thinking since '98

i know i'm late to the party so i'm going to keep this short and sweet (edit: my bad): after the excruciating wait to finish exams, i finally read harry potter and the cursed child. during the period where i couldn't experience jk rowling's new book play script for myself, my anticipation quickly turned to worry as i saw all the other potter fans in the world gorge themselves on it and come out the other end sad and disappointed. the worst part was when my friends that had already read it and knew how excited i was, advised me to spare myself from the horror and not even read it at all.

obviously i was never not going to read something that queen rowling wrote, but i did substantially lower my expectations. and thus, as is my life's motto, when you expect nothing, you're never disappointed.



i agree that the whole thing seemed very much like fan-fiction which was disheartening, but i think it's important to remember that the intended purpose of the script is for a performance, and therefore it was always going to be prone to theatrical elements and dialogue that distanced hpatcc from its source material in terms of quality and sincerity, plainly because it's a different art form. and i'm sure if i'd actually watched the play i'd be singing a different song right now. in comparison to the films, the special effects would have been different as would the music. for me, daniel radcliffe will always be harry, emma watson will always be hermione, rupert grint will always be ron and so on and so forth. therefore, i was always picturing the people we saw in the last scene of deathly hallows part 2 as i read hpatcc and at some points i could barely imagine the words on the page coming out of their mouths. but the play obviously had different actors, and i feel like that really cements the 'spin-off' aspect of hpatcc. though i was thrilled to see hermione played by a woman of colour, hpatcc will never be exactly on par as its predecessor.

however, the concept was really interesting. cedric's death will always be a great tragedy amongst the wizarding world and though, for me, it marks the beginning of the darkness that progressively thickens in the next three novels, they don't spend a lot of time really taking in what his death signifies. in harry's defence, he did have a dark lord to defeat, but i think that it's great that hpatcc explores the different timelines of what could have been.

i also enjoyed seeing the golden trio + draco's children and the parallels they share (or don't) with their parents. but, if i'm being honest, they're not the reason i was so eager to read hpatcc despite my friends and the internet's warnings.



i was always intrigued by the where are they now details that hpatcc offered, and in that vein i wasn't disappointed. i just wanted to know if after all the war and pain that my beloved characters experienced, they were okay. it was the same reason why i watched legend of korra - just to see what my babies from the last airbender were up to. however, though lok turned out to be unbelievably, insanely, fabulously amazing and i can't honestly say the same about hpatcc, i did appreciate the depth that it provided to the harry potter universe.

having said that, i will never forgive jk rowling for the absolute mess that is voldemort day UNTIL she writes a novella on the dark lord himself implementing the aforementioned 'holiday' around the world because oh my god i'm still laughing.