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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts I&II [Full Spoilers]


Suzanna Stormborn

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Did not see it coming that Delphi was his child until she showed up the last time in the owlry, they did a good job with that. I mean the whole Bellatrix/Voldemort having a child makes some sense, she was always his most devoted.  He screamed with rage when Molly Weasley killed her, he didnt seem to care AT ALL about any of his other Death Eaters dying.  And she was holed up at the Malfoys for an undetermined amount of time in The Deathly Hallows.  We never see her out and about in the last book, so technically there was room for it in the story.

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Is spoiler discussion here now?

 

@Veltigar and I seem to agree a lot about the play, and I think he's right to point out that it really was very funny and charming. @Sir Drew asked what the point of the trolley witch was. I'd say the point was to be funny and weird and a bit insane. It was my favourite scene in the play, and restored some of what I loved about the first few Harry Potter books but which Rowling diminished from books 5-7: The sense that the wizarding world is imaginative, quite a bit scary, not necessarily logical, and fun.

As for Delphi: I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with Voldemort having a kid. You don't need to love someone to have sex with them, and whether or not Voldemort wanted an heir or not, unplanned pregnancies do happen (though I'm guessing magical abortions exist as well). Anyway, I could see it happening. I was more disappointed by Delphine after the reveal, since she becomes your typical mustache twirling villain; but then again, this is Harry Potter, and it's not like Voldemort was any better.

 

@Suzanna Stormborn I think the Back to the Future II comparison is very apt. Back to the Future II isn't a fantastic movie, and it pales in comparison to a lot of the first movie (though I think I prefer Cursed Child to Deathly Hallows and maybe Half Blood Prince as well). But it's still a hell of a lot of fun.

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Exactly @Caligula_K3  It was SO MUCH fun!! That's how I felt about this book.  It went back to some of the best 1-7 scenes in Harry's dream, Hagrid finding them on the island, etc.

Didn't see the play, will have to wait for it to open in NYC, or for the movie to come out lol.  (FYI Daniel Radcliffe already compared himself to Harrison Ford in Star Wars as far as a reprise of the character goes, so you know all 3 of them will sign on for it. Rupert Grint has zero going on and Emma Watson already said in an interview that she would have been down to make a cameo in Fantastical Beasts, so of course she would do this too, and why not? Hermione has the widest character range in this story out of anyone.)

And what REALLY got me was Ron and Hermione.  Loved the different versions of her especially.  Rogue Warrior and unfulfilled mean-spirited teacher, and Minster for Magic of course.  And we got more from Snape (cry) being a huge hero, love it'.

I mean I always thought the time-turners from PoA could be used again, there are loads more storylines available with those.

I also liked how it wasn't a perfect little family at the Potters, Harry has problems like everyone.

And the trolley witch didnt bother me at all, that is the kind of thing I love JKR for.  Some crazy magic that you never noticed before.  She lives forever bound to the train making sure kids dont escape.  To me that makes perfect sense in the wizarding world.

And I love Scorpius Malfoy, what a cutie!!

 

 

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16 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Did not see it coming that Delphi was his child until she showed up the last time in the owlry, they did a good job with that. 

I knew she was bad news from the moment she showed up. And I suspected something like the Voldemort twist when it turned out she had never been to Hogwarts. That being said, I was still incredulous. I never expected them to really go for that. It's quite the curious decision imo. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but more in a so-bad-that-it-is-good kind of way.

16 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

 I mean the whole Bellatrix/Voldemort having a child makes some sense, she was always his most devoted.  He screamed with rage when Molly Weasley killed her, he didnt seem to care AT ALL about any of his other Death Eaters dying.  And she was holed up at the Malfoys for an undetermined amount of time in The Deathly Hallows.  We never see her out and about in the last book, so technically there was room for it in the story.

