Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
[Warning: contains spoilers]
I'm a big fan of the Potterverse, let me just say. The fact that there was a script being marketed as "the eighth book" was just too much - I had to buy it. And buy it I did. But I'm not sure I would have spent the money to see the play. Then again, perhaps it would have been better to see it performed instead f trying to imagine what it looks like when time stops, turns over, thinks a bit, and then begins spooling backward. Try to act out that stage direction!
Speaking of stage direction, the magic in this play is either going to be hard to buy when watching it, or the effects team must be top-notch. How in the world do you show a polyjuice potion transformation on stage?
If you can't tell from my initial comments, I found myself picturing this story taking place on stage as often as I pictured it taking place in the Potter movie settings.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, contrary to the name, spends a lot of time focussed on Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy. Why not make them the title characters? Well, my friends, because it always has to be about Harry and Voldemort. Doesn't it? Perhaps that was the intetion behind the title.
The story picks up right where the epilogue of the seventh book left us, with Albus headed off to his first year at Hogwarts. On the train he befriends Scorpius, who is nothing like his father. Albus, on the other hand, has all of Harry's angst, though little of his awestruck boyish charm. Albus's greatest problem in life is that he doesn't feel like he belongs in his family or that Harry accepts him for who he is. This is most unfortunately exaggerated when Albus is placed in Slytherin house. Albus hates that he feels he has to live up to his father's reputation, and yet he seems to try very hard to distance himself from any association with his father, which only makes the pressure to act like Harry feel ever more present in his life. At times, I wasn't quite sure what the problem was between Harry and Albus, because nothing seemed to change the tension between them.
The big conflict of the story is when Harry, head Auror, gets his hands on a Time Turner that can let someone go years into the past. Amos Diggory pleads for the rescue of Cedric's life, but the Ministry (headed by Hermione Granger) will not let anyone have the Time Turner because they fear the dangerous consequences of using it. Delphi, Amos' niece, talks to Albus. The boy, as boys so often do in these stories, developed a crush on the young woman. At least, that's how I read it.
Albus decides to steal the Time Turner and rescue Cedric. This way he can 1) impress Delphi, 2) defy his father, 3) live up to, surpass, or get out from under his father's shadow. Scorpius and Delphi join the mission. The problems arise when they go back in time (surprise, surprise). Their goal is to prevent Cedric from making it to the final round of the Triwizard Tournament so that he never gets his hands on the cup. Instead, Cedric remains dead, but more aspects of their own lives change. Albus is a Gryffindor, Harry and Hermione never got married.
And then Harry's scar starts to hurt, and he gets dreams of Voldemort. Say, haven't we been through this bit before? Why, yes, we have! Except, I think there is a problem here. Harry temporarily died, and in so doing destroyed himself and thus he was no longer a horcrux and Voldemort was killed. So why does his scar hurt? Did I miss something?
Anyways, people suspect that Scorpius is not really Draco's son and that Draco never really changed his ways. Rumors exist that he is Voldemort's child. Regardless, Harry thinks he's a bad influence because he can't blame himself for his son's moody behaviour and theft. (But Harry, you never take the blame, do you? Plus he sounds just like you!)
They boys try to save Cedric again. The new future has Cedric as an angry Death Eater who kills Neville. With Neville dead, Voldemort survives the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry dies instead, thus Albus is never born. So, worse failure than before. Apparently the one difference between Harry and Albus is the ability to mess up and still make things go right; Albus doesn't have that.
Scorpius has to work alone to get Albus back, but he finds help from Hermione, Ron and Snape. Yes, his fate changed too! Luckily, Scorpius fixes everything. This kid deserves some credit for being able to fix it all on his own. Once things are righted, the Potter family even starts to get along.
