The Triwizard Tournament makes no sense

wolly.green

wolly.green

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The Triwizard Tournament makes no sense. It is one of the most flaws aspects of Harry Potter that I cannot make sense.

Why on earth would Dumbledore agree to a life threatening tournament that could potentially kill his students. That seems to completely contradict his character. Furthermore, the Lake challenge amplifies this dumb inconsistency even more. Why would Dumbledore agree to have 5 random students face uncertain death by rendering them unconscious and placing them at the bottom of the lake. And all for the sake of 'eternal glory'.

This seems like a major f*** up that still confounds me to this day. I do realise that it's a fantasy. But creating a morally upstanding character that is both immoral and incompetent is just bad writing, no matter what the excuses.
 
I don't think that it is Dumbledore alone that makes such a decision (do we even know who is responsible for having the TriWiz at Hogwarts at this time?). It is a traditional international school competition that is supposed to encourage and enable the students to network outside of Hogwarts, if that is even the only reason to have it take place. The students are made aware of the risks and they are under constant observation by the representatives of the MoM. For a safety measure, they in turn have raised the age of potential combatants to students who are of age, and ought to be responsible enough (in the eyes of the law) to not take unnecessary risks. Furthermore, at that age the students ought to have sufficient knowledge to make it through the Tasks unharmed.

The Goblet of Fire makes the ultimate decision which student will be champion for the respective school. It was not to be anticipated (although it might have been - more or less) that Harry would be chosen as a 4th champion unless the Goblet had been tampered with. I'm not sure how the Goblet makes the decision, but it's most likely considered with a wiseness(?) that surpasses the understanding of the average witch or wizard - which includes the readership.

The tasks are constructed to be dangerous, but I am surprised that you would criticise the second task by mention and not the others, which are considerably more dangerous. The 4 people (which were not randomly chosen) were entrusted to the merepeople in the lake, who guarded them from the dark creatures there until the Champions would claim their treasure. Do you really think that any of the students (and Gabrielle) had been put under this spell without their consent, or without the teachers and people from the ministry ensuring that it would be safe for them to be put into this situation, which was faked for the sake of the task?
Dumbledore spoke to one of the merepeople after the task, iirc, and they reported on what went on in the lake which resulted in Harry not being placed as next to last for that task.


There are two points that can be talked about further by going into different plot points within the series, namely the danger the students are exposed to (on a daily basis, I might add) and the questionable character and decisions of Albus Dumbledore. But in this case, I think he can be exculpated from bearing most of the blame and responsibility.
 
The whole point is in creating a false sense of danger that's dangerous enough to feel real and crosses over slightly to real danger because they are freaking wizards and will probably face a lot of crazy shit as wizards. It makes sense for wizards to be placed in more dangerous scenarios for experience and growth. Plus Dumbledore has all kinds of crazy magic shit to undo whatever happens. He's not putting them in that much danger, but a little. Also I always just assumed that harry would just flat out die or something if he didn't participate because that's the only logical reason he'd be "allowed" to participate. Like putting your name in the cup created some sort of magical bond with the tournament. Maybe it would have just forced him to go to the tournament and if somehow he locked himself up or something to avoid going then he'd die. They all seemed pretty freaking concerned about his name coming out of the cup, rather than just being like "oh harry you dumb fuck you can't participate cuz you're a minor."
 
FYI: Never read the books, so just going by basic knowledge of the movies. I agree with everyone that Dumbledore isn't really responsible for the fact that they're dangers out there and that they need to learn to face them, if they're being protected. I guess the concern would be about age, maturity, ability, training, and talent. As someone else said, as wizards, they have to face more serious situations, life and death, and have to prepare for that. If they protected them too much or cawdled them, they wouldn't be able to handle the attacks from their enemies. But I think that Hogwarts was high school but many of the dangers they faced seem as if they would be better prepped as college age. So, maybe one critique is not advancing them age wise to where they would be handling some of these dangers at age more easily connected to the kinds of dangers they'd be facing as adults. I think it would have been good to have a Hogwarts University element in the storyline. Not that teens don't face a lot of real, dangerous, and serious issues, but I do think they had them taking on dangers that were probably way above their magical abilities. And it doesn't make sense that everything they would need to learn to become powerful magicians they learn up to high school in Hogwarts. The Wizarding world is too complicated for them to learn everything they would need to know by 18 especially if they just started learning about their abilities, like Harry when they're 11 or 13 (don't remember when he began), considering Hogwarts had professors who was clearly advanced. So, never made sense there wasn't some further education or training beyond Hogwarts. Unless there were private magical colleges or training to hone their skills. I don't know.
 
