Question of the Week

Podcast Question of the Week – Episode 75

It’s the final chapter of Book Four and here’s our final Goblet question:

In this last chapter, Harry notices the horseless carriages coming towards the students. Bearing in mind Jo’s own words on the matter, do you agree or disagree that Harry should have been ready to see the Thestrals at the end of this book? Hasn’t Harry been through enough and come to enough of a realisation of what has happened, for the Thestrals to be visible to him now? Or, if Cedric’s death needs more time to sink in, at what point precisely would this have occurred for Harry?

Let us know in the comments below!

 

Jo’s interview answer:

“With Cedric, fair point. Harry had just seen Cedric die when he got back into the carriages to go back to Hogsmeade station. I thought about that at the end of Goblet, because I have known from the word go what was drawing the carriages. From Chamber of Secrets, in which there are carriages drawn by invisible things, I have known what was there. I decided that it would be an odd thing to do right at the end of a book. Anyone who has suffered a bereavement knows that there is the immediate shock but that it takes a little while to appreciate fully that you will never see that person again. Until that had happened, I did not think that Harry could see the Thestrals. That means that when he goes back, he saw these spooky things. It set the tone for Phoenix, which is a much darker book.”

– JKR, Edinburgh Book Festival, Sunday 15th August 2004.