You are right, there is enough wiggle room to get that child in. I wonder if JK Rowling consciously made that decision, so that the possibility of further HP stories was still open to her. However, I still don't think this particular plot twist makes all that much sense. If Bella had shagged Voldemort and was carrying his child, everyone would have heard about it. Certainly Draco and Snape must have known, since one lived in the mansion with her and the other was Voldie's top man for a while. Not to mention of course that I can't really imagine Voldemort as someone who liked to bust a nut. He's always had something disturbingly asexual about him really (and, you know, if what happened to his nose is any indication for what happened with his other body parts... :P )  and I just don't see him looking for comfort with Bellatrix.

15 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

 

@Veltigar and I seem to agree a lot about the play, and I think he's right to point out that it really was very funny and charming.

Cheers mate, thanks for tagging me :)

15 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

 @Sir Drew asked what the point of the trolley witch was. I'd say the point was to be funny and weird and a bit insane. It was my favourite scene in the play, and restored some of what I loved about the first few Harry Potter books but which Rowling diminished from books 5-7: The sense that the wizarding world is imaginative, quite a bit scary, not necessarily logical, and fun.

Yeah, I saw that more as a bit of worldbuilding and it was well done. We really didn't know anything about her from the original series and this contributed to the mythos by fleshing her out a bit more. 

15 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

(though I'm guessing magical abortions exist as well).

Abortio? :P 

15 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

I was more disappointed by Delphine after the reveal, since she becomes your typical mustache twirling villain; but then again, this is Harry Potter, and it's not like Voldemort was any better.

Is she really twirling her stache though? I certainly don't believe that's the case. I think it's very telling that, in the end, she was begging them just to let her catch a glimps of her father. That was her motivation all along really, she didn't want to rule the world, she was primarily driven by the search for her father's love and respect. Two things she didn't have growing up. Let's face it, in many ways she was like a dark version of Harry.

She never knew her parents, she was never loved by her foster family, but she had with immense powers. All she wanted in the end was to earn the respect of a parent. When that parent is Voldie, it necessarily means taking over the world, but that wasn't her ultimate goal. Otherwise she would have gone further and plotted to eventually take over from her father.

13 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

And what REALLY got me was Ron and Hermione.  Loved the different versions of her especially.  Rogue Warrior and unfulfilled mean-spirited teacher, and Minster for Magic of course.  

When I read she was Minister for Magic, I kind of gagged a little. That was just a bit too much wish fulfillment right there. That being said, the Ron/Hermione relationship was probably my favourite part of the play. I was never down with that pairing in the original series, (Ron is a bit of a looser really, while Hermione is fucking awesome) but this play made that relationship come to life in a way the original books never do and I really loved that.

13 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

 Rupert Grint has zero going on

 

I wonder if that has not more to do with the fact that he isn't really interested in pursuing a career in film. Looking at his IMDB page, he has worked on relatively little since HP. And you know that, if he wanted too, he could probably get a lot of (subpar) work just coasting along on his HP credentials.

13 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

  And we got more from Snape (cry) being a huge hero, love it'.

 

 It made me really sad, because I imagined Alan Rickman just absolutely killing it. I want to see a film version of HP and the Cursed Child, but I don't think it will ever happen. By the time the cast is old enough, a lot of the teachers will probably have passed away :( And it wouldn't be the same without them.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I knew she was bad news from the moment she showed up. And I suspected something like the Voldemort twist when it turned out she had never been to Hogwarts. That being said, I was still incredulous. I never expected them to really go for that. It's quite the curious decision imo. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but more in a so-bad-that-it-is-good kind of way.

You are right, there is enough wiggle room to get that child in. I wonder if JK Rowling consciously made that decision, so that the possibility of further HP stories was still open to her. However, I still don't think this particular plot twist makes all that much sense. If Bella had shagged Voldemort and was carrying his child, everyone would have heard about it. Certainly Draco and Snape must have known, since one lived in the mansion with her and the other was Voldie's top man for a while. Not to mention of course that I can't really imagine Voldemort as someone who liked to bust a nut. He's always had something disturbingly asexual about him really (and, you know, if what happened to his nose is any indication for what happened with his other body parts... :P )  and I just don't see him looking for comfort with Bellatrix.

