Harry Potter, Cursed Child and the Problematic Depiction of Women
By Lacy Baugher
Delphi really is just the worst. (Photo: Official Site/Manuel Harlan)
Delphi Diggory
Surprise, Voldemort had a daughter! To the shock of no one, new female character Delphi turns out to be secretly evil and crazy. She wants to resurrect her dead father and bring about his grimdark Death Eater future because…reasons that are never fully fleshed out. The fact of her quest for vengeance is apparently much more important than the why of it.
Delphi is presented as the ultimate problematic Cool Girl. She sports a rebellious silver-blue hairstyle and uses her sexual wiles to manipulate a much younger boy into doing what she wants. She’s sadistic and cruel. She enjoys torturing people. Yet, she still locks her bedroom with a Parseltongue password and covers the walls with what amounts to Augurey fanart. All because she’s emo about her lost years with dear old dad?
Her evil plan drives the bulk of the play’s plot, but she has no real perspective of her own. The logic is simple: Delphi must be bad, because her father is. What a disappointing reversal of a central Potter universe premise: That we are not tied forever to the family we come from.
Unfortunately, Delphi is only a character insomuch as the plot demands she be one. And the plot isn’t terribly interested in her interior life. And it’s a shame that that such a great opportunity was wasted so thoroughly. Compelling female villains are a rarity in pop culture already.
Next: Where did the Trolley Witch even come from?