#maraudereranet | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lilypxtter · 8 years ago

Text

in defence/criticism of the cursed child (spoilers + review)

okay i’ve seen a lot of complaints about harry potter and the cursed child. i went to see it (parts one and two) last saturday and i have mixed feelings honestly, my initial reactions were very contradictory and now that i’ve had more time to think about i’ve found that there’s some things that i really liked and really didn’t.

(tons of spoilers under the cut)

first of all i want to talk about the overall premise. we’ve had seven books of well, angst and it was pretty painful to see harry and co. under threat again

but i wouldn’t necessarily say that the play overall is a bad thing. something that a lot of us disapproved of in the dh epilogue was the idea that harry ends up in a 2.4 (or 3) style nuclear family, white picket fence etc etc. so it was nice to see a variation from that because in the play we see that harry’s life is far from perfect; dh had a resolution but that doesn’t mean that the effects of it are completely gone. harry - as he says in the play - will always be an orphan and he will always know what it was to have a part of voldemort inside him. i actually thought this part was really well done and thought-out

storyline

so anyway i want to address the plot itself: it’s received a lot of backlash, particularly on tumblr, for being a “my immortal” type story which. it’s not exactly true, but not exactly a lie either. there are definitely bits of the plot that are ridiculous and to an extent silly, but overall the bits that people are saying are bad - voldemort day, delphie diggory - remain part of the “alternate universe” part of the plot and therefore aren’t technically even canon

(in case you don’t know what i’m talking about, the summary is that albus + scorpius find a time turner and screw up the past in an attempt to stop the death of cedric diggory during the fourth book. what follows is a shitstorm of events that leads to a terrifyingly awful alternate universe(s) in which voldemort won the war and harry died in book seven, etc etc.)

full plot can be found here because i cannot be bothered to recount it, bear in mind that this is brief and decontextualised so feel free to ask me for more info (if i can remember it!)

staging/casting

if i have one super super super positive thing to say it is about the play as a play itself. i think a lot of us had our doubts about having hogwarts on stage but i was really surprised and pleased at the result

personally i don’t like the idea of the play being for a limited audience which is why i think it’s good they’re printing the script, but i do think the experience of seeing it as a play was amazing! hoping they take it across the country & abroad soon

the special effects were fantastic. the spells themselves were done really well and i really liked the use of potions - polyjuice in particular! my favourite thing was probably the telephone box used to get into the ministry as the characters were literally swallowed into the phone receiver. it was pretty awesome

also: the staging. at first i was like ‘how the hell are they going to put a giant castle on stage’ but the use of staircases and classroom set-ups were actually really effective. also liked how frames were used as portraits and doors as well.

and oh my god the cloaks! they basically had the cast sweeping across the stage with some great cloak-work (?) & choreography to change the scenes which was really cool

in terms of time jumping - which there was a lot of - the effects were really cool in emphasising the shifts between albus’ school years as well as time itself as they travelled back to harry’s fourth year. so much levitation

the casting!!! obviously the casting of a black actress as hermione caused a lot of controversy but she was great. i’ll come onto characterisation in a bit but in general i would say the play was casted really well, the kids were all fantastic as were the adults. i thought the guy who played harry especially was really fab at capturing harry’s sassy hero/concerned father dynamic.

characterisation/relationships

honestly i’m not sure who to start with but i have tons to say so here goes:

i’m gonna start with the old crew and then move onto the next gen characters. so starting with harry: let me just say that i did overall approve of his characterisation, from his communications with portrait!dumbledore, his relationships with ron, hermione, ginny and draco, and his position as head of the DMLE. his interactions with albus (main character, will come onto this later) were strained and whilst i am firm in my belief that harry james potter would never, ever tell his son that “sometimes he wishes he wasn’t his son”, i do admit that harry has always been a hotheaded character who does, on occasion, let things slip that he doesn’t mean. we saw this throughout all the books - that said, i wholeheartedly approve of how we see albus and harry reconciliate at the end, especially with his revealed fear of pigeons lmao.

