Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Book

Thought there should be a space for fans to discuss the play/script. I am almost done reading through the rehearsal edition and will be back to talk about it. If anyone has been fortunate enough to see it in London please share with the rest of us!

 

Almost done reading!

 

Just finished. Still processing and meditating on the fact that I just finished an 8th Harry Potter story.

 

Just ordered mine today on Amazon. Though I haven't read it yet, I didn't think an eight book coming out was as heretical as some made it seem. Being a play and set in the future, im guessing it'll feel more like a full length epilogue or addendum than an eighth part of the story. The original 7 can still exist by themselves, right?

 

Without giving any spoilers, I can attest that this story can exist separately, though, if taken as canon, will be linked. It's all about how you want to view the series canonically.

It is, however, very easy to distinguish them as two separate entities given the different mediums and styles of writing.

 

I enjoyed this, but I do think it got a little to fan-fiction-y at some points. Overall, I'm glad it was made, and I do hope it ends up being turned into an actual novel as well.

 

I pretty much agree. I liked the story a lot. It was a cool way to revisit the Harry Potter world.

 

My friends and I purchased our tickets to see the play in October of 2015 and finally, just about a week ago, we sat in the theater to watch it and LOVED every single second of it. Luckily it was before the book was released so we only had basic info about what the story was about and were able to avoid spoilers that were shared when the book was released and I'm really grateful for that. We went in with no expectations, just an overwhelming excitement to see an addition to the story we all love. I also managed to not blow my whole trip budget buying everything they had for sale at the merch stall which was quite difficult.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to sit down and read the script book but I'm glad I'll be able to include my memories of the play and how they presented different scenes in a live format. Pretty much the entire show was jaw droppingly amazing from the sets, score (Imogen Heap is brilliant), and costumes down to the actors performances (Hermione and Scorpius especially) and how they managed to make magic seem real. I still have no clue how they pulled off some of the moments of magic that occurred in the play and it just makes me want to see it again and again even if it means sitting outside the venue in the returns line praying for tickets which I might do next week.

 

I think I really liked it. Still letting it sink in.

But, I kind of hate that time travel is different than what we saw in PoA. It came across there as "whatever happened, happened", where as here it was "alternate timelines exist" time travel.

 

This is what I had hard time wrapping my head around. So, in The Curses Child - when they return to Godrics Hollow and foil Delphi's attempt to intercept Voldemort - does that mean that this is basically all going down in the church when I reread or rewatch The Sorcerers Stone? [/spolier]. Like, even though I loved this story I don't know how I feel about the idea that it kind of adds a new twist to such a powerful scene that has such been a profound literary moment for me. And I feel like because it is from JKR I should be ok with it, and I sort of am, but just need some time perhaps. If that's the case lol

 

I kind of like it, only because it adds depth to the moment and is similar to PoA in handling time travel. I am not sold on the alternate timeline stuff. The alternate timeline stuff doesnt have as much meaning when it can get erased. While adding in a new layer to scenes or events can add more depth.

 

Oh boy do I have some questions for you lol. For one, how did they depict time travel? Also, how, in the scene in Hermione's office, did the bookcases attempt to swallow the characters up as they tried to solve the riddles? And whenever there was duel in the script, it would usually say CHARACTER throws a "bolt" at CHARACTER. Were there some sort of stage effects to depict the duels or was it literally some sort of prop?

 

It's not so much alternate timelines exist so much as butterfly effect and multiverse theory. Essentially the time-turner functions the same way as in Prisoner of Azkaban, and if Harry had actually directly interacted with his past self in PoA or hadn't intervened with the Patronus, a similar Butterfly effect would have undoubtedly occured which "corrects" the situation in the current timeline. This butterfly effect would have had significantly less wide-ranging ripples though because the domino fell just one hour previously, not 22 years previously. That one change had a long time in 22 years to ripple out and effect the entire continuity of the universe much more substantially.

Some light reading on the time travel multiverse theory and the butterfly effect principle which should help explain why Scorpius refers to the branching of the butterfly effect as "alternate timelines":

Butterfly effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Time Travel and The Multiverse - Many Worlds: Many Timelines - Paranoia Magazine

Many-worlds interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I have always really loved Time Travel adventures, so even though this was super fanfictiony obviously, and all of the stuff with Delphi/Augerey being the love child of Bellatrix and Voldemort shortly after his regeneration was absolutely absurd, I enjoyed the time travel plot and how much damn fun it was. I'm cool with suspending disbelief since it was a Harry Potter story and everything is supposed to be magical and larger than life.

 

Yeah, I accepted it right away for what it was and then had to think hard about it considering how time travel worked in PoA, because it probably meant that there will be and has always been the extra element added to the origin story

 

I really enjoyed how they made an already emotional scene even more so, (His parents' death) by having him actually being forced to be there to witness the whole thing, knowing that there isn't anything he can do about it.

 

No thank you

 

A longer complaint about the rash of recent posts I've seen picking nits about certain things the feel are "plot holes" in pieces of pop culture, directed primarily at the major spoilers of Cursed Child:

I mean, you know it's a book about wizards who make magic real right? It's not that much of a leap to suspend disbelief and think that two of those wizards could have somehow had a kid, or that the wizards who can literally distort the laws of physics, mathematics and reality could time travel? I've just been seeing these complaints a lot of places and it frustrates me that people can't just suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride anymore. The same thing happened on Stranger Things, people tryng to point out that the physics of the Upside Down made no sense or stuff like that, where everyone rushed to poke plot holes in it. It's a fantasy world the writers have constructed, try not to look to closely at the cracks all the god damn time and just take the adventure with them and enjoy it. Fantasy universes are supposed to be our escape from reality, let's try not to inject our own world into it quite so often. It's okay that Voldemort and Bellatrix had a kid together. Who cares if it doesn't make sense? It happened in this world. It's okay that the time travel falls apart if you think about the physics of it for more than 5 seconds? That's the whole point. Have fun with it.

Just saw a lot of people complaining on facebook (One guy said: "there are so many things to criticize (the freaking trolley witch, delphi's entire existence, all the time turner nonsense)") so i figured I'd bring that here.
okay, rant over.

 

Kay. Just though it would be fun to share.

 

That's fine. I just don't have the time to discuss it in depth. Others can dive in.

 

I'm totally down with emotional depth that it adds and how the temptation to interfere must be like poison, but it's almost like I would have preferred that they chose a different moment to play with in the end. Like, if Delphi tried to go back to the graveyard from TGoF and chose that moment to confront Voldemort, sort of sticking with the time they routinely returned to considering the Cedric death was a central focus. It's just harder for me to accept that when I first read the series, Harry's survives because his mother sacrifices herself for him, but also because Harry knows he must let her die for him because he already knows that it is what will save him. Idk, it's a lot to process and I'm probably being too picky. I should note that I really did love the whole thing though and this is basically the final hurdle for me and I'm kind of approaching it cautiously.

 

Like I said, I think I really liked it. It's very different in a lot of ways, but I loved my experience reading it. The subject matter is right up my alley. I was most disappointed in how quickly we speed to 4th year. Once it settled in the story became incredibly intriguing. It's a play, so it's going to be different. But I can't help but feel we missed out on a lot of depth by skipping so much.

But even with skipping so much, I did enjoy all the characters. It's just different. Some people don't know how to react to change and overreact negatively. It happens.

 

I'm too lazy to check, how old was Delphi?

 

In her early twenties, which makes sense considering when the Battle of Hogwarts took place (a little over twenty years ago by the end of The Cursed Child) and how she was supposedly born right before it

 

I mean she couldn't have been born after because "Not my daughter, you bitch!"

 

It's just a flesh wound!