To commemorate my 700th review here at Epinions, I thought I’d write about a product that’s already been reviewed by 250 other people. It may be a waste of my time as far as income share is concerned, but that hasn’t stopped me before. Since the new Harry Potter movie is going to be released this weekend (I can’t wait), I thought I’d take the time to revisit Hogwarts and my favorite Harry Potter book: Book Four, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I was really hoping the fifth book would be my favorite, but I felt it was lacking in several areas. Right now Goblet of Fire (which I think I’ll abbreviate “GoF” for the duration of this review) is the pinnacle of the series; hopefully there are greater things ahead.

I’ll assume that by now you know the basics of Harry Potter…he’s an orphaned young man who discovers his parents were wizards, and goes away to school at Hogwarts, a castle staffed by wizards and witches and ghosts…there he makes new friends and new enemies. If you need more than this, you can use some of my other Harry Potter reviews as a primer:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone http://www.epinions.com/content_40866385540
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets http://www.epinions.com/content_47697268356
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban http://www.epinions.com/content_61095251588

Yeah, I’m shameless.

Part of my love for GoF may have to do with how I was exposed to it for the first time—I started reading the Harry Potter series right after the third book had come out, and found out that my girlfriend was reading them at the same time…we both finished the third book a month before the fourth was released, and when it came out, it was an Event. We both devoured the book, sharing a copy, reading a few chapters, giving it back, talking about it—it was very exciting. I still remember ditching one of my college classes to finish reading a chapter late in the book, and actually sitting in a hallway on campus crying real tears because of the death of a character.

So beyond my personal experience with GoF, what makes it so great? I’ll give you ten reasons:

1. The world of Harry Potter expands. We’ve caught glimpses of what it’s like to be in the wizarding world…they have their own banks and newspapers, and the mail is delivered by owls…but this is all the British version of the wizarding world. For the first time, we find out there are wizards in other countries, and this comes into play in two places—first at the Quidditch World Cup in the first few chapters of the book, and later on in an inter-school competition which pits Hogwarts against a French and an Eastern European school. For the first time we see outside the confines of Hogwarts, and the view is intriguing. We learn more about giants, dragons, mermaids, unicorns, phoenixes, leprechauns, animaguses, and the politics of wizardry than we did in the first three books, and unlike some other authors who have bored me to tears with fantasy, J.K. Rowling brought them in in imaginative ways, and made me want to learn more about them.

2. No Quidditch…sort of. Before I had seen the first Harry Potter movie, Quidditch was all a blur to me. Bludgers, brooms, players, hoops, the Golden Snitch…all of it meant nothing. So a book that was almost without any Quidditch games came as quite a relief; even though there’s the Quidditch World Cup early on in the book, the games don’t interrupt the flow of the novel. Harry still gets to use his Quidditch skills in the course of the Tri-Wizard tournament, but it’s for a greater purpose. And I liked that.

3. The Tri-Wizard Tournament. The competition between Hogwarts, Beauxbaton, and Durmstrang opened up the story for more characters and for more intriguing developments, including a former servant of Lord Voldemort, a love interest for Hagrid, and the tasks themselves. Each of the three tasks was challenging in a unique way, and it’s both fun and frustrating to watch Harry, as a typical junior high boy, telling his friends and guardians he’s “on top of it,” doing his homework and studying the tasks, when really he’s a slacker like you and me and doesn’t have any idea what the hell he’s doing. It made him seem more real…and when he doesn’t win every task outright…we feel his frustration too.

4. More time at the Weasley’s. I really hope, at the end of the seventh Harry Potter adventure, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley adopt Harry. It’s his home. It’s where he belongs. And the Weasleys could use him. As I read this book for the fourth time, finishing it last night, I felt tears welling up as Mrs. Weasley comforts Harry toward the end of the book. The chapters spent with Ron’s family at the beginning of this book are as delightful as any in the series, and are the one place that Harry feels completely safe, completely at home. It was nice to have Hermione there as well, and we get to see more of Ron’s other older brothers than we’ve seen in other books. The Weasleys are comedy, chaos, and red hair all in one Burrow, and although any one of those three things can really bug me, this combination works beautifully. Harry belongs with them, and I love that family.

5. Ron and Hermione. These are Harry’s two best friends, and…for the first time…we start to wonder if they’re gonna hook up someday. They both end up pursuing crushes in the book, and each is insanely jealous of the other. Harry seems to be oblivious to this most of the time, but Rowling makes sure we’re not. This was something I expected to develop a bit more in the fifth book, but it seems to have been dropped completely. We see some character development with Ron as he has a true fight and split with Harry; some with Hermione as well as she becomes more independent than she’s ever been before. They get into real fights several times…again, making this a more real friendship than we’ve seen so far in the series. We also see both Ron and Hermione helping Harry with the various tasks—even though the final showdown between Harry and his nemesis Voldemort have Harry very much alone. Harry Potter is undoubtedly the star of these books…but he’s never by himself.