fave harry moments: asking dumbledore for help as per usual, when he starts crying and has a heart to heart with draco, not doing his paperwork and getting told off by hermione (honestly how in character is that), the harry-draco duel, breaking down as he watches his parents die

going off harry i want to talk about ginny who i fear has been a little sidelined in this. she does have some great moments where she talks harry out of his crap ideas and i really liked the interactions between her and the trio but i think she definitely could have had more of a role. the one bit that was very actually ginny was when she stopped the duel between draco and harry. also when she threatened to tell on ron to mrs. weasley :’)

also, ginny weasley (potter, whatever) would not have a sugar ban in her house. sorry, no

likewise i feel like ron was also turned into a character more for comic relief than anything else. that being said his comedic value was 100% ron and 100% on point! also the romione moments were perfect, particularly in the ~alternate universes~ where they aren’t married and ron spends the whole time being like wOw i love you. also, ron asking to renew their vows!!! how cute

hermione was amazing. it was totally perfect to have her as minister for magic and i loved her balance of logic and caring throughout. au!hermione was also entertaining - most wanted witch alive? hell yeah - though i wasn’t sold on her being a bitter defence teacher quite honestly. i really loved the hug she had with rose upon realising that her daughter hadn’t been born in the alternate universe. she had all the best sardonic lines and was a total badass and i just really love hermione, okay?

okay okay okay moving onto draco. i’ve seen a lot of pro-draco stuff in the fandom obviously and if you like draco you’ll like this play. his storyline with astoria dying from an illness and rumours floating around about scorpius being voldemort’s son fits with his whole ~tragic antihero~ dynamic and i really liked how draco’s light side is emphasised, from his love for scorpius to his willingness to work with harry and co. to get his son back. he was by no means a “nice guy” or a hero in the play and i think the writers stuck true to book!draco in this play and showed him as a capable and caring - if a bit overprotective and therefore distant - father.

time for the next gen!!! as our main character i approve a lot of albus. albeit i will always take issue with his full name (”bravest men i ever knew” my ass), i could really see the impact of middle child syndrome, legacy pressure and social pressure on this kid. i like that he was sorted into slytherin in the canon universe and gryffindor in the alternate; it feels like he’s a lot like harry in that way and it makes sense in the way that the reason the two of them find it hard to get along is because they have so much in common really. albus is living under the pressure of being harry potter’s son and harry is living under the pressure of being, well, the chosen one. if you look at book five harry and then look at albus and their respective angst levels, they are remarkably similar. albus is the loser-hero type, the underdog kid who has popular gryffindor siblings and cousins, a dork of a best friend, and no overtly spectacular magic skills. in any other context he’d be your average teenage boy but because of his parents he has this ridiculous slytherin urge to prove himself and that’s what makes him a great protagonist; like he says, he’s driven by his need to save cedric who was the ‘spare’ because that’s how he himself feels. he’ll do anything, risk anything, because - like his parents - he doesn’t always think of the consequences and goes in with his heart first.

speaking of using your heart over your head, let’s talk about scorpius. this boy was 100/10 my fave, i love him so so so so much because he’s a fucking dork, a nerd, a self-named loser and he knows it. scorpius can easily be labelled as the star of the show despite the fact that albus is at the forefront; he’s the one who gets albus out of and into tons of sticky situations and finally figures out that delphie diggory is not all she seems. he’s brave to a fault and could easily fit into the other 3 houses but he’s in slytherin for his ambition - he doesn’t give up even when he gets stuck in the hellish alternate universe in which he’s a dickhead who tortures muggleborns for fun. his relationship with his dad is, like albus and harry’s, deeply flawed but deeply affectionate and we see that despite draco’s cold front and scorpius’ shy/stutter-y attitude, from when he tells draco that astoria always saw the light in him to their hug at the end. scorpius “i love quizzes” “do we really have to die albus” “i was evil in the other world what’s wrong with me” malfoy is everything i hoped he would be and possibly more, which takes me onto the famous albus x scorpius issue

i ship it so hard. ngl i’ve always been a scorose shipper since reading the epilogue and the cursed child definitely pushes the scorose angle in that scorpius is trailing after a popular, cute girl (side note, i really loved rose in this - headstrong, a slight show-off, great at quidditch - wish we could have seen more of her) until she starts to like him back at the end of the play. BUT.

