Episode 52: Fanatical Fics and the Worst Fanfic of All Time
If you liked Cursed Child and are attached to that opinion maybe don't listen to this episode. Also DO NOT @ US. WE WILL NEVER SPEAK OF THIS PLAY AGAIN.
This is not a regular episode, it's an angry one. In which we are occasionally angry but we hope also still mostly funny.
This transcript was provided by our excellent volunteer transcription team! Thanks to:
Transcriber: Abbey
If you’re interested in joining the team, send us an email!
Sequoia: Hello, I’m Sequoia Simone.
Kim: And I’m Kim.
Sequoia: And this is Fanatical Fics and the Worst Fanfiction of All Time.
Kim: [laughs] It’s our podcast about Cursed Child.
Sequoia: Here we are. We’re doing it. We’re here, guys.
Kim: Whoo.
Sequoia: Whoo. Are we here? But are we here?
Kim: Uhhhhhhhhh.
Sequoia: [laughs] Woah. Oh. Ohhhhh, that went on for a while.
Kim: It’s ‘cause I actually don’t know.
Sequoia: I actually don’t know. So we…
Kim: We made some good decisions…
Sequoia: Oh, only good…
Kim: …last night.
Sequoia: Only good decsions.
Kim: We were like, yes, we are getting up at nine am to record this… this extra special episode that’s going to be really long. So you know what we should do? You know what we should do?
Sequoia: You know what we should do?
Kim: Stay out until…
Sequoia: Stay out really late.
Kim: …late.
Sequoia: And scream karaoke for an hour and a half. [laughs]
Kim: Yes we did. Yes we did. And listeners, I… I do want you to know that Sequoia and I did sing a duet.
Sequoia: We did.
Kim: And I want… I want you guys to guess what we sang.
Sequoia: [laughs] Yeah.
Kim: And tweet that at us.
Sequoia: Tweet at us. What did we sing? What was our duet?
Kim: What did Sequoia and I decide to sing together at karaoke?
Sequoia: I don’t know that I would call that “decide” on my part. [both laugh]
Kim: Whatever.
Sequoia: What was I forced into singing? [both laugh] At the thing. Anyway, so here we are.
Kim: Tweet those at us.
Sequoia: Tweet that at us.
Kim: We’ll talk about those at some point in the near future, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about.
Sequoia: That’s not what we’re here for.
Kim: We’re not here to talk about how great we are at karaoke.
Sequoia: No, we’re not. [laughs]
Kim: Or how tired we are.
Sequoia: No.
Kim: Or any of that.
Sequoia: See… yeah, we’re here to talk about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The script, not the stage version.
Kim: No, we…
Sequoia: We are here to talk about the script.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: We read the script.
Kim: We have read the script.
Sequoia: [sighs] We have read the script.
Kim: Several times.
Sequoia: Way more fuckin’ times than I wanted to. And here we are. We’re talking about the script.
Kim: Yep. I think we should probably say this pretty much up front. This is our second try at this episode. Long time listeners of the podcast know that we’ve tried before.
Sequoia: We have, and we… like, here’s the thing, guys. If you love Cursed Child, just skip this.
Kim: Do not listen to this.
Sequoia: Just skip it, and that’s fine.
Kim: You got the relevant information from this episode. Sequoia and I sang karaoke together.
Sequoia: [laughs] That’s all you need to know. There you go.
Kim: Tweet…
Sequoia: If you love Cursed Child…
Kim: …a guess at us.
Sequoia: …it’s fine for you to not listen to this episode.
Kim: It’s probably for the best.
Sequoia: Yeah. Yeah.
Kim: This is going… [laughs] this is going to be a long rant.
Sequoia: When this first came out, we actually had… we… we both read it.
Kim: When the… when the script came out.
Sequoia: When the script dropped.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: We both read it.
Kim: When the script dropped in 2016.
Sequoia: Mhm. And we… you came over to my house.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And we sat there and screamed…
Kim: About it.
Sequoia: …about it for three hours. And the only…
Kim: To a couple of friends of ours who…
Both: …had not read it.
Kim: And aren’t really very big Harry Potter fans.
Sequoia: But we just…
Kim: They were just there, and we were yelling, and it was…
Both: …three hours.
Sequoia: And then the only reason we stopped yelling was because we were hungry. [Kim laughs] And we needed food. [both laugh] We were like, I guess we have to stop screaming now because we should eat something. [both laugh]
Kim: And for some reason, when we started the… when we launched the podcast, we were like huhuh remember when we yelled for three hours ‘cause we were so mad? What if we recorded that?
Sequoia: [laughs] Yeah. In retrospect, whoo. [laughs]
Kim: Not a good idea.
Sequoia: Yeah. So we made it a Patreon goal.
Kim: We did.
Sequoia: And we reached that goal.
Kim: Almost immediately.
Sequoia: Alm… yeah, a long time ago.
Kim: We thought it was a long way out. We hit it. And we’ve been trying and retrying to structure this episode ever since.
Sequoia: Yeah. We don’t like Cursed Child.
Kim: It makes us mad to think about.
Sequoia: So it has been hard for us to do this, but we think that we’ve s… we’ve done it. We think that we have found…
Kim: This is way more…
Sequoia: …the way to do it.
Kim: We’ve structured it a lot more this time than last time.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Last time… how long did we record for?
Sequoia: Two and a half hours.
Kim: We recorded for two and a half hours. We did not finish act one of the play.
Sequoia: We did not.
Kim: ‘Cause we were going… we were gonna go through it sequentially, and kind of summarise and talk about things as it came up. And that did not work.
Sequoia: That did not work.
Kim: Whooo.
Sequoia: Whoo buddy.
Kim: Wowie zowie did that not work.
Sequoia: Wowie zowie. [laughs]
Kim: That was nowhere close to working.
Sequoia: That was… [laughs]
Kim: We were so…
Sequoia: That was not good.
Kim: We were so sad after those two hours. We just felt so bad. I remember I felt…
Sequoia: I felt so sad.
Kim: …really bad.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: And it took us months to even be able to even, like, look at this again.
Sequoia: Yeah. So we think we’ve…
Kim: And we’ve been talking… we’ve been talking for at least a year about how the heck we’re gonna structure this thing.
Sequoia: Yeah, there’s been many iterations…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …as to what this could possibly be, but now that we are relaunching our Patreon…
Kim: We sat down and took a hard pass at it, and I think… I think we’re there.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: We’ll see.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Hopefully this is something listenable.
Sequoia: Yeah. [laughs]
Kim: At the end.
Sequoia: We are going to talk a little bit about the lead up to the play.
Kim: Yeah, let’s start…
Sequoia: And stuff like that.
Kim: Let’s start with what was happening. Let’s… let’s travel back in time to 2016. Actually, let’s go back a little farther…
Sequoia: Ooh yeah.
Kim: …than 2016.
Sequoia: Let’s go back even further. [whispering] Back in time.
Kim: So we found out this play was in development back in 2013.
Sequoia: Yeah, that was a long time ago.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: J. K. Rowling said somewhere that a play was being developed and it was going to explore the previously untold story of Harry’s early years as an orphan and outcast. That was the like… the news we got back in 2013. And I remember reading that and being like whaaat?
Sequoia: Yeah, like, ummm?
Kim: What part of Harry’s early life is unknown?
Sequoia: Who…?
Kim: We know everything about that and why would we wanna see that?
Sequoia: Who asked for that? [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Did anyone…
Kim: So that was…
Sequoia: …ask for that? No.
Kim: That was super weird news.
Sequoia: Yeah, and that is fucking not what this is.
Kim: No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, we didn’t find out it wasn’t gonna be a prequel until 2015. We got that…
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: …in 2013 and everyone was like, what?
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: And then in… in 2015 they were like, never mind, this is not a prequel. This is set after. And…
Sequoia: Which is so weird, because then it makes you think, like, what… like, what was the process of writing this?
Kim: Yeah!
Sequoia: Like, what was the… like, it wasn’t as though, like, whatisbucket and whatsisbucket came to J. K. Rowling and were like, wow, we have this story, doodoodoodoodoo. It’s…
Kim: It seems like they were like, hey, you know what would make a lot of money?
Sequoia: A play.
Kim: Let’s make a play!
Sequoia: About Harry Potter, that’s two fucking nights. [laughs]
Kim: [groans] Goddamn.
Sequoia: Yeah. So it’s… that is such a weird like…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …transition from, oh, it’s about Harry as a child, to, oh, never mind, it’s totally a different period of time.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: I don’t know what happened with that. It’s…
Sequoia: It’s kinda crazy. Kinda crazy.
Kim: It’s definitely weird. We found out the play’s official summary in 2015, and I remember being tentatively excited at that point.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: ‘Cause we found out that it was gonna be about Harry struggling with fatherhood and being an adult, and then the fact that it’s a play.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: And that summary implied to me that it was gonna be kind of a small scale portrait of the family trying to struggle through what it means to live in a world post-Voldemort, and also be Harry Potter.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: Right?
