Discussion: I Read Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, And I Have Thoughts

Feed Your Fiction Addiction and It Starts At Midnight host the 2016 Discussion Challenge.

At the time I’m writing this post, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been out for less than a month and already has nearly 27,000 Goodreads reviews. Instead of adding my voice to the howling review masses, I thought I’d turn my review into a discussion. Also, it gives me an excuse to show all of my random Harry Potter memes.

This discussion is full of SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the book, turn back now. I’m seriously going to spoil everything. Come back after you’ve read the play.

As I was reading Cursed Child, I jotted down my thoughts. I’m going to share them with you. These are mostly my gut reactions to the book.

20 Thoughts While Reading Harry Potter And The Cursed Child

1. I’m freaking nervous. Harry Potter is my childhood. Is this going to ruin it? (The answer turned out to be “No.” Cursed Child didn’t ruin anything for me.)

2. Play scripts are hard to review. The words on the page are only part of the story. I’m missing the actors, the set, the atmosphere of the theater. Would I have a different opinion if I had seen this play instead of read it?

3. Wow, this story is fast-paced. The beginning of the play moves very, very quickly. It’s probably the play equivalent of an info-dump. We gotta get the backstory before we can properly start the plot. 

4. I’m nostalgia-ing so hard right now. I love seeing the wizarding world again.

5. Wait . . . what the hell is wrong with Harry? Who is this mean, overly sentimental weirdo? I have an unpleasant image of an angry 40 year-old man cuddling a baby blankie right now. I guess growing up and becoming a parent really does change people.

6. Okay, something is wrong with all of the characters. I can tell this wasn’t written by J.K. Rowling. All of the characters have been reduced to one character trait. Ron is the funny one. Hermione is the smart one. Why can’t they be more complex?

7. I love the kids. Albus and Scorpius are adorable. Rose is a jerk (and very unlike her parents), but they’re all entertaining. I could get into this story.

8. Are prophetic dreams lame? I know Harry had them in the original series, but prophetic dreams in books always seem like lazy writing to me.

9. The mature relationships are nice to see. Even though Harry’s character is “wrong,” it’s still interesting to see his marriage with Ginny. They seem very supportive of each other.

10. OMG, what’s up with that bookshelf scene? Let me get this straight: Hermione has a time turner that she needs to keep safe. So, she hides it in a book and leaves clues to its location that are simple enough for children to follow? I guess Hermione shouldn’t be left in charge of the wizarding world’s national security.

11. I bet this play would look awesome on stage. I’d love to see how they make the magic work.

12. This time-travel plot is silly and feels like it’s fizzling out quickly. I wish they’d left the past alone and focused on the future. One of the themes seems to be you can’t change the past, but it’s possible to explore that theme without literally traveling to the past. There’s a lot of rehashing of old events. A lot of time-travel tropes.

13. The Voldemort-controlled world is pretty cool. Dark, weird, and creepy.

14. Well, that’s not very feminist. In the universes where Hermione isn’t married to Ron, she’s a miserable hag. Couldn’t she find happiness on her own? Or couldn’t she marry someone who wasn’t her high school sweetheart?

15. Plot twist! Now it’s starting to feel like a Harry Potter book. Delphi is not who she seems. That's cool, but she's Voldemort's daughter? I wish they would have let Voldemort rest in peace. (Or rest in pieces. Remember when he exploded into confetti at the end of the 8th movie?) Anyway, I would have liked a new bad guy instead of resurrecting the old one.

16. Characters are “full of” a lot of stuff. I know it’s just stage direction, but it’s getting repetitive. They’re all “full of” sadness/anger/confusion/insert emotion here. Once again, the writing seems lazy.

17. Plot holes and inconsistencies. Doesn’t polyjuice potion take months to brew? The details of time travel are pretty murky (unless I’m missing something).

18. For trained dark wizard hunters, these people sure are incompetent. Delphi defeats most of them with . . . a door? Really? She just locks them behind a door? Aren’t these people aurors? Wouldn’t doors come up in their training?

19. The plot did fizzle. It wasn’t strong enough to be this long. Not enough tension. I wasn’t very invested in the story by the end.

Some extra-special bonus confusion

(I could use your help sorting this out)

20. So . . . Scorpius is gay . . . ? Maybe . . . ? Or not? I’m really confused about this, guys. I’m dense when it comes to romance in books and in real life. I might be the least romantic person ever. At first, I thought Albus and Scorpius were just friends. Then I got to this line:

“SCORPIUS appears at the back of the stage. He looks at his friend talking to a girl—and part of him likes it and part of him doesn’t.”

At this point in the story, Albus is showing some romantic interest in Delphi. I interpreted this line to mean that Scorpius is romantically interested in Albus. The line says that "part of" Scorpius doesn't like Albus talking to "a girl." It specifically says, a girl. Not "talking to Delphi" or "talking to a new friend." Scorpius has an issue with the fact that his friend is talking to a girl, but the exact issue is never made clear. 

I spent the rest of the play waiting for something to happen between Albus and Scorpius that would explain why Scorpius doesn't want Albus talking to girls. Nothing did. Why?

• Did I misinterpret the line? Is Scorpius just afraid he'll lose his friend if Albus gets involved in a relationship? Couldn’t that have been much clearer? Even people who aren’t dense might be thrown off by the line.
• Was I supposed to be confused? Are the authors using Scorpius’s sexuality as a way to build suspense? (Because the silly plot didn’t have enough?) I’m not a fan of that. It’s not nice to treat a person’s sexuality like a mystery that needs to be solved.
• Maybe the authors are just trying to be realistic. Scorpius is what, fourteen? Maybe he doesn’t understand his own romantic inclinations, and everything that happens is entirely realistic.
• But why would the authors hint at a plotline that doesn’t go anywhere? Why put it in the book at all?
• I’m confused, guys. Help?

Overall: Did I like the play? Not really. It was fun to be back in the wizarding world, but I don’t think this play adds anything to the series. I wish it would have spent more time focusing on Albus’s future instead of rehashing Harry’s past.

Let’s discuss: What did you think of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?