Champion choosing (WAS: Fleur Delacour And Bill Weasely)

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 59461

Patricia Bullington-McGuire wrote:
> [Fleur] must be a smart
> girl to have been chosen as the Beauxbatons champion
> 
> ----
> Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at o...>

Ummm... that comment made me think, did the Goblet choose the champions 
because they're smart? That doesn't seem to be the case, from my PoV. 
So I thought it might be fun to investigate further.

Unfortunately, there is no canon to indicate what method the Goblet 
used to select the champions. In fact, I have wondered a lot about it. 
Is it raw magical power? Potential abilities? Courage? Knowledge? The 
one that wants it most? Alphabetically - the one with the name starting 
with the lowest/highest letters? Random?

The canon states: "The Goblet will return the names of the three it has 
judged most worthy to represent their schools" (Dumbledore, ch. 16, 
GoF, Br. Ed). This, however, doesn't really mean anything, since to be 
the most worthy, it has to be in some cathegory or group of 
cathegories. But it's an interesting question, and there is still a 
couple of weeks to go before OoP, so I'm going to ramble and present a 
new theory.

First lets start with the Goblet, to see where it takes us. We know 
that the Goblet has probably been around some time. It is certainly 
reusable - "it won't re-ignite until the start of the next Tournament" 
(Bagman, ch. 17, GoF, Br. Ed), which implies it is not a one-use 
magical object. Of course, the Tournament has not been played in some 
time now, so it might be a new Goblet, but we also have its 
description. The chest in which the Goblet is kept is described as "a 
great wooden chest, encrusted with jewels. It looked extremelly old" 
(ch. 16, GoF, Br. Ed). The Goblet's age is not remarked upon, but it is 
mentioned that it looks "roughly hewn" (ch. 16, GoF, Br. Ed). It 
could've been roughly hewn the week before the TWT started, but I'm 
going to go out on a limb and say it's as old as the TWT, and indeed is 
an antiquity.

Now, the Goblet is described a few times as "an impartial selector" 
(Dumbledore, ch. 16, GoF, Br. Ed). We also know that age isn't a 
consideration, since the age line is designed to prevent underage 
wizards from participating, which sort of implies that on previous 
Tournaments wizards of all ages tried to get in and some managed to 
(and promptly got themselves killed, I imagine).

So, where does this take us? My conclusion in that the Goblet uses some 
internal measurement to judge the people who put their names into the 
Goblet (doing that is easy, since it has their names, which are 
traditionally easy keys of access to a person by the use of magic). So 
having the ability to access the person, the Goblet must now select the 
best in each school (of all those that have chosen to participate).

And now, my theory. I think the Goblet's scale is independent for each 
school. By that theory, the Goblet has been told - or reads from the 
heads of those that have entered over the years - what the 
characteristics that each school finds most worthy in his students. Or 
maybe it simply reads to see what the participants of each school 
really believe to be the most worthy between them. I like this last one 
in particular. It is democratic, in a way, and it fits. The three 
champions that were selected (Harry was selected by default, since he 
was the only representant from his school - I wonder what name 
Crouch!Moody used) have one thing in common: they are admired in their 
school. Krum because of his Quidditch achivements, Fleur and Cedric in 
part due to their good looks and, from what could be appreciated during 
the tournament, also because of a well developed magical ability and 
power (although Fleur didn't do a good job at facing the Grindilows in 
the second task).

In conclussion, I think the Goblet doesn't choose - just lets the 
participants choose who they think, in the silence of their hearts, 
really should be the champion (apart from themselves, I should 
imagine). Comments?

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf