Review: The Cursed Child
So no HUGE spoilers (except what I've spoiled tagged), but there is some commentary. (And there may be spoilers in the comments.) This is actually more positive than the brief review I gave the first few scenes.
Believe it or not, based on my initial assessment earlier, and the spoilers if you've read them, it's actually good. Not the first part so much; in all honesty, I think it should've been one part. Then again, maybe it's different on stage than when you sit down and read it. Because TCC isn't a book, it's a play, and the rules are very different.
The plotline is most definitely crackalicious, and I'm leery about considering it canon. Maybe it's a different timeline. We'll go with that. But once you accept that it's... out there, it's enjoyable. Also, an aspect that made NO sense in the beginning
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Amos asking Harry to bring back Cedric
is made clearer later on.
I do have quibbles, beyond the crackaliciousness.
- First, again, the first part was... really not that good, even allowing for a certain level of weirdness. But it wasn't even weird, that's the thing. The play actually got better when it got weird.
- I got the sense Albus was even a bit of an outcast to his siblings (or at least James) and defintely to his cousin Rose, which I had... trouble buying that Harry and Ginny would allow, as I said before. Or Ron and Hermione allowing Rose to judge Scorpius. Fighting, I can see, but making fun of him and shunning him for his House? But then again, the play wasn't really about the other Potter/Weasley kids. Honestly, very few canon characters show up, let alone next gen ones.
- Ginny really didn't feel like Ginny until towards the end. That was odd. I guess she's older now, but still.
- As much as the play focused on Albus, I found Scorpius's storyline more intriguing, as well as Scorpius as a character.
- So, Delphi.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Or, Voldemort's daughter. That's... just a little overdone, Jo. I actually thought for a minute she was Bellatrix, who was calling Voldie her father because Bellatrix was delusional. I think that would've been better. I wouldn't say Delphi was a Mary Sue, but...
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Albus kissing Hermione while pretending to be Ron. Um. Okay.
- Totally biased, but... when they were talking about people beiing lost, I wanted a mention of Remus and Sirius. Sirius at the very least - Remus I can understand, but Sirius's death was the biggest failing on Harry's part, something that should still haunt him. Not that it was really his fault, but Harry should feel that way. Yet IIRC he wasn't mentioned once.
- Some of the scriptwriting itself made me cringe. "This is a Spartacus moment." Are you kiddng me?!
- Oh, and
[Spoiler (click to open)]
"Voldemort Day." That's a thing in one of the timelines. Meh.
So, the good stuff:
- I really did like Scorpius and Albus, and I'm glad JKR/John Tiffany/Jack Thorne didn't fall into the trap of repeating history, where Scorpius was sort of the Snape to Albus's Lily (oddly, Albus was closer to being the Snape in that equation if I were to insist on drawing a parallel), or worse, the Gellert to Albus II's Albus I. But the play avoiids that very well.
- Harry's character is good. He's an asshole at times, but let's face it, Harry's got issues.The "all was well" ending of DH really isn't refuted. I had a feeling that it would be more that dark things would creep up on everyone, and that's pretty much how it went down. There were times it didn't really feel like the Harry I'd followed before, but I've always found Harry a hard character to read anyway.
- For anyone worried about Ron/Hermione drama, there really isn't any. There's a tiny hint at a hiccup if you read it that way, but in the present,
[Spoiler (click to open)]
and all alternate timelines,
they're very much in love. Although actually, going back to quibbles, one thing didn't work for me:[Spoiler (click to open)]Hermione being stoic and cold in one timeline because she and Ron never dated. Maybe I missed something, but that didn't make ANY sense to me whatsoever, especially as it had to do with the Yule Ball, which was way back in book four. (Actually, the idea that so much depended on Ron and Hermione's love made me wonder if the writers of the play weren't huge R/Hr shippers back in the day. There's NO question they ship it, that's for sure.)
- Rose's character being a little mean was a hard pill to swallow - until you consider that as kids, both Ron and Hermione could be very cruel. So it makes sense that Rose was flawed. I do still think it would've been better if we'd seen more layers of that, but again, you're more limited in a play, and the play wasn't really about the Next Gen kids except for Albus and Scorpius.
As far as the actual spoilers go... they're accurate to a point, but there were a lot of inaccuracies. The spoilers I read, at least, really don't do much service to the play. Let's leave it at that.
Overall consensus: It's different than most Harry Potter works, and gets off to a bumpy start, but I enjoyed it.