another pang to imagine Ron’s expression if he could have heard Hermione talking about Wonky-Faints.

That may be the best passage about a teen missing a friend I've ever read. Who hasn't been in a situation where you wish a particular friend was there to appreciate the moment? And those moments are bittersweet if for some reason the friend can't be there. Because Rowling takes the time to illustrate Harry's loss, we care that he gets his friend back. By further illustrating the boys importance to Hermione, we care that they mend their friendship for her sake.

And of course, there's a bit of misdirection in play as well. If Hermione doesn't think Krum is good looking, surely she won't want to later attend the big dance with him rather than Ron... Most every chapter in this book contains at least one set up for a later pay off, which brings us to what Hagrid shows Harry late at night:

Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting — torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground; a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to them. 
At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs.

I especially love the detail about seven or eight wizards to each dragon. If each dragon takes that many wizards to control, what hope does one plucky boy wizard have? The dragons are well described, of course, and their presence is exciting, but my question for you, Esteemed Reader, is why are the dragons introduced in Chapter 19 rather than 20?

Surely they'll be plenty of time to describe the dragons when Harry is fighting one during the Triwizard Tournament. It seems this book could be shorter if Rowling simply introduced the dragons the day of rather than a whole chapter before hand. 

Anticipation is half of suspense, Esteemed Reader.Harry fighting the dragon is one of the biggest moments in book four and Rowling builds to it by telling the reader in advance some of what's coming. Because both Harry and the reader know what's coming, the tension that mounts prior to Harry's brush with the Hungarian Hortail is in some ways more suspenseful than the actual tournament event. 

Rowling doesn't give the whole game away. She doesn't tell us exactly how the dragons will be used, though she certainly plants enough clues:

They wanted nesting mothers, I don’t know why . . . but I tell you this, I don’t envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back end’s as dangerous as its front, look.” 
Charlie pointed toward the Horntail’s tail, and Harry saw long, bronze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches. 
Five of Charlie’s fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at that moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Horntail’s side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing. 
“I’ve got them counted, Hagrid,” said Charlie sternly. 

Most every Stephen King book I've ever read had about 50 pages of character development and foreshadowing for every 5 pages of actual violence and horror, and he's the master of suspense. The secret to building suspense, as Rowling well knows, is not in keeping things from the reader, but in revealing things to the reader. If she told us nothing about the first task in the tournament, we wouldn't know what to expect and how excited to be until the second task. But because she prepares us a chapter in advance by revealing the dragons, we go into Chapter 20 excited and nervous for Harry.

And that's going to do it for Chapter 19. Meet me here next week for Hugh Howey and Harry's battle with a fire-breathing dragon. It's going to be fun:)

Last Paragraph(s): “Just thought you’d come nosing around, did you?” Harry shouted. He knew that Ron had no idea what he’d walked in on, knew he hadn’t done it on purpose, but he didn’t care — at this moment he hated everything about Ron, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath his pajama trousers. 
“Sorry about that,” said Ron, his face reddening with anger. “Should’ve realized you didn’t want to be disturbed. I’ll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace.” 
Harry seized one of the POTTER REALLY STINKS badges off the table and chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron on the forehead and bounced off. 
“There you go,” Harry said. “Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you’re lucky. . . . That’s what you want, isn’t it?” 
He strode across the room toward the stairs; he half expected Ron to stop him, he would even have liked Ron to throw a punch at him, but Ron just stood there in his too-small pajamas, and Harry, having stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed fuming for a long time afterward and didn’t hear him come up to bed.

NINJA BOOK CLUB: Chapter 18 THE WEIGHING OF THE WANDS

First Paragraph: When Harry woke up on Sunday morning, it took him a moment to remember why he felt so miserable and worried. Then the memory of the previous night rolled over him. He sat up and ripped back the curtains of his own four-poster, intending to talk to Ron, to force Ron to believe him — only to find that Ron’s bed was empty; he had obviously gone down to breakfast.

Hello there, Esteemed Reader. I hope you've got big plans to celebrate our Independence Day tomorrow or this weekend. The 4th of July has always rivaled Christmas as my favorite holiday. It was the event of the year in the small Indiana town where the Ninja grew up. We had a parade, a carnival (nothing beats a poorly-constructed  miniature coaster, its structure squealing and shaking, its operator drunk, for big-time thrills), Grandma's homemade ice cream, and of course, fireworks.

