Harry Potter, a popular seven-book fantasy series, was written by the well-known author JK Rowling. Countless people have read the series and nearly 500 million books have been sold. Rowling, once a lady with an idea in a coffee shop, created a story that has been an immense success. On Feb. 10, an addition to the beloved series was announced… is this addition the next big hit or has she gone too far?
Harry Potter was a young boy living with his aunt and uncle. On his 11th birthday he found out he was a wizard and through the years his past was uncovered, leading him to his destiny. Hogwarts: a wizarding school, a secret world of magic, a three-headed dog, a giant serpent, soul sucking entities, dragons, secret uprising armies, death, and more death accompanied Harry throughout the books. As if that’s not dangerous enough for a teenage boy to handle, he is also being sought after by the darkest sorcerer of all: Voldemort. The suffering in and out of Harry’s life, whether it be death or war, were caused due to Voldemort’s original fear of the prophecy that Harry or Voldemort must destroy the other person. Their fate, whether one lives or dies is unknown, but soon to be decided.
The books made a total of $7,743,000,000 worldwide, while the movies made $7,216,000,000. Those numbers might as well be the same as the fans. Men, women and children around the world adore the series and are a part of the fandom. Even though the main series has ended, there is still massive support behind the books and movies. Harry’s charm has impacted the globe and is here to stay.
Despite the extreme success both the books and movies had, the new addition to the series, The Cursed Child, will be in the form of a script for a play.
Since it’s announcement on February 10th, bookstores everywhere have been setting up pre orders for this spinoff. Knowing the series’ previous sales history, they are sure it will be a bestseller. The script will be in stores by July 31st, 2016. It was known that a Harry Potter stage play had been in the works since 2013. Little to nothing was said about it until recently. Previews for the play begin June 7, 2016.
Branching out of her solo career, JK Rowling has collaborated with English playwrights Jack Thorne and John Tiffany to write The Cursed Child. Playing the lead roles are Jamie Parker as Harry Potter, Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger and Paul Thornly as Ron Weasley.
Harry and his youngest son Albus seem to be the main focus of this spinoff. Both are apparently unable to let go of the past and focus on the present. That’s interesting seeing as Albus wasn’t even alive during the so called “darkness of the past.” Harry is told to be overwhelmed with his job and family. The summary ends with the vague sentence that the “past and present are to fuse ominously.” I guess Rowling was wrong when she wrote the last sentence of the series, “all is well.”
There are many things that could happen in the story. No fans know what the outcome will be, but boy do we have our ideas. It could be anything from Harry being a boring character like a documentary about cups to his son Albus being annoying like Jar Jar Binks. This will lead the audience to be uninvested in the story. We can only hope JK Rowling will shock us with something that blows our mediocre expectations out of the water.
Harry is a strong, persevering wizard in the books and movies. He worked hard in school and even retaliated against Umbridge to become an auror (basically the wizard FBI) when she tried to thwart his goal in The Order of the Phoenix. The summary given for the plot line of The Cursed Child says, “…he is an overworked employee of the ministry of magic…” This leads some to believe that Harry is now unhappy with the job of defeating dark wizards, which is extremely contrary to Harry’s personality in the original series. In addition, he was very passionate and inspiring in the 19 years later part of the series. Harry acts mostly the same way to almost everything he cares about. The readers would think he would be exactly that toward his dream job he worked so hard to get.
Albus looks up to his father Harry immensely, according to the epilogue in The Deathly Hallows. He values his advice like Christians value reading the Bible. There shouldn’t be a problem with him handling his family’s past like the summary says. It’s what made who his father is. If Albus has a problem with that, he doesn’t truly look up to Harry. He wouldn’t complain about his struggle to connect with the past either, he would consult the one person he trusts the most that lived through it: Harry. This is similar to when Harry needed advice from Sirius, his only living family at the time, when he had questions about his family’s past. Harry didn’t complain and knowing Albus’ character in the books, neither would he.
As one can tell, this script is coming with many doubts. The inconsistencies like the ones stated above, the character’s appearance, and the fact that it is being sold as a script instead of a novel are a few of those doubts. All in all, the possible changes to the original story during The Cursed Child are unknown. The script is to be released this July, so until then all we have is our guesses and the hope that Rowling will yet again amaze us all.
