Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire begins in a setting that does not, at first, seem to include Harry. The opening description of Little Hangleton is similar to the introduction of the town of Pagford in The Casual Vacancy , JK Rowling’s first post-Potter novel. The village in Goblet of Fire is also a conservative, hide-bound outpost of prejudice and social stratification; in this village, a man accused of murder fifty years earlier is still a pariah, tormented by teenage vandals, forever guilty in the court of public opinion, despite a lack of evidence linking him to the murders of his former employers. The village pub in Little Hangleton is THE HANGED MAN, the name of the twelfth card in the Tarot Major Arcana and the third sequential card for Goblet of Fire , the group of three cards, in order, aligned with this book. (The first nine cards, in three groups of three, were aligned with the first three books in the series.) This is the first overt mention of a Tarot card...
