Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Stretching it because this isn't a book, it's a play, but the script was published as a book and I don't see a "Plays" subforum around here.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-part West End play written by Jack Thorne, based on an original story by Thorne, J.K. Rowling, and John Tiffany.

Both parts of the play's script have been released in print and digital formats as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I & II. The first edition, entitled "Special Rehearsal Edition", corresponded to the script used in the preview shows and was published on 31 July 2016.

I read the play shortly after it was released and while I liked it at the time, retrospect has not been kind to it, and I now consider it laughably bad.

The play honestly reads like a piece of fanfiction - it has a tired, unoriginal time travel plot, several plot conveniences, retroactive continuity that will make your head spin and it misinterprets several of the characters. Ron is written not like the Ron of the books, but the way Rupert Grint played him in the films which is substantially different. Hermione on the other hand, who it was well-established was Muggle-born in the books, has trouble understanding what a "missing persons" report is.

I haven't seen the play on stage and frankly I don't want to - especially with the crazy prices they're charging for tickets. I've heard the effects are incredible, but if you're working with a script as shitty as the one I read, no amount of effects are going to fix it.

I'd venture to say it's worse than My Immortal, because My Immortal is at least so bad it's funny and was probably intentionally bad.

 

I have seen the play and I wish I hadn't , if you think it is painful on paper, it is nothing compared to actually seeing and hearing it happen in front of you. It is fan fiction and not the good kind, Harry Potter isn't exactly War and Peace, but it has a charm to it that is completely missing from The Cursed Child. J.K. must be laughing all the way to the bank.

 

I like how the guy who technically wrote the play gets the smallest billing on the cover.

 

I'm honestly surprised this hasn't caused a shitstorm or that a bunch of HP fans/Rowling groupies haven't praised it. It just kinda caused a stir near its release, then it dropped off people's radars once the shock wore off. But even after six(?) months have passed since I had read the script, even though I forgot practically everything, I remember how baffled and confused I was at its existence, let alone that J.K. Rowling approved it herself and stated it to be "canon".

Biggest plot-hole in the entire play aren't the characters themselves, but the fact that someone stashed away at least one Time-Turner (or maybe a whole bunch) when Rowling explicitly made it that they were all destroyed after the concept blew up in her face. That's why I'm surprised there wasn't a big hissy fit over this since HP fans are rather rabid when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

Coming to Broadway spring 2018. Book your tickets and/or fasten your seatbelts.

 

I dunno man, they did the same thing for the "Fantastic Beasts" script.

 

Not just one Time-Turner - they stashed away a super-duper deus ex machina Time-Turner that works even better than regular Time-Turners.

Seriously. Fucking fanfiction.

 

Harry Potter as a collective fictional world is kinda bonkers in how there's a ton of holes to it. Cursed Child is a perfect example of this. Time travel has to have some consistent rules and deeper understandings of things like multiverses, causality etc etc but Rowling can't worldbuild for shit so of course it was a mess.
When it came out I remember the rabid HP fans either said "I thought it was going to be a real novel " or "WOW it was so good I liked it!" Maybe they were afraid of admitting Rowling could make something bad?
Also I really don't like HP because of how shit the world building is so inb4 yall yell at me

 

Nah, I get you. In hindsight, more could've been done with the world building since there were some good ideas that could've been expanded on. I have a feeling she focused more of her time on the lore and political side of things outside of the characters (or because of the characters). That could be why Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was made so she can go back and do more things to it that she didn't do in the main series--even though only like 5% of those characters matter in the long-run.

I remember years ago the rumor that there were going to be more books after seven with Harry as an adult. Cursed Child I think is what that rumor basically is, even though it came out a decade later. And it was just as bad as I expected from a story that was brought to a close.

 

One of the problems with the HP series is that Rowling always highlighted Voldemort as being exceptionally evil and powerful, a type of character that had not been seen and likely would not arise again in a long period of time. As a result of this, anything that could have happened for years before his rise to power, and after being defeated is expected to be boring and uninteresting in comparison, or otherwise it will likely come as forced and make the events on the original books seem less relevant.

To find a period of time that was actually interesting to explore she'd either have to expand on the events between Voldemort's origins and the death of Harry's parents, when the original Order of the Phoenix was active; or waaaay before that, like for example the lives of the Hogwarts founders, the witch hunts and how wizards went to hide from Muggles, or some other event centuries before Harry and Voldemort.

 

That would actually be interesting to read about. Granted, it's been years since I've read any Harry Potter book, but from what I recall the world she created is pretty vast with a huge cast of characters and historical events to choose from. I could almost compare it to the Star Wars universe in that it's a writer's near-infinite playground considering the sheer scope of material available to you. JK could spend the rest of her writing career playing around in the HP universe, fleshing it out and whatnot.

I think the reason why she hasn't branched out is because of the lingering question if people will still care about HP books if the central characters from the main series aren't present. Which brings us back to the reason why this freaking play is a thing. It looks like Rowling, on a personal level, is done writing these specific characters and their stories, but she's afraid to wash her hands of them because of their massive influence on her own life and the lives of literal millions of people around the globe. So when someone approaches her with this way to potentially keep fans appeased without her needing to sit down and write another book about the teenage trifecta she agreed.

 

The issue I had w/Fantastic Beasts/America Wizarding World stuff is that it's really obvious she has 0 idea about American history. What she's written about Native Americans is tone deaf at best. The wizards made "The Magical Congress of the United States of America" in the 1600s lol what? I think she's in the same spot as GRRM in that she prints money so hard no editor will ever question her or say "hey, uh, this is kind of racist maybe can we not?"

ALSO the whole expanding universe thru her tweets and Pottermore means she hasn't considered how practical anything is. There's no sex-ed at Hogwarts so the Hufflepuffs have group jack-off sessions in the dorms. Also wizards shit themselves and immediately magick away the shit. So what do you do if you're out in the muggle world and gotta shit? Do they just go in an alley and shit? Or do they know that toilets are a thing? Did wizards never have outhouses? How did Harry handle going to the wizard world for the first time?

If you ever want to really critique a world's thought out-ed-ness try to figure out what people do when they have to shit or have their period because a lot of writers like to pretend those things never happen.

 

What the actual fuck. Sounds more like a fetish fanfic than established canon.
I wouldn't claim to be an expert on the series, but I read all the books, and the Hufflepuff hand-shandy completely passed me by.

 

SO turns out that group circle-jerk thing was made up by college humor but the shitting their pants is real: https://www.buzzfeed.com/andyneuens...n-harry-potter?utm_term=.qle2kNpl0#.ta0maGB1L

 

The problem with Pottermore and the like is that it shows how little of HP's setting Rowling actually thought out at the time of the original books. Every time she adds something new, it's either something that doesn't need answering (why would you ever feel the need to explain that wizards shat themselves and poofed it away) or something that somehow makes an already kinda boring setting even more boring.

Harry Potter can't handle an expanded universe. There's honestly just not enough there to do it.