Cheers mate, thanks for tagging me :)

Yeah, I saw that more as a bit of worldbuilding and it was well done. We really didn't know anything about her from the original series and this contributed to the mythos by fleshing her out a bit more. 

Abortio? :P 

Is she really twirling her stache though? I certainly don't believe that's the case. I think it's very telling that, in the end, she was begging them just to let her catch a glimps of her father. That was her motivation all along really, she didn't want to rule the world, she was primarily driven by the search for her father's love and respect. Two things she didn't have growing up. Let's face it, in many ways she was like a dark version of Harry.

She never knew her parents, she was never loved by her foster family, but she had with immense powers. All she wanted in the end was to earn the respect of a parent. When that parent is Voldie, it necessarily means taking over the world, but that wasn't her ultimate goal. Otherwise she would have gone further and plotted to eventually take over from her father.

When I read she was Minister for Magic, I kind of gagged a little. That was just a bit too much wish fullfillment right there. That being said, the Ron/Hermione relationship was probably my favourite part of the play. I was never down with that pairing in the original series, (Ron is a bit of a looser really, while Hermione is fucking awesome) but this play made that relationship come to life in a way the original books never do and I really loved that.

I wonder if that has not more to do with the fact that he isn't really interested in pursuing a career in film. Looking at his IMDB page, he has worked on relatively little since HP. And you know that, if he wanted too, he could probably get a lot of (subpar) work just coasting along on his HP credentials.

 It made me really sad, because I imagined Alan Rickman just absolutely killing it. I want to see a film version of HP and the Cursed Child, but I don't think it will ever happen. By the time the cast is old enough, a lot of the teachers will probably have passed away :( And it wouldn't be the same without them.

 

 

There's no doubt that Delphi got handed the shitty end of the stick.  I think her motivation was quite natural (although I find it strains credulity that Voldemort and Bellatrix would have had a child). Now she'll spend the rest of her life in Azkaban.

I think Hermione would make a poor Minister of Magic.  While she's outstandingly intelligent, she has terrible interpersonal skills.

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3 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I think Hermione would make a poor Minister of Magic.  While she's outstandingly intelligent, she has terrible interpersonal skills.

I also don't think she would want to become one of the suits. To become MoM, you'd have to lick a lot of boots and that's just not something she would do really. I think it would have been more fitting if she had kept on fighting for house elf rights and stuff.

Come to think about it, MoM Hermione is just another argument for this being an alternative universe in and of itself :) 

6 minutes ago, SeanF said:

There's no doubt that Delphi got handed the shitty end of the stick.  I think her motivation was quite natural (although I find it strains credulity that Voldemort and Bellatrix would have had a child). Now she'll spend the rest of her life in Azkaban.

Completely agree :) 

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7 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I also don't think she would want to become one of the suits. To become MoM, you'd have to lick a lot of boots and that's just not something she would do really. I think it would have been more fitting if she had kept on fighting for house elf rights and stuff.

Come to think about it, MoM Hermione is just another argument for this being an alternative universe in and of itself :) 

Completely agree :) 

I'd say that the Wizarding World is rather harsh. Being revealed as Voldemort's and Bellatrix's daughter would be enough on its own to make her an outcast.

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I'd say that the Wizarding World is rather harsh. Being revealed as Voldemort's and Bellatrix's daughter would be enough on its own to make her an outcast.

You mean as a punishment or...? :) 

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@Veltigar  well yes there is certainly zero mention of Bellatrix being pregnant at any point.  Lol Abortio, omg.  Somehow JKR decided to leave those4 kinds of spells out, but it does make me wonder about a coupling with Voldy...it would suck.  Can you imagine being intimate with that face? barf!  If I had to guess I would say they used a spell for that too, like an in-vitro spell of some kind. Look at how Voldemort got his body back to begin with, just with a bone fragment, Wormtail's hand and a drop of Harry's blood....... I mean I just CANNOT imagine Voldemort getting aroused.  Seems like 1/8th of a soul would not have a great sexual function at all.  SO following along those lines I sort of doubt it was a normal 9 month pregnancy too, but that's all speculation as I know she would never go into those kind of details.