Sequoia: And… and be, yeah, Harry Potter’s family and stuff.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And that’s something that you can very much do with a play.
Kim: Yeah
Sequoia: Like, from a movie people are gonna expect action and…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …you know, whatever. And it would have made a good book as well.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: But like if you’re doing something that’s in that, like, visual art sort of a arena…
Kim: Yeah, I… [sighs]
Sequoia: A play is good for like kinda small scale family drama.
Kim: That’s what I thought we were gonna get.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: I was excited. I was like, maybe there’ll be kind of like some sort of new threat. Maybe it’s like a resurgence of evil that Harry has to deal with, from a new location. Or maybe it’s someone who’s inspired by Voldemort or something, even.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: I thought that could be really interesting. I mean, we’ve talked about it before. We like the epilogue.
Sequoia: Yes, we do, and we… [laughs]
Kim: That’s a bit of a controversial postion.
Sequoia: It is.
Kim: I’ve realised.
Sequoia: It… yeah. But we do.
Kim: But…
Sequoia: I like the epilogue.
Kim: I love the epilogue. I think it wraps it up really nicely. But I was also kind of excited to maybe see some more stuff.
Sequoia: Yeah, it was interesting to me that we were diving back into Harry, because that story seemed done.
Kim: Finished. It seemed very done.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Yeah, so that’s… that’s why I wasn’t all in. Like, I didn’t pick up Cursed Child when it came out. I waited a couple weeks, and I was like, oh, right, that came out. I guess I’ll read that.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: That was… there was no point where I was really excited for it.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: It never captured that for me.
Sequoia: Yeah, ‘cause the… because Harry’s story felt…
Kim: Done.
Sequoia: …done.
Kim: Yep.
Sequoia: For sure.
Kim: Yeah, and so we picked this up. We read it. And we were like okay, no, actually, what the fuck? [both laugh]
Sequoia: Yeah, so with that, let’s… let’s dive into it.
Kim: So.
Sequoia: We’re gonna…
Kim: What we’re gonna try and do is just hit our biggest complaints.
Sequoia: Yeah, so we’re… we’re not going through it scene by scene, or trying to like…
Kim: If you’re…
Sequoia: …grab everything.
Kim: I guess we probably should have said this closer to the top. If you’re not familiar with the story of Cursed Child, we’re not gonna be…
Sequoia: We’re not gonna tell you about it.
Kim: Yeah. This might be confusing.
Sequoia: Yeah, and, you know, I… if you have read Cursed Child and you were like, what is happening, then maybe this will entertain you. [laughs]
Kim: [sighs] Yeah.
Sequoia: So we’re gonna start out talking about the first two scenes, which are very interesting because they take place… [laughs]
Kim: They are…
Sequoia: They ARE the epilogue.
Kim: …the epilogue!
Sequoia: And like we just discussed, we like the epilogue.
Kim: The epilogue’s fun. I think it gave us a nice window into Harry’s life and kinda how things are going. I don’t know. I… I… [sighs] I was in the… I was very firmly in the… before the seventh book came out, in the Harry is going to die camp. [Sequoia laughs] I was ready…
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: …for Harry to die. I kind of was looking forward to it, because something’s wrong with me. [both laugh] But then when we get to the epilogue and he’s living a nice life, I realised, oh, all I ever wanted was for Harry to be happy.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: I love Harry. We’ve gone on this long journey with him.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: All I want is for him to happy, and he is!
Sequoia: Yeah, he is, and…
Kim: All is well.
Sequoia: All is well. All was well.
Kim: And then we open Cursed Child with…
Sequoia: With… with the epilogue, but…
Both: …not the epilogue.
Sequoia: And that’s the thing. I think… I think that like, as a jumping off point for, like, talking about this and it what it means for the rest of the Harry Potter fandom and stuff…
Kim: Mhm.
Sequoia: …we do not consider this canon.
Kim: Because… [sighs]
Sequoia: Because it like…
Kim: It isn’t canon.
Sequoia: It… it… it isn’t.
Kim: It isn’t canon.
Sequoia: It cannot be canon.
Both: Because…
Sequoia: …it contradicts canon in the first two scenes.
Kim: It does. Yup. I mean, okay, so, to be fair, there is a lot in the epilogue that isn’t relevant to the play that I understand cutting.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: We don’t need…
Sequoia: It’s… the cuts don’t bother me.
Kim: …Teddy. Teddy’s not in the play for whatever reason. He should be in the…
Sequoia: He… he should totally be in the play.
Kim: Why isn’t Teddy in the play?
Sequoia: That doesn’t…
Kim: Where’s Teddy?
Sequoia: That does not check out.
Kim: But he’s not in the play, so fine, you cut him. You cut Percy. That’s fine.
Sequoia: Always cut Percy. [both laugh]
Kim: That’s all fine. What’s not fine is revealing the changes you’ve made to the characters by changing the epilogue.
Sequoia: Yeah. It’s very weird to take things that were said in the epilogue by one character and give them to a different character.
Kim: Ginny, specifically.
Sequoia: Ginny specifically.
Kim: They have taken lines from Ginny [sighs]
Sequoia: And given them to other people. And also like changed her lines in such a way…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And we’ll talk about Ginny a little bit later…
Kim: That… yeah.
Sequoia: …in the episode, but…
Kim: We’re gonna go… but I think we should talk about like… so one of the big changes, I think, is, like, what Harry says to Al in response to him being concerned about ending up in Slytherin.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: In the book he says, the bravest man I’ve ever known was in Slytherin, and also your mother and I will be fine with it if you’re in Slytherin.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: That half of the sentence is gone.
Sequoia: Yeah. They’re sort of manipulating the original text to set up for… for something that they’ve…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: It’s almost like they wrote it, and then they were like, meh, I don’t know if this checks out. [both laugh]
Kim: Yep.
Sequoia: And went back and were like, but what if we rewrote the epilogue to…
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: To make our characters sound like they don’t care about each other or their children or whatever.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: You know?
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Harry’s no longer giving Al any of the fatherly advice about Hogwarts. That’s gone. [laughs]
Sequoia: Yeah. That’s a… that’s definitely an unnecessary cut.
Kim: James is bullying Al instead of Al and James bickering.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: And Ginny doesn’t chastise James for it any more.
Sequoia: Yeah, there’s a lot…
Kim: You get kind of a half hearted, don’t do that James.
Sequoia: Whatever.
Kim: From Harry.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: But that’s about it.
Sequoia: Yeah. So the changes definitely… they… they… two things. They make it not canon.
Kim: Yep.
Sequoia: Just, like, pretty decidedly. There you have it. And two, they set up the character decisions…
Kim: Uh huh.
Sequoia: …for the rest of the play.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: That… that make us mad.
Kim: Yeah. Here’s another one. Ginny, instead of in the epilogue where she’s like, the kids are gonna be okay, she says, Harry, are our kids gonna be okay?
Sequoia: [laughs] Like, Harry, tell me…
Kim: That is opposite of your line from the epilogue!
Sequoia: Yeah. It’s very… the changes are nutso and strange.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And the only reason that they sh… they… the only reason to make those changes is to set up…
Kim: Is to…
Sequoia: …what you’re…
Kim: Is to… is to…
Sequoia: …getting in the rest of the play.
Kim: Yeah, to get, espec… especially Ron.
Sequoia: [laughs] We will get…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …to that.
Kim: But, like, in the epilogue you get some nice friendship between Ron and Harry. They’re having like some, like, dad talk. They’re hanging out.
Sequoia: Oh, just a couple of little dads!
Kim: Just some dads having some dad times. [Sequoia laughs] Gone.
Sequoia: Aww. Just a couple dads.
Kim: Gone, gone, gone. Yeah, so the epilogue. What happened? I don’t know. Whatever. Here we are. Fuck this.
Sequoia: So that’s our… that’s our take… that’s our take on the first two scenes.
Kim: Fuck this. [both laugh]
Sequoia: So we’re gonna go… be going through bullet… bullet points, basically, of what are our biggest gripes. And we’re just gonna break those up a little bit.
Kim: Am I… am I stopping talking about the epilogue now? Okay.
Sequoia: Oh yeah. Yup. You’re done.
Kim: All right.
Sequoia: [laughs] I am the arbiter of when we are done talking about a specific subject. And then we’re gonna break up those subjects with just some little thoughts.
Kim: All right, give me a little thought.
Sequoia: Little thought. Here’s a little thought. Who is Rose Weasley? [Kim laughs] What the fuck? [both laugh] Rose Granger-Weasley is an asshole. [laughs]
Kim: Ohhh yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Sequoia: What an asshole.
Kim: She is awful.
Sequoia: [laughs] Our Rose Weasley hot take… is it a hot take? I don’t know.
