The plot of the play takes place right where Deathly Hallows ends in King’s Cross Station as Harry, Ron, Hermoine, and the rest of the crew watch their children board the Hogwarts Express, nineteen years after The Battle of Hogwarts. The play follows Harry’s middle child, Albus Potter, and his best friend Scorpius Malfoy. We also get to see what Harry is up to now that he's finished his time at Hogwarts and struggles to balance the roles of a parent, husband, auror, and “the boy who lived.”
I've heard many mixed feelings about the play, and many were due to the fact that it is a play. Script-style isn't my favorite thing to read, either, but I found it very interesting to read, and the format made the book move very fast for me. The usual struggle of play format in picturing the settings wasn't an issue, because there are already seven books full of descriptions that I'm familiar with. Going back to the Wizarding World in this read was like going back to an old familiar place.
The story itself was brilliant. It takes a little bit of time to get re-introduced to life nineteen years after the previous stories, but after that small portion, the action picks up and doesn't stop until the final scene. The plot was intensely exciting and had numerous unexpected twists. There were even characters I never expected to see popping up again.
As a die-hard Harry Potter fan, I was thrilled beyond words that a new book had been released. However, I still can not compare this play to the rest of the series, or consider it as “the eighth story,” as it's been advertised. I see it more as an extra little treat for the fans to enjoy. I think a lot of the mixed reviews I see about the script are in result of people comparing it to the original books. But really, can anything ever compare to them? It's also good to keep in mind that while J.K. Rowling was part of the writing process and approved the storyline, she didn't write the script herself. She teamed up with screen and playwright Jack Thorne and theatre director John Tiffany to create the play.
My final thoughts are this: The script was a wonderful, entertaining, and exciting treat as a Harry Potter fan to receive, but I just can't bring myself to consider it part of the original series. I see it as more of a “spin-off” but still a great piece of work.
This is one of the first articles I did for my journalism class, and also something that I've wanted to post on here for a while now. Have any of you read, or even more exciting, seen, The Cursed Child? Tell me what you think in the comments!
Agreed. It's definitely not the eighth Harry Potter book (mostly because Harry isn't even the main character here!), but it is canon, so that's exciting. :) It was wonderful as a script, but it's got to be freaking AMAZING performed.
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