Whose to say she didn't do just that? I mean for Fudge and Umbridge to be able to pull many of the stunts they did in OOTP and HBP they had to have been able to count on support from the various department heads.... Whose to say that Diggory wasn't hiding in the background constantly pushing for Ministry interference in anything and everything Harry Potter did? Oh wait....what am I saying??? This is JKR we're talking about, disregard please....

--bornagainpenguin

 

Basically, Diggory was there when Voldemort was resurrected, and was the son of a Ministry official. If he'd lived, well, Harry might have had some credibility, and where's the fun in that?

 

I agree with most of what was said.

Rowling actually went to pretty great lengths to build Diggory up as a likeable, respect-worthy character.

Sure he's popular, smart, and good at quidditch.

But he also was a decent person with strong morals, as evidenced by the fact that he helps out Harry in the tri-Wizard tournament in return.

I think Cedric was Mary-Sue'esque in nature, and Rowling was trying to show that even a near perfect character like him could be taken down, and unexpectedly at that.

I guess it just makes the threat of Voldemort more real and imminent (at least for Harry).

 

Basically, someone had to die in the tournament. There were just too many references at the start of the tournament about how deadly it was, and how many contestants have died. That was even the prime reason why they stopped having the tournament in the first place. I found it hilarious that the tournament would be ‘restarted’ when Dumbledore knows that Voldemort is hovering around. Oh well…

The question that I ask myself is more: Why the hell did the fake Moody decide to Imperio Krum?
- If Imperio-resistance-training exists then I would assume that the contestant of the so called ‘darkest school’ would have the most training to the extent of shaking it off.
- If Imperio-resistance-training does not exist, then why did the fake Moody not Imperio Diggory. He should have used it on him in one of his classes, and would have been a safer bet to know if he could resist it or not.
Ah well, the same questions could be asked why the fake Moody didn’t just portkey Harry:
- out of class
- when he was talking to Harry about how nice it was that he told Diggory about the dragons
- during a fake detention
especially if he blows his bloody cover when the resurrection finally happens and the portkey can obviously carry two people…

She probably killed of Cedric to have the entire Cho-drama-date. The alternative was to send Harry to Azkaban for a week, but she realized that Harry would have a better time there than at the Dursleys.

Ps: Hopefully no double-post; I get a lot of failed links from DLP

 

Cedric had to die because he was the only character who treated Harry with any small degree of respect. Can't have that. Not at all.

His friends take him for granted, his teachers tend to look at him like a particularly talented pet that sometimes manages to bark a sound that sounds like a word, and the world at large alternately hates and worships him. Cedric is the only one (that I can remember, been a while) that doesn't overreact to Harry's entrance in the tournament and treats him as an equal during it. Setting the tone for all future books JKR kills off the guy who's probably the only one amone Harry's peers who might believe him. Not just believe him about Voldemort returning, but about all the other bizarre shit that happens to him. So lacking that support we go into OoTP where Harry goes solo-emo all year.

Sure you can say that Cedric dies to prove how bad Voldemort is, and it might be necessary if you're a complete braindead moron. Voldemort killed Harry's parents because he really wanted to kill a 15 month old baby. That's pretty fucking hardcore right there. Hell, his not-particularly-bright flunkies torture people into insanity. If Harry actually needed Cedric to die to convince him Voldemort is bad juju then he should go smother himself with a pillow.

If anyone else needs Cedric to die to prove Voldemort is bad they should be raped by dragons, then killed.

Voldemort ordering Cedric's death isn't cruel. Its apathetic. He might enjoy Harry's horror and discomfiture over Cedric's death, but he doesn't seem to particularly care either way about Cedric himself. He likely killed Cedric just to fuck with Harry's head. It worked too, if OoTP is anything to go by.