For those intrigued by the deeper|detailed nature of time travel in general and, in specific, what seems to have happened in
Cursed Child, if you've not already seen this: the Lexicon has a carefully crafted article,
Albus Potter and the lesson in Quantum Mechanics. Included are side-by-side chronologies for each of (too many!) time travel events in the script.
After reading the script twice during the first days it was out, I may need some time distance and a third read to feel clearer about my reactions. I wasn't fascinated by a plot structured on the trope of so many spirals through time.
Perhaps that excess of swirling is why one can be left feeling that many characters, especially the familiar adults, are not developed, nor "aged" in voice 19 yrs? The stage production might have cured that . . . altho Ron inherently is written too shallowly to feel fully believable to me. There simply isn't enough time spent in the same linear time. (The many side-by-side timelines laid out in the Lexicon article above feels a bit like like a "picture" of what I mean.)
Sadly for me, the story felt too drearily predictable for surprisingly too many pages. But, then! Well past the halfway point, I finally noticed I felt differently, and I began to believe I was getting my money's worth after all.**
I easily adored Scorpius as a character. Something in the writing even of a stage script persuaded me that I had encountered a guileless, sincere, courageously vulnerable human being. The friendship is dear, snd I imagine more so on stage.
I appreciated inclusion of a character in the eldercare age range 'nineteen years later.' There are several layers of meaning in how that character is used in the plot.
Believable, for me: how the interactions between Draco and Harry et al. unfold across the plot, even though these are among what remains rather underdeveloped and two-dimensional amid the rather miniscule amount of linear time.
Among what I hope to read articles|discussion of in the future:
Why (a deeper, or more thorough, understanding) a certain MoM official may have decided to retain a particular magic device.
How one might evaluate the pragmatic and ethical implications of that.
Or, perhaps as with Dumbledore of Bks 1-7, one learns to accept that the character is imperfectly human despite their strengths, and it's simply some sloppy combination of nostalgia, hubris, and curiosity.
Judith aptly expressed something that really nagged at me, too, as I read:
I question the origin of the antagonist. I didn't, and don't, think the parents had that kind of relationship, however willing the mother would have been.
One can more easily imagine that a woman as personality disordered as that 'mother' could convince herself that a liason she had was with whom the antagonist believes it was -- when in actual fact it was some other dark character.
Judith also articulates one of the things I most appreciate about the play:
I also love the ambiguity of who exactly the cursed child is
Amen! Masterful, and realistic in the context of Harry's -- and Albus' -- world.
A nice feature of the play that carries forward the torch of JKR's novels is that many people are apt to find at least one character they can either identify with or feel some compassion for.
**Spoilers
Among what I especially appreciated:
- The courage it took to not interfere in the events at Godric's Hollow that fateful night.
- My favorite moment in a story that mostly failed to fully engross me: the clever method the boys used to communicate their cry for help across time.
- A wizard-world example of how seemingly innocuous "caregivers" in truth are using the vulnerable elderly.