 

Also @SeanF  What do you guys think about the whole Augurey thing?  Why would the giants already have the tattoo on their back at the beginning of the story?  Has Delphi already been spreading darkness around on the weekends?  Does she like have a following already?

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pop

4 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Can you imagine being intimate with that face? barf!  If I had to guess I would say they used a spell for that too, like an in-vitro spell of some kind. Look at how Voldemort got his body back to begin with, just with a bone fragment, Wormtail's hand and a drop of Harry's blood....... I mean I just CANNOT imagine Voldemort getting aroused.  Seems like 1/8th of a soul would not have a great sexual function at all.  SO following along those lines I sort of doubt it was a normal 9 month pregnancy too, but that's all speculation as I know she would never go into those kind of details.

I think @lojzelote made a very astute observation about the patent ridiculousness of the Voldie/Bella pairing:

On 3-8-2016 at 10:56 PM, lojzelote said:

The thing I don't understand...

  Hide contents

To what end does an immortal guy need an heir? I do believe Voldemost saw himself as the culmination of Salazar's line, and he had no intention to die

ever. If anything, he would want to get rid off of any possible eventual competition.

 

 

4 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

@Veltigar  well yes there is certainly zero mention of Bellatrix being pregnant at any point.  Lol Abortio, omg.  Somehow JKR decided to leave those4 kinds of spells out, but it does make me wonder about a coupling with Voldy...it would suck.  Can you imagine being intimate with that face? barf!  

Hey, some would probably dig it. I think Bellatrix wouldn't have minded one bit for instance. It's more Voldemort's side of the equation that baffles me.

4 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

Also @SeanF  What do you guys think about the whole Augurey thing?  Why would the giants already have the tattoo on their back at the beginning of the story?  Has Delphi already been spreading darkness around on the weekends?  Does she like have a following already?

That's definitely implied. Why else would those giants have wing tattoos? She probably bound them to her cause earlier on or had someone (Rodolphus?) do it for her. And then she used them as decoys, while the real battle was fought closer to home.

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Just finished the script, and I can't believe that people liked this. This is the spoiler thread but if anyone accidentally ended up here anyways, here goes my spoiler-filled rant, and it will be filled with both spoilers from the cursed child but also from all the other books, since I figure that if you've read/seen The Cursed Child you've most likely also read the other HP-stories. If I'm wrong in doing so, please tell me. Those who have not read all the HP-books and the new play, have now been warned. Let's go! 

First of all, and the big... no, the enormous, problem that I had with this story; Alternative universes (or however you say that in English)????? I mean, what the actual fuck???!?!?!? It went completely against everything that I remember from the Harry Potter-world that I loved as a kid. Because as far as I recall, the whole point of the Harry Potter-story is that you CAN NOT CHANGE WHAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED!?!?!? That is the entire premise of the ending of Prizoner of Azkaban (i.e. Hermione and Harry saving the day with the time-turner), right? You can go back in time but you can in no way actually change it, merely make changes that has already been made, so to speak. You can release Buckbeak, but only because you had already done it. I mean, they couldn't have gone back in time to release Buckbeak if he the first time actually got his head chopped off, am I correct or do I remember it completely wrong? Because the way I see it, not being able to change the past was a major part of the Harry Potter-world. Harry couldn't bring back his parents, no one could use a time-turner to just go back in time and kill baby Voldemort, George could never bring back Fred, Sirius was lost forever, et.c. And then, along comes this new, terrible fan-fiction of a play... Suddenly it is possible to change the past, and create completely new time-lines, and it is apparently not even that hard to make a new time-turner, since this guy theodore nott (or something like that) had one, and then the Malfoy-family also suddenly had one, not to mention the number of time-turners that existed at the Ministry before they were all broken. Is someone going to try and tell me that the Malfoys could get a time-turner on some sort of black market, in nocturn alley or something, but it was completely impossible for the greatest dark wizard the wizarding world has ever known to either make or steal a time-turner and by doing so becoming able to go back in time and change whatever he likes so that it fits his wishes and achieve the utopic/dystopic world and timeline of his dreams? BS, I say, BS. It makes no sense, just no sense at all, and I just couldn't look past it. In my opinion, it was completely not in sync with the rest of Harry Potter. Uuugh, such a terrible, non-logical plot!
 
