History Literature / HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire

''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' is the fourth book in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series. Published July 8, 2000, this was the first book in the series to be heralded in with release parties as "Pottermania" took hold.

* It's the point at which CerebusSyndrome sets in. Voldemort returns to power due to Harry and his compatriots' failure to capture Wormtail at the end of ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban Prisoner of Azkaban]]'', and a significant supporting character ends up becoming a SacrificialLion... the first of many.

Followed by Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix''. [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire It was adapted into a film in 2005.]]

[[folder:A - B]]

--->'''Hermione''': [[SarcasmMode Ha, ha, ha.]] Goblins don't need protection. [...] Well, they're quite capable of dealing with wizards. They're very clever. They're not like house-elves, who never stick up for themselves.
* AccidentalMisnaming:

* AttackBackfire: Harry is nervous enough about having to face [[OurDragonsAreDifferent a dragon]] in the first Triwizard task, but the prospect of drawing [[TheDreaded the Hungarian Horntail]] drives him to look up spells to neutralise its attacks. He dismisses some in order to defy this trope: giving it "pepper breath", for example, might only make its fire stronger, and giving it a "horn tongue" would just add another sharp weapon at the opposite end of its body to its namesake feature.

* {{Blackmail}}: Throughout the book, Fred and George have whispered discussions, with the line "if we put that in writing, it's blackmail", causing Hermione to wonder what they are up to. [[spoiler: At the end, they reveal that they were blackmailing Ludo Bagman, who had paid them the winnings of a bet using leprechaun gold, which vanishes after a few hours. Bagman's secret is that he placed a very big bet with the goblins on Harry winning the Triwizard Tournament; and the goblins say that he drew with Diggory, so he lost the bet.]]

* BrickJoke: The day classes resume, it is mentioned that a girl named Eloise Midgen tried to curse her pimples off and had to have her nose put on again. Later, when the main trio are discussing Yule Ball date possibilities, Eloise is mentioned again. Ron says he won't go with her, because her nose is slightly off centre. Mentioned ''again'' at the Yule Ball, only to confirm that her nose is perfectly fine!
** And mentioned ''again'' in Book 5, wherein Hermione alludes to a curse she has crafted whose effect will be to "make Eloise Midgeon's acne look like a couple of cute freckles."

[[folder:C - E]]

* ChewOutFakeOut: Moody overhears Harry warning Cedric that the First Task is dragons, and asks to talk with Mr. Potter. Harry braces himself because he's not supposed to know anything about the First Task...and Moody praises him for being a decent and fair competitor. He says that generally it's every witch or wizard competitor for themselves in the Triwizard Tournament, and cheating is a long-time tradition. In fact, Moody wanted to make sure Harry had a strategy for getting past the dragons. [[spoiler:Of course, we learn that Moody had an especially good reason to make sure Harry survived: so he could make it to the graveyard for Voldemort's resurrection with the Third Task.]]

* ChimneyEntry: An accidental example -- Arthur Weasley has the Dursleys' fireplace connected to the Floo Network temporarily...only to discover the Dursleys have had it blocked up. He, Ron, Fred, and George end up piling into each other before he resorts to blasting their way out. He assures the Dursleys he can fix it, of course.

* CompactInfiltrator: [[spoiler: Rita Skeeter is revealed to be a beetle animagus, explaining how she was able to sneak around Hogwarts and report on such intrusive stories all year. On the flip side, once Hermione figured it out, she managed to trap Rita in a jar and blackmail her into stopping.]]

** The entire plot of the book turns out to be a scheme by [[spoiler:Barty Crouch, Jr.]] to deliver Harry Potter to a certain place at a certain time via Portkey. Left unanswered is why [[spoiler:Crouch Jr.]] couldn't have just kidnapped Harry, or turned any old object in his office into a Portkey and arranged for Harry to pick it up. (Dumbledore does this in the next book when he has to get Harry and the Weasleys out of Hogwarts and later the Ministry in a hurry.)

** If Bertha Jorkins had not been on holiday in Albania and gone to the same inn as [[spoiler:Wormtail]] at exactly the same time, it is unlikely that [[spoiler:Voldemort]] would have learned about the Triwizard Tournament or Moody's appointment at Hogwarts, the two key facets of information that his master plan is formed from.

* CoolTeacher: Moody is gruff and demands a lot from the students, but he endears himself to Harry and several of the others for being upfront with them about the dangers of the Dark Arts and what they need to do to prepare themselves, putting bullies like Malfoy in their place, and showing kindness to students like Neville when they need it. [[spoiler:Subverted, however, with TheReveal about who Moody ''really'' is...]]
* CoughSnarkCough: Ron accuses Hermione of only liking Cedric because he's MrFanservice. When Hermione claims she doesn't like people just because of their looks, he gives a false cough that sounds oddly like [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets "Gilderoy Lockhart"]].