There is a certain amount of cruelty involved in pushing muggleborns into the wizarding world without much of a preamble, but we also don't know how muggleborns are introduced into this. I imagine that there was more than just the letter from Hogwarts that prepared them. After all, the parents wouldn't send their children off to an unknown school, much less one that says it teaches magic.

However, they have easy access to all the information they need and in their 7 years at school they learn a lot. I do critique that they are put in the way of dangers they are most likely not yet capable of understanding with only the instruction to stay away from certain areas unless they wanted to die. It was a sensible decision of the ministry to up the age of participation to 17. By then, the students will have learnt enough to know about the world they inhabit to successfully complete the tasks.

I have no doubt that there are further means/institutions of education after attending Hogwarts. I don't have canonical information ready, but it is heavily implied during the fifth book (in the career advice talk they had to do - Harry was in the room with Minerva McGonagall and Umbridge, telling them he'd like to be an auror) that there would be. Fanfictions do talk about things like "Auror College", internships with the mediwizards in St. Mungo's and the like.


Yes, the students have a lot of responsibility thrust upon them with starting in Hogwarts. While rationally they might be capable of handling it well, I agree that it would take profound emotional maturity to actually thrive there. But I believe - though I cannot sure, it's a very hazy memory - that JKR based the educational structure of Hogwarts on actual boarding schools in Great Britain. I cannot speak for the educational system of the Britons, but it doesn't seem inconceivable to me that the youngsters at that age did have that level of maturity - it's a different culture, so it could be. There is this fine line between reality and fantasy that she needed to uphold to make the world credible as a potentially hidden world within our own.
 
Ginny said:
Do you really think that any of the students (and Gabrielle) had been put under this spell without their consent, or without the teachers and people from the ministry ensuring that it would be safe for them to be put into this situation, which was faked for the sake of the task?
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Well I did consider this. But if you recall, one of the characters thanked Potter for saving his sisters life and kissed him. She didn't seem to know it was all stages. Why?
 
wolly.green said:
Well I did consider this. But if you recall, one of the characters thanked Potter for saving his sisters life and kissed him. She didn't seem to know it was all stages. Why?
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It was actually more of a rhetorical question, believing myself to be demonstrating the very opposite of what I stated in stating it as written. Nevermind. Yes, Fleur did kiss Harry, but she also made a point of him having done it despite not having needed to, or having to. Indeed, the Triwizard Tournament was staged in a faux-cruel manner by implying stakes that weren't there. But implication doesn't make things true. Think about how Harry has been almost ridiculed by his friends for his heroic deed. Hermione set the record straight later, iirc, telling him how thoughtless he was for believing the very same thing you did.

Honestly, it's been a few years since I last read the book and I am myself astounded at the details coming back to me. It makes me wonder if they are accurate, hence the "iirc".
 
Ginny said:
It was actually more of a rhetorical question, believing myself to be demonstrating the very opposite of what I stated in stating it as written. Nevermind. Yes, Fleur did kiss Harry, but she also made a point of him having done it despite not having needed to, or having to. Indeed, the Triwizard Tournament was staged in a faux-cruel manner by implying stakes that weren't there. But implication doesn't make things true. Think about how Harry has been almost ridiculed by his friends for his heroic deed. Hermione set the record straight later, iirc, telling him how thoughtless he was for believing the very same thing you did.

Honestly, it's been a few years since I last read the book and I am myself astounded at the details coming back to me. It makes me wonder if they are accurate, hence the "iirc".
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Oh ok. I don't remember Hermione saying that. Ok thanks for the clarification.
 
