Jk Rowling's Huge FLAW with Goblet of Fire (Another Weasley?) - Harry Potter Explained

Hey everyone,

Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be discussing JK Rowling, the Goblet of Fire, and an unpublished but huge flaw that JK Rowling encountered when she was writing the famed novel.

In an old interview with South West News Service, Rowling was questioned further about the error- as it was something that she had revealed in a former interview, but never explained.

“You mentioned something in a recent interview about a flaw in Book 4…”

“Did I? Oh yes. . .I repaired it! This is why Book 4 nearly caused me a nervous breakdown - because for the first time ever I lost my careful plot - which I've had since 1994, I think. I really should have gone through it with a fine toothcomb before I started writing and I didn't. I had a false sense of security because all my other plans had held up so well. So I sailed straight into the writing of Four, having just finished Azkaban. I had written what I thought at the time was half the book - it turns out now to have been about a third of the book - and I realised there was this big hole in the middle of the plot and I had to go back and unpick and redo. That's part of the reason it's longer than I thought it was going to be.”

“Can you say what the flaw was, or would that spoil things ?”

“No, because that would ruin it”

In the interview with South West News Service, she discusses the errors very broadly-but it wasn’t until much later, in her interview with Entertainment Weekly, that she finally revealed the specifics of the error that she had made when writing the book. While discussing her feelings surrounding the Goblet of Fire and how it was much harder to write than the other books, she reveals the grave error that she had originally made:

“You sat on the title for a long time, too.”

“The title thing was for a much more prosaic reason: I changed my mind twice on what it was. The working title had got out – 'Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament.' Then I changed Doomspell to Triwizard Tournament. Then I was teetering between Goblet of Fire and Triwizard Tournament. In the end, I preferred Goblet of Fire because it's got that kind of “cup of destiny” feel about it, which is the theme of the book.”

“Was this the hardest book you've had to write so far?”

“Easily.”

“Why?”

“The first three books, my plan never failed me. But I should have put that plot under a microscope. I wrote what I thought was half the book, and “Ack!” – huge gaping hole in the middle of the plot. I missed my deadline by two months. And the whole profile of the books got so much higher since the third book; there was an edge of external pressure.”

“And what exactly was that gaping hole all about?”

“I had to pull a character. There you go: “the phantom character of Harry Potter.” She was a Weasley cousin. She served the same function that Rita Skeeter now serves. Rita was always going to be in the book, but I built her up, because I needed a kind of conduit for information outside the school. Originally, this girl fulfilled this purpose.”

So there you have it- JK Rowling wrote and then had to remove an entire character from the book- going from halfway done back to only a third of the way. I must confess that I am very curious about this unknown Weasley, and why it is that JK had to do so much backtracking to ensure that this character was completely erased from the book. Why not reframe the character? Why remove them altogether?

According to JK Rowling's website, the unknown cousin of the Weasleys was ‘Mafalda Weasley’ - the daughter of the 'second cousin who's a stockbroker' mentioned in the Philosopher's Stone.

Mafalda however, would turn out to be "the most unpleasant child Mrs Weasley had ever met", and she would prove to continually butt heads with the protagonists.

"Mafalda was supposed to convey certain information about the Death Eaters to Harry, Ron and Hermione, because as a nosy, eavesdropping Slytherin who likes to impress, she does not keep her mouth shut when she overhears their sons and daughters talking,"

But Rowling ended up taking her out, because she felt that the character was out of place:

"Unfortunately, however bright I made her, there were obvious limitations to what an eleven year old closeted at school could discover, whereas Rita Skeeter, whom I subsequently built up to fulfil Mafalda's function, was much more flexible."


Please LIKE / SUBSCRIBE / SHARE to support the channel

Leave your video ideas down below!

Thanks!


Instagram -   / hptheory  

Star Wars Channel -    / starwarstheory  

Music by Juan Naranjo - [email protected]

All content falls under fair use: any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner.