:::: One Part FANDOM RETROSPECTIVE, One Part ANALYSIS ::::
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play that premiered in London, 2016. It was met with praise by theatergoers and disdain, even hatred, by those who read the script. Today, there is a...
*Author Note: all of my analysis will be labeled WTF. Which stands for What's This? Fanfiction?
Did you say something? It's just... you guys seem confused. I don't mean anything else when I label the following posts with the acronym WTF.
Clearly.
While there were some of us who were feeling wary of the play script, based on the treatment of the wizarding world leading up to the release of Cursed Child, even anticipating a degree of disappointment, most of the fanbase was eager and tremendously optimistic. Let's discuss.
In 1967, Mel Brooks made a movie called "The Producers" (that would one day go on to become a successful Broadway musical), about a penniless theater producer who dreamt up a scheme to save himself from financial ruin. He speculated with his new accountant that if they produced a truly awful play, he could make more money with a flop than with a hit by legally lining his pockets with the funds from investors before shuttering their doors. But the plot was so abysmal, it read as a comedy. It succeeded. And the producers were screwed.
JKR, on the other hand, has a far better reputation for good storytelling than the fictitious stage producer, Max Bialystock. Her not-so-good play, filled with blatant, almost distracting flaws, wasn't seen as a comedy. It was accepted. Even praised. Why? Because our collective perception told us that it was already a success.
How could a play by J.K. Rowling be anything less than phenomenal?
As a fandom, we firmly believed that the story we were going to view from the seats, and read from our favorite spots the moment we got home from the midnight release party, would be everything any of us ever imagined or desired. This preconceived notion caused us to overlook many of the glaring (some would say blinding) inaccuracies. Even today, there are fans out there who are still convinced. They refuse to acknowledge this reality, zealously claiming the play to be nothing but a perfect conclusion to the Harry Potter tale.
I should state here: I fully respect that we all have a right to make up our own minds about what we do and do not enjoy. And while I don't want to make widespread assumptions about an entire fandom, many of us agree on the frustrating inaccuracies of the play. Inaccuracies that cannot be refuted, even by JKR and Co. I hope you see my intentions before getting frustrated that I'm knocking a story that could mean a lot to you. Furthermore, don't feel embarrassed or wrong if you enjoyed elements of the play, or the entire thing. Potterheads are all different. You can't even separate us into four distinct houses, we're so multifaceted. Our different tastes make us unique. I like us that way and you should, too.
By now, you know that if I'm going to write my own fan edit, it's critical that I first analyze the play script and define what truly went wrong so that I avoid making the same mistakes as Jack Thorne (and JKR). A great deal of this may come as a surprise. Some of it may not.
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