Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - What's missing from the movie? [SPOILERS!]

[Vocenoctum]

Also, Mad Eye Moody is paranoid. He will only eat his own food and drink from his personal flask, so that enemies don't get him.
This is how Crouch Jr disguised the Polyjuice potion in the flask, Moody always used his own.

The movie made it look like he was an alcoholic.

 

[Bullgrit]

I've read the first book, but not the rest. So my point of view is from just the movies.

I was able to get past the danger of the Quidditch game, but with this latest movie, I'm having a hard time overlooking the terrible, deadly danger the wizard-world/school puts their young folks through. I mean, they put 17-year-old kids up against fire-breathing dragons, as a spectator sport. They kidnap fellow kids to use as bait for the champions to wrest free from the merfolk in the Black Lake. Then they send the kids into a dark and dangerous maze to battle it out in a final contest. And they force Harry, a 14-year-old child, to go through all this gladiatorial challenge even though they've specifically ruled against under 17s -- that very year!.

And according to the movie, this is all acknowledged as very dangerous -- like what would have happened to the little girl under the lake if Harry had not rescued her? The French girl seemed very concerned that she would have been lost.

Good god! Do the books explain this extremely dangerous stuff better than the movies do? Do the books give any explanations that perhaps these "games" are not as dangerous as they seem in the movie(s)?

Bullgrit

 

[mojo1701]

I've read the first book, but not the rest. So my point of view is from just the movies.

I was able to get past the danger of the Quidditch game, but with this latest movie, I'm having a hard time overlooking the terrible, deadly danger the wizard-world/school puts their young folks through. I mean, they put 17-year-old kids up against fire-breathing dragons, as a spectator sport. They kidnap fellow kids to use as bait for the champions to wrest free from the merfolk in the Black Lake. Then they send the kids into a dark and dangerous maze to battle it out in a final contest. And they force Harry, a 14-year-old child, to go through all this gladiatorial challenge even though they've specifically ruled against under 17s -- that very year!.

And according to the movie, this is all acknowledged as very dangerous -- like what would have happened to the little girl under the lake if Harry had not rescued her? The French girl seemed very concerned that she would have been lost.

Good god! Do the books explain this extremely dangerous stuff better than the movies do? Do the books give any explanations that perhaps these "games" are not as dangerous as they seem in the movie(s)?

Bullgrit

The "Star Wars" galaxy is much more dangerous: open shafts, no railings, 8-year-olds podracing, bad-shot stormtroopers (just waiting for a stray blaster bolt to hit a bystander).

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The magical world seems to be much more accepting of danger that the Muggle world. It's probably bound up in several things - making them seem more outlandish, the magical ability to fix severely broken bones overnight (like Harry's in the first Quidditch match), and the fact that the magical world is much more dangerous than ours, and coddling their young will merely leave them unprepared for life.

 

[TanisFrey]

I've read the first book, but not the rest. So my point of view is from just the movies.

I was able to get past the danger of the Quidditch game, but with this latest movie, I'm having a hard time overlooking the terrible, deadly danger the wizard-world/school puts their young folks through. I mean, they put 17-year-old kids up against fire-breathing dragons, as a spectator sport. They kidnap fellow kids to use as bait for the champions to wrest free from the merfolk in the Black Lake. Then they send the kids into a dark and dangerous maze to battle it out in a final contest. And they force Harry, a 14-year-old child, to go through all this gladiatorial challenge even though they've specifically ruled against under 17s -- that very year!.

And according to the movie, this is all acknowledged as very dangerous -- like what would have happened to the little girl under the lake if Harry had not rescued her? The French girl seemed very concerned that she would have been lost.

Good god! Do the books explain this extremely dangerous stuff better than the movies do? Do the books give any explanations that perhaps these "games" are not as dangerous as they seem in the movie(s)?

Bullgrit

The book does explane that adults whom are trained to deal with dragons are on stand by, that the hostages would have been returned, that teachers are circling the outside of the maze waiting to help them out of the maze if they are in troble. And book 6 explaines that in the wizarding world a person is concideded an adult at the age of 17 not 18 like the US or UK.

