What Jo says about...
Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ©2000

Please note: unless you see quotemarks, these are summaries, and not JKR's words themselves. Please see the linked article for the actual text.

• It took 5 years to finish the first book and to plot out the remaining 6; Book 4 was plotted when she was pregnant with Jessica. [Read the exact quote from WBUR interview, 1999]
• JK wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire's 9th chapter 13 times. Conversations with JK Rowling, p.88
• GoF is so long because she realized partway through writing it that there was "a big hole in the middle of the plot and I had to go back and unpick and redo." She won’t tell us what the flaw was. [Read the exact quote from the South West News Service interview, 2000]
• Harry was very well protected until the end of book four, which is the end of an era for him. [Read the exact quote from CBC Hot Type, 2000]
• In GoF, Harry, Ron and Hermione have specific issues they need to work through. "For Harry that's facing up to his fame, really facing up to it for the first time because he's been put into this situation where he will, for the first time, really get the weight of outside interest. So that's scary." […] "Ron has to deal with his jealousy - he's made friends with the most famous boy in his year and that's not easy, it's not easy to be in that situation. And Hermione gets a political conscience."[Read the exact quote from the cBBC Newsround interview, 2000]
• Book Four is a very, very, VERY important book. It is literally the "central" book. It is the heart of the series and it is pivotal. [Read the exact quote from the cBBC Newsround interview, 2000]
• Jo had to remove a chess scene from Book 1 that featured Ron winning by using "a particularly violent bishop." (the scene was added back in Book 4) [Read the exact quote from The Herald, 2000]
• There was originally a Weasley cousin in book four, but he/she had to be pulled because of plot holes. [Read the exact quote from the cBBC Newsround interview, 2000]
• Hermione will lighten up after book 4. [Read the exact quote from the cBBC Newsround interview, 2000]
• The Goblet of Fire was originally going to be called "The Doomspell Tournament" or "The Triwizard tournament." JKR chose ''Goblet of Fire'' "because it's got that kind of 'cup of destiny' feel about it, which is the theme of the book." [Read the exact quote from Entertainment Weekly, 2000]
• The battleground is Britain at the moment. [Read the exact quote from Entertainment Weekly, 2000]
• JKR: "What's very important for me is when Dumbledore says that you have to choose between what is right and what is easy. This is the setup for the next three books. All of them are going to have to choose, because what is easy is often not right." [Read the exact quote from Entertainment Weekly, 2000]
• The idea of Harry saving Cedric’s body came from the Hector-Patroclus-Achilles triangle in The Illiad [Read the exact quote from Entertainment Weekly, 2000]
• JKR on Voldemort and Cedric's death: "We really are talking about someone who is incredibly power hungry. Racist, really. And what do those kinds of people do? They treat human life so lightly. I wanted to be accurate in that sense. My editor was shocked by the way the character was killed, which was very dismissive. That was entirely deliberate." [Read the exact quote from Time Magazine, 2000]
• Why did Dumbledore have a look of triumph in his eyes at the end of book four?
  JKR: "Good question … excellent, in fact, and like all the best questions I get asked, I can’t answer it! Because it would give too much away. However, well-spotted. Have fun guessing … someone’s bound to get it right!" [Read the exact quote from the AOL chat, 2000]
• Was something going on between Ron and Hermione during the last half of GOF? JKR: "Yes, something's 'going on' ... but Ron doesn't realise it yet ... typical boy" [Read the exact quote from the Yahooligans! chat, 2000]
• Natalie McDonald is the only real person to be mentioned in the novels. (She is sorted into Gryffindor in GoF). The real Natalie was a young girl who suffered from Leukaemia and whose mother wrote, e-mailed and faxed JK’s publishers. The letter was sent to JKR, who got it after coming back from a holiday. She replied, but unfortunately the e-mails were received a day after Natalie passed away. Natalie’s mum and JK have since struck up a friendship. [Read the exact quote from Maclean's, 2000]
• Her favorite bits of the books: The ending of GoF, Chapter 12 of SS/PS, the final rescue scene in CoS, and Remus Lupin in PoA. Books 2 and 4 are her favorites overall, which is weird, because "they were the most difficult to write." [Read the whole quote from the Houston Chronicle, 2001]
• To see the Thestrals, the death that you have witnessed has to have "sunk in." One of the reasons for this is that JKR didn"t want to have to introduce them at the end of GoF and not explain them. [Read the exact quote from Royal Albert Hall, 2003]
• Harry got the Marauders" Map back in GoF by "nipping into Moody’s empty office" and pinching it when he wasn’t there. [Read the exact quote from World Book Day, 2004]
• At the end of GoF, Lily should come out of Voldemort's wand first, then James. JKR originally wrote this correctly, but her American editor told her it was the wrong way round, so she changed it. [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• How did Harry get the Marauder's Map back after the end of GoF? JKR: "He simply took it back from the fake Moody’s office" [Read the exact quote from Jo's website]
• Removed a character named "Mopsy the dog-lover" from Book 4; this character lived near Hogsmeade and took Sirius in. In the final version, Sirius stays in a cave. [Read exact quote from Jo's website]
• Fred and George did not have foreknowledge of the Quidditch World Cup outcome; they simply gambled on a hunch and won. They “were prepared to risk everything.” [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Dumbledore’s “gleam of triumph” (GoF) will be enormously significant to Book 7. [Read the entire quote from the Leaky Cauldron, 2005]
• Goblet of Fire and Chamber of Secrets were the hardest books for JK to write. [Read the whole quote from ITV, 2005]
• Jo refers to Chapter 9 of GoF ("The Dark Mark") as "The Chapter of Doom" because it was so difficult to write [Read the exact quote from Jo's Diary, 2005 ]
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