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A review by gapagrin
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two by J.K. Rowling
4.0
The eighth Harry Potter story that we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. And my first thoughts are definitely positive. It's a Harry Potter story - I grew up on this series, so was there really any possibility I wasn't going to like it? It's definitely different. Not only is it a play, so while we get the same witty dialogue we're accustomed to from the book series, that's all we really get - I assume that it's better actually seen than just read, so I will have to do that at the soonest opportunity.
We're also working with entirely different characters - the ones off having adventures are new to us, while the ones we're familiar with are now responsible adults with jobs and kids. It's not meant to be a continuation of the Harry Potter series - and I actually rather prefer that. Harry Potter's story was rather well wrapped up in Deathly Hallows - this one does involve Harry, obviously, but it's not as much his story alone anymore.
Perhaps because this is a play and we only get the dialogue (this may be different when seen on-stage), it's much less about magic and the wizarding world - we see almost none of that, except in a few stage directions, leaving the main focus of the story on the relationships between the characters. The story explores all kinds - familial, friendship, even romantic. Everyone's got a lot to learn about each other, except perhaps Scorpius Malfoy, who seems to be the only character in the book with his head screwed on straight.
I was not a fan of Rose Weasley - the second her cousin, who was also supposed to be her friend, befriended someone she didn't approve of, she dumped him. What happened to that inter-house harmony we saw at the end of Deathly Hallows, with all of the students sitting with each other regardless of house affiliation? Rose essentially forces Al to choose between friends and family, which, if she had been a bit more tolerant, shouldn't have had to be a choice at all. You'd think Hermione Granger's daughter would have been a bit more open-minded. It's no wonder he chose the person who wasn't trying to make him choose at all.
There's a lot of time travel - I can't decide if I really liked that or not. It was certainly interesting to explore alternate timelines and what might have happened if even one thing had been slightly different in the books, and to see certain events from the book series in more detail from an outsider's point of view rather than Harry's. And the 'don't muck about with time travel' message is definitely applicable here in a way it wasn't in Prisoner of Azkaban - in that book, we hear a lot about how time travel is dangerous, but it all works out perfectly for Harry and friends, so that's not a lesson that's really hammered home until Cursed Child. On the other hand, time travel meant that we were revisiting a lot of old territory from the books.
Overall, I really liked it. It's funny, it's Harry Potter, and we've finally got Slytherins who aren't evil (as a Pottermore-sorted Slytherin myself, this is much appreciated). It was a quick read and is probably much better seen on-stage than read, but it was enjoyable and I'd recommend it to any fans of Harry Potter. So long as you're not expecting it to be just another one of the books.
We're also working with entirely different characters - the ones off having adventures are new to us, while the ones we're familiar with are now responsible adults with jobs and kids. It's not meant to be a continuation of the Harry Potter series - and I actually rather prefer that. Harry Potter's story was rather well wrapped up in Deathly Hallows - this one does involve Harry, obviously, but it's not as much his story alone anymore.
Perhaps because this is a play and we only get the dialogue (this may be different when seen on-stage), it's much less about magic and the wizarding world - we see almost none of that, except in a few stage directions, leaving the main focus of the story on the relationships between the characters. The story explores all kinds - familial, friendship, even romantic. Everyone's got a lot to learn about each other, except perhaps Scorpius Malfoy, who seems to be the only character in the book with his head screwed on straight.
I was not a fan of Rose Weasley - the second her cousin, who was also supposed to be her friend, befriended someone she didn't approve of, she dumped him. What happened to that inter-house harmony we saw at the end of Deathly Hallows, with all of the students sitting with each other regardless of house affiliation? Rose essentially forces Al to choose between friends and family, which, if she had been a bit more tolerant, shouldn't have had to be a choice at all. You'd think Hermione Granger's daughter would have been a bit more open-minded. It's no wonder he chose the person who wasn't trying to make him choose at all.
There's a lot of time travel - I can't decide if I really liked that or not. It was certainly interesting to explore alternate timelines and what might have happened if even one thing had been slightly different in the books, and to see certain events from the book series in more detail from an outsider's point of view rather than Harry's. And the 'don't muck about with time travel' message is definitely applicable here in a way it wasn't in Prisoner of Azkaban - in that book, we hear a lot about how time travel is dangerous, but it all works out perfectly for Harry and friends, so that's not a lesson that's really hammered home until Cursed Child. On the other hand, time travel meant that we were revisiting a lot of old territory from the books.
Overall, I really liked it. It's funny, it's Harry Potter, and we've finally got Slytherins who aren't evil (as a Pottermore-sorted Slytherin myself, this is much appreciated). It was a quick read and is probably much better seen on-stage than read, but it was enjoyable and I'd recommend it to any fans of Harry Potter. So long as you're not expecting it to be just another one of the books.