Voldemort would just waste them if they tried anything. I don’t think we’ll get the “Killed by his own men” ending and instead get the “killed by Potter who was empowered by the sacrifice of dumbledore” ending. Or maybe if we are very lucky we get the “Killed by Longbottom, who marries Hermione and teaches Herbology at Hogwarts” ending.
Well, I’d have thought less of him had he thrown the match. Can’t speak for everyone, obviously, but even if you get handed something you’d rather not do, wouldn’t you try and do your best at it? It’s in Harry’s nature to do the best he can at what he has to, even if he doesn’t really want to.
Plus heraldgwena’s point.
And I still can’t buy Snape as a morality point. As a legal authority, maybe, but not a fair one, if you understand the difference. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s an interesting character, and likely to become more so, but still not a fair character.
Well, I just finished the 4th book last night, and I’m missing something in Voldemort’s motivation too. The Fake Moody has access to Harry all year. He was able to turn the triwizard cup into a portkey. Why couldn’t he have turned any old thing into a portkey and handed it to Harry a long time ago? Why the insanely convoluted plan of entering him in the cup and guiding him to the finish?
I am only going to WAG at the last question, but since teleportation is not allowed within the grounds it is possible that the existance of portkeys on the grounds are also controlled. It may be that the existance of an unauthorised portkey would set off the “alarms”. The cup may have been an authorised portkey to teleport them back out of the maze, but Moody set a different destination when making it. If you follow me.
As to how Harry might have “tried not to win” when he had extra information. Firstly, it was always conveniently implied that the evil foreigners already knew, and that the balance was just being preserved by his knowing. In order to preserve the balance he told Ced about the dragons (that the other two already knew about) and Ced repaid the favour with the hint.
Not trying hard isn’t even an option really. I mean, kids fighting a dragon for gods sakes! Not trying too hard is going to get him fried. People can, and do, die during the tri-wizard games.
Again, the point as made above, is that cheating (by muggle standards 
) is part of the game. The wizard and muggle standards of morality are note entirely the same, there are slight cultural differences as between any populations.
When Bagman later offers Harry insider information, Harry turns him down. He doesn’t want to activly cheat, even if he is willing to use accidental help.
In other words, I rekon he is doing ok for a kid whose safety, and indeed life is in real danger.
As for Voldemort, at the moment we are looking at the power angle and his own self-hatred and insecurity etc, but hopefully she will flesh him out more in the coming books. I am a little worried though that the popularity will change the coming books. As I see it at the moment, the books are written to be suitable more or less for kids “Harrys age” at the time of each book, in other words the kids who were 11 at the release of the first book have had the story grow with them. By this I mean that the depth of the story, the references involved have become more adult with each book. The first one deals with stuff like how they are mean to Harry cos he is different, and Ron cos he is poor etc. while in the latest book, kids actually end up dead. I just worry that the coming books won’t continue in this fashion and might “tone down” the issues involving Voldemort etc in order to not alienate or frighten the younger readers.
There I think partly_warmer hit the nail on the head when s/he called Voldemort " A wizard Hitler. " I think Rawling is going a little out of her way to make that comparison overly clear, I mean Adolf didn’t match up to his own Aryan ideal did he?
Harry’s mom was a muggle born witch like Hermonie. That’s one of the reason’s Mrs. Dursley dislikes him so much: her parents were actually proud to find that they had a witch in the family.
Does Godwin’s Law apply here?
Probably Godwart the Odd’s Law.