The Cursed Child, Parts 1 and 2

[naomikritzer]

Anyone want to discuss "Book Eight"? I finally bought a copy, read it, and have THOUGHTS.

(Warning: you can expect spoilers in the comments.)

Comments

[naomikritzer]

In no particular order:

1. Gosh, I really like Scorpius. He's a truly delightful character. Sort of reminds me of Remy, if Remy had been a major PC instead of a side character.

2. Glimpsing Scorpius's other life in the Dark AU is really kind of suggestive of what a different person Draco could have been, if his circumstances had been different.

3. The Snape in the play reminds me more of Alternity!Snape than Canon!Snape.

4. The thing that annoyed me the most was James and Lily TAKING WALKS when Voldemort was hunting for them instead of staying inside their Fidelius-charm-protected cottage. That is not how you act when V. is trying to kill you, when your friends have gone to a lot of trouble and risk to protect you. If James and Lily were out taking walks, Voldemort would not have needed Peter to betray them; he could have just staked it out and kidnapped/killed them while they were taking their afternoon constitutional.

Seriously, J.K. should have run the whole plot of the show by the Alternity players: we'd have poked at the weak spots and come up with better plotlines for all the stuff that just made no goddamn sense.

5. The revelation at the end that Voldemort secretly fathered a child with Bellatrix is pretty awesome, but WHAT A WASTE. I want the book (the seven-book series) where that child (now grown) says "to hell with bringing my father back somehow. My father was weak. He was destroyed. His time is over. I AM GOING TO BE THE GREATEST DARK WITCH THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR." I want to read about the people taken in by her (she is clearly far more capable of being disarmingly charming than either of her parents; she doesn't have that Mist of Dark Magic that apparently hovered around Tom even when he was a Kindergartner.) I want to read about the people we don't expect who start following her.

6. Though it occurred to me, if there is one thing we canonically know about Voldemort, it's that he believes in making backups. Seven Horcruxes. How many Auguries? Maybe there's another one still out there. (Or another six.)

7. The math on Delphi's birth only adds up if you massage the data a bit. Delphi says "before the Battle of Hogwarts," which sort of implies that she was born in April. But canonically, our heroes SAW Bellatrix in March of Y7, when the Trio is captured by Snatchers and winds up at Malfoy Manor. If Bellatrix had been pregnant, surely they'd have noticed. (She's also very definitely not pregnant in the movie.)

It seems really unlikely that she was pregnant prior to the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, because if V. wanted that baby, would he have let her go into a situation where she could potentially get killed?

It kinda sorta works if you say that after the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, Voldemort rewarded Bella by fathering a child on her. That would've been mid-June, so her baby could have come by early March, and she could have been newly delivered when Harry & c saw her.

8. I kind of appreciated the fact that they made Harry a genuinely terrible parent, and noted that his parenting role models sucked. He spent a decade being raised by abusers. Then he got whisked off to Hogwarts, where his new father figure was trying to make sure he wouldn't argue when he got led off like a lamb to the slaughter. I'm pretty sure he was trying to be Arthur Weasley, but he just had no earthly idea how to even go about being that sort of parent.

That muggle innovation known as psychotherapy: once again, a good idea for wizards, what the hell, guys, maybe you should look into it?

[lucky_guess]

So many feelings indeed!

I really did appreciate the time we got to see Draco as a grown-up, and I adored seeing him try his best to be a good father. I think fatherhood featured so heavily in the play -- children's relationships with their fathers (or lack thereof) (or father-like figures), and I just love that of the people who were fathers in the play, Draco was actually a pretty darn good one. One of the better ones, really. Even in the Darkest Timeline.

And he got to have real conversations. The conversation he had with Ginny about Voldemort was just amazing, and I loved how he and Harry were able to forge a deeper respect for one another due to their kids.

Going back to Fathers, I think that's why the motivations of Delphi resonated with me -- and made sense, in a way. (Although I do agree that there was a lot that could've been done with her.)

...I also Got Ron and Hermione more than I had before. Honestly. I think it was also interesting how despite their obviously being a good fit for one another, and being clearly attracted to one another in any time line, how their being together as a couple was a really tricky, not necessarily given thing. (Really loved the trio in general here.)

(And oh, Scorpius. I adored that muffin.)

And yes to Snape -- definitely can see that.

[lapin_agile]

Ron and Padma! Hahahahahahaha!

Mostly, though, I thought they failed to capture Ron. His voice was almost wholly lost, and with very few exceptions they seemed to just run with Inept and Useless as the poles of their characterization for him.

[lucky_guess]

SO MUCH HAH!

[naomikritzer]

I found Incompetent Rebel Ron kind of heartbreaking. Especially because Alternity!Ron has really overwritten a lot of Canon!Ron in my head, and Alternity!Ron was extremely competent in ways that were 100% in keeping with what we see of him in canon.

I did kind of like the scene where he suggests a Vow Renewal to Hermione, because I could sort of see a similar exchange in Alternity, except instead of "I was so drunk I can barely remember" it would be "wouldn't it be lovely to say those words again but without the looming shadow of death over us this time? Also we could invite our Mums and throw a party after."

[aedifica]

I hadn't heard of it yet! I'll come back after I've read it.