* DietEpisode: At the start of the book, the Dursleys have had to put Dudley on a diet, as Dudley had come home from Smeltings for the summer with a note saying that the school's uniform supplier no longer provides pants in the obese Dudley's size. Dudley is not happy that he can no longer eat his favourite foodstuffs, so he tries to sneak donuts and eat his parents' share of the diet fruits. Unfortunately, Aunt Petunia decides that to accommodate Dudley, everyone else needs to participate, including Harry (who absolutely does ''not'' need such a thing). Thankfully, his friends send him enough snacks to keep him from starving.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This book marks the first instance of Harry receiving visions of what Voldemort is up to. However, unlike the future installments, Harry's visions have him serve as an outside viewer of sorts, seeing everything as though he were in the room with them. Starting with ''The Order of the Phoenix'', however, his visions plant him directly in Voldemort's head, seeing through Voldemort's eyes. The narration even tends to say that Harry is the one doing and saying the things Voldemort is doing and saying while in said visions.[[note]]This is possibly justified given that Harry's visions from an outsider's perspective happened before Voldemort returned to a physical body.[[/note]]

* EpicFail: Some {{Jerkass}} students make badges that switch between '''Support Cedric Diggory''' and '''Potter Stinks'''. The [[IneptMage Creevy brothers]] try bewitching them to say '''Support Harry Potter''' but end up up just getting them to say '''Potter REALLY Stinks'''.
* EtTuBrute: When Harry is heading back to the dorm after being forced into the Triwizard Tournament he wonders to himself whether anyone other than Ron and Hermione will believe his assertions that he really didn't put his name into the Goblet of Fire. When ''Ron'' consequently not only refuses to believe Harry and also becomes very resentful and bitter towards him, Harry can't believe it, and it leads to a major falling-out between them that lasts until after the first task.
* EurekaMoment: Ron and Harry speculating as to how Rita Skeeter could possibly have observed all the events she reports on leads to them suggesting that she's "bugging" them -- Hermione shoots this down because Muggle electronics would fail around Hogwarts, but the use of the word "bug" causes her to recall [[{{Foreshadowing}} a certain beetle that kept appearing]], and she runs off to confirm her theory. [[spoiler:She's right: Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus and has been spying on them with her beetle form.]]

** Despite being a little slow on the uptake about the situation with the Dark Mark, Bagman immediately protests that Crouch's elf Winky could not have summoned it when he appears in the middle of the investigation. He says that an elf couldn't have done powerful Dark Magic unless she had a wand and the incantation. While she did have the wand, Hermione and the kids come to Winky's defense; they said the voice who uttered the incantation was a deep male voice, not a squeaky female one. [[spoiler:Winky confiscated the wand from Crouch Jr. in her attempt to get him away from the Death Eater chaos]].
** Dumbledore tells Hagrid not to assault Karkaroff when Hagrid has the Durmstang headmaster pinned to a tree for insulting him (Dumbledore). He looks more concerned for Karkaroff's well-being than the fact that the man spat at his feet and accused him of sabotaging Viktor to gain an advantage in the tournament.

** [=McGonagall=] has seen a lot of things this past year, including one of her underage students facing a dragon and nearly drowning, while keeping her composure. What makes her absolutely lose it? [[spoiler:When Fudge brings a Dementor onto school grounds, in defiance of Dumbledore's dislike for Dementors and the fact that they nearly de-souled Harry a year before. She at first says that it's dangerous to have them around children, and is ''furious'' when the Dementor performs its kiss on Crouch Jr. before she could stop the monster. Fudge then tries to stop [=McGonagall=] from telling Dumbledore, and she tells him to shove it for his stupidity]].

* EvilGloating: Draco Malfoy gloats to Harry about Voldemort coming back and killing Muggles, Muggle-born wizards, and their sympathizers ... that is, [[ShutUpHannibal until he, Crabbe, and Goyle get their butts handed to them by the main trio and the Weasley twins]].

* EvilVersusEvil: A joke example happens when Harry asks Uncle Vernon if he can go to the Quidditch World Cup. Vernon has to stop and think about it, and Harry suspects it's because two of his fundamental instincts regarding Harry have suddenly come into conflict: Does he [[VillainBall say no for the sole reason that he hates Harry and wants him to be miserable]], or does he [[PragmaticVillainy say yes because it would get Harry out of his hair two entire weeks early]]?

