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In the 4th book (unfortunately, not in the 4th movie), Victor Krum caught the Snitch which ended the game, but his team lost.

But, why in the name of sanity would he do that?

He was a world-class player, and I don't think he was a selfish player to not play for his team.

As a Quidditch game can endlessly run for years, all he needed to do was stall the opponent's Seeker to prevent him from catching the Snitch. Even if his team was playing severely poor, given enough time, they could improve. So, there was always hope.

Why did Victor Krum catch the Snitch in the Quidditch World Cup?

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    Ireland's seeker is presumably pretty good too, stalling long-term may have been implausible
    – Sconibulus
    Commented Sep 29, 2017 at 19:52
  • 2
    Are there tie-breakers in Quidditch?
    – tilley31
    Commented Sep 29, 2017 at 20:21
  • @tilley31 - scifi.stackexchange.com/q/93852/33591
    – Mithical
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 17:40

3 Answers 3

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The Irish Seeker was about to catch it anyway.

Krum didn't decide to catch the Snitch without prompting. When Krum caught the Snitch, the Irish Seeker had seen it and was going to catch it himself. Without either cheating, or otherwise playing unfairly, there was no good way to stop Lynch from catching the Snitch other than Krum beating him to it.

“Look at Lynch!’ Harry yelled. For the Irish Seeker had suddenly gone into a dive, and Harry was quite sure that this was no Wronski Feint; this was the real thing … ‘He’s seen the Snitch!’ Harry shouted. ‘He’s seen it! Look at him go!’

Half the crowd seemed to have realised what was happening, the Irish supporters rose in a great wave of green, screaming their Seeker on … but Krum was on his tail. ” - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 8 (The Quidditch World Cup)

Krum and Lynch crashed into each other in their battle for the Snitch. If Krum hadn't caught it, it was likely that Lynch would have, meaning that the Bulgarian team would have lost by 310 points instead of 10 points. By catching the Snitch, Krum turned it from a humiliating defeat to a more dignified defeat.

“Krum, his red robes shining with blood from his nose, was rising gently into the air, his fist held high, a glint of gold in his hand. The scoreboard was flashing BULGARIA: ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY, IRELAND: ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY across the crowd, who didn’t seem to have realised what had happened.” - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 8 (The Quidditch World Cup)

If Krum didn't catch the Snitch, his team would have lost 10 - 320 instead of 160 - 170. By beating Lynch to it, he made it a much lesser defeat.

Ginny Weasley did the same thing during a Quidditch match at Hogwarts where she was the substitute Seeker for Harry, and the Gryffindor House Quidditch team without Harry wasn't actually very good.

“It was hard to say what the worst thing was: Harry thought it was a close-run contest between Ron’s fourteenth failed save, Sloper missing the Bludger but hitting Angelina in the mouth with his bat, and Kirke shrieking and falling backwards off his broom when Zacharias Smith zoomed at him carrying the Quaffle. The miracle was that Gryffindor only lost by ten points: Ginny managed to snatch the Snitch from right under Hufflepuff Seeker Summerby’s nose, so that the final score was two hundred and forty versus two hundred and thirty.” - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 26 (Seen and Unforeseen)

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    I agree with this answer. However, the Hogwarts example is a slightly different situation, because it has been established in the books that the league is based on total points scored, rather than W/L/D, so losing narrowly is objectively better than losing badly. This obviously isn't the case in the World Cup final, where a narrow loss only feels better than a humiliating one.
    – georgewatson
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 6:44
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    On top of that, it will be one of those cases where a Snitch catch still results in a loss, and in a world cup finale nontheless. By not catching it Krum would be the Seeker on a losing team. By catching it and still losing he entered the history books.
    – Thomas Jacobs
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 16:27
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    Well, we don't actually know that, @dendodge. We have no idea how professional international quidditch works. For all we know, Krum even has a note in his contract that pays extra if he catches the snitch, or scoring more points gives advantage in the next season's tables. We don't know much about how the Cup works.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 20:18
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    I don't agree with this answer. If Krum didn't catch it the other seeker might not have either, might have lost track of it. So, Krum chose a definite loss vs a (perhaps slim) chance of victory. What sort of player does that? Ending the game "on his terms" helps nobody.
    – Nauraushaun
    Commented Oct 1, 2017 at 8:38
  • The Irish seeker crashed, right? I don't think he would have catched the snitch. All Krum had to do was to keep pressure and follow the Irish seeker, without actually catching the snitch.
    – Eric Duminil
    Commented Sep 15, 2018 at 7:58
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To quote the book;

"What did he catch the Snitch for?" Ron bellowed, even as he jumped up and down, applauding withhis hands over his head. "He ended it when Ireland were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!""He knew they were never going to catch up!" Harry shouted back over all the noise, also applauding loudly. "The Irish Chasers were too good... He wanted to end it on his terms, that's all..."

Basically there was little to no chance for his team to catch up, and he wanted the game to end with the Irish team ahead by as few points as possible.

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    @Abigail You can't get 11 points in Quidditch, so they'd have to score two goals without Ireland scoring any more. Considering they'd scored a whole one goal in the match, to Ireland's sixteen, that didn't seem likely to happen.
    – Anthony Grist
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 0:19
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    That assumes Krum doesn't have a good feel for the game. If Krum is a professional quidditch player, he very well might have been able to tell that their keeper as losing it, or that their chasers were getting tired, and that things were only going to get worse.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Sep 30, 2017 at 20:20
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Ron asked the same question as you (quote in James Douglas's answer). Harry answered that he knew that his team would never catch up, so he just shortened the game by catching the Snitch and saved his team a hard and discouraging long game.

Also this might have been a bit selfish, because the opposing team had a lot of famous players, but his team basically just revolved around him. So he did his job well, no matter what the others on his team did.

And lastly: he created a legendary moment and that's the only thing people will remember of this game. More than if just the Snitch catching team had won, more than the rest of the game and more than the other world cup finals. Who do you think gave more interviews after this game? Krum or anyone on the other team? He also probably went into some "History of Quidditch" book or something.

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    'but his team basically just resolved around him.' Typo? Resolved or revolved? I do agree with all you say.
    – Pryftan
    Commented Oct 1, 2017 at 0:44
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    Yes, typo. Thanks.
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Oct 1, 2017 at 8:14
  • Np :) My eyes tend to be drawn towards that type of thing everywhere I look. It's not really a problem as such but it is a bit disturbing when I find it in news/research papers/etc. and even worse books but we're all prone to it; after all we're all human. This can lead to finding all sorts of funny things though.
    – Pryftan
    Commented Oct 2, 2017 at 18:59
  • You're called a "grammar nazi" then, welcome to the club. ;) Here, have a link: plus.google.com/communities/115958106766698613779
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Oct 2, 2017 at 19:18
  • I've been called also a grammar goblin; I quite liked that. Except that frankly I don't see myself that way: because we all make mistakes and myself included. The fact I I find mistakes everywhere is something I'm not sure I understand. I much prefer my gift when it comes to books (but I won't get into that because that's general chatting which I believe is not wanted here). As for grammar Nazi better than a National Socialist, right? Still I just see the mistakes and that's all: I try not to judge other people; we're all complicated and as for me I'm as complicated as Severus. Will check link
    – Pryftan
    Commented Oct 3, 2017 at 2:20

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