Book Errors/Mistakes: Goblet of Fire

Please make sure your mistake in the list before you send it.

For everyone who doesn't know, Jo explains on her site that the reason Harry didn't see thesterals at the end of GoF is because the death has to sink in before they can see the thesterals.

1) In book four, during Priori Incantatem, Voldemort's victims came out in reverse order. BUT, James came out BEFORE Lily. That would mean that James died after he killed Lily and it said all over in the books that he killed James first. (Fixed in later versions of the book.)

2) After Hermione dropped Muggle Studies, she said she had the same amount of subjects as Ron and Harry. But she still had (besides the mandatory ones) Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, and Ancient Runes. Which is more then Harry and Ron who each had only Divination and Care of Magical Creatures.

3) Not really a mistake, but...: When Dumbledore was telling everybody about the Triwizard Tournament during the start of term speech he said: "We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger." Don't you think facing a Hungarian Horntail that breathes fire forty feet would classify as 'mortal danger'? Even if there were trained hit wizards nearby, you catch one of those flame-bursts and you're a corpse before the wizards can do anything.

4) In the second book it says that Moaning Myrtle haunts the U-BEND of the toilet. But in book four, it says that she haunts the S-BEND of the toilet.

5) Possible Mistake: On page 264, Hagrid says "Never thought I'd live ter see the Triwizard Tournament played again!" However, Dumbledore says earlier: "...an event which has not been held for over a century." If Hagrid was expelled in his third year, 50 years ago, he must be 63, so he could not have seen a Triwizard Tournament before. However, Hagrid might have meant that he didn't think he'd live to see the tournament played again, in relation to when it was played before, not to when he last saw it.

6) When Fudge, Dumbledore, and Moody are talking about Crouch, instead of Fudge yelling to Dumbledore, it says: "said Crouch angrily". He wasn't in the room...they were talking about him, not with him.

7) On page 701 (American version), toward the middle of the page, it says "...the warmth of the feather matress." Matress should have 2 't's: mattress.

Portkeys are supposed to transport whoever is touching the portkey at a prearranged time. But, Harry and Cedric were transported to Voldemort and the Death Eaters the second they touched the Triwizard cup. Don't you think that sounds a little bit too...coincidental? Also, couldn't Moody/Crouch have just made Harry's pillow or something a portkey and transported him when he went to sleep at night? Wouldn't that have been a little easier then guiding him through the whole Triwizard Tournament?

9) On page 256 (UK version) when Harry is writing a letter to Sirius telling him about the Triwizard Tournament he says "I don't who put my name in the Goblet of Fire because I didn't." It should say "I don't know who put my name in..."

10) Sirius says, "You three and Dumbledore are the only people who know I'm an Animagi." But Lupin and Peter knows too.

11) On page 618: "I will settle, in the short term," said Dumbledore, with a bite of impatience in his voice, "for lack of hostility. You will shake hands. You are on the same side now. Time is short, and unless the few of us who know the truth stand united, there is no hope for any us." The "of" is missing in the last sentence.

12) How does Dumbledore know to summon Winky to Moody's office when he doesn't yet know that Moody is really Barty Crouch Jr in disguise? Possible Explanation: Dumbledore realised after Moody took Harry that it wasn't actually Moody, but it's unlikely he knew exactly who it was.

13) In one of Harry's letters to Sirius he mentions that Dudley got angry and chucked his Playstation out of the window. However, the playstation was not out at this time. GoF is set in 1994; the Playstation came out in 1995

14) On page 152 in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire it says, "'Well, Father feels he's got to make up for his mistake at the match, doesn't he?' said Percy. 'If truth be told, he was a tad unwise to make a public statement without clearing it with his Head of Department first--'" The thing is, is that Arthur Weasley is the head of his Department so who was he supposed to clear it with? Arthur Weasley was established as Head of Department in the Daily Prophet article in Prisoner of Azkaban about the family's trip to Egypt.

15) In The Goblet of Fire, Chapter 35 (Veritaserum), there is an error on page 594. Dumbledore asks, "How did your father subdue you?" The book then states: "The Imperius curse," Moody said. Yet the Polyjuice Potion has already worn off and Barty Crouch Junior is speaking!

16) In GoF on page 232 it reads, "Moody had insisted on putting Harry through his paces four times in a row, until Harry could throw off the curse entirely", referring to the Imperius Curse. However, on page 661 it says, "And Harry felt, for the third time in his life, the sensation that his mind had been wiped of all thought..." Wouldn't that be the fifth time instead of the third?