i cannot even express how important the relationship between albus and scorpius is throughout the cursed child. i would actually go as far as to call it queerbaiting given that had one of them been a female character, they would have undoubtably been paired off together. scorpius is driven by albus and vice-versa; at the beginning in albus’ first year he is invited to sit with him at the slytherin table “you can sit with me!” and everything spirals from there. the importance of this is highlighted when albus says to harry “i don’t need anyone else” because he feels like scorpius is the only friend he’ll ever want, and when harry strives to keep albus away from scorpius because he fears that he’s in danger, we see how difficult it is to keep these two boys apart because they’ve been so dependent on each other since the very beginning. the fact that even harry, a father supposedly “blinded by his love for albus” eventually sees that to keep them apart was a mistake, because “[they] belong together” is a clear indicator of a relationship stronger than ron and harry’s because albus and scorpius understand each other. albus gets that scorpius is a loner and a dork and that he likes books a lot and loves his dead mother and his half-absent father. scorpius gets that albus is under a lot of pressure and that he needs him and they need each other. the most emotional part of the play, for me, was definitely the part where scorpius discovers that in the alternate hellish universe albus had never been born, and the hug when it’s all resolved was honestly just too cute <3 also near the end when scorpius says something like “if i was going to be sent back in time to die by an evil witch, i would have always wanted it to be with you” and albus replies “no offense but i would have picked someone stronger and better at magic” kind of encapsulates their friendship - platonic or otherwise - which is definitely the strongest point of the play

things i really liked

like i said, the albus/scorpius relationship

also really liked the harry & albus similarities/differences

harry/ginny being domestic

ron weasley and hermione granger being in love in every universe regardless of marital status

special! effects!

hermione badass granger-weasley as minister for magic

ron working at weasleys wizard wheezes

“i don’t like doing homework?!” - the scorpion king :’) (aka our dork)

mcgonagall being a badass “i’m not taking your shit potter”

albus and scorpius fucking up the world not once but twice

JAMES AND LILY POTTER JUST FUCK ME UP MAN I NEARLY CRIED WHEN THEY WERE ON STAGE W H A T

scorpius “let’s destroy the time turner we can’t trust the government” albus “cool i’ll just call my death eater girlfriend yeah cool”

albus’ weakness being scorpius o m g

the blanket!! from lily evans!!! brb sobbing

harry admitting his fears to albus and that he does not have a role model but is trying his best to be a good dad

things i really didn’t like / things i would have liked to have seen

^the albus/scorpius relationship should have been romantic. i saw the play during pride and let me just say they tick all the boxes for the cutest gay couple ever. also it would totally add to the narrative of them being ‘outsiders’ okay don’t argue with me on this

lack of ginny inclusion! yeah she was in it but she could have had more participation overall. i just feel like she was written well but not enough

similarly i would have liked to have seen more rose inclusion although i suppose none of the shit that goes down because of scorpius/albus would have happened if she’d been around. likewise i think we should have had more james sirius and lily luna in there but i guess it’s a long set of plays and you can’t fit everything in!

severus snape apologists. enough said

delphie not-diggory. i gotta admit that this does feel like a ‘my immortal’ spin-off in her case considering she’s the angsty emo daughter of voldemort and bellatrix. as a character she’s pretty flat and it was just so predictable to see albus being led into her ‘attractive girl’ trap. and the aurgury thing/voldemort day/headmistress umbridge etc was laughable ngl

on the same line i find it hard to believe that cedric diggory would have become a death eater in the alternate universe?? he was supposed to be a good, loyal kid and i just cannot see that as plausible tbh

some of the plot was just kinda ridiculous really. like the part where albus, scorpius and delphie are able to steal the time turner just by getting swallowed by hermione’s bookcase. or when harry is transfigured into a voldemort lookalike - is human transfiguration on that scale even possible???? or when scorpius and albus oh-so-conveniently find the potion to react with the love potion on the blanket so they can send a message to harry. so, yeah. plot holes!

tl;dr did i like the play? yes. would i spend money to see it again? probably but not a lot. do i think it stays true to the books? with a few exceptions in the case of cedric diggory and harry, yes. is it the best play i’ve ever seen? no, there’s too many plot issues to say that. do i think it’s being unfairly judged? definitely. the experience of seeing it as a play is honestly the best part. am i going to go drown in tears about james and lily dying all over again and harry not being able to stop it and breaking down on stage? yes. do i think that albus and scorpius are eventually going to work out that they’re super gay for each other? yes.

i think this is everything (phew) feel free to send me questions! i’m tagging everything as ‘cursed child spoilers’

#promonetwork #jilyslags #maraudereranet #thehpnextgen #cursed child #cursed child spoilers #hp #no one cares lol but i wanted to type out all my thoughts

93 notes · View notes