Anyway, if I try to not focus on that for a while, there wasn't much else that made me happy either. Ron felt like his brothers more than himself, Hermione should never have become Minister for magic, Scorpius and Albus was too "meta" to be realistic kids/teen-agers in my eyes, meaning that they would speak about themselves in a way that was almost as if they were watching themselves from the outside rather than being actual, real characters (now, I know they weren't real hehe, but they should of course feel real). The writing was too on the nose for my taste. The old characters just felt like fan-fictionalized versions of themselves, copies of their old greatness. The "bringing back" of characters like Snape through the alternative time-lines just felt like a cheap way of moving the old HP-fans to some sort of emotions, and to me it just felt weird and completely wrong to see Snape back. He's dead, for christ's sake, he's not supposed to be back. 

Anyways, this is my emotions and thoughts right after I finished the damn thing. A lot of people seem to like it though, but I'm on the other side for this one, which makes me sad because I've been a huge potterhead all my life and has up to this point not read a single HP-book that I didn't love. I can only assume that J.K. Rowling did not have a lot to do with the writing of this story (although she is said to have come up with the actual story, which baffles me since the plot was the worst part of it all). Hmmm... to sum things up, I'm disappointed to say the least haha! :(

 

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5 hours ago, Seasick Shrimp said:

Just finished the script, and I can't believe that people liked this. This is the spoiler thread but if anyone accidentally ended up here anyways, here goes my spoiler-filled rant, and it will be filled with both spoilers from the cursed child but also from all the other books, since I figure that if you've read/seen The Cursed Child you've most likely also read the other HP-stories. If I'm wrong in doing so, please tell me. Those who have not read all the HP-books and the new play, have now been warned. Let's go! 

First of all, and the big... no, the enormous, problem that I had with this story; Alternative universes (or however you say that in English)????? I mean, what the actual fuck???!?!?!? It went completely against everything that I remember from the Harry Potter-world that I loved as a kid. Because as far as I recall, the whole point of the Harry Potter-story is that you CAN NOT CHANGE WHAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED!?!?!? That is the entire premise of the ending of Prizoner of Azkaban (i.e. Hermione and Harry saving the day with the time-turner), right? You can go back in time but you can in no way actually change it, merely make changes that has already been made, so to speak. You can release Buckbeak, but only because you had already done it. I mean, they couldn't have gone back in time to release Buckbeak if he the first time actually got his head chopped off, am I correct or do I remember it completely wrong? Because the way I see it, not being able to change the past was a major part of the Harry Potter-world. Harry couldn't bring back his parents, no one could use a time-turner to just go back in time and kill baby Voldemort, George could never bring back Fred, Sirius was lost forever, et.c. And then, along comes this new, terrible fan-fiction of a play... Suddenly it is possible to change the past, and create completely new time-lines, and it is apparently not even that hard to make a new time-turner, since this guy theodore nott (or something like that) had one, and then the Malfoy-family also suddenly had one, not to mention the number of time-turners that existed at the Ministry before they were all broken. Is someone going to try and tell me that the Malfoys could get a time-turner on some sort of black market, in nocturn alley or something, but it was completely impossible for the greatest dark wizard the wizarding world has ever known to either make or steal a time-turner and by doing so becoming able to go back in time and change whatever he likes so that it fits his wishes and achieve the utopic/dystopic world and timeline of his dreams? BS, I say, BS. It makes no sense, just no sense at all, and I just couldn't look past it. In my opinion, it was completely not in sync with the rest of Harry Potter. Uuugh, such a terrible, non-logical plot!
 
Anyway, if I try to not focus on that for a while, there wasn't much else that made me happy either. Ron felt like his brothers more than himself, Hermione should never have become Minister for magic, Scorpius and Albus was too "meta" to be realistic kids/teen-agers in my eyes, meaning that they would speak about themselves in a way that was almost as if they were watching themselves from the outside rather than being actual, real characters (now, I know they weren't real hehe, but they should of course feel real). The writing was too on the nose for my taste. The old characters just felt like fan-fictionalized versions of themselves, copies of their old greatness. The "bringing back" of characters like Snape through the alternative time-lines just felt like a cheap way of moving the old HP-fans to some sort of emotions, and to me it just felt weird and completely wrong to see Snape back. He's dead, for christ's sake, he's not supposed to be back. 

Anyways, this is my emotions and thoughts right after I finished the damn thing. A lot of people seem to like it though, but I'm on the other side for this one, which makes me sad because I've been a huge potterhead all my life and has up to this point not read a single HP-book that I didn't love. I can only assume that J.K. Rowling did not have a lot to do with the writing of this story (although she is said to have come up with the actual story, which baffles me since the plot was the worst part of it all). Hmmm... to sum things up, I'm disappointed to say the least haha! :(

 

While I very much liked the story,  you are right about everything you said.  The only answer is that the time-turners in this story are much more powerful than the one Hermione had in Prisoner of Azkaban. And that Voldemort felt secure with his horcruxes and simply wasn't stressed about any threat to his reign, and so he dgaf about any time-turners.  However I agree with you in retrospect that having one with him during the battle of Hogwarts would have helped out a lot...but I guess that could be true for both sides.  I mean it's sort of a gaping hole in all the HP books, time-turners would have helped every single situation lol.

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Suzanna Stormborn; Yeah, you're totally right that the time travel-part has been a big hole in the HP-universe ever since PoA. But, back then I could at least buy it because then they only had one timeline, so the past was unchangeable no matter how many times you would go back. Although, it still doesn't make total sense hehe, because what if you go back to change something and nothing stops you, like, what is going to happen, an invisible wall out of nowhere is going to appear? But in the cursed child, they just went full bananas on the time travelling, and what annoys me is that they went in the totally opposite direction of the rest of the HP-universe with it's singular time-line-world where you have to live with your mistakes, losing your loved ones, et.c. You can't have a several time-lines scenario and at the same time have time-turners that are so obviously fairly easy to make/buy. Then it doesn't make any sense that no one would go back and change the world...

I don't know, maybe it's just that I'm older than when I read the books as a little kid, and therefore have higher demands on the plot making sense. I don't consider myself a plot hole police regularly, mistakes happen and things like the fact that Ron was sleeping with a strange man in his bunk bed for three years without his brothers reacting to that, is something that I believe is just an unfortunate plot mistake with no real impacts on the actual story. But when you make such massive change as to go from what has clearly been a singular time-line-world, to just switch it up to multiple time-lines after seven books, is just too much for me. 

Either way, I didn't like the characterizations either. Everybody felt like a fan fiction-copy of themselves, I didn't recognize their voices or behaviour, and sure they have aged twenty years and of course changed mentally, and yes, some parts of the more silly behaviour is probably a matter of it being a play, but it still annoys me as a reader. They all felt more cliché and empty this time around and in the hands of Jack Thorne. I didn't recognize them. Worst was Ron and Draco, with Ron being some sort of cartoonish doofus which I guess was supposed to be like the archetypical goofy dad or something, and Draco some sensitive softie, whose words felt like words coming from someone else's mouth entirely. 

It truly annoys me when they refuse to end a perfect thing. She wrote seven awesome books, wrapped up an epic saga nicely, and that's where it should have ended in my opinion.

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I saw CC in previews and - as a piece of theatre - it's huge fun and a real spectacle.  However, it really doesn't excuse the plot, the outright fan-service or the canon and character inconsistencies it threw up.

The plot "twist" that Delphi was the oh-so-evul progeny of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange (born a few weeks before the Battle of Hogwarts and kept by Rodolphus and brought up by the Rowle family) made me laugh it was so hackneyed. And she's called Delphi because she's Voldemort Augurey. :rolleyes:  My head canon was always that Voldemort was pretty much asexual - too in love with his own self to ever lose himself in sex nor can I see he'd be interested in an heir when he takes his own immortality as being of prime importance, not to mention the canon that he cannot love & so on.  Just could get with these concepts - at all.

There were a couple of canon inconsistencies that I really hated:

  1. When Albus and Scorpius go back the second time and humiliate Cedric, he becomes a Death Eater – let's think about that: Cedric – good, kind, intelligent Cedric. Ooo-kay. And the one thing that changes is that Death Eater Cedric kills Neville at the Battle of Hogwarts. The knock-on for this is then explained as Neville doesn't kill Nagini so Harry dies at the Battle of Hogwarts. What? That makes no sense at all. Neville kills Nagini after Harry has come back from death in canon, so I don't see how it can make a difference. Someone else could have killed Nagini for the same result. Harry is tied to life because Voldemort took his blood so I don't see that Neville's death changes this. The only way this works is if they somehow stopped Voldemort taking Harry's blood - which they didn't - or for Cedric (or anyone else really) to have killed Harry so he isn't tied to life.

  2. Plus Snape living. Why does he live? Again, Neville killed the snake after Voldemort killed Snape – what does killing Neville have to do with Snape living? I'm not feeling this is very coherent!
  3. Albus and Scorpius go back in time to Godric's Hollow on Hallowe'en 1981 before Harry's parents are murdered and the first thing they do is point to James & Lily's house and talk about how great it is to see it!! Do we just forget the Fidelius Charm?

  4. And James & Lily go for a stroll with baby Harry!!  Oh, come on! Lily's letter made clear they were already in hiding by Harry's birthday.

  5. Adult Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco also travel back to rescue Albus and Scorpius and have to let history play itself out (meaning Harry watches as his parents are killed - which would have been sad, except I kept thinking about that damn Fidelius and wondering why they can see it!).

  6. Then we see Hagrid come to rescue baby Harry from the flames and leave with him. No Sirius and no bike. :crying:

I didn't like the time travel plots. In PoA, she kept a tight rein on the closed loop time travel and they didn't really change anything (we didn't see Buckbeak die, for instance, which implies he is always saved; H, R & H hearing the running footsteps which we later understand are later Harry & Hermione ... all those clever details that show that events have effectively stayed the same). But using alternate realities starts getting really messy very quickly and starts to lead to gaps in logic that become very difficult to explain away - for instance, when they change events for the second time, Albus ceases to exist, but Scorpius remembers him; and Scorpius seems to have replaced the alternate version of Scorpius, which doesn't really make sense.

I would have loved to have loved this as the books remain some of my favourites.  It was a good day out as the show was quite a spectacle, but the story was lazy and inconsistent and I doubt I would re-visit it.

This is quite a good article:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/08/harry-potter-and-cursed-child-what-it-gets-right-and-wrong-about-harry-potter

 

 

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I won't get into a long rant, seasick pretty much summed it up, except I think I hated it even more. It takes all the previous HP canon and shits all over it. I was getting flashbacks to the first time I saw the phantom menace. Supposedly the play as performed is actually good, so, who knows, I know a few Shakespeare plays I hated til I saw them live, but goddamn, the time travel stuff...just no.

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Great article you linked, Ser Quork! It did an awesome job of showing how some (imo, pretty much all) characters were nothing like their original selves. The slaughter of the Snape-character was truly terrible, he transformed into a jolly guy who loves a good laugh and has no problem with speaking openly about his feelings with strangers.............. Long gone were the bitter, ice-cold, remorseful, complex and torn (and sometimes quite hateful) closed book we all grew to love. 

I'm just going to consider CC non-canon, which it basically is anyways since it doesn't fit in at all with the HP-universe on a number of significant accounts. 

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