Goblet of Fire chapters 1-4 discussion!

Hooray! We're all back from the holidays and ready for more stimulating book discussion! To new members who are joining this adventure, welcome!

This week begins our discussion of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapters 1-4:

1: The Riddle House

2:The Scar

3: The Invitation

4: Back to the Burrow

All right. . . talk, people!

Yo, peeps. I'm sick with a nasty cold, but I got off the couch to check in with y'all about Harry. What occurs to me in these chapters are this:

1. I hate the Dursley chapters.
2. Dopey people who don't read the books just aren't getting how important Sirius is. I'm sure many of them are wondering why Harry is so attached to him in OotP, because he's only got one scene in the movie of GoF.
3. Weasleys rule. I love what Fred & George do to Dudley.

See you all when the snot clears.

Feel better soon, LG!

My thoughts -- it really struck me, this time through, how Voldemort always thinks he's being lied to. He says, a couple different times, I think, "Don't lie to me -- Lord Voldemort always knows." Or something along those lines. He certainly did it to Pettigrew in the first chapter. And later, in book 6, we see the young Voldemort do something similar to Dumbledore. I wonder if, since he's something of a natural at Legilimancy, he's just used to using those powers to sense deception . . . or whether he just always assumes that people are lying to him. My feeling is that he never really trusts anyone: not Pettigrew, not Bellatrix, not Sev. Or rather, he trusts them to an extent, to do his bidding, but he never entirely trusts them.

I also like that Frank describes the boy he saw on the night of the deaths at Riddle house as "a teenage boy, dark-haired and pale" -- a description which could apply to three characters which JKR consistently compares and contrasts: Harry, Voldy, and Sev.

Good point about Sirius, LG. I dislike the GoF movie so much that I try not to think about it. But you're right that Sirius does not get his due in it.

Is this the first example we've seen of "Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes"? I love seeing the Weasley twins slowly go from prank-loving kids to businessmen, without losing any of their charm.

The "Dursley Chapters" as LG calls them are (mercifully?) brief in this book, but it's still a long time before we'll see Hogwarts!

I read the chapters today, but I think I have a big problem here. I hardly now ho you are talking about, and I now you will never understand what I am writing. One example:
Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes - Bröderna Weasleys Trollkarstrick. You see the problem? If I translate the Swedish into English it looks like this: The Weasley brothers warlock magic. Any one who can guess what I mean if I write like that???

Hmmm..... I need a HP dictionary :o)

Mien -- I can see how that would be confusing, but stick with it! If we mention someone and you can't figure out who we're talking about, ask, and we can explain! (And I think we could have puzzled out the Weasley's thing.) Glad you've joined the discussion!

foggidawn: I'll see what I can do. I might even learn what the names are :P (are going to buy the pocket books in English, if I can find them over here. )

One thing that hit me when I reread the first chapter today was that I don't like Pettigrew (silktail for me ;)). His so small and doesn't stand up for him self. I guess that I see the old me in him or something :o).

When I reread the chapters it did strik me how much i actually did not like pettigrew(wormtail). I also noticed how the movie differed from the book in so many was that i was actually about to throw my movie out the window lol. But I love the ton-tounge toffee trick.

Who could like pettigrew! I enjoyed(reading) hearing the maid tell her story in the pub about finding the three Riddles dead.

I hate hate hate hate hate The Riddle house. I always just hated that chapter. It always freaked me out, no mater how old I get.

As for my Weasly's, in this book their my age now, and I always hated this book, but I love the start of the WWW. It's nice to see the where it all started.

It is a creepy chapter, and the first time she takes us away from Harry, isn't it? I remember being struck by that the first time I read it.

ah, but Harry is there, in a way.

True -- unlike chapters in later books ("Spinner's End," "The Other Minister"), where he's not even viewing it on VoldyCam.

VoldyCam---hahaha, good one

I don't think I coined that one -- I'm betting it came from someone on the Leaky or Mugglenet -- but it makes me smile every time I get a chance to use it!

The first time I read HBP, my mind did flashbacks to the first chapter of GOF; the whole Riddle background.

you knwo what always struck me. Is just the fact that Voldy was 17 and didn't hesitate to kill his parents with curses that should have gotten him arrested. Infact, there's speculation he made a horcrux out of their deaths. to me that's jsut....that's the end of Riddle's normal life and the beginning of Voldy's

Hmmm . . . I didn't see that as part of a turning point, just the natural progression. Riddle was always nasty. We see that in Book 6. But it's an interesting way of looking at the transition from Riddle to Voldemort. Didn't Dumbledore mention that his friends were using that name for him even while he was still at school?

ya but there's a differnece between a nickname in school and a name the whole world fears. My friends call me Dr. Love, but it be different if the entire world knew me as that

Makes sense. Usually school nicknames don't stick (otherwise the world would refer to my father as "Moose") -- but Voldemort's did. Interesting that he would stick with it, rather than thinking up something new, but I imagine that he had a sort of charisma in school that made him a little bit feared by his classmates even then.

probably
i would so not want that kid in my class

Okay, I'm gone for the weekend (well, we all know that I'll be hitting the conference Internet Cafe whenever I can, so I'll probably pop in occasionally) but here it is: your official reminder:

Read GoF chapters 5-8 for Monday!!!

Well i think Lord Voldemort stuck at his own insistance because he made it out of hiw original name.

I'm re-reading Goblet of Fire and noticed a few things (apologies if they've been posted):

1. In light of what we know post-DH, Voldy used Frank's death to make his final Horcrux, but Voldy wasn't in his full form. He was in a part-ghost, part-human form, so how would he have split his soul?

2. Voldy tells Wormtail to "milk Nagini." We haven't seen what snake milk/venom does/did to Voldy, much like drinking the unicorn blood in Sorcerer's Stone.

3. Voldy and Nagini have a symbiotic connection : Nagini is inside Voldy (the milking) and Voldy is inside of Nagini (the Horcrux).