Grandma's gone now, and these days I spend my Independence Day with Mrs. Ninja's family. I've been blowing stuff up with my nephew since he was eleven. He graduated high school this year and afterward he sent us a card that would've brought a tear to my eye were I not a Ninja. He asked if I would still be around to light fireworks with him this year. Esteemed Reader, I wouldn't miss it for the world's best publishing contract. But you know I'd think long and hard about it:)

I hope you have a good holiday, Esteemed Reader, but before the fireworks, we have some business to attend to back at the old Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As you'll recall, the cliffhanger of Chapter 17 was an explosion of emotion between Harry and his best friend Ron. I don't know about you, Esteemed Reader, but I haven't slept a night since, so worried have I been that those two might not find a way to kiss and make up. Harry - Ron = Sadness:(

Why are Ron and Harry fighting? Well, Harry's not quite sure at first. Rather than have Harry sit and think his way through it, which I spent last week complaining about, Rowling has Hermione explain the situation:

“Have you seen Ron?” Harry interrupted. 
Hermione hesitated. “Erm . . . yes . . . he was at breakfast,” she said. 
“Does he still think I entered myself?” 
“Well . . . no, I don’t think so . . . not really,” said Hermione awkwardly (this adverb is awkward--MGN). 
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘not really’?” 
“Oh Harry, isn’t it obvious?” Hermione said despairingly (this adverb makes me despair--MGN). “He’s jealous!” 
“Jealous?” Harry said incredulously (it's perfectly clear from the context this line is said incredulously without need of the-explain-my-story-to-the-hapless-reader adverb--MGN). “Jealous of what? He wants to make a prat of himself in front of the whole school, does he?” 
“Look,” said Hermione patiently (what is is about the verb "said" that invites these adverbs--MGN), “it’s always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it’s not your fault,” she added quickly, seeing Harry open his mouth furiously. “I know you don’t ask for it . . . but — well — you know, Ron’s got all those brothers to compete against at home, and you’re his best friend, and you’re really famous — he’s always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and he puts up with it, and he never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many. . . .” 
“Great,” said Harry bitterly (this adverb adds nothing--MGN). “Really great. Tell him from me I’ll swap any time he wants. Tell him from me he’s welcome to it. . . . People gawping at my forehead everywhere I go. . . .” 
“I’m not telling him anything,” Hermione said shortly (this adverb adds even less--MGN). “Tell him yourself. It’s the only way to sort this out.” 
“I’m not running around after him trying to make him grow up!” Harry said, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm (a lovely concrete image that enhance the dialogue without need of a pesky adverb such as "owl-fluttering-ly"--MGN). “Maybe he’ll believe I’m not enjoying myself once I’ve got my neck broken or —” 
“That’s not funny,” said Hermione quietly (the least obnoxious adverb of the bunch, but still unnecessary,  though her sales tell me that Rowling can pretty well decide for herself what's necessary--MGN). “That’s not funny at all.” She looked extremely anxious. “Harry, I’ve been thinking — you know what we’ve got to do, don’t you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?” 
“Yeah, give Ron a good kick up the —” 
“Write to Sirius."

Hideous adverbs aside, I love this scene because of how it characterizes Hermione even as the focus is Harry and Ron. Hermione, it would seem, is not only the repository of all necessary exposition, she's also the Dr. Phil of the group. Hermione is obviously taking this rift as seriously as the boys, and as we'll learn, she'll later seem more invested in their friendship than the two of them. She recognizes the boys need each other even if they don't, which makes us love Hermione more.

Why though, is it necessary for Ron and Harry to fight at all? One could make the argument that this fight lays the groundwork for book seven, when the fellas have their second, more critical lover's quarrel.  But I would ask again why either fight is necessary. From a plot perspective, there's plenty of conflict in both books without these fights. True, if Harry weren't fighting with Ron, he'd just be dealing with the Triwizard Tournament, the mystery of who's out to get him, his first crush, a dragon, some angry mermaids, deadly plants, and the return of Lord Voldemort, and the story might lag:)

Firstly, there's rarely such a thing as "too much conflict," and certainly the stakes can never be "too high." There is such a thing as overly-convoluted, but Ron and Harry's spat pairs nicely with the main plot of the book. We'll be talking more about this in the weeks to come, but notice how the chaps' fight is directly tied to the major story event of Harry being selected by the Goblet of Fire. When their dispute is later resolved, it will be because Harry saves Ron while competing in the Triwizard Tournament, during another major story event. Ron and Harry's subplot dovetails with the main plot. It isn't it's own separate occurrence.