Kim: Who knows?
Sequoia: Our Rose Weasley medium take is that they tried to take Ron and Hermione and merge them and make them into one character, and then they just made Draco.
Kim: Somehow. [Sequoia laughs] How do you… how do you add Ron plus Hermione and get…
Both: …Draco?
Sequoia: I don’t know.
Kim: She’s mean.
Sequoia: She’s…
Kim: She’s entitled. She’s privileged. And she makes up stupid nicknames for peo… stupid mean nicknames for people.
Sequoia: [laughs] Bread Head. [both laugh] What is that? That’s not anything.
Kim: That’s… that’s nothing, Rose, what are you doing?
Sequoia: Rose, what the fuck? [laughs]
Kim: Oh man. How does… how does a kid that grew up in the Weasley family end up like that?
Sequoia: Yeah! You at least gotta get some like medium good jibes out of being Ron Weasley’s kid.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Come on. Come on.
Kim: Shit. If anyone…
Sequoia: What an asshole.
Kim: …seems to have been destined for Slytherin it’s Rose Granger-Weasley.
Sequoia: It’s Rose Granger-Weasley. But, you know, that’s a whole other thing. Everyone’s in the wrong house. [both laugh] All right, and that is our medium take on fucking Rose Granger-Weasley. Next we’re gonna get into…
Kim: Some plot shit.
Sequoia: …some… some plot stuff.
Kim: Some plot… some plot what the fucks.
Sequoia: Yeah. So in this play we have a rumor that is introduced to us really quick.
Kim: By Rose.
Sequoia: Just… by Rose, yeah. Segue. Good segue. Good segue.
Kim: We did it.
Sequoia: We did it. [laughs] Rose introduces this rumor about Scorpius being… [both laugh]
Kim: This fucking rumor.
Sequoia: It’s nuts!
Kim: This fucking… okay. [Sequoia laughs] Why does anyone believe this rumor? [Sequoia laughs] It’s fucking nuts.
Sequoia: And it’s not even like it’s funny, like grown ups can have their own little gossip, whatever.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: But this seems like just, like, an overarching…
Kim: General…
Sequoia: Everyone…
Kim: Every wizard…
Sequoia: …knows.
Kim: …knows this rumor and…
Both: …believes it.
Sequoia: For the most part. Because it is be… this… this rumor is being destributed by the Daily Prophet. [laughs]
Kim: [sighs] Fucking bizarre.
Sequoia: What?
Kim: Bizarre.
Sequoia: It’s very strange.
Kim: So, okay, actually why does anyone believe this? A). Look at the stupid kid! [Sequoia laughs] Just look at it!
Sequoia: Just look at him.
Kim: It looks like Draco Malfoy a hundred percent!
Sequoia: It… yeah, it’s a tiny Draco Malfoy.
Kim: It’s a tiny Draco Malfoy. And if you genuinely, as a wizarding community, have looked at Draco Malfoy and, like, yeah, that dude is fucking sterile. [Sequoia laughs] Look at him. Then I…
Sequoia: That’s not anything! [laughs]
Kim: I don’t understand why you’re like, Lucius Malfoy was dead set on continuing the Malfoy line, so to continue the Malfoy line he sent Astoria back in time to have sex with Voldemort? To have a kid who is not a Malfoy. That kid would not be a Malfoy, right?
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: Why wouldn’t this kid just be Lucius’s kid?
Sequoia: Yeah, there’s… there’s that.
Kim: Why?
Sequoia: And also…
Kim: Why? Why is Lucius not the grandfather father?
Sequoia: [groans] And the thing about it is… is like, if you’re really that committed to, like, having this child exist, so much so that you’re going to send someone back in time, like…
Kim: There are easier ways!
Sequoia: …there are other ways!
Kim: There are easier ways.
Sequoia: There are plenty of other ways.
Kim: There are easier ways to do this than to have it be Voldemort’s kid, which makes no fucking sense.
Sequoia: Exactly.
Kim: And isn’t how time travel works! [Sequoia laughs] Up to this point to every wizard’s knowledge. Wizards… they have time travel.
Sequoia: They do.
Kim: It works a certain way.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: So far as they know. The Ministry time turners worked a certain way.
Sequoia: Right. So how… how are they thinking…
Kim: That this fucking happened?
Sequoia: …that this is how that worked? Yeah. [Kim laughs] I would more… I would more likely believe that they like had to get some kind of a sperm donor and are just dying Scorpius’s hair blond. [laughs]
Kim: But he’s… looks…
Sequoia: This… [laughs]
Kim: …like Draco!
Sequoia: It is nuts.
Kim: Crazy.
Sequoia: What is the purpose of this rumor? Like, what…? Who…? Okay, someone had to have started the rumor. [Kim laughs] Right? There was a person, once.
Kim: Well, I think… I think what the play wants us to believe is that there have been rumblings about Voldemort having a child because of Delphi. Because she exists. People know…
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: …there is a… there are people that know Voldemort had a child. And so people have heard that, and for some reason assumed it was Draco’s kid.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: For no apparent reason.
Sequoia: Right. But you could also just say that this kid, like… like, was given to Draco and Astoria to raise, or what… like, it is unnecessary for the rumor to be that she had to be sent back in time.
Kim: Well, the time doesn’t work out otherwise, because Voldemort’s been dead for twenty years at this point.
Sequoia: Right, so it’s a older kid. Like, why? Why?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Why? [laughs]
Kim: Why do they think this… this…
Sequoia: Why do they…
Kim: …eleven year old…
Sequoia: Yeah, why do they have to make the rumor so convoluted? [laughs]
Kim: Because if we don’t have a weird convoluted rumor nobody hates Scorpius because he’s a little ray of sunshine.
Sequoia: He’s so good. Look at the good boy.
Kim: So in order to cause Scorpius to be an outcast, so that Albus can have a friend…
Sequoia: They have… there’s a rumor.
Kim: There’s a rumor about him.
Sequoia: There… there it is.
Kim: So stupid. [Sequoia laughs] It’s like… the other thing about the rumor that drives me nuts is Draco begs Harry for help dealing with it.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: He’s like, all that needs to happen is someone from the Ministry says that there’s no… reminds wizarding… all the wizards that there’s no fucking way this could have happened!
Sequoia: [laughs] Yeah.
Kim: And while I do believe that Harry would be like, eat shit, Malfoy, [Sequoia laughs] I don’t believe Harry when he’s like, you know, the best way to deal with rumors and fake news, Malfoy, is to just not talk about it.
Sequoia: Yeah. This… this is as the person who did the interview with Rita Skeeter that went into The Quibbler.
Kim: Harry knows better.
Sequoia: Yeah. He knows better. He knows better. But we’ll get to that. And that is the end of our segment on the rumor.
Kim: Sure.
Sequoia: Hey, do you wanna talk about the trolley witch? [laughs]
Kim: [groans] What the fuck is up with this shit? Man?
Sequoia: The trolley witch is several things.
Kim: Sure.
Sequoia: And none of them are…
Kim: Useful.
Sequoia: …useful.
Kim: Or helpful.
Sequoia: Like, she just like… okay, what… what is… what is her function?
Kim: To serve snacks.
Sequoia: She serves snacks, except when a child tries to escape, and then she tries to blow up the children.
Kim: Or spike them. [both laugh]
Sequoia: There is a stage direction [laughs] about the trolley witch that says, “Her spikes were particularly spiky.” [laughs]
Kim: Jesus Christ. Yep. So…
Sequoia: She got some spikes.
Kim: She tries to stab or blow up these children in order to prevent them from getting off the train. Which clearly, obviously, does not prevent them from getting off the train.
Sequoia: Yeah, they got off the train anyway.
Kim: And then once they’re off the train, she does not inform anyone about them leaving the train immediately.
Sequoia: No.
Kim: They don’t find out they’re missing until they get to Hogwarts, and then she can’t seem to communicate where the boys got off the train.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: ‘Cause they’re…
Sequoia: ‘Cause she’s so… she’s distraught.
Kim: They mention they’re searching all the way up and down the tracks, so this… this person, who is there to make sure children make it to Hogwarts, does not actually do that. [Sequoia laughs] Does not inform anyone when she has failed, and does not have any information that is relevant to finding the children.
Sequoia: Here’s the thing, though. She’s very spiky. [both laugh]
Kim: You know how you keep kids from leaving the train? You make the windows smaller.
Sequoia: There you go. We solved it.
Kim: Too small windows.
Sequoia: You’re welcome, Hogwarts.
Kim: Or! Use magiiiic!
Sequoia: [laughs] Let’s talk a little bit about the… and when I say a little bit, I mean, here we go. We’re talking about time travel now. Here we go.
Kim: Let me… let me get my diagram out. [both laugh] Okay.
Sequoia: Oh my god. There’s three.
Kim: I’ve drawn a few diagrams, because I don’t understand what’s happening.
Sequoia: Oh, there’s a whole new diagram from the last time…
Kim: Fuck. Don’t!
Sequoia: …I saw the diagrams.
Kim: Don’t look at my notes! [Sequoia laughs] Don’t look at my notes!
Sequoia: Why are they…? [laughs] Okay.
Kim: What is…?
Sequoia: What is time travel?
Kim: [laughing] What is time travel?
Sequoia: Which is, like, a hilarious… that’s a hilarious fanfic bit. What is time travel?
Kim: What is time travel?
Sequoia: What is time travel? Here’s the thing. We were given rules.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: J. K. Rowling wrote a book.
Kim: With time travel.
Sequoia: With a bunch of time travel in it, that gave us the blueprint…
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: …for how time travel works.
Kim: In Harry Potter.
Sequoia: In Harry Potter.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: That is not how this time travel works.
Kim: Yes. [both laugh]
Sequoia: What… so…
Kim: You know what else J. K. Rowling did? Goddamnit. [Sequoia laughs] I can’t… I can’t do this bit without mentioning… if anybody else remembers this, there was an article on Pottermore near the beginning of its existence that J. K. Rowling wrote about time travel, and in that article… do you remember that?
Sequoia: No.
Kim: She was like… I think she was like, I treated time travel a little too lightheartedly in the books. It opens up a lot of plot holes, a lot of questions about going back in time and killing baby Voldemort.
Sequoia: Right, yeah.
Kim: And blah, blah, blah, I treated it a little frivolously and that’s why I closed that plot hole by destroying…
Sequoia: Destroying.
Kim: …all the time turners…
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: …in book five.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: So she was… she was trying to fix that, because she realised that time travel is, while it was really fun in Prisoner of Azkaban, time travel introduces a lot of problems into books. Or any narrative.
Sequoia: Right. So the… the logical thing to do next after announcing that wow, time travel, nutso, that’s gonna open up a lot of problems, is to endorse a play that’s all about time travel! Here we go! [laughs]
Kim: That article is not on Pottermore any more.
Sequoia: Of course it’s not.
Kim: It’s gone.
Sequoia: Of course it’s not. [laughs]
Kim: Jeez. So stupid.
Sequoia: The real question here is, so we know that time travel… we know how time travel works in Harry Potter. We know…
Kim: You go back in time, and you live in the same timeline twice, and the things that you do have already happened to you.
Sequoia: Yes. You’re… you are in a closed loop. It is all…
Kim: Yep.
Sequoia: The things that you are about to do after you travel back in time have already happened.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: Boom. There you go. That’s how it works. This time travel does not work that way. And… how does this time travel work? [laughs]
Kim: Okay. Okay.
Sequoia: What are the rules?
Kim: Let’s try to walk through this diagram that I have drawn.
Sequoia: Okay. Great.
Kim: [pause] Verbally. [both laugh]
Sequoia: You guys, I am looking at this diagram and there is no fucking way. Check Instagram. [laughs]
Kim: So you… you start in timeline A, and you go back to the first task, and you reverse it.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: Or you… you change it.
Sequoia: Right. And this time turner is snapping you back…
Kim: And you go…
Sequoia: …to where you… the… the place…
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: …and the time that you left.
Kim: So they show back up where they travelled back to the first task, but they’re in an alternate time. Things have changed.
Sequoia: They’ve changed.
Kim: They’ve changed things. Things are different. And then they live in this new… I’m gonna call it a new timeline.
Sequoia: Okay. I am not gonna call it a new timeline.
Kim: Okay. They live in this new time, this alternate reality, for…
Sequoia: A while.
Kim: …what seems to be at least several days, but maybe as long as the entire… almost the entirety of the year, I would say.
Sequoia: Yes. Also due to things that happen in the third timeline.
Kim: Yeah. So they they live in this timeline for a while. And then they go back to change the second task, and then Scorpius snaps back to where he left without Albus, because he’s now in the darkest timeline.
Sequoia: [dramatically] The darkest timeline.
Kim: [very dramatically] The darkest timeline. And Scorpius lives in the darkest timeline for a day or two.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: It seems from the text.
Sequoia: Very quick. That’s a very quick turn around.
Kim: Not long, but a while.
Sequoia: But when he arrives it’s…
Kim: He… he arrives where he… where and when he left.
Sequoia: He left.
Kim: To reverse…
Sequoia: Exactly.
Kim: …the second task.
Sequoia: He gives… it’s… he’s in the lake. [laughs]
Kim: Yeah, and so… so he lives there a day or two, and then they go back and they reverse their changes to the first task, and then somehow return to the… what seems to be the exact same darkest timeline. Which…
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim:: …is bizarre to me. And then… so then, the few minutes go by, and they go back and they reverse the changes to the second task, and Scorpius snaps back to the original timeline. The original reality. [Sequoia laughs] But he is snapped back to the instant where he and Albus snapped back from from reversing… from their changes to the second task.
Sequoia: No, that checks out.
Kim: No.
Sequoia: Okay, no.
Kim: They snap back to… no, no. So he comes back from the darkest timeline, and he’s in the lake with Albus, and a few days have bumped back. We’ve rolled back a few days.
Sequoia: Yes, the time…
Kim: That he spent in the darkest timeline.
Sequoia: The amount of time… yeah, it’s like that didn’t happen at all.
Kim: He’s in a different location and he’s on a different date than where he left from.
Sequoia: He didn’t go into the lake to reverse the second…
Kim: Oh, yeah, okay.
Sequoia: He’s… he’s in the same location, but he’s in… time… [both laugh] if you… okay, the way this time travel works is, if you leave September first and go back to the…
Kim: Wherever.
Sequoia: Or September second, and go back to the first task, you snap back to September second.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: And then you leave in December and go back and do the second task, and you snap back to December.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: And then the th… after you’ve reversed all the changes, you’re leaving on… in March and you come back in February. You snap back to February. Like, wha…
Kim: I don’t…
Sequoia: How did that even happen?
Kim: Yeah, it’s not… the time travel is not internally consistent in Cursed Child.
Sequoia: No. There’s no… we… we’ve talked about this at length. [Kim laughs] And drawn several diagrams, and nothing actually makes… there’s like rules and you can kind of see how the rules are working, because we’ve totally thrown out that it’s the same.
Kim: It’s not.
Sequoia: As… as…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: As Harry Potter.
Kim: It’s not.
Sequoia: It’s different.
Kim: It’s a different time turner that works differently!
Sequoia: Don’t. I don’t wanna hear that. [laughs]
Kim: It’s a different time turner! Things aren’t the way they used to be when we were kids. Hermione! Time works differently now! [Sequoia laughs] Thanks, Harry. Thanks, Harry.
Sequoia: So it doe… we’ve thrown out the original rules, and now we’re trying to establish how new rules work.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: And you get like halfway through time travelling, and you’re like, maybe I get how they’re setting this up.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: And then they break it.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: Absolutely without a doubt.
Kim: Yessss. [both laugh]
Sequoia: And they… it… it is very strange that after they reverse the first task, that they snap back…
Both: …to the darkest timeline.
Sequoia: Because reversing what they did at the first task should have reversed everything they did after that.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: So that should have been enough. You shouldn’t… they shouldn’t have had to go…
Kim: Right, but if we hadn’t done that, then we couldn’t have gotten [mumbles] Snape’s redemption.
Sequoia: Oh my god, please don’t. Please don’t.
Kim: [laughs] We couldn’t have gotten…
Sequoia: It’s hurting. It’s hurting me. [laughs]
Kim: You know, sometimes I mumble on this podcast, and I’m not gonna mumble. [very clearly] We wouldn’t have gotten Snape’s fucking redemption! [Sequoia screams] Sorry. I’m sorry about the mumbling.
Sequoia: [laughs] Whoooo. Okay.
Kim: Okay. And then… okay, so that’s… that’s all of that portion of the time travel. And then we get more time travel.
Sequoia: [laugh] I lo… okay, my… I think one of the funniest parts of this entire play is that you’re like, oh shit, the kids are stuck back in time, how do we fix this problem! There’s another time turner! It’s better! Like, what? Like wha… write a plot! [laughs]
Kim: Yeah, right. This is not Chekov’s time turner.
Sequoia: Write a plot! Chekov’s fucking time turner. Why are there… why… all of a sudden I’m like, all right, so time turners are just a dime a dozen now. We just got those. Everybody’s got one Harry, didn’t you know? [laughs]
Kim: Didn’t you know we can all travel in time now, and just change…
Both: …whatever we want?
Kim: Oh my god. Okay. We’ve talked about this at length. I actually don’t understand how the shit trio goes back to 1981, and then the original timeline in two thousand and… oh, what year is it? Nineteen… 2023. Is that what year the play takes in?