 

[mmu1]

There's no logical reason in the books why the wizards are so cavalier about exposing children to insanely dangerous things - never mind how much you try to rationalize it.

It's just a part of the schtick Rowling uses to make the world appear exotic and strange. (not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, though I happen to think Rowling is pretty lousy at writing logical cause-and-effect and goes overboard with the supposed dangers of the wizard world to create tension)

The students constantly work with things that might kill them on the spot in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, play contact sports up in the air, eat magical candy that was never seen by the wizard equivalent of the FDA (Fred and George, I'm looking at you), are harrassed by psychotic ghosts (who seem to have free run of the lavatrories), there are deadly spiders in the woods and a tree that tries to kill people right on school grounds (without so much as a fence around it) - but it's all just there to make things seem weird and dangerous, because no one ever dies unless the plot calls for it. Basically, in very many ways, early Harry Potter is a Scooby Doo cartoon.

 

[Rykion]

The magical world is dangerous. Magic itself is a dangerous thing. Since even young wizards have the power to harm themselves and others, they aren't coddled like normal kids. They have to learn responsibility fast. They still have many safeguards, and magic is capable of healing injuries in a way that we would consider, well, magic. It is also important to point out the magical world seems to live in an older age. Most of the wizarding families do not have any interest in modern muggle ideas and technology. Treating minors as if they are made of glass and incapable of making adult decisions before the age of 18 is a very modern idea.

Edit: Students are not allowed into the woods on Hogwart's grounds unescorted. The dangerous magical candy was being made and distributed without permission.

Also, the bit about Rita Skeeter being an Anamagus is in book five, not four.

As has been mentioned, it was indeed book 4. The last chapter, but still in that book. I purposefully tried to avoid any spoilers for later books.

 

[mmu1]

The magical world is dangerous. Magic itself is a dangerous thing. Since even young wizards have the power to harm themselves and others, they aren't coddled like normal kids. They have to learn responsibility fast. They still have many safeguards, and magic is capable of healing injuries in a way that we would consider, well, magic. It is also important to point out the magical world seems to live in an older age. Most of the wizarding families do not have any interest in modern muggle ideas and technology. Treating minors as if they are made of glass and incapable of making adult decisions before the age of 18 is a very modern idea.

...which is why students need a signed note from their parents to be allowed into Hogsmeade, aren't allowed off the immediate school grounds without supervision, and are constantly hounded for the slightest infractions by... hmm, forgot his name, the groundskeeper with a cat.

And the reason for it is not because Rowling created a rational world with its own internally consistent rules, that can be seen as a commentary on modern times, but because she took a stuffy British boarding school replete with all the stereotypes, stirred in a heavy dose of fantasy and danger, and this is what she ended up with.

Trying to look for deeper meaning and complex social designs in Harry Potter, rather than treating it like what it is - light, fast-paced entertainment - can get absurd very quickly...

 

[Rykion]

...which is why students need a signed note from their parents to be allowed into Hogsmeade, aren't allowed off the immediate school grounds without supervision, and are constantly hounded for the slightest infractions by... hmm, forgot his name, the groundskeeper with a cat.

The children aren't allowed outside school grounds because their parents expect some degree of supervision on the part of the school. Ditto for the unsupervised trips to Hogsmeade. I mentioned young wizards are a potential danger to themselves and others. Learning responsibility and decision making is important, but supervision and guidance are still needed. Filch does like to severely punish students, but he is one of the old guard. It goes back to my living in an older age comment. In the past, children had a lot more responsibility, and schools used severe punishments to keep them in line.

Harry Potter books are light reading, and the world doesn't make perfect sense. Like a comic book or other entertainment it really doesn't have to. I don't worry too much that Batman is putting Robin in danger, or that the X-men were a group of super teens constantly in danger because they followed a crazy old man. It still has many times the logic and consistency of most movies and TV shows. It combines the old fairy tales and modern boarding school fiction in an entertaining way.

 

[Taelorn76]

My biggest issue with the series is when the wizardry community, who mind you live with and among muggles don't know what a TV or telephone. Heck they live in England and don't know what soccer is.