Secondly, the boy's feud stems directly from character. Rowling spent previous chapters and books showing us that Ron is jealous of Harry--and can you blame him? Even if this book were Harry Potter and the Perfectly Normal School Year During Which No One Died and Nothing Unusual Happened (Mrs. Rowling, if you're reading this, you're welcome to this title without so much as a finder's fee), Harry and Ron would still eventually fight. The events of the story force them into the crucible, but Ron's jealousy is an aspect of his character that would've manifested itself in any circumstance.

A conflict this juicy--what could be more emotionally engaging than a war between best friends--demands to be milked. Rowling drags this out over several chapters, always reminding us at odd moments about the boys' issue:

So Fleur was part veela, thought Harry, making a mental note to tell Ron . . . then he remembered that Ron wasn’t speaking to him. 

How it pangs the heart! But I see we're running long and we have other matters to discuss. Firstly, there's the matter of Sirius Black, who is a character I don't think Rowling ever quite knew what to do with after the third book. As the dangerous prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius was interesting and a story asset. But as Harry's godfather who has to stay in hiding, requiring pages of extra explanation every time he and Harry interact, he had to be a pain for Rowling--I think that's why she kills him off next book.

Add to that Sirius's subplot in this book doesn't really go anywhere, and I think we can establish a motive for murder. Harry writes to Sirius, Sirius writes back, they have a forbidden fireside chat, and that's about it. Next book, there's more of the same. Yes, I know Sirius cares about Harry and gives him an awesome broom and later, a house, and he does tie the current story to the events of the past involving Harry's parents and Snape. But Sirius never directly impacts the plot of this novel and he strikes me more as an ancillary matter Rowling had to address rather than a character she would've otherwise chosen to include in this story.

More interesting to this and every Harry Potter story is Severus Snape.  We've seen him torture Harry before and we'll see him do it again. His injustices are a constant source of conflict throughout the series, keeping things interesting whenever there's a lull. This time around, Rowling fuels the reader's hatred for him by having him attack poor Hermione after a school fight involving magic (naturally) in a way that makes everyone want to punch Snape in the face:

“Malfoy got Hermione!” Ron said. “Look!” 
He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape’s back. 
Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, “I see no difference.” 
Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.

Snape's a bad man. But that's what makes him a great character. He's the guy we love to hate. And Harry's hatred of him, which mirrors our own, allows Rowling to show us Harry's not so good-natured as to be unrelatable:

Harry sat there staring at Snape as the lesson began, picturing horrific things happening to him. . . . If only he knew how to do the Cruciatus Curse . . . he’d have Snape flat on his back like that spider, jerking and twitching. . .

Who among us made it through school without ever fantasizing about torturing a teacher or two? There's a bit more going on in this chapter than we have time to discuss this week, Esteemed Reader, as I have to be going. But I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the official introduction of Rita Skeeter, one of my favorite characters in the series. So I'll leave you with one of the best character descriptions I've ever read. For me, it's the details that sell it:

“Maybe not that small, Ludo,” said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on Harry. Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.     

Enjoy your 4th, Esteemed Reader, and meet me here next week when I find the 19th thing I apparently have to say about this one book:)

Last Paragraph: Harry — I can’t say everything I would like to in a letter, it’s too risky in case the owl is intercepted — we need to talk face-to-face. Can you ensure that you are alone by the fire in Gryffindor Tower at one o’clock in the morning on the 22nd of November? I know better than anyone that you can look after yourself, and while you’re around Dumbledore and Moody I don’t think anyone will be able to hurt you. However, someone seems to be having a good try. Entering you in that tournament would have been very risky, especially right under Dumbledore’s nose. Be on the watch, Harry. I still want to hear about anything unusual. Let me know about the 22nd of November as quickly as you can.
Sirius 

NINJA BOOK CLUB: Chapter 17 THE FOUR CHAMPIONS

First Paragraph: Harry sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. He had not heard correctly.

Esteemed Reader, I must say this up front: I adore J.K. Rowling. Of course I do. I admire great middle grade writers every chance I get and she's among the absolute best. I'd be out of my mind not to respect her and study her craft with reverence  which is why I'm still doing these posts 17 weeks in. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is my favorite in the series and I think it ought to go on and be declared literature at this point. 