Sequoia: Oh Jesus, I don’t know. I don’t give a shit. [laughs]
Kim: Whatever. In present day whenever. How is life continuing in the present day for like, it seems like a day or so, and the boys are gone. But… but… [laughs]
Sequoia: And here’s…
Kim: But they’re in the past.
Sequoia: [sighs] And… I know.
Kim: And nothing changes in the present, and…
Sequoia: Right. Because they haven’t touched anything…
Kim: [groans] No, but they’re in the past!
Sequoia: Yeah, and they haven’t touched anything yet.
Kim: But they… but they… [laughs] I don’t understand!
Sequoia: I know that you don’t understand.
Kim: Because it seems like…
Sequoia: Okay, so…
Kim: …the changes that they make in the past have already happened in the play, because when Albus throws the blanket and it hits the love potion, it puffs a smoke, which implies to me that he had already… that the blanket had been treated, at that point, with the message.
Sequoia: Right. And we’ve… we have in our conversations theorised that the whole play is a closed loop.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: But that also doesn’t work.
Kim: Remind me why that is?
Sequoia: Oh fuck. [laughs] We’ve said this shit so many times. It doesn’t work because…
Kim: Because when they go back and reverse the second… reverse their changes to the second and first tasks, they have… they didn’t see themselves there. The fir… they succeeded in making those changes the first times they were there. Right?
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: So if it was a closed… if this time travel was a closed loop, then they wouldn’t have made those changes at all, because the time travel would have reset those. Right?
Sequoia: Woah, what was anything you just…? [both laugh] Whooo. Okay, do you wanna try that again? To say that aga…
Kim: Okay, okay, okay.
Sequoia: ‘Cause I don’t know what’s happening.
Kim: So if… if the time travel worked as a closed loop, when the boys went back to change, say, the first task, they would have met darkest timeline…
Sequoia: Oh!
Kim: …Scorpius there, reversing their change.
Sequoia: That… exactly. Exactly. No, we did this… we did this in the car the other day.
Both: Yes.
Kim: Because…
Sequoia: Because instead…
Kim: Because it’s not… it can’t just be a closed loop with extra steps. But why does the blanket already have the message in it if they haven’t put… if they haven’t put the… they haven’t gone back in time and put the message on it yet?
Sequoia: Also… [Kim squeaks] I don’t remember… [pause] okay, I think… I think that this…
Kim: No, wait. No, wait.
Sequoia: No, no, no, no.
Kim: No, I have more questions.
Sequoia: No, no, no, no, no. No.
Kim: Why? Why?
Sequoia: [screaming] Noooooo!
Kim: [getting progressively louder and higher pitched] Why have the events from the second timeline happened in the first timeline when they come back to it?!
Sequoia: Harry’s like…
Kim: Why does Harry have…
Sequoia: Harry’s like…
Kim: …the memories from the…
Both: …second timeline!?
Sequoia: They go back. They reset everything. The first timeline Harry’s like, man I’m sorry that I made McGonagall go after you and Scorpius in the second timeline.
Kim: You did that in the other timeline!
Sequoia: And I’m like, why? That shouldn’t have happened!
Kim: They were… [splutters] whaaat?
Sequoia: No. The time travel does not make sense.
Kim: Why do the timelines merge? Why’d they merrrrrge?
Sequoia: Oh man. Okay, if anyone would like to explain the time travel to us, don’t.
Kim: Somebody. [Sequoia laughs] Oh, you know what we forgot to say? Don’t…
Both: …@ us.
Kim: About any of this.
Sequoia: We have thought so long and hard and… and…
Kim: I’m so… this is it.
Sequoia: This is it. And then we’re…
Kim: This is the end of the conversation.
Sequoia: …never talking about Cursed Child again. [laughs] This is a good segue, though, into the baby blanket.
Kim: [sighs] [whispering] Oh fuck.
Sequoia: Beca… we have to talk about the baby blanket. You guys. You guys. You guys. You guys. You guys. You guys! [both laugh] You guys. [Kim laughs] Here’s the fucking thing. HOW DID THEY GET THE BABY BLANKET? [Kim laughs] How did they get to it? Kill me! [laughs]
Kim: [croakily] Heeey Sequoia. [Sequoia laughs] How does the Fidelius charm work?
Sequoia: Oh my god. [laughs]
Kim: How doe… how does the Fidelius charm…
Both: …work?
Kim: What are James and Lily doing outside of their house? [Sequoia laughs] In October…
Sequoia: Just going on a walk.
Kim: …of 1981.
Sequoia: Just going on a walk.
Kim: What are they doing walking around outside?
Sequoia: They’re going on a walk.
Kim: How do Albus and Scorpius see them and their house? How do they get the baby blanket?
Sequoia: [laughs] I literally… the fir… I read this play… the first time I read the play, I read it all, I put it down, and I was like HOW DO THEY GET THE BABY BLANKET?
Kim: How do they get… how?
Sequoia: How?
Kim: How?
Sequoia: Do they get?
Kim: How does anyone see the house at any point? [both laugh]
Sequoia: Wooooo.
Kim: How? [pause] How do they get the baby blanket? [both laugh]
Sequoia: Okay, I think that’s… that’s good for that one. [both laugh] [pause] It’s time to enter…
Kim: So we’ve…
Sequoia: …the darkest timeline. [laughs]
Kim: We’ve travelled in time, however that happened.
Sequoia: We… yeah, something happened. There’s some time travel.
Kim: And now we’re in…
Both: [very dramatically] …the darkest timeline.
Sequoia: How did we get to the darkest timeline?
Kim: I honestly don’t understand. [laughs]
Sequoia: There’s not a good… they try to explain it away in like two lines. They’re like, oh yeah, so Cedric’s a… became…
Kim: Cedric became a…
Both: …Death Eater.
Kim: Because we… [pause] [both laugh] No, no, no, no, no, no, I need to stop here. Cedric Diggory. Cedric fuckin’ Diggory [Sequoia laughs] became a Death Eater. [pause] This whole play is about going back in time to save Cedric, and they want us to believe that Cedric Diggory would become a Death Eater because he has one bad day.
Sequoia: Yep. [pause] And that’s… here’s the thing.
Kim: That boggles…
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: …my mind.
Sequoia: It’s nuts. It’s nuts.
Kim: But also…
Sequoia: They want us to…
Kim: But also, his bad day is him getting visibly sabotaged in front of Hogwarts. [Sequoia laughs] Like, obviously sabotaged. And then Harry’s best friends’ names appear in the sky next to the sabotage, at a point in time when the school is against Harry.
Sequoia: Yeah, and no one’s like, hey, Harry sabotaged that guy. Fuck Harry! Cedric’s the best!
Kim: What?
Sequoia: Yeah, it doe… it… it doesn’t make any sense.
Kim: Doesn’t check out.
Sequoia: That doesn’t check out.
Kim: That does not check out.
Sequoia: Does not check out.
Kim: So then Cedric fucking becomes a Death Eater.
Sequoia: [laughs] And…
Kim: Cedric Diggory.
Sequoia: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Kim: The best boy!
Sequoia: Yes. Yes. Yes.
Kim: And kills Neville Longbottom and gets us to the darkest timeline, because Neville doesn’t kill Nagini, but… but…
Sequoia: Ron and Hermione know about Nagini.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: As does…
Both: …Harry.
Kim: There are three people who know Nagini has to die. Neville is not the only one that could have killed Nagini. At that point in the final battle, I feel like Voldemort’s defeat is an inevitability.
Sequoia: Yeah. Yeah. I would… I would agree.
Kim: Harry has already died and come back, giving his protection to everyone there.
Sequoia: To everyone there, yeah.
Kim: From Voldemort. It’s over.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: All that Cedric killing Neville changes is that Neville doesn’t get to be the one that kills Nagini.
Sequoia: Yeah, I…
Kim: Neville’s just added to the pile of bodies.
Sequoia: Voldemort is so… is so convinced that he won, that he has brought Nagini with him.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: Out into the open.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: And it isn’t as though… it isn’t as though that has to remain a secret, also. Like, at that point, you know, Ron and Hermione could be like, McGonagall.
Kim: Fuckin’ kill that snake.
Sequoia: Some… someone… yeah, like, there’s there’s no reason to believe that Neville was the only one who could have ever killed the snake.
Kim: Yes. Yeah, it’s… I don’t believe that we get to the dark timeline from that change.
Sequoia: I… yeah. I… I can see how it would be different, but I don’t… I don’t even necessarily think that it would be harder to kill the snake.
Kim: No.
Sequoia: I just think that that’s a…
Kim: It was just a cool moment for Neville.
Sequoia: It was a great moment for Neville, and it would suck to not have that.
Kim: It would.
Sequoia: But other than that…
Kim: But that doesn’t…
Sequoia: I don’t see how we get to the darkest timeline that way.
