Saturday, July 09, 2005

On rereading Goblet of Fire

My first few times through, I thought the plot of Goblet of Fire was a bit silly. Why not just solve every task with Accio? Why didn't Crouch!Moody just make something into a portkey and hand it to Harry? But upon a close rereading I find I'm really enjoying it. The first hundred or so pages have nothing to do with the rest of the plot (just chez Weasley and Quidditch Cup) but I'm immensely enjoying reading through them because I get to see joyous daily life in the wizarding world, which is really one of my favourite things about the books. Plus there's all these tiny little clues that you can see when you know how it's going to turn out. Perhaps clues isn't the correct word because the reader (or Harry) could never have put them together to figure out the entire nefarious plot (that's why the last few chapters are always essentially a debriefing). But as I reread, I see that Winky the House Elf is struggling as though an invisible person is holding onto her, which he is, but we don't know this yet! And I see how Crouch Sr. is reacting, and it all makes sense given what we know at the end! It really makes me appreciate the craft, and perhaps it will give me a better idea of how to derive clues from HBP.

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