But I truly believe every writer has weak parts of their writing. For example, Stephen King knows how to create suspense, but he rarely crafts a satisfying ending (about 40% of the time). Mark Twain was cleverer and funnier than any other writer since, but he did stretch his stories thin for theme and metaphor from time to time. Ernest Hemmingway wrote the manliest fiction I've ever read, but he was a terrible human being:) J.K. Rowling is magical, but I swear she swiped some things from the movie Troll, and the Harry Potter books are not perfect. 

The word perfect and I have never been associated and this blog is often tedious, yet you come back week after week, Esteemed Reader:)  I'm not saying J.K. Rowling is any less awesome just because her books aren't perfect. I also acknowledge that it's a lot easier for me to sit back and criticize than to write my own magical middle grade novel. But no book is sacred and we writers must cut our teeth every opportunity we get. A writer must be a sharp critic of his own work, and an impartial observer of what does and doesn't work in the writing of others.

Chapter 17 is mostly great. There's one rather tedious passage I'm going to pick apart, which is the reason for the long intro. But the chapter opens and ends strong and it's short. I like that in a chapter. 

When we last left Harry, his name had just been drawn from the Goblet of Fire, which is bad news. Chapter 17 is a master class in how to make a bad story problem even worse. First, Rowling has to deal with the aftermath of Harry's joining the tournament, but she gives us hints at what's coming by the chapter's end:

Harry turned to Ron and Hermione; beyond them, he saw the long Gryffindor table all watching him, openmouthed. 
“I didn’t put my name in,” Harry said blankly. “You know I didn’t.” 
Both of them stared just as blankly back.

What's going on with Harry's homies, there? And why are they mysteriously absent from the after party later on? It's because Ron's finally mad at Harry. There, I said it. Also, Cedric Diggory dies.

I'm not worried about spoilers for this series of posts. If you don't like or haven't at least read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, why would you be reading this? So as we all know, Mad Eye Moody isn't really Mad Eye Moody. He's the devious bad guy who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire and who is plotting Harry's death at the hands of Voldermort. So look how Rowling plays us all for fools:

“After all our meetings and negotiations and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur! I have half a mind to leave now!” 
“Empty threat, Karkaroff,” growled a voice from near the door. “You can’t leave your champion now. He’s got to compete. They’ve all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?” 
Moody had just entered the room. He limped toward the fire, and with every right step he took, there was a loud clunk. 
“Convenient?” said Karkaroff. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Moody.” 
Harry could tell he was trying to sound disdainful, as though what Moody was saying was barely worth his notice, but his hands gave him away; they had balled themselves into fists. 
“Don’t you?” said Moody quietly. “It’s very simple, Karkaroff. Someone put Potter’s name in that goblet knowing he’d have to compete if it came out.”

Moody comes to Harry's defense. We haven't liked him this much since he turned Malfoy into a ferret. In fact, I liked Mad-Eye Moody so much, the first time I read this book and learned Mad-Eye Moody was never really Mad-Eye Moody, I felt betrayed. I felt like I'd lost a friend. But I didn't figure out the mystery before it was revealed and I'll wager most readers didn't. 

The last section of this chapter is Ron and Harry's big fight after which they call off the wedding! It's a great moment and one that's been subtly building over several chapters, as we've been discussing in laborious detail for many weeks. I promise to leave you with the whole fight so you can enjoy it again, but first I want to talk about thinking. 

One of the great strengths of novels is their ability to put us completely in the head of a character, so we can see the world the way they see it. A character in a movie usually can't tell the audience exactly what he's thinking unless he's Kevin Spacey in House of Cards, but book characters do this all the time.  Even in third person, authors can dip into character's heads and tell us what they're thinking. 

Here is a truly excellent passage from early in this chapter, just after Harry's name has been drawn for the tournament, in which the reader knows exactly what Harry is thinking:

Harry got to his feet, trod on the hem of his robes, and stumbled slightly. He set off up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. It felt like an immensely long walk; the top table didn’t seem to be getting any nearer at all, and he could feel hundreds and hundreds of eyes upon him, as though each were a searchlight. The buzzing grew louder and louder. After what seemed like an hour, he was right in front of Dumbledore, feeling the stares of all the teachers upon him. 
“Well . . . through the door, Harry,” said Dumbledore. He wasn’t smiling.

Rowling never tells us Harry is feeling nervous and apprehensive. She shows us by showing us what Harry sees and by having him stumble. Having Harry say or think: "Oh dear, I've soiled my school robes," isn't necessary because we know from the details of the scene that he's soiling his school robes (metaphorically speaking). I especially like the detail that Dumbledore isn't smiling. We know Dumbledore loves Harry, so his sternness here is as unsettling to us as it is to Harry, allowing us to know just by virtue of the scene what Harry must be thinking.