** Voldemort promises to reward Wormtail by allowing him to perform a special task that many of his followers "would ''give their right hands'' to perform". The task? To ''give his right hand'', by cutting it off, for Voldemort's resurrection.
** When Voldemort conjures a [[spoiler:new hand to replace the one Wormtail sacrificed as part of the spell to restore him to his body]], he says "May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail." Wormtail unthinkingly replies "No, my lord, never," not thinking that this may actually be magic on Voldemort's part. [[spoiler:''Deathly Hallows'' makes it clear that's exactly what it was, as the hand murders Wormtail when he attempts -- however half-heartedly -- to defy Voldemort's commands a second time.]]

[[folder:F - I]]
* FailedASpotCheck: Play for drama after Harry asks Dumbledore if the final Pensieve flashback was discussing Neville's parents. A surprised Dumbledore asks if Neville's never told his friends about why he's been brought up by his Grandmother. Harry confirms he hasn't, then realizes that despite knowing Neville for nearly 4 years, he'd never really noticed this or thought to ask Neville about it.
* FalseReassurance: Both played straight and subverted. Wormtail can't help but notice Voldemort's choice of words when he says that "[Wormtail's] part will come at the very end" and promises him that he "will have the honour of being just as useful as Bertha Jorkins" (the woman Voldemort previously tortured for information and then killed). He immediately reads this as a euphemism for Wormtail dying as part of Voldemort's master plan and says as much, but Voldemort (truthfully) reassures him that isn't it at all. [[spoiler:However, Voldemort saying that Wormtail's reward will be to perform a task that "many of [his] followers would give their right hands to perform" is ''very'' much an instance of this trope]].

* FinalBossPreview: [[spoiler: Towards the end of the story, Voldemort gets fully revived due to a ritual by Pettigrew and faces off against Harry, who was too weak to fight him directly at this point in the series and only survived thanks to the ghosts of Voldemort's victims intervening.]]

* ForgotAboutHisPowers: The [[SummonToHand Accio]] spell could have been used more;
** Harry uses ''Accio'' to summon his broom during the first task; he didn't think of just using it to summon the dragon egg he was trying to get or summoning the broom to fly over the maze in the third task. In fact, the fact that ''none'' of the champions thinks to summon the egg directly to them suggests that they forget it should be possible, or that the egg had been enchanted to prevent exactly that; watching four people walk into an arena and have their eggs zip into their hands, one after another, isn't very entertaining. In either case, it goes unexplained why they don't try it.

* GambitRoulette: The whole Triwizard Tournament is hijacked by the scattered remnants of Voldemort's followers for the sole purpose of [[spoiler:kidnapping Harry Potter by having him touch a Portkey that will take him to their supervillain lair]]. Their overly elaborate EvilPlan hinges not only on manipulating the titular Goblet of Fire to draw Harry's name -- which itself draws immediate suspicion since it violates myriad Triwizard rules -- but also on [[spoiler:Harry's '''winning''' (and indeed, surviving) a dangerous, multi-stage tournament that culminates in an obstacle course through a large maze]]. There must have been a simpler way to [[spoiler:get to Harry]]. It should be noted, though, that [[spoiler:had Voldemort not been so arrogant as to want to fight Harry, the plan would have worked ''perfectly'': Harry would have simply vanished, and no one except for the Death Eaters would have had any idea what happened]].
* TheGamblingAddict: Bagman's EstablishingCharacterMoment is talking Arthur into a bet on the World Cup outcome.

* GoodIsNotSoft: Hermione delights in capturing and holding [[spoiler:Rita Skeeter]] to ransom; she blackmails them even further in Order of the Phoenix.
* GoodShapeshiftingEvilShapeshifting: [[spoiler: Rita Skeeter is a sneaky, underhanded tabloid journalist who just happens to be another unlicensed animagus, this one with the form of a beetle - allowing her a gift for spying on people... up until Hermione figures out the truth and traps her in a jar.]]

[[folder:J - M]]

* {{Jerkass}}: Rita Skeeter. IntrepidReporter nothing, she seems to live not to tell the truth, but to ''humiliate people''! Case in point: Hermione [[DisproportionateRetribution just for criticising her]], and Hagrid due to him confessing he's half-giant in a place where she is deliberately eavesdropping.

** When Hermione tells Rita off for spreading innuendo about "anyone... even Ludo Bagman," Rita retorts, "I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl." [[spoiler:She reported on Bagman's trial for helping the Death Eaters after Voldemort's fall.]]

* LoopholeAbuse: Moody / [[spoiler:Barty Crouch Jr.]] helps Harry realize this can help him win the first task. He can only bring his wand, but the rules don't ban him from using his wand to summon ''another'' tool ... such as his Firebolt for flying around the dragon. Indeed, the judges allow it since Harry is the fastest to get his egg.