I wonder if Rowling has plans to support a Harry Potter movie in the future that addresses these gaps between Harry as a Hogwarts Pupil and Harry as an adult, married with children. I think it would be cool to see them post Hogwarts trying to make it in the adult world. I could see Hermione joining the Ministry of Magic or becoming a teacher for young magicians. I could see Harry on some training missions from Dumbledore, and Ron working in a low-key Ministry position, trying to establish himself so that he can impress Hermione. While they are all doing this, something happens at Hogwarts and they're called back to help solve the mystery and fight the new big bad magic enemy. We meet some new Hogwarts pupils who remind them of themselves, and challenge them in other ways. A bunch of lessons all around. Of course we get to see past teachers, and old school mates who may've become teachers themselves. So, I think there some good possibilities for future. (Ok, I'm copyrighting this Harry Potter story arc (C) 2018. :D
 
Gaze said:
I wonder if Rowling has plans to support a Harry Potter movie in the future that addresses these gaps between Harry as a Hogwarts Pupil and Harry as an adult, married with children. I think it would be cool to see them post Hogwarts trying to make it in the adult world. I could see Hermione joining the Ministry of Magic or becoming a teacher for young magicians. I could see Harry on some training missions from Dumbledore, and Ron working in a low-key Ministry position, trying to establish himself so that he can impress Hermione. While they are all doing this, something happens at Hogwarts and they're called back to help solve the mystery and fight the new big bad magic enemy. We meet some new Hogwarts pupils who remind them of themselves, and challenge them in other ways. A bunch of lessons all around. Of course we get to see past teachers, and old school mates who may've become teachers themselves. So, I think there some good possibilities for future. (Ok, I'm copyrighting this Harry Potter story arc (C) 2018. :D
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It would make a lovely fanfiction. However, it doesn't really encompass or work towards the content of The Cursed Child. Or isn't it official canon? Btw, didn't they want to make a movie it now as well?
Also, Dumbledore is dead. Unless you didn't mean Albus but Aberforth.
 
Ginny said:
It would make a lovely fanfiction. However, it doesn't really encompass or work towards the content of The Cursed Child. Or isn't it official canon? Btw, didn't they want to make a movie it now as well?
Also, Dumbledore is dead. Unless you didn't mean Albus but Aberforth.
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I won't be writing any fanfics :D. I was just throwing around a potential movie idea. I don't know anything about the world of Harry Potter based on the books and I've not really looked up anything about making a new Harry Potter movie. I just thought fans would be open to a movie in the future that addressed some of the gaps in the storyline presented at the end of the final film.
 
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Gaze said:
I won't be writing any fanfics :D. I was just throwing around a potential movie idea. I don't know anything about the world of Harry Potter based on the books and I've not really looked up anything about making a new Harry Potter movie. I just thought fans would be open to a movie in the future that addressed some of the gaps in the storyline presented at the end of the final film.
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I don't like Harry Potter and have been trying to think of ways it could improve.

You know one of things that really kills Harry Potter for me is its highschool drama. Its all so unoriginal and without consequence. Also the bad guys are so unoriginal. There is never any mystery with them. You always know what they want... Always.
 
wolly.green said:
I don't like Harry Potter and have been trying to think of ways it could improve.

You know one of things that really kills Harry Potter for me is its highschool drama. It's all so unoriginal and without consequence. Also the bad guys are so unoriginal. There is never any mystery with them. You always know what they want... Always.
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I don't think it's bad. Again, I don't have book knowledge of the series, so I don't know how it matches up with the movies. It's a film about high school, so of course, it will include some teen drama. It has to draw interest and attention so it makes sense that it's going to include these dramatic elements. I've always been more curious about the creatures and the challenges. A film has to appeal to a wide audience, and it wasn't meant to be an Oscar series, simply a magical adventure series. I think Fantastic Beasts is a better series in terms of consistency of character and magical creativity. It also has an adult storyline.
 
Gaze said:
. It has to draw interest and attention so it makes sense that it's going to include these dramatic elements.
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Dramatic elements are great! But Harry Potters seem so superficial to me. Consider Black Swan, or Pans Labyrinth or even Kubo. The dramatic elements in all 3 are unique, intense and significant. The drama is magic! But in Harry Potter..... Ron gets man at Harry for entering the Triwizard Tournament because he doesn't want to feel insignificant. Hermione starts crying because she secretly wants Ron to love her. Its so, eeeer, shallow. [/QUOTE]

Gaze said:
I've always been more curious about the creatures and the challenges. A film has to appeal to a wide audience, and it wasn't meant to be an Oscar series, simply a magical adventure series.
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So? This doesn't mean the dramatic elements have to be so.... Unoriginal. Besides, these are just the reasons "I" don't like it. I don't really care that it was made of a wide audience.
 