Delphi then takes the boys captive, and it is revealed that she is really the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange. She wanted to have the boys create the timeline in which her father won the battle and she got to rule with him. Delphi takes them back to the night the Potters died, and Scorpius (the Hermione of this story) figures out how to get a message to their parents. They all work together to stop Delphi from interfering with her father's useless mission to kill Harry. In the end, she is arrested and Harry and Albus start to understand each other better.
Several parts of this just felt confusing, or like there were plot discrepancies between this story and the originals. The atmosphere that makes something feel like the Potterverse was barely there. The original characters were sometimes hard to picture as adults because they have changed so little from the original stories. It almost felt like they were reliving their character arcs in a different plot and a much shorter timeframe. Harry was once again fighting Voldemort and headaches, while being all angsty and only managing to make things worse by trying to fix them. Draco was once again public enemy number one with Hermione at the head of the haters, even though he seems to have redeemed himself in the last book. Nonetheless, had they not been so consistent, it might not have felt like the same series at all. I know that this discrepancy is because most of the actual writing and creation was done by Jack Thorne, and also John Tiffany. Yet, the dialogue itself and the impossible stage directions seemed so J.K. Rowling.
I felt like this book was unnecessary. It ultimately had to rewrite the epilogue, instead of leaving things be, in order to make the rest of the story happen, and the whole thing didn't really mesh with the rest of the series. Why did there have to be another problem coming out of that? Why couldn't the families have been happy and Voldemort stayed dead? Delphi wasn't what I was expecting the cursed child to be. And I must say, it seems odd that Bellatrix had a child that was just being hidden away the whole time she was fighting the Order and Harry and the students of Hogwarts. How could no one have known?
I'm glad that I read this, just to say that I have. Now I know what might have happened after the Hogwarts Express took the Potter children off to school. But I am okay pretending that this didn't happen. As far as I am concerned, this was like a piece of fanfiction - especially the blurring of the lines between friendship and relationship when it came to Albus and Scorpius. If you want to talk about it as though it is canon, that's fine. It can be. It is. But it also doesn't have to be. It's an extension, a bonus. The integrity of the series remains with or without this story.
I'm a big fan of the Potterverse, let me just say. The fact that there was a script being marketed as "the eighth book" was just too much - I had to buy it. And buy it I did. But I'm not sure I would have spent the money to see the play. Then again, perhaps it would have been better to see it performed instead f trying to imagine what it looks like when time stops, turns over, thinks a bit, and then begins spooling backward. Try to act out that stage direction!
Speaking of stage direction, the magic in this play is either going to be hard to buy when watching it, or the effects team must be top-notch. How in the world do you show a polyjuice potion transformation on stage?
If you can't tell from my initial comments, I found myself picturing this story taking place on stage as often as I pictured it taking place in the Potter movie settings.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, contrary to the name, spends a lot of time focussed on Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy. Why not make them the title characters? Well, my friends, because it always has to be about Harry and Voldemort. Doesn't it? Perhaps that was the intetion behind the title.
The story picks up right where the epilogue of the seventh book left us, with Albus headed off to his first year at Hogwarts. On the train he befriends Scorpius, who is nothing like his father. Albus, on the other hand, has all of Harry's angst, though little of his awestruck boyish charm. Albus's greatest problem in life is that he doesn't feel like he belongs in his family or that Harry accepts him for who he is. This is most unfortunately exaggerated when Albus is placed in Slytherin house. Albus hates that he feels he has to live up to his father's reputation, and yet he seems to try very hard to distance himself from any association with his father, which only makes the pressure to act like Harry feel ever more present in his life. At times, I wasn't quite sure what the problem was between Harry and Albus, because nothing seemed to change the tension between them.
The big conflict of the story is when Harry, head Auror, gets his hands on a Time Turner that can let someone go years into the past. Amos Diggory pleads for the rescue of Cedric's life, but the Ministry (headed by Hermione Granger) will not let anyone have the Time Turner because they fear the dangerous consequences of using it. Delphi, Amos' niece, talks to Albus. The boy, as boys so often do in these stories, developed a crush on the young woman. At least, that's how I read it.
