For fun. :awesome

/had to

 

1: Harry's learning about wards.
2: Wards inside well defended places tend to be less strong.

Ergo: Harry's going to break the Age Line and put his own name in the Goblet.

And that's my final prediction about the Goblet.

 

1: Making wards. What we've seen of breaking them is just overpowering them with curses; not something Dumbledore would allow in the Great Hall.

2: Wards inside defended places are stronger.

Ergo: A ward made by Dumbledore's Elder Wand in Hogwarts is enough to withstand even a determined Harry.

 

Is an age line considered a protective ward?

 

Probably. It protects the object within the line from people under 17.

 

If he's learning about making them, he's also learning about weaknesses and the best ways to prevent others from breaking them. Which means he's also learning about the best ways to break them.

For some reason I read Harry's theory of the wizard being more relaxed as him not concentrating enough and thus making a weaker ward. Weird.

Still, all this information about wards is rather conveniently shared right before the tournament. Especially because Kosarev was to first to tell Harry about them,only a few days after Harry was allowed in the Hogwarts delegation. As a teacher, he might have caught and understood one of Karkaroff's "slips of the tongue" about the judge or he might have simply known enough about the history of the tournament to guess Dumbledore's use of a protective ward. So even if Harry's not able to break the Age Line, I still think he will be able to somehow evade it and put his name in himself, thanks to his knowledge on wards.

 

Perhaps it was intended as advice for entering into the tournament, but I actually expected wards to be used in one of the tasks.

You don't need to destroy a ward and alert Dumbledore to interference when a switching spell on someone elses entry paper would work.

 

If a switching spell on someone elses entry paper would work.

And I don't think it does.

 

Why not?

Find someone about to enter, perform switching spell on their piece of parchment. It eliminates a competitor and gets you into the running.

 

Probably, but it seems like a major point to warding is the versatility in that you can make it effect certain groups of people. You could likely turn quite a few wards into age lines just by being specific in their casting.

 

Because I don't think the Goblet will let you put in a different name. Unless you somehow 'overpower' it by, say, a very strong Confundus Charm.

Whether or not that's true has been discussed several times already though, so let's not go there.

 

In movie canon, Dumbledore explicity asks Harry

and asks a similar question in the books. The fact Dumbledore has to ask this implies that such a thing would work. Otherwise, the question itself gives no valid information to DD. You also have the fact that Crouch Jr put Harry's name in anyways. Again, I can't remember the exact quote, but something along the lines of 'well I confunded the goblet to think there were four schools, then put in your name. U mad bro?'.
Again with implying, but I take this to mean that the goblet doesn't care who puts the name inside it, what matters is the name being inside it.

Harry doesn't need to break an enchantment at all. He's clever. He knows Viktor doesn't want to enter. He can therefore ask Viktor to try and put his name in.

 

Sure; if you're into that sort of dull, sensible and easily accomplished method.

I'd much rather see an incredibly clever use of magic.

 

This^^

It's the most reasonable solution to both their problems and it's basically canon proven.

 

We know it's possible to trick the Goblet. That doesn't mean it's easy or that Harry or another student could realistically do it. Dumbledore asked that question to make sure that Harry was being set up. I want to bet he would have been competely flabbergasted if Harry told him one of the older students actually managed to put his name in the Goblet.

I just don't think it makes sense for a magical artifact that's been in use for this specific purpose for centuries, to allow someone to sign up someone else. They would have put a stop to that the first time someone got angry and put in the name of an ex or maybe even a hated teacher.

Severus Snape and the Goblet of Fire anyone?

 

They'd have to get Snape's own handwritten name from somewhere though. Do the teachers sign the graded essays? And then convince the Goblet Snape is a student of Hogwarts or another school which we've all been told requires a powerful confundus charm.

I always thought the confundus charm as to make sure Harry got selected by making the Goblet think that there's a fourth school and Harry's the only member not to trick it into accepting the 'application'.

 

Obviously the Goblet itself has some kind of mechanism to choose the champion. I think it's possible that the Goblet simply wouldn't choose someone that didn't drop his name in personally.

 

It does make the age line rather pointless if all one has to do is ask an older student to put in their name. I'd like to think that Albus is smarter than that. I agree that getting Harry's name in was likely part of confunding the goblet.

 

Seeing as the Goblet can judge an individual's talent and ability with just their name, then I imagine that the Goblet could easily distinguish between those who wish to compete, and those who don't

Whilst it's true that Harry is smart enough to have Victor enter his name, I imagine Harry will likely try to circumvent the Age Line himself first. His main drive for entering is to prove to everyone he's the best, and trying to beat Dumbledore's protections would be a challenge to great for Harry to resist.

 

Logically, I agree that there's no reason to ask this question if an older student could not have put Harry's name in. Yes, Dumbledore could have asked it simply to prove to the 'audience' that Harry hadn't wanted at all to participate in the tournament, but from what I remember from this scene, he was quite frantic when he stormed in the room (did he shook Harry's shoulders? I don't remember). I doubt he was acting.

But, making so much noise about the age-line and how impregnable it is, and then allowing it to be overcome by asking an older student to put your name in the goblet? :facepalm If I have to choose between Dumbledore losing his cool and asking one pointless question, and Dumbledore simply being a moron, I'd go with the former. I'm almost sure that Rowling wrote that scene without much thought (it's not like it hasn't happened before) - she felt it's the most 'logical' question to ask at the time. But I really find it hard to believe that someone as supposedly intelligent as Dumbledore would fail to foresee that minor students may ask students of age to put their names in the goblet. It doesn't take a genius of AD's caliber to foresee that, it takes someone who has more than two brain cells to rub together. If it had been exploited in the novels, it would have been a major plot-whole, and it'd be the same if it's exploited here - Santi's Dumbledore doesn't seem to be an idiot and it would take nothing short of Ronald Weasley posing as AD or AD being hit by a giant comet on the head just before the opening ceremony, to make him overlooking this scenario remotely plausible.

Beside, it's a cheap way for our protagonist, who is supposed to be a prodigy, to get into the tournament using a plot RW would have come up with. His character until now was established (at least in my view) as far too competitive for that... Then again, he's also practical, so I don't know what he'd do if Dumbledore really proves to be an idiot with the age-line.