17) On page 111, The Quidditch World Cup, Bagman calls flying deliberately to collide "skinning". The correct term is "blatching", according to Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennelworthy Whisp. ? Thanks to Rachel

1 In GoF, chapter 26 (page 505) Krum tells Hermione that she has a beetle in her hair, "but Hermione brushed away the beetle impatiently". In Chapter 37 on the train after she had captured Rita Skeeter Hermione says, "and Viktor pulled a beetle out of my hair...". Hermione says Viktor pulled the beetle out, yet the book says that she brushed it away.

19) Just before the World Cup began, when Ludo Bagman was taking bets from Fred and George, he handed them a piece of parchment pertaining to the details of their bet, which Fred "carefully slipped into his robes." At the time, Fred wasn't wearing robes, he was wearing muggles clothes just like the rest of his family.

20) Hermione says that muggle technology does not work around Hogwarts. However, Harry's watch (being muggle technology) still works after four years at Hogwarts. It then stops working in the second task of the fourth book.

21) In Quidditch through the Ages it says, "1473 saw the first ever World Cup...the World Cup has been held every 4 years since". But at the start of the 1994 World Cup Final Ludo Bagman says, "Welcome to the Four Hundred and twenty-second World Cup Final." How can there be 422 World Cups into 521 years with a four year gap between each?

22) If Harry does indeed begin school in 1991, and the Goblet of Fire ceremony takes place on a Saturday in 1994, then Halloween, which is when the book states that the Goblet ceremony happens, does not fall on a Saturday in 1994. It falls on a Monday.

23) In book four, (page 181) it says "The Bloody Baron was the Slytherin ghost, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He was the only person at Hogwarts who could really control Peeves." It states twice that the Bloody Baron is a ghost, then calls him a person.

24) In this excerpt from Book 4, why was Mrs. Weasley was worried at all? Didn?t she had the grandfather clock which showed all the Weasley family and what they were doing at any given time? If they were hurt, injured, or in danger, the clock should have been at 'mortal peril.' As they were traveling from the World Cup site, the clock hand should have been on 'traveling'. She should have been more worried about Harry or Hermione for that matter, because there was no hand for them in that clock.

25) On page 169 (American version), it says, "A gleeful smile spread across Malfoy's pale face" with no period at the end of the sentence.

26) In the third book, when Harry gets his birthday gifts, Hermione writes Harry and tells him she's been getting the Daily Prophet delivered. She states, "It's so great to know whats going on in the wizarding world." But in the fourth book, halfway through, she said she had taken a subscription because she was tired of finding everything out from the Slytherins. Did she cancelher subscription in between books?

27)In the GoF on page 151 it states that the Weasley?s clock has nine hands and descriptions of where each member of the family is, but in CoS on page 34 it says that the Weasley clock has one hand with things like ?Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens, and You?re late? written on it. POSSIBLE ANSWER: There might be two different clocks. Maybe someone should write JKR about it.

2 In the Chapter The Dark Mark, they all escape to the woods. On the way Hermione and Ron both use Lumos. And they aren't supposed to use magic out of Hogwarts.

29) Here is where Harry can first see the Thestrals because he witnessed Cedric's death. But no-one seems to have noticed that he didn't actually see Cedric die:

30) "For a second, Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at each other. And then, without warning, Harry's scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as he had never felt in all his life; his wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all, his head was about to split open. From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, 'Kill the spare.' A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: 'Avada Kedavra!' A blast of green light blazed through Harry's eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him; the pain in his scar reached such a pitch that he retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what he was about to see, he opened his stinging eyes. Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead." (Page 553, British version, 13th edition)

31) Harry heard Cedric die, but he would surely have heard his parents die as well, but he didn't see it so didn't see the Thestrals before. Wonder what the mystery behind that one is.

32) When they are talking about the sorting of students, it first says the professor pulls out a three-legged stool but two pages later it says they sit on a four legged stool.

33)Not really a mistake, but I'll put it here anyway. In the first chapter has Voldermort discussing his plans to kill Harry with Wormtail, Voldermart states there will be one more murder and the ministry of magic need not know. Who is this murdered person? Barty Crouch disappearance and death would certainly be noticed. The rest of the conversation implies this person is between Harry and Voldermort. Any speculations on who this person is?
*Submitted by Monica Lack

34)In chapter 13, Ron and Harry are reviewing their class schedule for Monday, September 2, 1994: the first day of classes. September 2, 1994 was a Friday.
*Submitted by J Hoffman

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Published on: 2005-06-06 (27812 reads)