Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory.
Today, we’re discussing the Triwizard tournament.
The Triwizard Tournament was one of the deadliest competitions in the entire wizarding world.
With a death toll that rivals the professional dueling arenas in Eastern Europe, the Triwizard
Tournament was actually pretty barbaric.
It’s baffling why Hogwarts, and its fellow schools, kept it going for so many centuries.
But what made it so dangerous?
And how did it get started in the first place?
We’ll answer those questions, and more, in today’s video.
ORIGINS
Nobody’s quite sure when the first Triwizard Tournament came to be.
Just like most events from the early wizarding world, the first Triwizard Tournament’s
origins are all but lost to time.
But based on the little bit of information we still possess from that era, we can build
a rough picture of the earliest Tournaments.
Hogwarts, of course, was founded by Godric Gryffindor and his three wizarding friends
in the latter half of the eleventh century.
And only about two centuries after that, the very first Triwizard tournament debuted.
The dates are a bit fuzzy, but sometime around the year 1294 the three major wizarding schools
of the region (the Durmstrang Institute and the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic) came together,
and decided to pit their students against each other.
Quidditch was already a popular sport by this time, and had pushed rivalry between different
magical settlements to new highs.
So the creation of the Triwizard Tournament was a natural next step, in a world where
wizards from different regions regularly competed against each other.
SCHOOLS
You already know that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was one of these prominent European
schools, but the Triwizard Tournament was rounded out by two others: the Durmstrang
Institute and Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.
While Hogwarts mostly accepted British and Irish students, the Durmstrang Institute took
its pupils from all over Europe.
Located in a mysterious part of the continent, far into the North, the Durmstrang Institute
always seemed to produce wizards and witches who wouldn’t shy away from a fight.
The students at Durmstrang were even well versed in the Dark Arts.
Unlike Hogwarts, which only taught children how to defend against dark wizards and curses,
the faculty at Durmstrang actually instructed its pupils on how to use dark magic.
Perhaps that is why Gellert Grindelwald, the infamous dark wizard of the early 20th century,
became so infatuated with the Dark Arts in the first place.
The third competitor in the Triwizard Tournament must always hail from the Beauxbatons Academy
of Magic.
This magical school was, unsurprisingly, located in France.
But, unlike the film, it wasn’t a girls-only school.
Plenty of famous wizards attended Beauxbatons academy.
In fact, the greatest alchemist of the modern era, Nicolas Flamel, attended Beauxbatons.
As you know, he was the wizard who created the philosopher’s stone, the very first
item that Lord Voldemort sought, after binding his body to Professor Quirrell’s.
The children at Beauxbatons were quite easy to spot in a crowd, especially during the
tournaments.
Compared to the gruff looking students from Durmstrang, and the motley crew of kids at
Hogwarts, those from Beauxbatons were typically elegantly dressed and well composed in public.
But their pre-occupation with their appearance didn’t mean that they slouched in the classroom.
Students at Beauxbatons were absolutely great wizards and witches.
Truth be told, they possessed nearly as many Triwizard victories as Hogwarts, and only
needed one more to make it a tie.
HISTORY
Ever since the tournament began in the late 13th century, it plugged along, becoming a
staple in the lives of many wizarding students throughout Europe and Britain.
The three schools pledged to hold the event every 5 years, and for the most part, they
stuck to that.
But even though the tournament played such an important role in the history of magical
education, you might be surprised to know that there aren’t many records about the
games, or even the champions from each tournament.
In fact, much like other murky histories in the wizarding world, we only know a bit about
the Triwizard Tournament of the middle ages.
Until it was put on a hiatus in the 1790’s, Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbaton participated
in, at the very minimum, 125 tournaments.
And by the time Harry Potter had a shot at the goblet, Hogwarts held 63 victors, and
Beauxbatons commanded a very convincing 2nd place seat, with 62 wins of their own.
It’s hard to know exactly what happened during those centuries, but if you think about
it… the games must have been downright scary.