6. Digging Deeper into Supporting Characters. GoF does us the service of making several supporting characters more than caricatures. Hagrid, who’s always been a beloved character, gets more “pagetime” in this book, and it’s used well. We learn about his past, we learn about his hopes, and we even get to see him in two new roles: as a suitor and as a teacher. Instead of just being used for comedy or a sounding board for Harry, Hagrid’s developing into his own strong character. Another favorite character…greasy as hell, but a favorite to despise, is Professor Snape. The teacher who absolutely hates Harry Potter. When Harry finds out one of Voldemort’s supporters is at Hogwarts, he assumes it’s Snape…but we find out that Snape is completely trusted by Dumbledore, and in fact is one of Dumbledore’s MOST trusted teachers at the school. This is something that will grow in the next book…along with the role of Neville Longbottom. He’s one of Harry’s roommates, but after knowing him for almost four years, Dumbledore reveals a few things to Harry about his clumsy acquaintance. I think what we learn about Neville in the fourth and fifth books makes him one of my favorite characters in the series—and that’s saying something.

7. Dumbledore. Now, I could say that Dumbledore is what makes any of the Harry Potter books great, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration. Rowling has found the perfect voice for the Headmaster of Hogwarts, and he becomes an even greater asset to Harry in GoF. By the time the book is finished, there’s no doubting the kindness, the near-omniscience, and the outright power of Dumbledore. In fact, at one point I actually thought “I hope God is this benevolent on Judgment Day.” Which is completely blasphemous, but that’s just the sort of power that Rowling gives to this ancient yet spry man. We get to see him outside his context at the school, both in flashbacks and in his interactions with the prime minister of the wizarding community, Cornelius Fudge. We get to see some more of the magical tools in his office, including one called a Pensieve, which holds and sorts thoughts in a sort of stone basin when they get to be too much for your cabeza. Dumbledore is Harry’s greatest ally, but can only help Harry if Harry lets him. I wish I had a Dumbledore at my work.

8. Mad-Eye Moody. A highlight of each of Harry’s years at Hogwarts has been the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher…first Professor Quirrell, then Gilderoy Lockhart, then Remus Lupin, and now Mad-Eye Moody. Each has been a vehicle for Rowling’s great knack for comedy, and each has been a questionable ally for Harry. Mad-Eye is one of my favorites. The look of the character, with the chunk missing from his nose, the wooden leg, the magical rotating false eye…his voice, and the eventual revelation about Moody all make him my favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever seen at Hogwarts. He’s a great character, and one who’s unexpected in that world.

9. The Horror of Lord Voldemort. Up until now, Voldemort’s confrontations with Harry have been relatively innocuous…they’ve placed Harry or his friends in danger, but everyone’s always lived to tell about it. This book has several deaths, and several shocking acts of violence—most in the final chapters of the book. One in particular is heartbreaking in its brutality and its abruptness. Lord Voldemort, in some sort of limbo since he tried to kill Harry fourteen years ago, is reborn in this book, and the scene is truly horrifying. Darker than anything from the previous books, when he rises, my adrenaline was coursing as if I were watching the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. His dialogue is deliciously corrupt and evil…and if I weren’t already having an evil man-crush on the Emperor from “Return of the Jedi,” I’d fall for Voldemort in a stony heartbeat. His actions are deplorable, but the implications of a living Lord Voldemort set the stage for an all-out war in the wizarding world. Very well written, very cinematic in scope.

10. Size Matters. People freaked when they heard GoF was going to be 734 pages long…but it’s the perfect length. We get enough time (but not too much time) before Harry goes to Hogwarts, spending time both with the Dursleys and the Weasleys; we get enough time at Hogwarts to accommodate all the new characters and events of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and enough time that it really seems like a year is passing in Harry’s life. But not a year in ours, if that makes sense. The fifth book, in my opinion, was too long. I’ll go off on that in a few months after I re-read it. But this is the perfect length. Long enough to really develop the characters, take them in new directions, and have the book mean something by the end. And big enough that you can’t disguise it, so you can see everyone around you reading it, because they’re as excited as you are for the next movie.

So. Those are my ten reasons that GoF is my favorite of the Harry Potter books thus far…and just because this is becoming the longest review I’ve ever written, here are three things I bet they’ll cut from the movie, which has already started preproduction:

1. The Dursleys. In fact, I already know they’ve been cut from the movie. I read an interview with the actor who plays Mr. Dursley, and evidently the movie will pick up after Harry has already left them to join the Weasleys. I don’t think I’ll miss them, but since Aunt Petunia plays a crucial role in the fifth book, I imagine they’ll be back.

2. S.P.E.W. Hermione gets it in her head to start the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare after she realizes how bad the House Elves have it…and although I kind of like Dobby and his people, the whole storyline feels tacked-on, and I’d be surprised to see it on the big screen.

3. Rita Skeeter. A fun character—a gossip columnist for the wizard newspaper The Daily Prophet who wreaks havoc on Harry, Hagrid, Hermione, and everyone else at Hogwarts…I really like her in the book, but like the S.P.E.W. storyline, it could be neatly excised and not interrupt the flow of the story.

I think this is enough.

After you’ve watched “Prisoner of Azkaban,” go back and read the fourth book in the Harry Potter series. It really is the best.


Recommended: Yes