* MagicalCounterfeiting: Leprechaun gold disappears after a few hours. [[spoiler: And Bagman paid Fred and George in leprechaun gold, so they try blackmailing him.]]
* MagicallyBindingContract: Submitting one's own name to the Goblet of Fire. Even if someone entered your name against your will and without your knowledge, if it chooses you to compete, you are expected to compete.[[note]] Barty Crouch says this [[spoiler:while under the Imperius Curse]], however, so these words may be [[spoiler:Voldemort speaking by proxy]] in order to ensure Harry's participation despite heavy protest, rather than being true.[[/note]]

** Ludo Bagman, who starts as a shifty character and whom we later learn is actually a bagman. "Ludo" also means "I play" in Latin (and is the name of the British variant of Pachisi); Ludo is the head of Magical Games and Sports. A "bagman" is also someone involved in the collection of dirty money and [[spoiler:Ludo turns out to have been cheating his gamblers, in order to pay off his debt to the goblins. Ludomania is the clinical term for compulsive gambling]].

[[folder:N - Q]]

[[folder:R - S]]
* RayOfHopeEnding: [[spoiler:Cedric Diggory is killed in cold blood by Peter Pettigrew, and Lord Voldemort is given a new body of his own to begin a second wave of terror against magical Britain. Fudge refuses to listen to Harry and Dumbledore when they tell him about Voldemort's return and Harry is shell-shocked from the incident. However, Dumbledore is already making preparations to fight against Voldemort and Hagrid assures Harry that whatever may come, they'll be ready for it.]]

-->'''Ron:''' Poor old Snuffles. He must really like you, Harry... imagine having to live off rats.

[[folder:T - Z]]

* TauntingTheTransformed: When Malfoy attacks Harry while his back is turned, Professor Moody catches him in the act and transforms Malfoy into a ferret - and then humiliates him by repeatedly bouncing up and down.
* TeachersOutOfSchool: After his scar hurts -- which hadn't happened since Voldemort himself was at Hogwarts -- Harry considers writing to Dumbledore, only to realize he has no idea where any of his teachers go during the holidays. He gets an amusing mental image of Dumbledore relaxing on a beach somewhere, still in a full archetypal wizard outfit.

* ThatWasTheReward: {{Discussed}}. Igor Karkakoff dismisses the conspiracy theory of the paranoid "Mad-Eye" Moody, citing an incident where Moody smashed a birthday present because he believed it was a disguised basilisk egg, only to find that it was actually just a clock.

* WronskiFeint: The [[invoked]]{{Trope Namer|s}}. In the Quidditch World Cup, Viktor Krum pretends to spot the Snitch and dives towards the ground with Ireland's Seeker in hot pursuit, only for Krum to pull out of the dive at the last second and leave the opposing player to crash into the ground. Harry consults the magical binoculars he bought, which identify the tactic by name (the Wronski Feint) and let him watch a replay of the move.

* BlatantLies: In order to make Hagrid look bad to Rita Skeeter, Malfoy claims that in addition to being attacked by Buckbeak, Crabbe got a bad bite from a Flobberworm, which mainly eats lettuce, ''has no teeth'', and has an X (boring) classification [[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Flobberworm from the Ministry of Magic.]]

* CompletelyUnnecessaryTranslator: The Bulgarian Minister of Magic [[LanguageFluencyDenial deliberately pretends not to speak English]] when around Fudge at the Quidditch World Cup to troll him.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Though Creator/JKRowling had been progressively doing this with each new installment since the beginning, this book made the series take a huge leap in this trope, taking the previous novel's dark tone up to eleven. Notably, it's the first to feature an out-and-out [[spoiler:bad ending]], with [[spoiler:Cedric being murdered and Voldemort getting a new body]]. It's also the one where the franchise begins to show serious BlackAndGreyMorality, as Rowling begins unveiling the dark side of the Ministry of Magic.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: The Bulgarian Minister of Magic pretends to not understand English because [[ItAmusedMe he thinks Fudge miming everything in front of him is funny]].

* SpySpeak: SubvertedTrope. A Muggle who accidentally eavesdrops on Pettigrew and Voldemort believes that terms such as "Quidditch", "Muggles", and "Ministry of Magic" are code names used by gangsters or spies, but these are just normal wizarding words.

* GodwinsLawOfFacialHair: Barty Crouch Sr. is depicted as a ministry worker who has a toothbrush mustache. [[spoiler: In the book, he was an abusive parent to his son, Barty Crouch Jr., using mind control and having abusive custody over him. For this reason, he would end up driving a wedge between him and his son that eventually led to Junior murdering his father]].

