A few disclaimers:
1) I already knew the story going into this. I had read a few tumblr posts about the plot and was like "lol this is either the worst thing ever or the best troll job I've ever seen." Suffice to say it was not the best troll job I've ever seen, so I went into this book with extremely low expectations with the tiniest glimmer of hope that what I'd read wasn't true. (AKA: This isn't a review of "this book didn't meet lofty expectations.")
2) I'm not here to attack people that did enjoy the book. The world (and the book community) would be a very dull place if everyone had the exact same opinions on books.
3) I know very little about plays. Most of my knowledge resides in one act plays and more classically viewed plays. I wasn't expecting it to be Shakespeare, but I was expecting a much different written word than I was given in this script.
4) As a poor American college student who will probably never see this play in real life, I cannot attest to the production value of this play. I am sure there was a lot of money funneled into making the effects work and the magic seem realistic. I am sure that the actors deliver their lines phenomenally; however, I expect a script to be able to give me a whole story, and in my opinion it should be able to stand on it's own.
TLDR: This was essentially bad fanfiction, and I will be returning it ASAP for a book that I will actually enjoy.
OKAY. NOW THE REVIEW.
SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARD.
WHAT I LIKED:
- Scorpius Malfoy.
He is the Hermione in this Albus & Scorpius friendship wherein Albus is the worst combo of Ron + Harry that I've ever seen. I have more to discuss on everything I didn't like later.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- Literally everything else.
- All of the characters felt two-dimensional to me.
I would love to introduce Jack Thorne to the idea of character development because I don't think he's heard of it. For most of Acts II & III we go on this absolutely horrendous journey through time. The outcome of this is Albus sitting down with his dad in the Slytherin dormitory and having a lovely conversation (3.11). The natural outcome of that conversation seemed to be, while not explicitly stated, that MAYBE THE ADULTS KNOW A THING OR TWO THAT TWO 14 YEAR OLD BOYS DON'T UNDERSTAND. Yet, the next scene is two 14 year old boys doing things that they think is best for the world. (And, yes, I say entire world. Read Acts II and III. This pertains to the entire wizarding world.)
- THE GIRL'S NAME IS DELPHI. DELPHI. AS IN THE ORACLE OF DELPHI. COULD WE HAVE PICKED A MORE OBVIOUS NAME FOR THE GIRL WHO IS ABOUT TO SCREW WITH THE PROPHECIES?
- As stated above, I have very limited knowledge of reading plays, so this definitely won't be a negative for everyone. However, for me reading this book was incredibly difficult. I understand wanting to incorporate a character's voice into a story, but this script got to an absolutely ridiculous point with hyphens that Sarah J. Maas would say "Wow, um, this is a lot of fucking hyphens." I had a hard time even understanding what the characters were saying because it was shrouded in hyphens when structurally there should have just been another grammatical note there (i.e. period, comma, italics).
- Speaking of the dialogue, it was cheesy as hell.
Ludo Bagman, who while not a very strong character initially, was essentially a caricature of himself. I could give you more examples, such as Hermione referring to Ron as "husband" when directly speaking to him in Act IV. (Also, she comes into a room about two or three times and says "What did I miss?" Um. Hamilton reference?) (Also, there are such muggle references coming of Ginny's mouth in this play that she would never have known [i.e. "Saved by the door."] REALLY? Get a laugh from the audience in another way, please.)
You will never be able to tell me that Amos Diggory, the man that never blamed Harry for Cedric's death, the man who refused to take the Triwizard money from Harry because he "deserved it" and the man that was glad Cedric's death was quick rather than drawn out would ever blame Harry for his son's death whether he was under the Imperius Curse or not. (Was he under that? idk this was very unclear. Maybe it was a confounding charm?) We literally have a whole chapter in GOF where 4th year Hogwarts students learn to throw off the Imperius Curse, so don't try and tell me that a man who fought with the original Order can't do it.
- On the same note of believability,
am I really supposed to believe that in the middle of a war, Bellatrix had Voldemort's child? Bellatrix would totally do anything for him, I won't deny that, but for most of the seventh book, wasn't he in hiding? And in the scenes that we do see Bellatrix, she's never described as looking pregnant? idk, these are small things (Additionally, the idea that Voldemort would want a child is laughable to me. Like, he would never.)
- This script contradicts fundamental laws stated within the original seven books.
Not only is the time travel completely laughable and inconsistent with the time travel present in book 3, nor is this "long-distance time-travel" explained in the least, it messes with things that are laced within the very things they are trying to fix. Maybe I'm just being dense, but how are any of them allowed to see Lily and James's house in the past? The Fidelius Charm should, in theory still be in effect in the past, so how are any of our characters seeing the house as they have not been told the location by Peter Pettigrew? I guess since they are from the future, they are outside of the laws of time? The charm has already been broken in their time, so they can see the house? This needs explanation and gets none for the sake of a stirring scene that fans of the series have already read and seen a dozen times throughout the movies and books.
- The entire first act had no flow or sense of direction in my opinion. It skimmed over everything to give the audience all but meaningless glances in time.
- The plot was a conglomeration of cliches and tropes. If they had been twisted or manipulated in an original way, I would be more okay with it, but this felt very unoriginal to me and more like something I've read a ton of.
I mean, did we really have to go there with the trolley lady? Did we really?
Hermione hid the time-turner in a bookcase? I mean, really? Hermione of all people knows the power of time turners and doesn't destroy it immediately. LOL. THAT'S HILARIOUS.
Somehow, Scorpius conveniently knows that Snape's patronus is a doe, the same as Lily's but somehow both he and Albus missed out on the lesson that was titled "don't fuck with time, it's a bad idea" or "Time-Travel: A History."
Queer-baiting. One of the stage directions in Part 1 is literally something along the lines of "SCORPIUS looks at ALBUS. Heartbroken." after he does something slightly romantic towards Delphi. Then you're going to tell me that he happily chases after Rose at the end? I mean, I am all for bisexual Scorpius, but completely dismissing all of his feelings was poorly handled.
The only universe in which Hermione doesn't become a bitter, enraged old maid is the universe where she marries Ron Weasley. Am I supposed to believe that the brightest witch of her age became all but useless without love? HAS JACK THORNE READ THESE BOOKS?
WHEW. I'm done. I'm promptly going to return this book and pretend that I never read it.
