Nota Bene: The Assistant Professor realizes that he is several chapters behind in supplying answers. Unfortunately, while the Full Professor supplied all the questions, he didn’t supply corresponding answers. I have to work them out just like you do and have gotten more than a little behind. Promising to catch up, JAB.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Chapters 36-37
Mark True statements with a “T” and False statements with an “F.” Write your answers to the discussion points in the com boxes below.
1._____ Cornelius Fudge brings a dementor into the castle for his protection and his bodyguard kisses Crouch, Jr.’s soul out of his body! Minerva McGonagall has a proper fit because the Minister of Magic had not listened to her objections.
2._____ Dumbledore tells Fudge that the Dark Lord is back and that he has “been restored to his body.” Fudge refuses to believe it and he won’t consider the Headmaster’s advice about the Azkaban dementrs or sending envoys to the giants
3._____ After Harry testifies to Fudge about Voldemort’s resurrection, Fudge suggests Harry is not a dependable witness. Albus tells him he is “blinded by the love of the office you hold” and the importance he puts on “purity of blood.”
4._____ Dumbledore tells Fudge they have come to “a parting of the ways.” He tells the Minister if he will not help in the fight against the Dark Lord then he intends to work against the Ministry. Fudge pays Harry his winnings & leaves.
5._____ The Headmaster gives marching orders to Bill Weasley, Madam Pomfrey, Sirius Black, Severus Snape, and Molly Weasley before leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione in order to see the Diggorys. Harry gets a mother’s hug and sleeps.
6._____ Hagrid tells Harry, Ron, and Hermione that he’s astonished Voldemort is back but with Dumbledore on their side, he is confident they’ll be all right. “’S long as we’ve got him, I’m not too worried.”
7._____ Dumbledore’s speech at the Leaving Feast says to the four houses that “we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.” He thinks the best resistance to Voldemort is “showing an equally strong bond of friendship & trust”
8._____ Hermione captures Rita Skeeter in her animagus form, a “large, fat beetle” with “markings around her antennae… exactly like those foul glasses she wears.”
9._____ Draco doesn’t toast Harry during Dumbledore’s “Remember Cedric Diggory” speech but gets blasted on the train when he tries to tell Harry, “You’re on the losing side, Potter! I told you not to hang around with riffraff like this!”
10._____ Fred and George explain they were swindled by Ludo Bagman, who didn’t pay his World Cup bet debts. He did, however, have a big bet with the Goblins on Harry’s winning the Triwizard Tournament. Too bad Harry didn’t win outright!
Discussion Points: What is Fudge’s problem? Why can’t he see that the Dark Lord is back? What complications does his state of denial give organized resistance to Lord Voldemort? Why does Dumbledore say what he does at the Leaving Feast? Knowing the “rest of the story” that lies from this point forward to the end of Deathly Hallows, enumerate several of the things that seem to change as a result of the events in Goblet of Fire—does Harry simply “grow” a little as he has through each of the preceding novels, or is there a great sea-change in his subsequent character and actions that wasn’t there before? And is that why the last Chapter is called The Beginning?
[JAB]
1. T
2. T
3. T
4. F Dumbledore says he would NEVER work against the Ministry.
5. T
6. F Hagrid is NOT surprised…says he always expected LV to return.
7. T/F Dumbledore’s speech WAS directed at all four of his houses, everything in the statement is true. However the FORCE of his remarks was delivered to the other schools, he was primarily addressing them.
8. T
9. T
10. T/F Everything is effectively true, however, TECHNICALLY Ludo did pay his World Cup bet to the twins, he just did so in disappearing gold.
As to the discussion points:
Fudge has a case of the “Chamberlain” syndrome. He sees what he desperately wants to see. He can not see that LV is back because he has built his personal and professional life around LV being gone, and has no answer for his returning. This is a terrible hindrance to any organized resistance to LV because as the responsibility for the defense of the State lies with the State, so are all the legitimate means of defending the State placed in the States control. Dumbledore is left with fighting a guerrilla war against not just the true enemy, but against his “friends” as well. He will often be in greatest danger not from LV but from “friendly fire”. The Leaving Feast speech acknowledges among other things that a lack of support at home will make foreign support (from France, Bulgaria, et al) invaluable. This is very much like Churchill’s “give us the tools” speech directed at a neutral US early in the Second World War.
Finally, this book is effectively Harry’s Bar Mitzvah, prior to this he has been a child letting others shoulder responsibility. Now Harry has become a man. He carries the weight of responsibility for himself and for others from this point forward.