Like it or not, storytelling has been forever changed by the advent of television and movies. Showing us the character's reactions will always be more interesting than a chunk of exposition, or worse, a character sitting and thinking. Even when he's telling us exactly what he's thinking, Kevin Spacey's character in House of Cards is killing a dog, not sitting inactive. I've harped on this before, but nothing is more boring than a character sitting alone and thinking about things the reader isn't shown in scene.

Rowling doesn't have Harry sit and think. Heavens no! She has him walk and think. Contrast this scene with the previous:

Harry stood listening to him going down the stone steps beyond it, then, slowly, he started to climb the marble ones. 
Was anyone except Ron and Hermione going to believe him, or would they all think he’d put himself in for the tournament? Yet how could anyone think that, when he was facing competitors who’d had three years’ more magical education than he had — when he was now facing tasks that not only sounded very dangerous, but which were to be performed in front of hundreds of people? Yes, he’d thought about it . . . he’d fantasized about it . . . but it had been a joke, really, an idle sort of dream . . . he’d never really, seriously considered entering. . . . 
But someone else had considered it . . . someone else had wanted him in the tournament, and had made sure he was entered. Why? To give him a treat? He didn’t think so, somehow. . . . 
To see him make a fool of himself? Well, they were likely to get their wish. . .
But to get him killed? 
Was Moody just being his usual paranoid self? Couldn’t someone have put Harry’s name in the goblet as a trick, a practical joke? Did anyone really want him dead? 
Harry was able to answer that at once. Yes, someone wanted him dead, someone had wanted him dead ever since he had been a year old . . . Lord Voldemort. But how could Voldemort have ensured that Harry’s name got into the Goblet of Fire? Voldemort was supposed to be far away, in some distant country, in hiding, alone . . . feeble and powerless. . . . 
Yet in that dream he had had, just before he had awoken with his scar hurting, Voldemort had not been alone . . . he had been talking to Wormtail . . . plotting Harry’s murder. . . . 
Harry got a shock to find himself facing the Fat Lady already.

Yawn. I sort of drifted off for a moment there, Esteemed Reader, but I'm back now. Maybe I'm too picky, but that scene is, in my ever humble opinion, the worst moment in this book since Chapter 2, in which Harry literally sat and thought. We, the reader, know exactly what Harry's thinking, and I doubt many of us care. This is the sort of scene that would usually be played out with Ron and Hermione, but of course, Rowling's keeping them distant because of the way the chapter ends.

I submit to you that there isn't one piece of information in this passage that the reader doesn't already know. If I ever build a Terminator, I'm not sending him after John Connor--let somebody else worry about that kid. I'm sending my Terminator back in  time to convince Rowling or her editor to cut this scene out of the novel. It's dry, it isn't interesting, and if it weren't directly following an awesome scene and directly followed by an awesome scene, it would slow the book to a stop.

Harry isn't doing anything. He is in no way advancing the plot aside from his walking from point A to B. There's no direct conflict here, only thinking about conflict. Unless your before and after scenes are as exciting as Rowling's, Esteemed Reader, seek out sitting-and-thinking passages like this in your manuscript and terminate them. Otherwise, when I write a weekly criticism of your work, I will complain!!! Do you really want to risk that happening!?!

That's going to do it for this week, Esteemed Reader. I'm off to play cards with the YA Cannibals as we're winding down the Writing Day I told you about Monday, even though I wrote both these posts on Sunday. But before I go, I'll leave you with Ron and Harry's big fight as we'll be talking about it more in the coming weeks:

