Plot holes in GoF?

[cindysphynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 32350

KT wrote:

> 
> [JKR said]: 

> "What happened on Book Four, and one of the reasons why it was 
>easily 
> the most difficult to write, which had absolutely nothing to do 
>with 
> Harry being famous or me being famous, was that for the first time  
>my 
> plan fell down. I got halfway through and realised there was a huge 
> gaping plot hole. The two ends just didn't meet. It was entirely my 
> own fault: I should have had the sense to go through it very 
> carefully before I started writing. So I had to do an enormous 
amount 
> of unpicking..."
> 
> Have any views been mentioned yet as to what this plot hole could 
be? 
> 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone has made any real 
progress on figuring out what JKR's plot hole may have been.  I guess 
that means she fixed it very well indeed.  :-)  But since we have a 
*lot* of time until OoP comes out, what the heck, let's speculate.  
I'll admit up front that I don't have a very good theory, just some 
hunches.  

As she mentions above, JKR was about halfway through writing GoF when 
she discovered the plot hole.  I also think she said the place where 
the problem arose is now about 1/3 of the way through the book.  In 
other words, it was to have been the halfway point, but she had to 
add a bunch of stuff to fix it, so the problem area is now 1/3 of the 
way.  One third of the way through GoF is the end of "Beauxbatons and 
Durmstang."  It could also be somewhere in the next chapter, "The 
Goblet of Fire." 

The other piece of information that might (or might not) bear on this 
mystery is that JKR said she had to write "The Dark Mark" about 13 
times to get it right.  So perhaps the error also had something to do 
with that chapter.

OK, now for the speculation part, and this is rank, unsupported 
speculation, mind you.  Maybe her glitch was that she had 
written "Beauxbatons and Durmstrang" about the arrival of the rival 
Triwizard contestants and "The Goblet of Fire" where Harry's name 
comes out of the Goblet, but she had forgotten to account for the 
kidnapping of Real Moody first.  Obviously, Harry's name going into 
the Goblet has to happen after Fake Moody is on the scene and Real 
Moody is in the trunk.  

So to fix this, she had to go back, write the Moody kidnap bit 
in "Mayhem at the Ministry," and then write some scenes for Fake 
Moody so his involvement in the Goblet incident doesn't come out of 
nowhere.  So she adds in the Draco the Bouncing Ferret stuff and the 
Unforgivable Curses business to establish Moody as Harry's friend and 
a great teacher before Fake Moody puts Harry's name in the Goblet.  
She would also have to go back and conceive everything about Crouch 
Jr. escaping at the Quiddich World Cup to have Moody's kidnapping 
make sense.  (Maybe this explains the confusion about the 
curse/murder language, too).

One thing that might help prove up this theory is that I think I 
recall JKR saying that she was suprised that Fake Moody turned out to 
be so likeable.  Maybe she hadn't originally conceived him to do 
great things like bounce Draco and teach the Unforgivable Curses, so 
she didn't initially think he'd be that interesting.  

Also, I have always had the gut feeling that the chapter order in GoF 
is a little unusual.  After the kids arrive at Hogwarts, they have 
the sorting, then Moody's arrival.  The next chapter is "Mad-Eye 
Moody", even though Moody doesn't do much except bounce Draco in that 
chapter.  In fact, he is only on two pages of the 15-page chapter 
that bears his name; it is almost like JKR is trying to call 
attention to him for some reason.  The next chapter is "The 
Unforgivable Curses," again starring Moody, which somehow seemed to 
me to be the sort of "Here's a Lesson At Hogwarts" type of chapter 
I'd expect after the foreign students arrive and the students are 
immersed in their coursework.

The other hunch is that the hole just *has* to have something to do 
with "The Dark Mark."  That chapter never felt right to me.  Lots of 
important foreshadowing is happening in a rather haphazard way.  That 
makes me wonder what key plot element is introduced in that chapter 
that would be the sort of thing JKR would have initially forgotten.  
That plot element could be Winky.  If JKR had tried to write the book 
without Winky, then she has no way to get Crouch Jr. at the QWC in a 
believable way.  She also has no way to keep Crouch Jr. imprisoned 
all those years while Crouch Sr. is heading off to the office every 
day.  So maybe she had to add Winky.

Or maybe it is Bertha Jorkins that is the missing plot element.  
Without her, Voldemort has no way to figure out that the Tournament 
is being played.  JKR could have written the whole book without 
seeing that plot hole.  But then again, it seems to be an easy thing 
to fix, and it wouldn't require picking anything apart.  You just 
ad "Bertha the victim" and the problem is solved.  So that's probably 
not it.

Anyway, I know this is really, really lame, but it is the best I can 
do, and I'm really just hoping to prod someone else into thinking of 
something truly brilliant.  Anyone?  :-)

Cindy (who is getting very grumpy over reports of delays in OoP, and 
will throw a complete hissy-fit boycott of the CoS Movie if OoP has 
not been released by then)