Harry Potter is a series that has flourished outside the pages of its books.
J.K. Rowling has continued adding to the world of Harry Potter well after the release of the seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in 2007. Following the final book, J.K. Rowling wrote three small books about some of the Wizarding World history, including "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2001), "Quidditch Throughout the Ages" (2001) and "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" (2007).
However, her biggest writing success came from her official Harry Potter website: Pottermore.
The website was founded by J.K. Rowling in 2009 and offers a plethora of additional information about the Harry Potter characters and stories. There is an interactive element that allows users to be sorted into Hogwarts Houses and explore the Pottermore lore in a more visual, interactive way. Additionally, there is a section dedicated entirely to J.K. Rowling's additional writing about the Wizarding World outside of the book series, such as how the world works and additional information about magical transport, magical places and the Potter family.
Her latest writings on the site outline the History of Magic in North America as well as an outline of its most prominent Wizarding School, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This most recent writing is no doubt setting up for the most exciting new project this year called the "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" movie based on the similarly titled book she wrote back in 2001. The movie takes place in 1926, New York City and will be officially released on November 18, 2016 in the U.S.
Between the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Orlando, the eight-part movie series, the successful website, the popular, additional writings and the new movie coming out in November, the Harry Potter series has been J.K. Rowling's biggest literary success.
However, the recent release of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" as the eighth Harry Potter story has been met with decidedly mixed reviews. Reviewers on Amazon, in particular, offered both excited praise and dissatisfied dissent. The most amusing title I saw for a one star review was based on an iconic Dumbledore quote from "The Deathly Hallows", "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all pity those who read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”
Some have speculated that many fans were dissatisfied that the "Cursed Child" was only a script based on the fully fledged play production and not a fully fledged novel –although, prior to its release, Rowling did her best to emphasize that it was a script.
I admit, I was personally disappointed by the quality of the play. In my opinion, the script itself was sloppy, not well-thought-out and riddled with plot holes. While I knew beforehand that the "Cursed Child" was a script, I expected better quality writing. I could go on and on about my opinions of the script, but my biggest issue with the release of the script is that it does not reflect the (no doubt) phenomenal play itself. A script is only one aspect of a play. I feel that the release of the "Cursed Child" script was a disservice to all of the hard work and talent put into the play's production. At the moment, the play is only being performed in London. The majority of the world will not have a chance to see the play in its entirety. They will only have the script.
However, the overall, major issue with "Cursed Child" is that it wasn't written only by J.K. Rowling.
It was also written by Jack Thorne – based on an original story written by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne. This is a deviation from previous Harry Potter works. The Harry Potter movies were based on existing, in-depth books that provided more than enough material to turn into a good movie. Even in the latest Harry Potter movie, "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", J.K. Rowling wrote the screen play. This play, on the other hand, was written based on a story cowritten by other writers, and Rowling had significantly less involvement in this than her previous works.
"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is the first published Harry Potter work not written by J.K. Rowling herself.
Prior to this, Rowling has constantly played an active role in the Harry Potter world and retained control over its publications. As Harry Potter begins to evolve into different mediums of entertainment, it's important that Rowling continues to have a more active role in future works and continues to personally contribute to the writing process. The world fell in love with the world of Harry Potter because of J.K. Rowling's writing – not just the concepts she created.
The danger of opening up that world to other writers is that you lose the spirit and the integrity of the Harry Potter universe and the established characters within it.
Luckily, J.K. Rowling is heavily involved with the Harry Potter spin-off movie, "Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them" and personally wrote the script for it. With plans for two other additional movies to the series, I believe she will continue to be very invested in potential, future Harry Potter movie productions. I hope that the upcoming movie will offer a new future for the Wizarding World in high quality. "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is a wake-up call to fans that the Wizarding World cannot continue to flourish without the magic J.K. Rowling contributes to it.
