Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript of the Original West End Production. Kindle Edition!
By J.K. Rowling(Author), John Tiffany(Author), Jack Thorne(Author)

 

Hi everyone. I’m Maria and this is Promotekdbook.com.

Today I’m going to be talking about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

 

I’m going to start off by saying bad for the majority of this post I’m going to avoid talking about spoilers, but there is going to be a certain part where I do talk a little bit about spoilery things.

 

So I will warn you guys before that happens that way if you don’t want to be spoiled at all, if you haven’t read the play yet or haven’t seen the play yet, you don’t have to worry about being spoiled in this post up until a certain point.

 

So I will give you guys a heads up when that’s going to occur and you guys can close out of the post at that point.

 

This is a play that’s getting pretty divisive reactions.

 

I’m just going to talk about my own experience with this play and my opinions on it and this doesn’t in any way negate anyone else’s opinion.

 

Obviously that goes for like any opinion that I give because, again, they’re all opinions.

 

So I got this book from the library, hence why I’m not holding it up right now.

 

I figured that was probably my best bet with reading this book because going into it I kind of very strong feeling that this wasn’t going to be a book that I wanted to own.

 

And worst case scenario would be that I get it from the library then I buy it again later.

 

I could tell that I wasn’t going to really feel super enthralled about buying a copy of this play.

 

First of all it was a play and I knew that going into it so I knew that it was going to be a different experience.

 

But also just everything surrounding it.

 

Like it felt really rushed, because J.K. Rowling didn’t really write it herself, and even just like the artwork and everything, just everything around it just felt a little bit different than the original Harry Potter’s had felt.

 

And so going into it, I knew I was going to buy it.

 

Prior to reading it myself, I was paying attention to how people are reacting to the book and like I said was pretty divisive.

 

Some people like absolutely loved it and some people, specifically people whose taste I tend to align with more, were really, really hating it.

 

And that actually made me really curious to read it as well because I wanted to know why they hated it so much and what was pissing them off.

 

So I went into this with pretty low expectations, which might be why I didn’t really hate it.

 

Now you have to say that my Harry Potter sort of like knowledge and love and adoration is relatively limited compared to a lot of other fans.

 

I mean I’ve read the books, I love the books, I’ve read them multiple times.

 

But it’s been awhile since I’ve read them. I’m not super active in like the fandom or anything like that.

 

The older I get and the farther away I get from those movie releases and especially from the last book release, the less and less I feel like super attached to that fandom.

 

I still like care about these characters a lot and I was very interested to see just what the story was going to be, but I didn’t expect this book to be Harry Potter eight.

 

I never expected that at any point.

 

And so I think again because I had such low expectations going into it, it didn’t really bother me that much.

 

I will also say that I spoiled myself on a lot of the major sort of quote-unquote twists in the play.

 

Again I saw people having very strong reactions to this book and part of me wanted to know just what was pissing people off so much.

 

Because I can see everyone like vaguely hinting to things, and so I just googled it and I found, I think it was like on Bustle or something, there was some article that just listed all of the major spoilers in the story.

 

And obviously that probably played a part in my experience as well.

 

I’ll never really know if, while I was reading play, if didn’t have a spoilers in mind if I would have had a different reaction.

 

But I think I really like tempered myself down quite a bit to be able to handle this play and not hate it a whole lot.

 

In my opinion this play is pretty equivalent to what the movies are like.

 

A lot of people have been saying that this play just felt kind of like hollow, there isn’t really much depth to it, all these things, and yeah that’s to be expected because it is a play.

 

And to me again it felt a lot like what the movies are like.

 

The movies, in comparison to the novels, are obviously missing a lot of really great details and plotlines and just character developments that really made me love the Harry Potter books.

 

I don’t love the movies that much, like I think they’re fine and I think they’re fun and it’s an easy way to experience the world without having to spend hours reading the book.

 

And its really nice to have that visual and things like that.

 

But to me the movies don’t mean that much, it’s more the books that will have to be in the movies feel like a hollow incarnation of the Harry Potter world still.

 

The only thing going forward is the fact that it is so visual.

 

But I wonder if all of us were given like the Harry Potter screenplays for the movies, if we would have had the exact same reaction that we’re having to the Cursed Child.

