Analysis of J. K. Rowling’s Book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I am currently reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. This book is the 4th in the Harry Potter Series, about a young wizard in training named Harry. In this fantasy novel, Harry competes in the Triwizard Competition, but he never entered his name into the running because he was too young and would not qualify. This means that someone else entered his name into the Goblet of Fire. There are 733 pages and I’m on page 726. My general reaction to this book is that is too long and drawn out. The author included many unnecessary events that were irrelevant to the plot. Halfway through the book I got quite bored and could not read it for about 3 weeks, but then recently I got back to reading the book and the story became more engaging.

When I read the part of the book where Voldemort is reborn, it was somewhat gory and strange compared to the rest of the book. I was surprised when Voldemort was able to touch Harry because he had used the blood in the rebirth potion. Many of the books talk about how great Voldemort is, and how he could never touch Harry, so I thought the author wrote this part a bit unrealistically and it was quite out of the plot. I didn’t like reading this portion of the novel at all. It became odd and very confusing.

This book was worse than the movie version because the movie only took two to three hours to watch and understand, and the book took me at least ten hours to read. The movie I liked better because it was easier to follow than the book and it was, in a way, more entertaining. Reading the book got very old because it was so long, but the movie fit within my attention span limit. The book at times was hard to visualize, and watching the movie made it easier. The book, in my opinion, should have been split into two novels instead of remaining as one.

I like J.K. Rowling’s writing because she writes in an interesting way. Her writing tone is different than authors I am used to reading; it is most likely due to the fact that she is British. She writes about fantasy topics, which is one of my favorite genres to read. I like fantasy novels because they are always so imaginative and typically don’t have much of the story set in the real world. This is what J.K. Rowling does. She created her own world, while still including the real world of England. I enjoy how she transitions; she has the plot set so that the entire magical world is concealed from “muggles” (humans). Any other way, the worlds would conflict, and to me, as a reader, I would be confused.

Harry Potter is similar to Percy Jackson from The Lightning Thief series of books. They are both my favorite characters from each series, and they are the main characters in their books. Neither person finds out about their special powers until later in life, which certainly makes them resemble each other. Percy finds out he is Poseidon’s son at the age of 12, and Harry Potter finds out he is a wizard at the age of 10, and these ages are very close. Considering the fact that either person could have started realizing they were different than the rest of the human world at any point in life, they are very alike. Both characters undergo an enormous amount of pressure to “save the world” – they are both unlikely heroes. However, they are totally different in that Percy’s secret world is Greek mythology; all of the Greek gods actually exist. His missions typically involved monsters. Harry’s secret world includes wizards, witches, giants, and wizards turned evil.

Overall, I did like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The majority of the characters had been developed in books 1-3. My main concern for this book was that it was very long and took forever to read. To me, it is much easier to read a series of twelve normal sized books (about 300 pages) than read a series of seven books, half of which have around 700 pages. Other than this, the book was one of my favorites from the series, so far.