Not My Canon!

WTF: Story Development

Let's take a break from covering direct issues with the play and discuss the crucial topic of story development. In the books, we grew up with Harry and his friends progressing through seven years of challenges and successes. The plotting was meticulous, sequential, and easily digestible. Deathly Hallows felt like a culmination of everything that had come before it. The 8th story, as the finale to Harry's tale, should have put Deathly Hallows to shame. Let me say that again, Cursed Child should have been the culmination of the franchise. It was not.

Here, we are invited to witness the next adventures of the Golden Trio and their children. Naturally, we would imagine a new story with a little flair, something daring and unexpected and adult that encompasses the seven previous stories. But it's sort of tragically ironic. We're meant to be viewing the future, and yet the play is stuck in the past with recycled plots and storylines that fail to bridge the gap between generations.

The Antagonist

We're left with some big questions as we go from scene to scene. Like, who is the antagonist? We literally don't know for most of the play. Is Voldemort coming back? Because they keep mentioning this in Harry's dreams. I mean, that *is* how the first act ends. But the return of Voldemort through happenstance is just a smoke screen, a false conclusion in order to stop us from suspecting Delphi.

Delphi, who is trying to convince Albus and Scorpius to do something she could have easily done... for the purposes of... what exactly? Some prophecy none of us have heard about, and won't hear about until way later? And for only about a millisecond?

So, we're just going to sit here and be confused until that's explained in tomorrow's play? Got it. I mean, it's really preposterous (have I mentioned that I hate that word?). We literally don't even hear about someone called "The Augurey" until Act 3. Again... that's the second day of viewing this play, folks. Like, you went back home in-between. Took a cab. Had a few meals. Squeezed in a few texts. Phone calls. You had a sleep. Maybe a nap, as well. Took the dog for a walk at least three times. Shower, shave, new duds. Then you came back. And then you found out that there's someone called "The Augurey". But you still had to sit through sixteen scenes before knowing that it was Delphi! The second night is 2 hours and 35 minutes long. That would make this roughly halfway into night two. That's a REALLY long time to wait for the reveal of the big bad (who's really not that big or bad, if we're being honest).

Everything about Delphi is strange. She's uninteresting and not a good villain. Tonks from the Dark Side, who must *automatically* be evil because she's the child of Voldemort, and cries at the end because she can't see him, but is also willing to just torture and kill kids at random...???

I feel absolutely nada for this character, especially because all of her development - LITERALLY ALL OF IT - was a deception. Everything about her was a lie told to the audience to keep us guessing. Which means... your audience is guaranteed to have zero investment in her, no matter what she represents to the story. Like, that's week two of Creative Writing 101, dood. And if you want her to be the baddie, at least make her interesting. Take some risks! But, no. It's Delphi, sexy goth daughter of Voldemort - who totally works at Hot Topic on weekends.

The Scar

Voldemort isn't actually coming back. That is well established. But then that means Delphi's presence is the sole reason for why Harry's scar is hurting again (#NotCanon). Is that what you're saying to us?? Because we actually don't understand. Numerous times throughout the play, characters are confused as to why Harry's scar is hurting. Yeah, we get you! Totally! We're all confused, actually. And I hope JKR and Co. realize one day that using dialogue to diagnose our confusion did nothing to fix the problem!