Discussions such as these seem to me to reinforce that the books are always better than the films. The books were written for children (most of it written during the 90s by an inexperienced writer with a troubled past), so there may be an element of predictability in the villains which comes across as even more shallow in the adaptation, for various reasons.

wolly.green said:
Consider Black Swan, or Pans Labyrinth or even Kubo.
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This is a wholly different class of movie, and half of the films don't even have children as their target audience.

wolly.green said:
Besides, these are just the reasons "I" don't like it.
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As is your right, I don't like the movies particularly either because they lack about 50% of the books starting at the fourth or fifth. But I also have determined not to make such a big deal out of freaking out over how adaptations butcher the originals that I love ever since I have done the research for my thesis about the adaptation process. Because there are so many hands working on one particular piece that it takes someone with a vision and lots of executive power to bring it across the way it is meant to be (if he - or the screenwriter - even interpreted motives correctly). I suppose with HP there was always trouble with what to leave out, asking what is necessary and stripping it down to the core ever since the fourth, which were at least double the length of the other books. Hermione could have had Harry, if JKR had let her, and imo they would have fit better, but well... she even tweeted that she regretted the decision to bring her and Ron together (while Harry was matched with his fangirl *shudder*).

As for Ron, the movies depict him as a stupid sidekick, a comedic element. But there is much more depth to him than mere moviegoers get to see. With the Goblet of Fire, he wasn't simply angry because he would always be in Harry's shadow - that was a thing he knew right from the off - but Harry never treated him like it. Ron thought he had been lied to, left behind and in the dark, when they had always done this stuff (e.g. breaking the rules) together, as best friends. He was worried about him, too, passing information to him secretly via Hagrid when it came to the first task.

wolly.green said:
I don't like Harry Potter and have been trying to think of ways it could improve.
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Do you mean just the movie or the books as well? If it's just the movies, they could first make them better by staying closer to the material. Of course, there are still other things that you can be unhappy with, as I mentioned one of the few points I am unhappy with, but there are always ways to improve from there.
 
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wolly.green said:
Why on earth would Dumbledore agree to a life threatening tournament that could potentially kill his students. That seems to completely contradict his character.
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How does this contradict his character? The guy keeps a forest which contains "certain death" for students but is happy to let them run around it for detention. A tree that violently bludgeons any student who comes near it. The moving staircases are frankly an accident waiting to happen. Is happy to give a student a friggin' sword just because he's "the chosen one".

Seriously, at what point does Dumbledore ever actually show that he cares about student's safety?
 
It's addressed in the text that the kids who were asleep and tied up in the lake were actually safe, and no harm would have come to them if the champions had failed the task.
There is also an age limit for students who want to be in the tournament.

In total, the school is not that safe. (Why the hell would they guard the school with Dementors, for example?) The Rowling wizarding world in general seems sort of violent, but most of the staff is capable of magic that would protect the students, it's mentioned repeatedly that Hogwarts is enchanted, and wizarding medicine is much more advanced than Muggle medicine.

The last book addresses flaws in Dumbledore's character, including putting Harry in danger, and the fact that his relationship with Harry was (at least in part) Machiavellian.



It would have been so much more exciting, though, if they'd all sat around Gryffindor tower safely doing homework for the entire series, and Voldemort had choked on a piece of bread or something.


I think if you don't like Rowling that is fine. You could always write your own books. :)
 
I think, in hindsight, what they could have made more clear is an understanding of the magical world from childhood to young adulthood, so everyone understands what prep they get before admissions to Hogwarts. Because some seemed as if they received training while others don't. Is there supposed to be magical preschool or primary school or is it entirely up to the parents and family to educate them before going off to school? So, there are some unanswered questions. But I don't hate the element of danger they face. I think tournaments and competitions are good, challenging them to achieve more than they thought they could. I think the key issue is whether they were adequately prepared for the dangers they were thrown into. I think there was a bit too much on Harry as special one. He was given too much deference because of it. I think Dumbledore and the school should have humbled him a bit and taught him to earn respect rather than being given so much fame and opportunity because of his survival and the mark.
 
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