Wizard’s Council: What did you think of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?

Our Wizard’s Council convenes to consider the question of the hour: What did you think of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?

DAN:

I enjoyed reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I thought it was fun, imaginative, and dense, at once playful and very sincere about its legacy. Obviously, reading the script of a play is no substitute for watching it on stage, but I was happy to see that Rowling still had so many ideas. I wasn’t bored, which is over half the battle.

The highlight of the play was the relationship between Albus and Harry. It came to a head in the scene where both admitted they sometimes wished they wasn’t related to each other. Rowling did a great job of drawing on Harry’s own history to make the widening gulf between father and son convincing. That scene hurt, and played into a strong undercurrent of melancholy that ran through the story. Rowling seems to have an instinctive sympathy with unhappy people, particularly unhappy children, and young Albus was a great subject.

I’m very curious what other people have to say, because I know responses were mixed. I’ve heard some criticisms of the plot, but at the risk of being preemptively defensive, most of them didn’t bother me. So Hermione hid a time-tuner in a riddle-spouting bookcase. Is that really much worse than Dumbledore hiding the Sorcerer’s Stone behind defenses so mild three precocious 11-year-olds could get past them? So Cedric Diggory went bad after being humiliated in the sideways universe. Why not? Y’all don’t know him.

The emotions felt strong and real, and the theme of intergenerational conflict gave Cursed Child a solid backbone. I hope I get a chance to see it on stage, and to watch Daniel Radcliffe play adult Harry in the movie in a decade or so.

KATIE:

Here I am at the other end of the spectrum, because I rather loathe and abhor Cursed Child. Excuse my harshness, but… ugh.

Although I was familiar with (and speculative due to) spoilers before the play officially hit the ground running, I thought, “Okay, well, maybe I’m not into the story, but it should still be fun to read.” Au contraire, me; in fact, I found the narrative disjointed, lacking, and ultimately tiresome. The plot was either pointless, convoluted, or both. The tone of the play was a downer without much of the original series’ humor, whimsy, and sense of hopefulness. (This dilutes the running theme of finding light within the darkness.) Harry was uncharacteristically callous and selfish. Ron was useless. Albus went largely unexamined, especially in comparison to the scene-stealing Scorpius. And Delphi was the most poorly drawn caricature of a villain I’ve seen since Venom in Spider-Man 3. To quote A Very Potter Musical: “I hated that movie.”

Speaking of, reading Cursed Child was very much like watching the fan-made A Very Potter Musical/Sequel/Senior Year, the obvious difference being that those musicals are funny because they’re meant to be, not just because I have to force myself to laugh to keep from crying in pure indignation. While reading the script, often I couldn’t help but imagine Darren Criss, Joey Richter, Lauren Lopez, and the rest in certain roles, and it was at those times that I was entertained by Cursed Child, although entirely unable to take it seriously (not that I could, anyway). If you’ve seen AVPM, I highly recommend this method while reading Cursed Child; truly, when examined as such, the play feels more like a parody than anything I’m supposed to accept as canon.

I could go on, but my eye’s already doing that irritated twitchy thing, so I’ll leave you with my major takeaway that, ultimately, Cursed Child was a disappointment and—to quote Criss’ Harry once more—a “mondo bummer.”

KELLY:

I am completely with Katie on this one. I am not a fan, so much so, that I haven’t even finished reading the script yet. And, listen, I understand that you may be thinking “how can you properly review it if you haven’t even finished it?” but it was just starting to depress me really. I was so excited to be transported back into the wizarding world with a brand new story – fully knowing and prepared that the “book” was a SCRIPT and not a novel – but I was/am more disappointed than I could even imagine.

Jack Thorne’s writing is weak and I could not sympathize with the characters or even find their individual voices. I thought the script was riddled with clichés and was so predictable, especially the dialogue. And honestly, the whole plot just seemed ridiculous. I am rolling my eyes just thinking about it. SO RANDOM. I actually found myself shouting out loud, “BUT WHY!?” when Albus went to meet Delphi and then told Amos he would go back to save Cedric. Why!? Not “why” as in “I’m confused” and “this was surprising”, but “WHY, of all of the places and plotlines imaginable, was this the big, final story?” It seemed like bad fan fiction to me.