Last Paragraph(s): “Congratulations.” 
“What d’you mean, congratulations?” said Harry, staring at Ron. There was definitely something wrong with the way Ron was smiling: It was more like a grimace. 
“Well . . . no one else got across the Age Line,” said Ron. “Not even Fred and George. What did you use — the Invisibility Cloak?” 
“The Invisibility Cloak wouldn’t have got me over that line,” said Harry slowly. 
“Oh right,” said Ron. “I thought you might’ve told me if it was the Cloak . . . because it would’ve covered both of us, wouldn’t it? But you found another way, did you?” 
“Listen,” said Harry, “I didn’t put my name in that goblet. Someone else must’ve done it.” 
Ron raised his eyebrows. 
“What would they do that for?” “I dunno,” said Harry. He felt it would sound very melodramatic to say, “To kill me.” 
Ron’s eyebrows rose so high that they were in danger of disappearing into his hair. 
“It’s okay, you know, you can tell me the truth,” he said. “If you don’t want everyone else to know, fine, but I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie, you didn’t get into trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady’s, that Violet, she’s already told us all Dumbledore’s letting you enter. A thousand Galleons prize money, eh? And you don’t have to do end-of-year tests either. . . .” 
“I didn’t put my name in that goblet!” said Harry, starting to feel angry. 
“Yeah, okay,” said Ron, in exactly the same skeptical tone as Cedric. “Only you said this morning you’d have done it last night, and no one would’ve seen you. . . . I’m not stupid, you know.” 
“You’re doing a really good impression of it,” Harry snapped. 
“Yeah?” said Ron, and there was no trace of a grin, forced or otherwise, on his face now. “You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something.” 
He wrenched the hangings shut around his four-poster, leaving Harry standing there by the door, staring at the dark red velvet curtains, now hiding one of the few people he had been sure would believe him

NINJA BOOK CLUB: Chapter 16 THE GOBLET OF FIRE

First Paragraph(s): I don’t believe it!” Ron said, in a stunned voice, as the Hogwarts students filed back up the steps behind the party from Durmstrang. “Krum, Harry! Viktor Krum!” 
“For heaven’s sake, Ron, he’s only a Quidditch player,” said Hermione. 
“Only a Quidditch player?” Ron said, looking at her as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “Hermione — he’s one of the best Seekers in the world! I had no idea he was still at school!”

Hello there, Esteemed Reader! I hope your week is going well. The Ninja has recently learned firsthand that husbands can experience sympathy pregnancy symptoms, which has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. But I've talked with enough dad's to confirm it's a real thing. I won't bore you with the obnoxious details, but know the whole time I'm experiencing them, I am annoyed and quite disgusted with myself. 

Mrs. Ninja and I have enough complications in our life with one of us being pregnant; we don't need any trouble from me. In a battle, should one soldier be shot in the leg, the rest of her platoon doesn't shoot themselves in the leg to make her feel better. The whole business of sympathy pains is absurd and I'm tired of talking about it (which could be the result of sympathy moodiness), so let's talk about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It's to be Chapter 16 this week in which we at long last have reached the actual Goblet of Fire, allowing us to fully appreciate the title of the book. The main purpose of Chapter 16 is to establish the rules of the Triwizard Tournament and set up one of the biggest plot points of this book's adventure. Harry Potter is going to compete in that tournament. Of course he is. Can you imagine a Harry Potter book in which Harry spent chapter after chapter cheering for Cedric Diggory from the stands? That's not going to happen and the book would be a lame read if it did. 

To her credit though, Rowling does take the time to build doubt in the reader's mind. This is important for two reasons: 1. it's no fun to read a story in which everything happens the manner in which the reader expects it to happen. 2. Harry is a more relatable, as well as more a consistent character if he is a reluctant hero--see every action hero movie ever made. 

John McClain's days of killing terrorists by the dozens are done until his wife/daughter/son is kidnapped and he has to make a bunch of folks Die Hard one last time, depending on opening weekend grosses. The Man of Steel isn't planning to save the world until General Zod holds it hostage and only he can save us. If Harry rushes to put himself in harm's way without a compelling reason, he isn't a real character, and if his reason is merely seeking additional fame, he isn't the Harry we've grown to love over three books. Russel Crowe doesn't choose to be Gladiator, he's forced to be. And so it's to be with Harry.

As usual, whenever Rowling has some important exposition to relate to the reader and Hermione isn't available, she has Dumbledore. One of the advantages of setting a story in a school is headmasters really do give long speeches to their student body explaining rules of an event:

“Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet,” said Dumbledore. “Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete. 
“To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation,” said Dumbledore, “I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line. 
“Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract."

That last line is especially important. The "binding, magical contract" bit guarantees that as soon as Harry is chosen by the Goblet of Fire, he'll have no choice--the key to the reluctant action hero--but to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. And he'll win (by a tie, it's true) because, we'll, he's Harry Potter, dude. And despite his reluctance, Harry may not be entirely opposed to bit a glory:

“You’ll try and get in, won’t you, Harry?” 
Harry thought briefly of Dumbledore’s insistence that nobody under seventeen should submit their name, but then the wonderful picture of himself winning the Triwizard Tournament filled his mind again. . . . He wondered how angry Dumbledore would be if someone younger than seventeen did find a way to get over the Age Line. . .