Kim: We don’t get to the darkest timeline there. [sighs] And speaking of things that wouldn’t have changed from Cedric being a Death Eater, Snape would still be dead.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Snape was…
Both: …already dead…
Kim: …at that point in the battle. Cedric, what, prevents Voldemort from killing Snape?
Sequoia: Yeah. that… that…
Kim: That does not…
Sequoia: It does not make any sense.
Kim: Check… does not check out. So we’ve gotten to the dark timeline through some nonsense.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: What’s up with the dark timeline? [Sequoia laughs] I feel like when I read through it, the dark timeline reads to me like if you were in a children’s cartoon and they went to a dark timeline. Like, it is…
Sequoia: Okay.
Kim: …full of such dark timeline cheese. So, what’s going on in the darkest timeline? We’re celebrating Voldemort Day.
Sequoia: [laughs] Voldemort Dayyy.
Kim: With a blood ball. [Sequoia laughs] Blood baaallllllll!
Sequoia: I swear to god I have read about a blood ball in a fanfiction before.
Kim: Right?
Sequoia: I have to have.
Kim: Riiiight?
Sequoia: It’s the [stutters] blood ball. Yeah.
Kim: They curse using Harry’s name.
Sequoia: Oh, Potter! [both laugh]
Kim: Draco inexplicably has Harry’s job. [Sequoia laughs] Oh, we’re in the dark timeline. The bad guy has the good guy’s job.
Sequoia: [laughs] Doesn’t check out. Draco’s never gonna have a job, you guys.
Kim: Draco is too good…
Both: …for jobs. [both laugh]
Kim: Oh man.
Sequoia: Those are good. I like the… the…
Kim: The stage direction.
Sequoia: The stage direction.
Kim: Where…
Sequoia: “Umbridge lifts up into the air, filled with dark magic, like a balloon.”
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sequoia: Of dark magic. [laughs]
Kim: We’re in the dark timeline, so Umbridge is the…
Both: …headmaster.
Kim: Except Umbridge fucking hates kids and loves killing half breeds!
Sequoia: She would be off…
Kim: Slaughtering half breeds.
Sequoia: …slaughtering half breeds. That’s…
Kim: She wouldn’t be the headmistress.
Sequoia: No.
Kim: But the stage direction I was thinking about was when it’s mentioned that Scorpius enters the stage, [Sequoia laughs] wearing…
Both: [dramatically] …darker, blacker rooobes! [both laugh]
Kim: The fuck does that mean?
Sequoia: They’re darker and blacker. [laughs]
Kim: Ahhhhhhhhhh sure.
Sequoia: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. [laughs] Whooo.
Kim: Oh man. And so we get all this cheese in the dark timeline, and what we don’t get is any examination of what the ramifications of Voldemort winning would actually have been for the Muggle and wizard worlds.
Sequoia: Right. So we do get a moment where Draco… Scorpius is talking to Draco in his office, and Draco is talking about some communication he has with the Muggle minister.
Kim: Yeah, some… Vol… some Death Eaters have blown up a couple bridges, and Draco’s like, dang, now I gotta do some covering up of this bad magic we did.
Sequoia: No. That’s not how that works.
Kim: That’s how it worked in book six and seven, when the Death Eaters were still underground and…
Sequoia: But as soon…
Kim: …hadn’t taken over.
Sequoia: Yeah, as soon as Voldemort wins we’re… we are wizards, we’re out, we’re in the world, killing Muggles and subjugating them.
Kim: Muggles…
Sequoia: And that is…
Kim: The plan was always to subjugate Muggles.
Sequoia: Muggles know. They know now.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: That wizards exist. That’s…
Kim: The… the… the plan was a statue in the middle of the Ministry of Magic!
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: The Muggles do not have their own system of government any more, do they?
Sequoia: No.
Kim: How? How would they? Voldemort’s not controlling them from the shadows. Why would he bother?
Sequoia: There’s…
Kim: He has magic!
Sequoia: [laughs] Hey, did you know that there’s magic in this story?
Kim: Goddamn! We wouldn’t have spent twenty years continuing to do small scale attacks…
Sequoia: Yeah, not twenty years.
Kim: …on Muggles.
Sequoia: Maybe a little. Maybe a little while, while trying…
Kim: Yeah, it takes a little while to get…
Sequoia: …to like… especially because it’s est… it seems to be established that the resistance is now three people.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: So, like, what are you trying to… are you still trying to battle against a resistance? Clearly not, because it’s three people and one of them is Ron, who can’t hold a wand, so what… [laughs] like, what are we… what are we afraid of, Voldemort?
Kim: Why do we need to…
Sequoia: Nothing. Nothing.
Kim: …cover things up for the Muggle world?
Sequoia: Nothing.
Kim: We don’t. It doesn’t make sense. Oh, man.
Sequoia: Whooo! [laughs] Speaking of Ron and Hermione and the… the three person resistance. Ron and Hermione… this is twenty years later.
Kim: Twenty years. Twe…
Sequoia: They’re…
Kim: Twenty… twenty three years have passed.
Sequoia: Twe…
Kim: Since Harry’s death.
Sequoia: Yes. They are alive.
Kim: And hanging out at Hogwarts.
Sequoia: And…
Kim: For twenty years.
Sequoia: …alive. [laughs]
Kim: Hanging out, not doing anything terribly effective.
Sequoia: No. What… tho… those two, man.
Kim: There’s…
Sequoia: They would go out swinging.
Kim: There is absol… I do not believe that Hermione or Ron survive more than…
Sequoia: Couple years.
Kim: …like three years, given a failed Battle of Hogwarts.
Sequoia: Yeah, ‘cause they’re gonna keep fighting.
Kim: They die.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Very quickly.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Not survive twenty years.
Sequoia: As the part of the three person resistance. [Kim sighs] Yeah.
Kim: You know who I do believe survives twenty years and just hangs out at Hogwarts watching all the atrocities happen there? Fucking [Sequoia laughs] Severus Snape.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: I do believe that.
Sequoia: I mean, we don’t believe that…
Kim: He survives.
Sequoia: …he survives.
Kim: No.
Sequoia: Like, the darkest timeline does not erase his death. That… that’s…
Kim: No, he’s dead.
Sequoia: …not real. But if he did…
Kim: But if he had survived the Battle of Hogwarts, yeah, of course he would just hang out.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: He would give up.
Sequoia: I mean, he’s part of the three person resistance.
Kim: Why is he not the headmaster?
Sequoia: Yeah, why is he not the headmaster? Wait, what? [both laugh] Wait, what? Anyway.
Kim: Huh.
Sequoia: Sooo the darkest timeline.
Kim: Why?
Sequoia: We’re done. We’re done.
Kim: Can I yell…
Sequoia: We’re… no.
Kim: …about Snape?
Sequoia: We are done.
Kim: Okay.
Sequoia: We’re done talking about the darkest timeline.
Kim: That’s fair.
Sequoia: I gotta shut it down.
Kim: That’s fair. I had more.
Sequoia: Whooo. To lift our spirits after wallowing in the darkest timeline, [Kim laughs] we’ve got… we gotta take… we gotta take a little moment here.
Kim: Hey, what’s up with how… how gay this play is?
Sequoia: [laughs] This play is super gay. But fucking Albus and Scorpius are in love, [Kim laughs] and the shoehorned-in Rose Granger-Weasley is hot…
Kim: It’s a bluff. It’s a bluff.
Sequoia: …’cause she’s mean to me is, no, no, no, no.
Kim: Nope.
Sequoia: No, no, no, no.
Kim: I… that doesn’t track.
Sequoia: You two are in love.
Kim: Let’s just read directly from our text, where we have both written down the word “gay” sprinkled [Sequoia laughs] around Albus and Scorpius’s relevant lines.
Sequoia: While Snape is telling Scorpius what he should be thinking about to conjure a Patronus, [Kim laughs] he says to Scorpius, “You’re giving up your kingdom for Albus, right?” [both laugh] [pause] When Scorpius returns to timeline A and Albus is alive yet again, [Kim still laughing] he’s so excited, and Albus says something, and Scorpius says, “All dry humor and Albus-y. I love it.”
Kim: [laughs] Oh, how about how about how their meeting is just a meet cute?
Sequoia: It is a meet cute!
Kim: “Albus. Al. I’m… my name is Albus.” “Hi, Scorpius. I mean, I’m Scorpius. You’re Albus. I’m Scorpius.” [Sequoia laughs] Too cute!
Sequoia: Meet cute! In a stage direction, Scorpius is watching Albus and Delphi talking to each other. [Kim laughs] “He looks at his friend talking to a girl. And part of him likes it and part of him doesn’t.”
Kim: How about any of the times they hug, and they’re like, oh, we’re hugging now!
Sequoia: Oh are we hug… do we hug now?
Kim: Oooh here we are…
Sequoia: Are we hugging?
Kim: …hugging! Oooooh! [both laugh]
Sequoia: I think the… the… the biggest moment we get is the fantasy ballet.
