Chapter Discussion: Twenty, Goblet of Fire: The First Task

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 192347



.> > 2. When I was rereading this chapter I was reminded about how Fleur looked so
> > much less confident and prepared than other Champions. Granted I have not reread
> > the other Tasks for a while, but I seem to remember that she was always the
> > least competent and prepared competitor. Do you think it was because she was a
> > young woman or not?
> 
> Pippin:
> May I suggest that  the collective opinion   that she was the least competent and prepared is influenced by her being a young woman?
> 
>  JKR has fun with the unconscious assumption that  outstanding athletes are male. You have to read the World Cup match closely and match up the pronouns to realize that at least two of the champion Irish chasers are female. And yet some readers  complained fiercely online that there were no women players at the World Cup match. 


Alla:

Very true about this.


Pippin:
<SNIP> 
>  I disagree that Fleur was consistently the least competent or prepared. While JKR doesn't tell us either Fleur or Cedric's score for the task, Fleur got her egg in five minutes and without any injuries that we know of (her skirt caught fire, but she put it out.) Cedric took ten minutes and was severely burned. 


Alla:

I will grant you this point.

Pippin: 
> Fleur bested male competitors from her own school to be champion in the first place. 


Alla:

Remind me, I truly do not remember, where does it say that their school has male students? Regardless though, my point was that she seemed the weakest and less prepared out of all champions, not anybody else.


Pippin:
> She undoubtedly placed last in the second task, but we don't know why she had so much trouble with the Grindylows -- it could have been some fault of hers, or it could have been external circumstances. Once rescued, she had to be held back by force from returning to the water to rescue her sister. The narrator reports she was fighting "tooth and nail" so she must have lost her wand -- if the grindylows managed to grab it away from her, she would have been helpless against so many -- and they were already riled up by Harry's passage. 

Alla:

Right, we do not know why she had trouble and JKR does not tell, but she makes sure to tell us that she placed last and to me that's what she wanted to stress as important.


Pippin:
> In the third task she was ambushed by Fake!Moody first thing -- so he must have thought she had a chance of making it to the Cup before any of the others, or he wouldn't have bothered. You could make a case that of the three "official" contestants,  Cedric was actually the weakest contender -- he was the one that Fake!Moody left till last, and, alas, the  one that didn't survive. 

Alla:

Or he may have thought that she would be the easiest to get rid of and that is why he knocked her out first - as a nuisance to deal with and forget about. Still am not convinced that anybody else was shown as weak as her by the totality of circumstances.