Writers, take note: Rowling may lay out the rules of the Goblet of Fire in a boring talking head scene, but she doesn't leave it there. In order to keep readers guessing as to how he'll get into the tournament and to show Harry's reluctance, Rowling has to create an obstacle to Harry's entering. It's one thing for Dumbledore to explain there's an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire, but the reader will not accept it unless we're shown. The result is quite funny and comedy is almost always worth slowing your story down for:

“Done it,” Fred said in a triumphant whisper to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “Just taken it.” 
“What?” said Ron. 
“The Aging Potion, dung brains,” said Fred.
“One drop each,” said George, rubbing his hands together with glee. “We only need to be a few months older.”

Harry watched, fascinated, as Fred pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket bearing the words Fred Weasley — Hogwarts. Fred walked right up to the edge of the line and stood there, rocking on his toes like a diver preparing for a fifty-foot drop. Then, with the eyes of every person in the entrance hall upon him, he took a great breath and stepped over the line. 
For a split second Harry thought it had worked — George certainly thought so, for he let out a yell of triumph and leapt after Fred — but next moment, there was a loud sizzling sound, and both twins were hurled out of the golden circle as though they had been thrown by an invisible shot-putter. They landed painfully, ten feet away on the cold stone floor, and to add insult to injury, there was a loud popping noise, and both of them sprouted identical long white beards.

And there you have it. Rowling tells us that no one under the age of seventeen can put their name in the Goblet of Fire and then she shows us it's so, giving credibility to Dumbledore's words and a laugh to the young reader.Therefore, Harry Potter cannot enter the tournament, simple as that, so there's no point in his worrying about it. But just as the reader accepts this, Rowling reveals in the last paragraph cliff hanger that Harry's name has somehow been placed in the cup and he must compete. The reluctant hero is forced to act and is made more sympathetic by being forced. That's the meat of the chapter and if Rowling left it there, her story would be moving along nicely and I wouldn't have anything to say about it. 

But Rowling doesn't leave it there. Her pacing and her plots are impeccable, usually, but the reason this series is so beloved is for its characters. Though the majority of Chapter 16 is devoted to the Goblet of Fire and this all-important plot point that sets up the novel's main mystery: who put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire and why, there are still whole sections of the chapter devoted to character. 

Rowling further's her running joke of Ron being the world's biggest Victor Krum fan, which will be extra funny later when the world-famous athlete starts dating Ron's would-be (will-be) girlfriend:

Several sixth-year girls were frantically searching their pockets as they walked — “Oh I don’t believe it, I haven’t got a single quill on me —”
"D’you think he’d sign my hat in lipstick?” 
“Really,” Hermione said loftily (another unnecessary adverb--MGN) as they passed the girls, now squabbling over the lipstick. 
“I’m getting his autograph if I can,” said Ron. “You haven’t got a quill, have you, Harry?”

Ron and Hermione aren't the only teens discovering lust for the first time. Harry himself again takes special notice of Cho Chang, which is a crush that will pay off more in the next adventure than this book. And to make matters more interesting, there are veela running around Hogwarts this year, distracting all the boys and mayhap some of the girls:

The girl picked up the dish and carried it carefully off to the Ravenclaw table. Ron was still goggling at the girl as though he had never seen one before. Harry started to laugh. The sound seemed to jog Ron back to his senses. “She’s a veela!” he said hoarsely to Harry. 
“Of course she isn’t!” said Hermione tartly. (this adverb not quite so offensive--MGN) “I don’t see anyone else gaping at her like an idiot!” But she wasn’t entirely right about that. As the girl crossed the Hall, many boys’ heads turned, and some of them seemed to have become temporarily speechless, just like Ron. 
“I’m telling you, that’s not a normal girl!” said Ron, leaning sideways so he could keep a clear view of her. “They don’t make them like that at Hogwarts!” 
“They make them okay at Hogwarts,” said Harry without thinking. Cho happened to be sitting only a few places away from the girl with the silvery hair.


Teenagers thinking about the opposite sex is hardly groundbreaking stuff, but it is important that Rowling's characters be consistent and behave the way non-magical teenagers would behave at this age. More interesting is Hermione's jealousy of Ron noticing another girl, though as I've mentioned, she'll get hers later. Even with everything else going on in this chapter, Rowling makes time to service our main characters and their relationships, which is precisely why we care about everything else going on. 

Of more interest to me in this chapter than teenagers and their hormones is Rowling's treatment of Hagrid, though he'll later have his own romantic issues to contend with. In some ways Hagrid is a big child and a fourth member of the trio. He genuinely seems to enjoy his time with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and few settings in Hogwarts are as vividly described over seven books as Hagrid's hut: 

Hagrid’s cabin comprised a single room, in one corner of which was a gigantic bed covered in a patchwork quilt. A similarly enormous wooden table and chairs stood in front of the fire beneath the quantity of cured hams and dead birds hanging from the ceiling. They sat down at the table while Hagrid started to make tea, and were soon immersed in yet more discussion of the Triwizard Tournament. Hagrid seemed quite as excited about it as they were. 
“You wait,” he said, grinning. “You jus’ wait. Yer going ter see some stuff yeh’ve never seen before. Firs’ task . . . ah, but I’m not supposed ter say.” 
“Go on, Hagrid!” Harry, Ron, and Hermione urged him, but he just shook his head, grinning. 
“I don’ want ter spoil it fer yeh,” said Hagrid. “But it’s gonna be spectacular, I’ll tell yeh that. Them champions’re going ter have their work cut out. Never thought I’d live ter see the Triwizard Tournament played again!” 
They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, though they didn’t eat much — Hagrid had made what he said was a beef casserole, but after Hermione unearthed a large talon in hers, she, Harry, and Ron rather lost their appetites.

It's a lovely scene and Rowling is setting us up perfectly. Who wouldn't want to spend an afternoon in Hagrid's hut, even if lunch wasn't such of a much and the conversation revolved around the main plot? It's a warm, comforting place, and to me, it feels like home. Given his love for Harry and Harry's love for Hagrid, I'm amazed the giant managed to survive seven novels, as Harry's love is typically a death sentence. But just as the reader is feeling safe, even if only for a few paragraphs, Hagrid drops a bomb: 

A light rain had started to fall by midafternoon; it was very cozy sitting by the fire, listening to the gentle patter of the drops on the window, watching Hagrid darning his socks and arguing with Hermione about house-elves — for he flatly refused to join S.P.E.W. when she showed him her badges. 
“It’d be doin’ ’em an unkindness, Hermione,” he said gravely, threading a massive bone needle with thick yellow yarn. “It’s in their nature ter look after humans, that’s what they like, see? Yeh’d be makin’ ’em unhappy ter take away their work, an’ insultin’ ’em if yeh tried ter pay ’em.” 
“But Harry set Dobby free, and he was over the moon about it!” said Hermione. “And we heard he’s asking for wages now!” 
“Yeah, well, yeh get weirdos in every breed. I’m not sayin’ there isn’t the odd elf who’d take freedom, but yeh’ll never persuade most of ’em ter do it — no, nothin’ doin’, Hermione.” 
Hermione looked very cross indeed and stuffed her box of badges back into her cloak pocket.

That may be one of my favorite conversations in the series. I love that Hagrid is wrong and that Rowling dares to give him the wrong view. Hagrid's not a bad guy, the reader knows. A few paragraphs before he was everyone's favorite, so why is he here endorsing slavery?

We can debate the reasons behind Rowling's choice, and by all means, if you disagree with me, sound off in the comments below. But realistically, in order for a society to have slaves, slavery has to be endorsed by a sizable portion of its members, and not just the villains. There are some relatives in my life who hold despicable views, but they love me and I love them right back. Life's too short for philosophical grudges among family.

And it's important to note that Hagrid's argument for continued slavery, wrong though it may be, is not an unkind one. The reasons why he thinks what he thinks are as important as what he thinks. This is worth remembering if you're planning to give your own character a view on the wrong side of history and want them to still be sympathetic. Rhett Butler may have helped form the Klan, but he had handsome, dashing reasons for doing so:) 

That's it for this week's long rambling about Harry Potter absolutely no one asked for. But traffic patterns tell me these weekly snore fests are being read and I enjoy writing them, so meet me here next week  for a discussion of Chapter 17 in which Ron and Harry finally start their big lover's quarrel. 

Last Paragraph(s): The fire in the goblet had just turned red again. Sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air, and borne upon it was another piece of parchment. 
Automatically, it seemed, Dumbledore reached out a long hand and seized the parchment. He held it out and stared at the name written upon it. There was a long pause, during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in his hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore. And then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out —
“Harry Potter.”