I know this review seems harsh, but as an obsessive Potter fan, I’m just so disappointed. The more time I spend writing this review, the angrier I get actually, so I’m just going to stop and re-read the original novels. But before I do, I want to finish by saying that I still would love to see the play and see how the story unfolds as I was meant to. *end rant*

RYAN:

I’m with Katie and Kelly, the script was rather a disappointment. It was ten minutes into the script that my interest completely nosedived. After the nostalgia wore off from the Deathly Hallows epilogue, I was dropped into a world that felt nothing like the Potterverse. In those first ten minutes, Fred and George were brought up by the golden trio at King’s Cross. Too soon script, too soon. Don’t get me wrong, I think the beginning and end were great. The ending more over the beginning. But in all honesty, the middle was a train wreck.

When a Time-Turner just happened to surface in Cursed Child, I was hoping for redemption for the Time-Turner Paradox in Prisoner of Azkban. But we already know time travel is borked (broken and unrealistic) in the Potterverse, so what we actually got was the paradox in play length form. Albus and Scorpius go back in time and change the past, only to create alternative realities. To correct that, they go (yet again) back in time to fix their previous mistake. Then when they have everything sorted out, they are trapped in the past by Delphi. Conveniently though, for the boy’s sake, Draco has another Time-Turner. Convenient Time-Turner is convenient. I think I’ll stop right here, as the plot is making me angry once again.

Even with a plot that is absolutely off the wall crazy, the ending has meaning. It is warm and sincere. Fathers and sons finally trying to see eye to eye. Sons attempting to step out of the fathers’ shadows. Fathers trying to connect with their sons. It’s not easy being Harry Potter or Draco Malfoy, nor is it easy being their son.

MARNIFER:

If I saw Cursed Child as a stage play, I would probably be impressed. The effects as described in this script are mind-boggling. How do they achieve these in real life, without aid of post-production camera effects and editing? The limits of the medium make the effects seem that much more amazing. I respect the ambition. The scale is so grandiose — it must look just dazzling. I also like how the play closes the audience inside the action in a few scenes that use the whole theater around them. I imagine that imposes tone quite effectively.

Unfortunately, my ultimate impression of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a script is one of disappointment and annoyance. I was underwhelmed by the plot. The out-of-character traits and canon-defying details perturbed me. And I was aggravated by the persistently stupid decisions characters made. I was also irritated by the frequently obnoxious stage directions, many of which were contradictory or confusing. The most egregious example is a continuity error during the battle with Delphi: She had previously snapped Albus’s wand and then disarms Harry, but moments later both Albus and Harry are doing wand magic.

The time rush in Act One through the boys’ first 3 years at Hogwarts is disorienting and makes it difficult to care about the plot or feel attached to the players. The characters in general are painted in broad strokes, with only Scorpius really shining as a complex personality. Ron was indeed especially useless, and Ginny felt like an afterthought. Even Hermione was just kinda…there.

I never really understood Albus’s core conflict. He acts like a complete prat and makes dangerously stupid decisions. He’s a spoiled child whining about his privileged life. I had no sympathy or interest in him until Part 2, when his actions get smarter. And Harry! Lordy, what an unpleasant characterization. Harry spends most of the play being a complete asshole. His outburst at Albus didn’t seem out of character for THIS Harry. That was disappointing. But I was much more offended when Harry went straight-up fascist to keep Albus and Scorpius apart via threats and surveillance. Harry’s eruption at Professor McGonagall there was unforgivable.

Speaking of outrageous, even in context I found it beyond believability that Cedric became a Death Eater in the alternate reality. The kind and loyal Cedric we know would not go all murderous after being humiliated! And it is STILL STUPID that Delphi is the child of Voldemort and Bellatrix. Sorry folks, I just don’t buy it for a minute. Children supplant their parents. Voldemort’s intention was to live forever. Having a child would interfere with achieving (and retaining) everlasting power.

Scorpius was the real reason I kept on reading. For all the exasperation of this story, Scorpius is a great character, instantly sympathetic, sweet, funny, and interesting to boot. I also liked how Draco was the cool-headed one, how he was mature and a clearly loving father. Too bad they weren’t enough to make the rest of the story a good experience.

Next: Fan Explains Delphi Origin Story

Our Wizard’s Council meets every other week, unless there is an emergency session. Check out our other entries here.

Home/Harry Potter