* HandingOverTheCrapSack: Mrs Weasley gives Hermione an Easter egg which is much smaller than everyone else's, when she believes what the journalist Rita Skeeter cruelly writes about Hermione being Harry's girlfriend. Fortunately, she later becomes warmer towards Hermione when Harry emphasises that she is not his girlfriend.

* PresentDayPast: At the beginning of the book, Harry, in writing a letter to Sirius, makes a remark about Dudley and his UsefulNotes/PlayStation in the middle of August 1994. Even in Japan, the console was not released until that December. Though, given that the Dursley family is well-to-do and spoils their son dreadfully, Vernon might have pulled some strings to get one early. [[WritersCannotDoMath Or JK fucked up with numbers again]], or she simply didn't know or care when the first [=PlayStation=] was actually released.

%% * GettingCrap PastTheRadar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* PragmaticVillainy: Harry suspects that when he asks Uncle Vernon if he can go to the Quidditch World Cup, Vernon goes into a fierce internal debate as to whether to [[VillainBall say no for the sole reason that Vernon hates Harry and wants him to be miserable]], or to say yes because it would get Harry out of his hair two weeks early.

** On a lighter note, Harry suspects that when he asks Uncle Vernon if he can go to the Quidditch World Cup, Vernon goes into a fierce internal debate as to whether to [[PragmaticVillainy say yes because it would get Harry out of his hair two weeks early]], or to say no for the sole reason that Vernon hates Harry and wants him to be miserable.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Harry letting Moody borrow the Marauder's Map as thanks for getting him out of trouble with Snape and Filch [[spoiler:gives the disguised-as-Moody Crouch Jr. a means to track and eventually kill his father before he can inform Dumbledore about Voldemort's survival and his son's deception.]]

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Retroactive one with Snape after the revelations of ''Deathly Hallows''. [[spoiler: Judging from Snape's reaction to Sirius' presence in the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore did ''not'' reveal the truth that Wormtail, not Sirius, helped Voldemort kill Lily in the interim since the last book. It's probably justified, as the entire incident demonstrated to Dumbledore that Snape lost all emotional control and objectivity; he ''couldn't'' be trusted with that information at the time. Now with the Second War's opening salvos, it's time to reveal the turth.]]

** Both Arthur and Mr. Crouch tell off Amos Diggory for accusing ''Harry Potter'' of summoning the Dark Mark. Mr. Crouch reminds Amos that Lord Voldemort killed Harry's parents.

* HopeSpot: Dumbledore invokes this in-universe with [[spoiler:the cruel irony of the Death Eaters' attack on Frank and Alice Longbottom. The attack on them came just after Voldemort's fall and just when everyone thought they were finally safe and the nightmare was over. That, combined with the Longbottoms' popularity, produed a wave of fury throughout Wizarding Britian such as Dumbledore had never seen before.]]

* RiddleForTheAges: Several characters admit that they don't know if [[spoiler:Barty Crouch, Jr. was guilty of helping the Lestranges torture the Longbottoms, even though he is later established as a Death Eater, with a place in the circle. Sirius says he isn't certain that Crouch Jr. was guilty, since he could have easily been in the wrong place in the wrong time like Winky was when she was caught with Harry's wand after Crouch Jr. conjured the Dark Mark. Dumbledore mentions that Frank and Alice's testimony was shaky, as the Cruciatus Curse broke their minds and Neville was only a baby. One note is that despite him proclaiming his innocence at the trial, much like other Death Eaters who avoided jail time, Voldemort calls Crouch Jr. his most faithful servant, and it's not very likely that Crouch, Jr. would have called someone he never met "my master". Ther is also the possibility he ''was'' a Death Eater, but not actually an eager or even proper participant in the cause or the crime, considering his [[FreudianExcuse motivations]] and [[JustAKid age]]. Of course, if he wasn't already firmly a Death Eater before he went to Azkaban, he must've been easily converted while he was doing his time, with the Lestranges' combined fanaticism and the Dementors' despairing influence, and tried to seek out Voldemort as soon as he was smuggled out and nursed back to health. Being under the Imperius Curse for a decade probably didn't do wonders for his sanity. On the other hand, Crouch Jr. claims that he only comforted Neville in his Moody disguise to manipulate him, and he calmly showed Neville the curse that traumatized his parents. Dumbledore doesn't ask Crouch Jr. if he was involved while questioning him, but then his higher priority is figuring out how Crouch had ''broken out of Azkaban and impersonated Moody'']]. Ultimately, the truth is ambiguous.

* AbsurdBrandName: