When I walked through the doors of Barnes & Noble at 11:30 pm on the night of the midnight party for The Cursed Child, I felt transported back in time. This was an appropriate feeling, I found out later, as time is a key element in Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. I transported back to 2007, when I was 12, where I attended the midnight party for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
When I received my copy of The Cursed Child and observed the cover, it hit me that J.K. Rowling did not actually write the script. I wondered if Rowling contributed any of the ideas in the script. Her name is on the cover of the book, but the phrase "based on an original new story" suggests her name is only mentioned because she is the creator of the Harry Potter world.
After finishing the book, I felt like I had just read J.K.-approved fanfiction. Here are some reasons why it hit the Dark Mark for me.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
1. The characters do not sound like themselves.
Since the story is written in the format of a script, it is nearly entirely dialogue. Hence, realistic dialogue, and dialogue that sounds true to each character, is important. As a true Potterhead, I know the voices of Harry, Ron, and Hermione nearly as well as my own. However, many of the characters in The Cursed Child sound like echoes of their former selves. For example, Ron is known as a comedic character, but he is not a complete buffoon. The Cursed Child drew on Ron’s tendencies and turned him into an eccentric loser. I had expected the characters to sound fairly different, as the trio is much older than they were in the Harry Potter series, but to me, the characters sound like caricatures. The characters of the next generation, however, were written well. It helps that they are completely new, so I didn’t have any preconceived ideas.
2. The plot does not sound true to J.K. Rowling.
Rowling is a master of making each and every detail in her storylines count. But The Cursed Child utilizes elements from the Harry Potter series that should not have been used. The most utilized device in the Cursed Child is the Time-Turner. Any Harry Potter fan knows that all of the Time-Turners were destroyed. Rowling eliminated the devices from being used ever again. Yet here it is once more, popping up in the next generation. The Time-Turner was also used for a high-stake reason, but one that wasn’t important. Yes, Albus wanting to bring Cedric Diggory back conveys his good nature, but we, as readers, have moved on from Cedric. Plus, saving him messes with Rowling’s careful yet complicated time-turning rules. I also found myself wishing for the script to be more of an "original new story" instead of focusing so much on the past.
3. Scorpio Malfoy has a crush on Rose Granger-Weasley.
I don’t even read fanfiction, yet I know that the relationship between Rose and Scorpio was established far before The Cursed Child. The internet shipped them with a fury. When Scorpio began to indicate that his love interest was Rose, I had to close the book with a sigh, because I had seen this before. I don’t oppose the relationship, but I wasn’t thrilled by it, either. It felt both like a crowd-pleaser and a mirror image of James and Lily’s relationship, including a mix of Severus Snape.
4. Voldemort has a daughter.
This is highly improbable. For one, Rowling established that even though Bellatrix was obsessed with Voldemort, Voldemort did not return the feeling. He was beyond the point of feeling, beyond the point of the human. Plus, having a child would put his power at risk, something Voldemort would never do. He would never have a child with Bellatrix because he was no longer human.
5. It's high drama.
I expected this, since plays are supposed to be dramatic and theatrical. Though The Cursed Child is a book adaption of the script, it still threw me off. Characters spew their feelings onto the page. There’s major drama between Harry and Albus, Ron and Hermione, and Scorpius and Albus. Though the drama annoyed me at times, I accepted it. I realize that The Cursed Child was made for the stage. The high emotions and high stakes work perfectly for the stage.
Since not everyone has the opportunity to see the play, I appreciate that the book was released. The book is an alternative so that every Harry Potter fan can feel included in the next generation. No matter how I felt about the reoccurring characters, the stars of the book are Albus and Scorpius. The writers effectively established new characters into a well-loved the world and created a friendship worthy of Harry Potter. Though critics call Harry Potter and The Cursed Child the eighth book in the Harry Potter series, I consider it a spin-off. When I remove it from the seven books before and treat it as its own entity, I enjoy the story of the next generation.
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