Kim: [laughs] Please explain what a fantasy ballet is.
Sequoia: It’s sort of like a dreamlike…
Kim: It happens a lot in…
Sequoia: …portion.
Kim: …old musicals.
Sequoia: It’s… yeah, definitely in old musicals. Where it seems to be taken out of the realm of reality.
Kim: Mhm.
Sequoia: And all of a sudden you are in this, like, dreamlike world, or dreamlike state, where no one actually talks.
Kim: Mhmmm.
Sequoia: They just dance.
Kim: And what is the fantasy ballet in Cursed Child?
Sequoia: They’re on the stairs and…
Kim: It’s…
Sequoia: …the staircases are moving. [laughs]
Kim: …Albus and Scorpius missing each other on the staircases. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Yep, that is our fantasy ballet portion.
Kim: Oh, man.
Sequoia: Whoo, buddy.
Kim: They love each other so much!
Sequoia: They love each other so much.
Kim: And this…
Sequoia: And I’m so mad! [laughs]
Kim: This fucking play couldn’t just commit to the gay that it had written! [Sequoia laughs] Goddamn!
Sequoia: This stupid… fuck you, Rose Granger-Weasley.
Kim: They’re like, uh oh, whoops, we wrote a really gay play, how do we fix this? Scorpius likes Rose?
Sequoia: Bad.
Kim: For no apparent reason.
Sequoia: Not well done. [laughs]
Kim: Shit.
Sequoia: Whoo. All right, so we’re gonna go through and deal with a couple of…
Kim: Yeah, that wraps up our…
Sequoia: …characters.
Kim: …plot complaints. Let’s complain about the characters, I guess.
Sequoia: Whooo. And this… I’m… I’m gonna be very strict…
Kim: You gotta be, dude.
Sequoia: …in this portion.
Kim: I have so much.
Sequoia: I’m gonna be very strict. You have a lot to say, and I’mma… I’m gonna make it stop.
Kim: So much that I’m mad about.
Sequoia: Sometime. [laughs] Okay, we’re going to start out with one of my personal favorite characters.
Kim: I think he’s… he’s one of both… I mean, he’s… [sighs] yeah.
Sequoia: Ron Weasley [Kim tuts] was done an extreme disservice in this play. What is wrong with him?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: What happened to him?
Kim: I have a… I have some theories. You want my theories?
Sequoia: Yeah, I… yeah. Bring it on.
Kim: I got some theories about Ron. So Ron is fucking weird in this play. [Sequoia laughs] Oh, man. You know, let… let’s talk about how weird he is, actually, first.
Sequoia: Yeah, okay. Let’s talk about how weird he is.
Kim: Ron is not able to take any moment seriously.
Sequoia: None. His… his fucking… [laughs]
Kim: He constantly undercuts any serious moment with a lame joke that none of the characters generally acknowledge has been said.
Sequoia: No. It’s not like he says something funny and everybody laughs. He says something and everyone’s like, wow, what a dad joke. Anyway, moving on.
Kim: They… they often just, like, don’t even acknowledge that it’s been said.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: They just ignore it. He says something bizarre, [Sequoia laughs] and it just happens. [laughs]
Sequoia: Yeah, he’s… he’s… he’s ignored, and when he’s not saying something that doesn’t make any sense, he is eatiiingggg some food. [laughs]
Kim: Yuup. Here’s…
Sequoia: So here we are.
Kim: Here’s my theory. ‘Cause Ron is also not an Auror with Harry any more.
Sequoia: No.
Kim: Which is what we’ve been led to believe was going to happen.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: Ron is no longer Harry’s partner, which I don’t really believe. If Harry was still out working and doing… fighting the good fight.
Sequoia: Right.
Kim: Ron would be by his side.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: I don’t believe it. So my theory… I have one. Here’s my first theory. Ron has suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: In the line of duty.
Sequoia: Yes, yes, yes.
Kim: And everyone is just putting up a brave face. [laughs]
Sequoia: Yep. [laughs] Not addressed. [both laugh]
Kim: He’s retired from the force and everyone is like, oh man, remember when Ron was okay?
Sequoia: [laughing] Oh no! [both laugh] What’s your second one?
Kim: The second one is that George missed Fred so much that he’s done some dark necromancy.
Sequoia: Oh my god!
Kim: To try to bring him back. But has instead brought back kind of a shambling amalgamation of Ron, Fred, that is not well. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Oh my god! That is really dark.
Kim: Thanks.
Sequoia: Okay. [laughs]
Kim: Ron is a dark necromantic creation. Thanks.
Sequoia: Here’s the thing. What other explanation could there be for…
Kim: Any of it.
Sequoia: …any of it? He’s not helpful. His fucking… Albus and Scorpius are missing, and he accidentally floos into the kitchen and then has a snack! [laughs]
Kim: Or the time when they’re… they’ve definitely been captured by dark wizards, and things are very dire, and Ron’s like, no, he’s just hanging out with his much older girlfriend, it’s fine.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: And everyone’s like… wha… wha… WHAT?
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: And Ron’s like, yeah, older girlfriend. I saw… [laughs] he saw them, also, wait, no.
Sequoia: Wait. [both laugh] He saw them…
Kim: He claims he saw them…
Sequoia: …in the owlery…
Kim: …in the owlery!
Sequoia: …because he was having a drink in Hogsmeade? [Kim laughs] Guys.
Kim: [laughing] How did he see them?
Sequoia: How does anything happen in this play? [laughs]
Kim: How did he see them? He’s in Hogsmeade!
Sequoia: That is nothing.
Kim: Ron and Harry have basically zero interaction.
Sequoia: Yeah. They’re best friends. It’s very weird how they how they interact with each other.
Kim: Harry’s so sad about what’s happened to him.
Sequoia: Oh my god!
Kim: Can’t even look at or talk to him.
Sequoia: Jesus Christ. [both laugh]
Kim: Oh man.
Sequoia: He just… and there’s… there’s really not much more to… what’s a…
Kim: I mean…
Sequoia: What’s terrible to me is that there is not much more to say than this.
Kim: He…
Sequoia: He’s not helpful. He’s stupid.
Kim: Yep.
Sequoia: And he can’t possibly do anything seriously.
Kim: He has zero good moments the entire play. Nothing. He does nothing heroic. He does nothing good. He has no good interactions with anyone.
Sequoia: [pause] Did Steve Kloves write this play?
Kim: [screaming] STEVE KLOVES! [both laugh] STEVE KLOOOOOOOVES!
Sequoia: Steve! Whoo!
Kim: That’s enough.
Sequoia: Yeah, that’s enough. That takes us into talking a little bit about Ron and Hermione, the pairing. My… my… here’s the thing, guys. Here we go. This is my OTP. And my OTP, you know, they didn’t just get together because of like an accumulation of jealousy over time. [both laugh]
Kim: Are you sure?
Sequoia: I’m very sure. I’m very sure about that. This shows… it shows a misunderstanding about why and how they got together, you know?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Like being like, oh, if they… if they… if Hermione didn’t make him jealous…
Kim: When they were fourteen.
Sequoia: …when they were fourteen, then they never would have gotten together, is nuts, you guys. It’s nuts.
Kim: Yeah! What I would say is that the changes that would have to happen to book seven that result in them not being together at the end of that book would more dramatically change history.
Sequoia: Yeah, absolutely. I would… I would go as far as to say that they would have to… I mean, I think that what is being implied by the play is that because Ron dances with Padma…
Kim: [laughs] Which is fucking nuts. Have you seen Ron’s dress robes? [Sequoia laughs] Padma Patil would not have been seen on the dance floor with that. [Sequoia laughs] Especially…
Sequoia: It’s just…
Kim: …if he hadn’t asked her.
Sequoia: Yeah, it’s really nuts that she came over and asked him to dance, and they didn’t go to the dance together, and he… and she came over and asked him to dance.
Kim: And he accepted an offer to dance.
Sequoia: And then he accepted an offer to dance, and danced with her, when he was there with Hermione. And then somehow that means that those two are together now, which [Kim laughs] is the only thing that needs to happen.
Kim: [screaming] JUSTICE FOR PANJU!
Sequoia: [laughing] Oh my god. [laughs] Here it comes. Here we go. Justice for Panju.
Kim: Justice for Panju! Best character.
Sequoia: But really. [sighs] I like… I like… so Albus and Scorpius’s idea that they’re gonna put up some fireworks…
Kim: Yeah, and then they fixed it.
Sequoia: And that’s gonna fix.
Kim: They fixed it.
Sequoia: Ron and Hermione’s entire relationship.
Kim: Ron and Hermione were in the lake when the fireworks went off.
Sequoia: [laughs] What do the fireworks accomplish? They were in the lake! [laughs]
Kim: Oh man.
Sequoia: Whooo. Okay. [Kim laughs] Ron and Hermione, OTP. That’s all we have to say.
