Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (novel)/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Brilliance

  • The first chapter of Goblet of Fire seemed kind of like filler. It established a little more about Voldemort's Muggle father, and it showed that Wormtail had found Voldemort and was helping him, but that could have easily been established later. Except it was also the first time we saw Nagini, and in fact her only appearance in the book (she next returns in the aforementioned scene in Order of the Phoenix, when Voldemort is ordering her to attack Arthur Weasley). The chapter serves to introduce the character by name, so it makes more sense when we see her in the next book, and also to show us the time at which she became a Horcrux, as Voldemort was still one short of his goal when he went to kill the Potters. That's not the brilliant part. In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore mentions that there should be four other Horcruxes, because Voldemort wanted to split his soul into seven pieces and two of the six horcruxes had been destroyed -- Dumbledore is seemingly working off of the assumption that Voldemort doesn't know that he accidentally turned Harry into a Horcrux. This might not be true. Dumbledore also confirmed what the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire hinted at (when Voldemort was reaming out Lucius Malfoy about the diary): Voldemort knows when one of his Horcruxes is destroyed. This means that it's possible that Nagini was meant to be a replacement for the destroyed Horcrux, and that he already knew that he had five remaining Horcruxes -- the ring, the goblet, the locket, the diadem, and Harry.
    • No. The misconception here is that Voldy did not want 7 Horcruxes, he wanted to split his soul into 7 pieces. That means 6 Horcruxes and the main fragment in his own body. Harry became the sixth Horcrux by accident and unknown to Voldly. So he decided, he needed to make that seventh fragment and used Nagini... not realizing that Nagini was the eighth fragment. Which probably nullified any benefits of the magic of seven.
    • That theory seems to be Jossed by Voldemort's reactions in Deathly Hallows, particularly his interrogation of the Gringotts staff.
    • It was certainly demonstrated to be false in Half-Blood Prince (and perhaps even before), because Dumbledore tells Harry that Lucius Malfoy was punished when Voldemort learned that the Diary had been destroyed after he gave it away. And, at the start of that book, Dumbledore has already destroyed Gaunt's Ring. In fact, at no moment does Dumbledore confirm that Voldemort knows when his Horcruxes are destroyed; in fact, he says the opposite. I don't remember the exact words, but I think it was something along the lines of "As those pieces of his soul have been separated for so long from the main part of it, he is unable to detect their being destroyed". If Voldemort had been able to detect when one of his Horcruxes was destroyed, when he realized that the Gaunts' ring was destroyed, he would have started to relocate the other Horcruxes. - Milarqui
    • Nagini didn't appear only in the first chapter of Goblet of Fire, she also appeared in the graveyard just before the duel started.
    • The situation is like this: before October 31, 1981 (James and Lily Potter' death and Voldemort's "first death"), Voldemort had 5 Horcruxes (Tom Riddle's Diary, Gaunts' Ring, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup, and Ravenclaw's Diadem, hidden in Lucius Malfoy's mansion, the Gaunts' shack, the cave (and then 12 Grimmauld Place, by Kreacher), and Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts vault), and had intended to make the 6th Horcrux with Harry's death, but the Avada Kedavra backfired and destroyed his body, while his soul was broken once more, and the part that didn't flee became Harry's scar. Voldemort didn't know this had happened because of the pain of his death (and, besides, Voldemort's willingness to kill Harry at every turn, even before he gets resurrected in Goblet of Fire, belies the fact that he actually knew about Harry being a Horcrux, because why would you try to kill a person who is actually keeping you alive?). In May–June 1993, Harry destroys Tom Riddle's Diary. In July 1994, Pettigrew finds Voldemort, and the next month, Voldemort creates what he thinks is his 6th Horcrux, using Nagini as a vessel (and he was more or less correct, since it would be the 6th Horcrux at the moment, as Tom Riddle's Diary had already been destroyed), but in fact it was his 7th Horcrux.
  • This is only speculation though, but is it possible that in cutting Harry's hand in the Graveyard scene, Voldemort was not only trying to draw on the power in Harry's blood, but maybe also that of the soul that he put into Harry on accident in order to regenerate? In doing so, the fact that that soul piece and Harry's are so intertwined that part of Harry's may have come with it. I have nothing to back that up with and it's only speculation. But I also just realized that we have no idea what transverse effects that soul piece could have on a living person when the original maker of that Horcrux uses it to continue living. We do know based on Harry as a case study that Voldemort's soul piece from the Horcrux is heavily intertwined with his.
    • No. For starters, it's Wormtail who cuts Harry's arm. Second, Voldemort states many times that he only wants Harry's blood for what he assumes is a powerful magical blood-based protection - that, and killing him. Also, he knows that he has the connection with Harry thanks to Snape, but he never thinks that it might be due to the piece of his soul in Harry's scar. Thus, his constant attempts to kill Harry would make no sense.
  • Goblet of Fire has another small moment of brilliance. When the trio is trying to figure out how Rita Skeeter was able to overhear private conversations, Harry suggests Rita had Hermione “bugged” with an electronic device. Of course, that isn’t possible because electronics don’t work in the wizarding world. However, Harry was onto something, because by the end of the book we find out Rita Skeeter’s secret: she is an unregistered animagus, her form being a beetle. Hermione literally was bugged!
    • This is actually an in-universe example—Hermione cites Harry's line about her being "bugged" as what led her to realize the truth.
  • The Beautiful All Along page led me to this thought: Why is Hermione still a buck-toothed geek in her fourth year? Because her Muggle dentist parents want her to stay with braces. Why do they want her to have braces instead of the inordinately faster, cheaper, and more painless shrinking of her front teeth? Because they haven't figured out all the little exploits of magic yet, or don't want to figure it out. - Landis
    • As muggle dentists, who spent yearsc training and studying their craft, then years more using it to slowly and painfully correct childrens' teeth, I would imagine they consider using magic to do the same as the worst kind of cheating, just as a muggle chef would feel against Molly's cooking, for instance.
  • At the end of the book, Jo specifically mentions that Dumbledore's eyes "lingered on the Durmstrang students" when he said that all the guests would be welcome back at Hogwarts at any time. At that point, it's implied that he's thinking of the school's Dark Arts reputation. In the light of his one-sided relationship with Grindelwald, however, one wonders what he's really hoping for...
    • If you're implying what I think you're implying, that's disgusting.
      • Not just disgusting, but very unfortunate. Just for the record: Gay =/= paedophile.
      • And most of the Durmstrang students are 17 or 18, which is safely above the age of consent in Britain. And there's no harm done in looking, in any case.
    • OP responding: No, that was not what I was implying! Rule34 has made people too suspicious.... I meant that he's thinking about how Durmstrang students are taught Dark Arts so they are more likely to become evil. He is hoping that, instead of the good students (Hogwarts, Dumbledore) being influenced by the bad (Durmstrang, Grindelwald), the Durmstrang students can return and make better, more moral choices.
        • For a less unpleasant and homophobic reading of that scene in light of Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald: he wanted the Durmstrang students to know they had the choice to return to Hogwarts, see a different way, and walk a different path than the one they're on now, a choice Grindelwald didn't bother to make until the bitter end, arguably.
  • Re-reading the book, I realized that in Ron and Harry's big fight, Ron actually makes an effort to make up before Harry does. Reading between the lines of the scene where Ron interrupts Harry's conversation with Sirius, it becomes clear that Ron was waiting up for Harry, presumably to try to make up with him, but when he came down Harry was so rude to him that he gave it up for the moment. Note also that Ron doesn't retaliate when Harry throws a badge at him and he acts less distant towards him the next day.
  • I always wondered what the difference between a ferret, a stoat, and a weasel as a kid (thank you Redwall). Scientifically speaking all three share the same family and genus making them the biological equivalent of distant cousins. So fridge!Brilliance struck me when I recalled Draco insultingly refers to the Weasleys as weasels and he got turned into a ferret. Considering Arthur claims the Malfoys are distantly related to the Weasleys, this is hilarious.
  • When Ron states that he is only interested in "pretty girls," no matter their personality, and then rejects Eloise Midgen as a date because her nose is very slightly off center, I always thought that Hermoine was overreacting to his comments, then I remembered: at this point, Hermoine still has her buck-teeth, so she isactually reacting to hearing the boy she has a crush on state that he likely has no interest in her because she isn't 'pretty' by his standards!
  • When Snape tells Harry that he knows that he took boomslang skin and gillyweed from his private stores, Harry automatically thinks that he is thinking back to the Polyjuice from Chamber of Secrets. In fact, Snape was almost certainly thinking about the recent removals by Fake!Moody, which Harry honestly had no knowledge about.
  • In the scene where Mrs. Weasley is cooking, she accidentally puts too much energy into a potato-peeling spell and knocks the whole pile onto the floor. This happens because she's a mite miffed with Fred and George over a prank they'd pulled on Dudley. Guess who turns out to have a ton of power at her disposal in book 7, when Bellatrix gives her something to really be furious about?

Fridge Horror

  • Where did Voldemort get a baby to possess in Goblet of Fire??
    • He didn't. He made that body himself. Not explicitly stated, but very obvious when you pay attention.
      • It also says so directly in the book, although I believe he states Wormtail made it for him.
    • Rowling said somewhere that she horrified her editor when she told him how he got that body. A bit of my own WMG, but I think it's Bertha Jorkin's fetus. Which Wormtail helped to make.
  • All of the interactions between Neville and Mad-Eye Moody in the fourth book become horrifying when you find out that "Mad-Eye" was a fake, and was really Barty Crouch Jr. Long story short: Neville had tea with one of the Death Eaters who tortured his parents into permanent insanity, and he had no idea. Considering how eager he is in the fifth book to have a go at duelling/killing Bellatrix Lestrange, how would he have reacted if he'd have known who the fake Mad-Eye really was? Especially when you realise that the demonstration of the Unforgivable Curses was probably some deliberate, rather twisted attempt at Evil Gloating; he KNEW that Neville would react in the way that he did, so making him watch the spider being tortured was probably Barty displaying how it happened to Neville's parents.
  • In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, one of Dumbledore's notes mentions that the main difference between an animagus and a human that's been transfigured into an animal is that the animagus keeps his sense of self and magical abilities. This is also mentioned in Quidditch Through the Ages. A transfigured human actually forgets who they were, forgets that they can do magic and has to have someone turn them back, lest they stay that way permanently. This makes the whole "Draco Malfoy, the Amazing Bouncing Ferret" thing quite disturbing; what could have happened if they'd let him run away without turning him back...?
    • Then Malfoy would never have managed to allow the Death Eaters to infiltrate Hogwarts, and the most obnoxious phenomenon of the fandom would never have arisen? Seriously though, the implications ARE rather horrifying.
    • This is somewhat confusing, because it's implied that every animal has their own language, and thus have the sapient intelligence of humans. Also, owls are described as being able to understand human speech. If snakes and owls are the only non-human animals that are sapient, a person who was transfigured into a snake or an owl would not forget who they were because they'd still have human-level intelligence.
      • Not necessarily. If someone managed to transfigure Harry into Ron, would he have Harry's memories or Ron's?
    • The way it happens in the books, it looks like Draco Malfoy was perfectly cognizant of what was going on, because the first thing he does is trying to run away towards the dungeons, where Snape (the only adult he trusts in the school) is at the moment. He also looked decidedly shaken when he was turned back.
      • It could be that it takes more time for the person to lose their sense of self, and Draco was only a ferret for a few moments. (That, or the ferret was just utterly terrified and bewildered at being in a crowd full of people and happened to pick the dungeons as a direction to flee.)
      • Barty Crouch Jr. was an intelligent wizard with an interest in torture. He should have known if Draco wasn't going to remember this experience. Maybe he knew a way to preserve Draco's mind while turning his body into a ferret - so what looked like a transfiguration was actually closer to a temporary Animagus (or animal-safe Polyjuice?) spell.
    • If he did still have his own mind, we were laughing at a fourteen-year-old boy being picked up and dropped on a stone floor repeatedly. It's a wonder he didn't break any bones. If not, we were laughing at an innocent, frightened ferret being smashed against the floor. And then consider that neither McGonagall, Snape, nor Dumbledore, to whom it must have been reported, seemed to think this out of character. What sort of friends did Dumbledore have?
    • A few fanfics, most notably The Draco Trilogy, have pointed that out. Sympathy for the Devil is very easy when a male role model just slammed him into the ground several times.
  • All of Neville and fake Mad-Eye Moody's interactions become incredibly disturbing in hindsight. Neville was alone in an office with the man who tortured his parents into insanity and he never even knew it. The fact that Mad-Eye also uses the opportunity of Neville's bad reaction to the Cruciatus Curse being performed in class to provide him "comfort" in the form of a Herbology book is also sickening considering he's only doing it in the hopes that Neville will pass on information to Harry about how to win the second challenge and take Harry one step closer to Voldemort.
    • Also, since fake Moody may have been the one who tortured Neville's parents to insanity: What would Neville feel or do should he find out about it?
  • All memory charms are Fridge Horror. The wizards running the Quidditch World Cup are continually doping up the Muggle running the park with memory charms. He's going to inexplicably be unable to remember an entire summer, and no one sees any problem with this.
    • Not correct. Memory Charm can be used not only to erase, but to modify memory as well. Meaning he'll probably have memories of extremely uneventful summer.
      • Or alternatively, that awesome summer he spent working at the camp ground with those interesting people , like the guy in the skirt and the huge group of red-heads
      • What, so the largely unregulated ability to destroy, modify, and create memories, and the regular use of this power by government officials, is okay as long as the memories are cool? I second the original post—all memory charms are Fridge Horror.
  • With most of the Harry Potter novels, if you remove the fantastic elements from the climax, it doesn't mean all that much (the possible exception being the third book). But look at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Now remove the magic. What you have is a fully-grown man tying up, humiliating, torturing, mocking, and otherwise tormenting a fourteen-year-old boy. While more adults stand by and watch.
    • And people still mock Harry for being "Emo" in Order of the Phoenix, when he was clearly suffering from PTSD due to, you know, the kidnapping and torturing and murder of a classmate in front of his eyes.
  • We've seen that medical magic can achieve amazing cures that aren't possible for mundane science, from re-growing absent bones overnight to flawlessly re-attaching splinched body parts. Nevertheless, Mad-Eye Moody became crippled and horribly scarred over the course of his Auror's career. So what sort of over-the-top destructive forces caused so much damage to his face and leg, that even St. Mungo's couldn't repair? Or was he injured so badly that he couldn't even make it to a hospital for treatment, and had to lie there in agony for weeks while his burns healed non-magically? Nightmare Fuel, either way. ** After the Sectumsempra and George's ear incident, I just assumed that normal muggle and magical accidents are easy for magical medicine to fix, but that Dark Magic is cast with the specific addendum that it can't be fixed (or at least not easily) with magical medicine.

Fridge Logic

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