Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

1. When Harry's name mysteriously emerges from the Goblet of Fire why won't anyone believe him when he says that he didn't submit it himself? Dumbledore, in particular, seems angry with Harry for the first time. Ron and Harry's friendship suffers until after the first challenge. These two people had never questioned Harry before, so why now? Should they have known that there was an outside force involved?

2. Harry has always had an instinct to help others. He informs Cedric that the first challenge in the Triwizard Tournament involves dragons and he rescues Fleur's sister from the lake though it means he will not win the challenge. How does this instinct help him in the tournament and how does it hurt him? Why does Harry risk his own chances of winning?

3. When was the first time you suspected Mad-Eye Mooney might be dangerous?

4. The maze challenge is the only in the tournament to take place at night. How does this setting change the mood of the story? What would have changed if it had taken place in daylight?

5. Hermione learns that Rita Skeeter is an unregistered Animagus that is able to turn into a beetle. Recall the instances when Harry and friends mentioned the presence of a pesky bug.

6. Lupin once said about Azkaban prison, "They don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they're traped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most go mad within weeks." How are Sirius Black, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, and Barty Crouch Jr. able to devise clever plans and escape when all other prisoners are practically lifeless?

7. Although money has always been uncomfortably tight for the Weasley family, Harry has never offered to share his inheritence with them before, even though at times he wanted to. What makes him decide to give his tournament winnings to Fred and George to open a joke shop?

8. In the graveyard Voldemort reveals that on the night he killed Harry's parents, Harry survived because of his mother's sacrifice. He explained, "His mother died in the attempt to save him—and unwittingly provided him with a protection that I admit I had not foreseen.... I could not touch the boy." (p. 652). Because he survived that attack, Harry has been labeled as a great wizard. Has he truly earned that title?

9. This was the first of the Harry Potter series to be released at the same time in the UK and the United States. It attracted more attention because of a pre-publication statement from Rowling that one of the characters would be murdered in this book. Why did Rowling do this? If you knew this, did it change the way you read the book?

10. What are some loose ends left open that need to be resolved in the last three books? Does Rowling successfully balance The Goblet of Fire having it's own satisfying ending and leaving questions unanswered for the rest of the series?

11. The final chapter of The Goblet of Fire is tittled "The Beginning." What is beginning and what has ended? What challenges do you predict Harry and his friends will face in the fifth book, The Order of the Phoenix?

(Questions by Katherine O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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