This is the year of Harry Potter. After almost five years without the boy wizard, Potter made his triumphant return in the form of both a play and a new movie. Although fans have had the website JK Rowling (the author) created, Pottermore.com, to satisfy their demands for more content, this is the first time that more has been added to the Potter universe in a non-electronic form.
The plot of the play is both complicated and a bit contrived. Potter’s middle son, Albus, struggles with being the son of Harry Potter and on the advice of Delphi Diggory, tries to right what he perceives to be a wrong that his father committed by going back in time with his best friend Scorpius Malfoy (son of Potter’s school nemesis, Draco Malfoy). After accidentally setting an alternate timeline in which his father is killed, Albus is erased from existence and Scorpius is forced to put the timeline back to normal by himself. Right when they think that all has been resolved, Diggory reveals that she lied about her true parentage and executes the plan that she had all along. Before she can succeed however, Albus and Scorpius, along with the help of their parents, defeat her and all is well.
Of all the speculation surrounding the book prerelease date, the plot was the most debated. People tried to decipher who exactly the titular cursed child was going to be, most saying that it would be Albus, while others pointed to Scorpius. But by the end of the play, there was no real clear answer and some readers are left confused by it leaves the characters. One of the more prominent subplots of the play is the relationship between Albus and his father. Unlike his siblings, Albus and Potter cannot find anything to connect over and their relationship remains tense until the end. Ultimately, Potter can best be described as a father who is trying to be understanding, but failing.
There are moments in the play that are genuinely heartfelt, like when Potter is forced to step aside and watch his parents get killed just for the sake of righting the timeline, but the real star of the play is the relationship between Albus and Scorpius. Their relationship is pure and solid, and the interactions between them are heartfelt and genuine. The two boys are united by their similar situations as outcasts and quickly become best friends, both making sacrifices for each other during the play.
The relationship between the two best friends has also caused a lot of controversy, as many of their interactions can be read as romantic, leading many readers to believe that they would eventually become a couple. Despite this, Albus’s mainly absent until needed cousin Rose comes in and Scorpius decides to ask her out. This has led to much backlash from readers, claiming that Rowling was too afraid to put a same-sex couple in her books.
The main reason Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is doing so well is because it is Harry Potter. No other book series would have been able to do what Rowling has done, which is capitalize on the marketability of a series that originally hit the shelves almost a decade ago. Although Cursed Child has been released as a book, it was originally only intended to be a play that is currently only available in London, England. Currently, the show is sold out through 2017 and those who have seen it praise the acting but agree that the plot is weak.
Honestly, if The Cursed Child was about anything but Harry Potter, I would have put it down within the first five minutes of reading. I know that it had a lot of expectations put on it, and living up to the hype of both the original series and the expectations about the play itself was going to be hard and almost unachievable, but I felt most let down by the lack of quality writing. Simply put, the play was not well written and the plot lacks substance, only opening up a lot of plot holes about the original continuity. Personally, I preferred not to know what happened to the next generation as I liked being able to imagine it myself. Adding The Cursed Child to the Potter universe was unnecessary and it failed to recapture the magic and whimsy that has allowed Potter’s story to endure the test of time.
Image Courtesy of pottermore.com