After all, during Harry Potter’s own Triwizard Tournament, in the early 1990’s, Albus Dumbledore
and the other headmasters made sure to reduce the lethality of the events.
They didn’t want any more deaths on their hands.
But the Triwizard Tournaments from the distant past had a bloody reputation for killing,
maiming, and crippling their participants.
The types of tasks Harry faced during his tournament, like taking on a Hungarian Horntail
dragon, might have been a walk in the park compared to some of the ones previous generations
faced.
It wouldn’t be far fetched to speculate that truly dark beasts, like Dementors or
Lethifold, were unleashed during the games.
But in the end, we’ll never know the full truth.
All we know is that the games were canceled towards the end of the 18th century, or the
beginning of the nineteenth.
There had been far too many deaths, and the parents of children at Hogwarts refused to
let their kids be fodder for entertainment any more.
It was a cockatrice, the horrid rooster and lizard hybrid, which might have been the straw
that broke the camel’s back.
During a tournament in the 1790’s, one of the magical beasts, a cockatrice, broke free
from the game field.
During its subsequent rampage, the headmasters of each school fell victim, and were savagely
attacked.
If it wasn’t for an odd comment that Hagrid once made…
when he implied that he had been alive during a Triwizard Tournament… that game involving
the cockatrice might have been the very last one.
Perhaps Rubeus was letting us in on a secret…
that there had been a few failed attempts to bring the Triwizard Tournament back over
the years.
But it didn’t come back in full force, until Harry Potter’s 4th year at Hogwarts.
During that game, Albus Dumbledore and the other headmasters tried their best to reduce
the violence in the games, but in the end, yet another student lost their life.
This time, it wasn’t exactly the Tournaments fault, though.
Lord Voldemort, and his lackey, Barty Crouch Junior, had used the games to lure Harry Potter
into a dark ritual, where Voldemort would regain a true, physical body.
In the process, Cedric Diggory was murdered by Peter Pettigrew, a small casualty in Voldemort’s
ultimate plan to regain power.
RULES
Now, if you’re unfamiliar with the rules of the Triwizard Tournament, you’re in luck…
because they’re pretty straightforward.
Every tournament had three games.
Typically, tournaments wouldn’t reuse the same games or challenges, year after year.
But after so many centuries of competition, you’d be surprised just how hard it was
to concoct new challenges for the students.
So, three challenges would be drafted, and the head of each school would judge the champions
on their ability to complete each one.
In the past, the tournament was open to almost anyone, as long as they were a current student
at one of the three schools.
But by Harry Potter’s time, a few careful changes were drafted, in order to prevent
younger year students from losing their lives.
The most important alteration was an age charm that prevented anyone younger than 17 from
placing their name in the goblet.
Oh yeah… and about the goblet of fire.
The giant cup, filled with blue flames, was just like the Sorting Hat.
Students would submit their name into the flames, and the goblet would consider each
one, until it selected the perfect champion for each school.
On the last day of October, Halloween, the cup would make its selection known.
From that point on, the champions of each school were entered into a magical contract…
forced to compete in the tournament… or else.
In the end, whoever performed the best, and survived, would not only win the Triwizard
Cup, but also 1,000 Galleons to spend as they pleased.
LEGACY
By the time Harry Potter participated in the Triwizard Tournament, it had been centuries
since a proper version of the games were held.
Most of the wizarding world hoped to see the games return, as a way to celebrate magical
excellence in their young wizards.
But with Cedric Diggory’s tragic death, the tournament was dealt its final blow.
Five years later, long after Voldemort’s death, the next Triwizard Tournament failed
to appear.
And as far as anyone knows, it’s canceled permanently.
Honestly, after the Battle of Hogwarts, and all of those senseless deaths, I think that
the wizarding world is fine without the Tournament.
Young wizards and witches from Britain don’t really need to prove their courage or mettle
in pointless games.
They already showed how tough they are in the final fight against Lord Voldemort.
And that’s it for this video!
Do you have anything to add about the triwizard tournament?
Got any questions?
Leave them in the comment section down below
Until next time
Remember
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live