Albus decides to steal the Time Turner and rescue Cedric. This way he can 1) impress Delphi, 2) defy his father, 3) live up to, surpass, or get out from under his father's shadow. Scorpius and Delphi join the mission. The problems arise when they go back in time (surprise, surprise). Their goal is to prevent Cedric from making it to the final round of the Triwizard Tournament so that he never gets his hands on the cup. Instead, Cedric remains dead, but more aspects of their own lives change. Albus is a Gryffindor, Harry and Hermione never got married.
And then Harry's scar starts to hurt, and he gets dreams of Voldemort. Say, haven't we been through this bit before? Why, yes, we have! Except, I think there is a problem here. Harry temporarily died, and in so doing destroyed himself and thus he was no longer a horcrux and Voldemort was killed. So why does his scar hurt? Did I miss something?
Anyways, people suspect that Scorpius is not really Draco's son and that Draco never really changed his ways. Rumors exist that he is Voldemort's child. Regardless, Harry thinks he's a bad influence because he can't blame himself for his son's moody behaviour and theft. (But Harry, you never take the blame, do you? Plus he sounds just like you!)
They boys try to save Cedric again. The new future has Cedric as an angry Death Eater who kills Neville. With Neville dead, Voldemort survives the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry dies instead, thus Albus is never born. So, worse failure than before. Apparently the one difference between Harry and Albus is the ability to mess up and still make things go right; Albus doesn't have that.
Scorpius has to work alone to get Albus back, but he finds help from Hermione, Ron and Snape. Yes, his fate changed too! Luckily, Scorpius fixes everything. This kid deserves some credit for being able to fix it all on his own. Once things are righted, the Potter family even starts to get along.
Delphi then takes the boys captive, and it is revealed that she is really the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange. She wanted to have the boys create the timeline in which her father won the battle and she got to rule with him. Delphi takes them back to the night the Potters died, and Scorpius (the Hermione of this story) figures out how to get a message to their parents. They all work together to stop Delphi from interfering with her father's useless mission to kill Harry. In the end, she is arrested and Harry and Albus start to understand each other better.
Several parts of this just felt confusing, or like there were plot discrepancies between this story and the originals. The atmosphere that makes something feel like the Potterverse was barely there. The original characters were sometimes hard to picture as adults because they have changed so little from the original stories. It almost felt like they were reliving their character arcs in a different plot and a much shorter timeframe. Harry was once again fighting Voldemort and headaches, while being all angsty and only managing to make things worse by trying to fix them. Draco was once again public enemy number one with Hermione at the head of the haters, even though he seems to have redeemed himself in the last book. Nonetheless, had they not been so consistent, it might not have felt like the same series at all. I know that this discrepancy is because most of the actual writing and creation was done by Jack Thorne, and also John Tiffany. Yet, the dialogue itself and the impossible stage directions seemed so J.K. Rowling.
I felt like this book was unnecessary. It ultimately had to rewrite the epilogue, instead of leaving things be, in order to make the rest of the story happen, and the whole thing didn't really mesh with the rest of the series. Why did there have to be another problem coming out of that? Why couldn't the families have been happy and Voldemort stayed dead? Delphi wasn't what I was expecting the cursed child to be. And I must say, it seems odd that Bellatrix had a child that was just being hidden away the whole time she was fighting the Order and Harry and the students of Hogwarts. How could no one have known?
I'm glad that I read this, just to say that I have. Now I know what might have happened after the Hogwarts Express took the Potter children off to school. But I am okay pretending that this didn't happen. As far as I am concerned, this was like a piece of fanfiction - especially the blurring of the lines between friendship and relationship when it came to Albus and Scorpius. If you want to talk about it as though it is canon, that's fine. It can be. It is. But it also doesn't have to be. It's an extension, a bonus. The integrity of the series remains with or without this story.
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