 

Like I feel like this is a the thing that you just need to see it to be able to enjoy it.

 

I mean that seems to be what a lot of people who have the privilege of seeing the play are saying.

 

Like on stage it’s amazing and the things that they’re able to do are just insane and really bring you into the world and the way the actors are acting out the play is really help temper the cheesy dialogue and they help bring more like emotional weight to all these scenes that might not be conveyed very well within the actual script, which again makes sense because that’s the job of actors and that’s what you’re supposed to do with screenplays and things like that.

 

Another criticism that I’ve seen for a lot of people is the idea that these characters don’t feel like the characters that we loved in Harry Potter.

 

Harry and Hermione and Ron feel really different than they do in the novels.

 

I can understand that complaint and I would agree with that idea that the characters do feel really different.

 

But when I was reading this, I felt like they had just grown up and when you grow up you do change.

 

Like I’m pretty sure someone who knew be when I was 16, 17 years old, if they had no like interaction with me between that point in time and now when I’m turning 30, they would probably think I’m not quite the same as I was when I was younger.

 

Obviously there are certain aspects of personalities that stay intact but we all grow up and we all change and who knows what has happened over the past like 15, 20 years for Harry, Hermione, and Ron while they were growing up and raising their kids.

 

We see a quick glimpse of it in the epilogue of book seven but there is no way to really tell like what has happened.

 

And unfortunately the play doesn’t have the opportunity to explore that.

 

I think it would have been really interesting to see sort of how they got to where they are but there really is no time for that in a play.

 

I also did really like the two main characters a lot.

 

I think that those two characters are really interesting and I would totally read a series of stories about their friendship and about their time at Hogwarts.

 

One of the frustrations that I had with this play is the fact that you see them sort of growing up, like you see quickly glimpses of them at the beginning of every school year up until when the main story sort of takes off.

 

And I kind of just wish we got those years fleshed out the way we did for the other characters.

 

So if you’re someone who hasn’t read the plays yet, would I recommend it to you?

 

I mean, read it if you’re curious, but I don’t think that this should be like required reading like the other Harry Potter books are.

 

If you’re interested, read ’em, if you’re not interested, I think you’re fine not reading them.

 

I don’t think like your world is going to be changed, like I don’t feel like my world was necessarily changed because I read this play.

 

It really just feels like Jack Thorne was given this world to sort of play with and like a lot of people in the fandom do, he sort of had fun imagining and creating these potential scenarios for these characters to go through.

 

So yeah, in the end, I’m just going to say that if you’re interested, read the play, but go in with relatively low expectations.

 

Don’t expect the Harry Potter books, maybe expect the Harry Potter movies instead.

 

But you do have to remember that this is a play, it is a script, it’s not going to have everything fleshed out the way that we loved.

I think part of what made Harry Potter so special was J.K. Rowling’s writing and descriptions.

 

Like I still believe that she is just such an amazing writer.

 

It’s why I love the Robert Galbraith books too.

 

And you can definitely tell that this was written by a completely different person.

 

So I mean, just go into it knowing that and then I think that you’ll have a slightly more enjoyable experience with this than a lot of people have had.

 

So yeah, now I’m going to talk really briefly about some of the more spoilery parts of it.

 

This post is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I will just go through that really quickly.

 

So if you haven’t read the play or seen the play yet and you don’t want to be spoiled, close out now.

 

So yeah there are a couple of plot points that I want to talk about.

 

First of all, the whole like time travel thing.

 

I don’t like time travel stories like period.

 

There’s nothing about them i ever enjoy.

 

I can’t think of a single time travel related plot point that I’ve ever liked in any story ever.

 

Part of it is because it always just seems completely contrived, part of it is because it gets really confusing.

 

There are certain points where I couldn’t really remember which timeline we were in.

 

And part of it is because, especially in this play, all of the timeline stuff, it didn’t feel worth it.

 

It just felt like it was Jack Thorne being like hey let’s just see what would happen if Cedric lived and all of this stuff.

 

And none of it had any real consequence to it.

 

They would always go back and sort of reset everything so that I would go back to quote unquote normal again.

 

So it was sort of like what is the point of exploring all these different possibilities outside of just exploring them, I guess.

 

But it didn’t really do a whole lot to engage me in the Harry Potter universe.

 

I would much rather do sort of like a deep dive into these characters and explore their sort of homelife than to explore all of these potentials that are never actually going to become true.

 

The second thing I want to talk about is the whole Cedric Diggory storyline.

 

A lot of people were really upset that there is this one timeline where Cedric Diggory becomes a death eater, which I don’t understand why people were very upset about.

 

I don’t want to be dismissive, again, of other people’s opinions so if you can explain that below why that was so upsetting.

 

I mean I guess, again, I was spoiled about this but i was also spoiled that this was part of like this temporary timeline.

 

It wasn’t a real thing.

 

So I felt like there was no reason to be upset because it never really happened.

 

Like it didn’t actually happen it’s only because this one thing was changed and then they changed it again so it never actually happened.

 

Like I said, all of the timeline hopping just had no real consequences because it all just got reset back to A.

 

And then the whole final thing, the biggest probably twist in the story, is the fact that Voldemort has this daughter, which is probably the part that I thought was the least believable, in my opinion.

 

Like the idea of this man who supposedly had no conception of like love whatsoever conceiving a child.

 

Like that by itself is just the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of in my life.

 

Like based on everything that we’ve learned in Harry Potter about Voldemort, how he was neglected and how, you know, it was love that saved Harry and that made it possible for him to defeat Voldemort.

 

The fact that that man was able to create a child, unless it was literally one of those situations like Beatrix Potter stole his sperm or something.

 

Like honestly, I can’t think of a possible situation where he would have a kid.

 

So that is the one like major gripe I have at this play because that, that storyline I just didn’t want to deal with it.

 

So yeah those are my quick thoughts on the whole Harry Potter and the Cursed Child thing.

 

There is like more Harry Potter content that’s coming out, I think it’s coming out in September.

 

I can’t remember exactly, but supposedly like all these different short stories are supposed to be coming out.

 

Will I be reading them?

 

Probably eventually, same way I did with your Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

 

But especially because these seem more along the lines of what I’m interested in.

 

I’m more interested in exploring sort of like aspects of this world.

 

There’s a short story about McGonagall during the big fights when you know Harry Potter’s parents were still alive and all the stuff.

 

I don’t know the terminology anymore so forgive me for that.

 

But the McGonagall story is in and of itself the only reason why I’m going to pick up one of these books.

 

But yeah, I think like honestly this whole exploration of the world is really what I’m looking for and if J.K. Rowling wants to write more stories like that, I’m 100% percent here that.

 

If she wants to do any sort of like flashbacks into characters history, I’m here for that.

 

I feel like we’re at a point where we just need to accept that the Harry Potter world is going to be added onto.

 

It’s going to have this sort of extended universe thing.

 

If you don’t listen to the Book Riot podcast, there was a special episode that Jeff O’Neal did with Jackson Bird, who is a part of the Harry Potter Alliance and has a youtube channel and everything.

 

So you haven’t listened to that, I highly recommend it.

 

It’s down below. There are spoilers in that as well so you know be warned.

 

A lot of what they said is very much true for my feelings as well and they talk about how there’s sort of like the Star Wars extended universe and Star Trek extended universe and how James Bond has different writers writing the story and how these like really big series sort of, as the years go on, different people are going to be writing stories for them and different people are going to be expanding on them.

 

We just happen to be living in this time where it’s happening to Harry Potter.

 

And so we just have to learn to sort of reckon with that however you want to reckon with it.

 

There is no right or wrong way, you can either choose to just have the seven books be canon and then ignore everything else, or you could choose to read everything that comes out about Harry Potter.

 

Personally I’ll probably just be picking and choosing by whatever interests me because that I am.

 

So yeah those are my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

 

Overall I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t like the greatest thing ever either.

 

But again, this is just my opinion and I think I just went in with such low expectations that there was no way for it to really get any lower.

 

So yeah feel free to leave your comments down below.

 

I know that a lot of people are going to disagree with me on this and I’ve already watch a bunch of people’s like this post and reactions to it and stuff like that so I know that people are all over the spectrum.

 

But feel free to leave a comment down below letting me know what you guys thought of it.

 

So yeah, that’s all I have for now and thanks for reading.

 

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