Kim: Sure.
Sequoia: Hermione, in this play.
Kim: Wow, wow…
Both: …wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
Sequoia: What is happening? I’d like to have a general… if every… I’m gonna have a…
Kim: Okay.
Sequoia: Can I…?
Kim: Hermione is the Minister of Magic. [pause] She has politicked her way into the place… into a position of high authority and power.
Sequoia: Yes. And…
Kim: Believable.
Sequoia: Believable. I do believe that she’s the Minister of Magic. That’s fine. The way that she is executing that job… [Kim laughs] or li… not.
Kim: She is…
Sequoia: …executing it.
Kim: …so incompetent. Like, Ron’s visibly incompetent. Hermione is also real incompetent.
Sequoia: I would like to have a general meeting about…
Kim: A general emergen…
Both: Emergency meeting.
Sequoia: I’d li… here’s… here’s who’s on the invite list. Me, Harry, my husband who works at a joke shop.
Kim: And is brain damaged.
Sequoia: And is [laughing] brain damaged. Harry’s wife, who is the editor of the sports page of the [laughs] Daily Prophet.
Kim: McGonagall.
Sequoia: McGonagall.
Kim: And?
Sequoia: Draco. [Kim snorts] Who we don’t know what his function is. He just… he’s just Lucius.
Kim: He has no… he’s just rich.
Sequoia: He’s just Lucius. He’s just rich, and he’s just present.
Kim: That’s who’s invited to the meeting. Now we’re at the meeting. [laughs] These shitty things are happening.
Sequoia: Anybody…
Kim: Does anyone have any information?
Sequoia: Does anyone have a plan?
Kim: Anyone?
Sequoia: Anybody got a plan?
Kim: Any information, or a plan?
Sequoia: Could I get a plan from someone?
Kim: Does anyone know what we should do [Sequoia laughs] about this information that I have just presented to you?
Sequoia: Oh, also, Harry’s scar hurts.
Kim: Now panic. [both laugh] But also give me a plan. Oh no, you’re leaving?
Sequoia: You’re leaving? But what about a plan?
Kim: Oh, what do I do? [Sequoia laughs] The idea that Hermione doesn’t have a plan…
Sequoia: Nuts.
Kim: …and just like…
Sequoia: It’s the least believable part.
Kim: …calls a meeting to present a bunch of terrifying information to the public in general.
Sequoia: And the… yeah, the public in general. Those are not Ministry employees.
Kim: Just people. She’s gonna present some…
Sequoia: Some terrible…
Kim: Some terrifying information to them and just be like, so, help?
Sequoia: Help?
Kim: And what does she receive when she’s like, what’s been happening, guys? McGonagall tells her that a couple of potions ingredients are missing at Hogwarts, and that’s IT.
Sequoia: That’s the only information she gets.
Kim: Only information.
Sequoia: And oh, boy.
Kim: Who are these people she’s called?
Sequoia: Oh boy, will we get to those potions ingredients. [laughs]
Kim: Wow.
Sequoia: Wow.
Kim: So the general meeting’s bad, but what else does Hermione do that is insane?
Sequoia: She does not improve the security of the Minstry at all. She… she, personally, Polyjuiced and got…
Kim: She… she..
Sequoia: …into the Ministry.
Kim: …planned a break in of the…
Both: …Ministry…
Kim: …of Magic, at age eighteenish.
Sequoia: Exactly. And as the Minister of Magic, she has not set up any precaution to make sure that that same thing that she did cannot be done. [pause] So there’s that.
Kim: Super good.
Sequoia: Also, you use Alohomora on the Minister of Magic’s door.
Kim: That’s fucking nuts.
Sequoia: What?
Kim: Hermione… Hermione knew that spell at age twelve.
Sequoia: [laughs] Yeah. And you’re like, Alohomora, oh, I’ll just go in here. Oh, look at all these banned books.
Kim: That’s… yeah, she’s got a bunch of dangerous as fuck books in her office, plus THE FUCKING TIME TURNER!
Sequoia: [laughs] Alohomora and a riddle.
Kim: Oh man. The riddle. [Sequoia laughs] Okay, no. No.
Sequoia: Nope. We’re not getting into that.
Kim: I am.
Sequoia: Stop.
Kim: Let me!
Sequoia: Stop.
Kim: LET ME!
Sequoia: Stop.
Kim: LET ME READ MY LIST OF THINGS!
Sequoia: Jesus Christ. I might cut it out.
Kim: Oh, fine, you’re gonna cut it. [Sequoia laughs] Look, it’s just nuts to me that she couldn’t think of any better way to protect this highly dangerous magical artefact than three riddles, the answers to which are Dementors, Voldemort, and your shadow.
[pause]
Sequoia: All right, what’s your list?
Kim: There are so many other ways that you could protect a dangerous magical artefact, especially one as small as a time turner. Inside a vault that only Hermione has the key to.
Sequoia: Yep.
Kim: A password.
Sequoia: Yep.
Kim: In the Department of Mysteries.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: A password.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: A series of traps, each more fiendish than the last, with some indication of if a person is attempting them.
Sequoia: MhM.
Kim: On her person.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: A location outside of the Ministry that only she knows about.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: Two passwords. [Sequoia laughs] The Mirror of Erised.
Sequoia: [laughs] Mhm.
Kim: An I.D. badge and a password.
Sequoia: [laughs] Wha…?
Kim: Look, I get that it’s convenient for the plot that it’s easy for them to get this time turner.
Sequoia: But it’s not easy! The bookshelves try to eat them!
Kim: No. [Sequoia laughs] Three riddles. Not only is three riddles an insane thing to do, McGonagall calls Hermione out about this later in the play!
Sequoia: [laughs] They know it’s nuts.
Kim: They know…
Sequoia: They wrote it. They wrote it.
Kim: …they’ve written a stupid thing.
Sequoia: Whooo. Whoo buddy.
Kim: And they call it out in the play! Like, whhhhhhhhh whaaat?
Sequoia: [laughs] Another thing Hermione does… not do, I guess. She doesn’t police Harry very well. Harry’s bad at his job, and she’s just like, [wavery voice] oh, hey, maybe you could do some paperwork or something, and did you know that all this stuff is happening? There’s a bunch of memos on your desk.
Kim: I read those in ten minutes.
Sequoia: You should read those. You should look at those.
Kim: Hermione, get Harry a secretary! [Sequoia laughs] You have a secretary.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Why doesn’t Harry have a secretary?
Sequoia: Why doesn’t Harry have a secretary?
Kim: Hermione?
Sequoia: [laughs] Another a few quick notes we can hit quickly…
Kim: No.
Sequoia: …about Hermione.
Kim: No!
Sequoia: Hermione hates Ron. [Kim snorts] It’s weird.
Kim: She hates him…
Sequoia: She hates him…
Kim: …SO much.
Sequoia: …so much. It’s just… it makes me...
Kim: Why would Hermione Granger stay in an unhappy marriage? Why would you make us look at this?
Sequoia: [laughs] Hermione is sacrificing her family for her career.
Kim: This is so not okay.
Sequoia: It’s not okay.
Kim: Such a not okay thing to do to Hermione.
Sequoia: Yeah, she…
Kim: Why? Yes, she’s driven. Yes, she’s talented. Yes, she’s ambitious. The idea that she can’t be… have a successful career and be a mother is so fucked up.
Sequoia: That is. It’s… it’s… it’s a stereotype, like, you either have to have a career or be a mom, sort of scenario that I don’t like.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: I… I don’t like it.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: Next. [laughs] Why isn’t she the Minister of Magic in timeline B?
Kim: Why does her not being with Ron mean that she doesn’t get to be the Minister for Magic?
Sequoia: Mean that she’s not the Minister of Magic.
Kim: Why is she just Snape?
Sequoia: No, yeah.
Kim: Why does her not being with Ron turn her into Snape?
Sequoia: Nobody knows and it is not explained to us. Next. [laughs]
Kim: It’s not okay! [both sigh]
Sequoia: All right. And that is…
Kim: Just not nice to Hermione.
Sequoia: …not nice to Hermione at all.
Kim: That’s enough.
Sequoia: That’s enough about Hermione. Just like a quick question here in the middle. WHERE IS MOLLY WEASLEY? [both laugh]
Kim: Is she dead?
Sequoia: Is she dead? There’s no way!
Kim: She’s gotta be dead.
Sequoia: She’s not… there’s no way. She was not that old.
Kim: Yeah, but she is not present…
Sequoia: She… and that’s the thing.
Kim: [splutters] …for any of the fucked up shit that’s happening with her grandchildren! Her grandchildren are missing! Her grandchild is missing!
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Where is Molly?
Sequoia: [laughs] Where is Molly Weasley?
Kim: Dead.
Sequoia: All right. Let’s talk about Ginny. We have a lot of… we have a lot of feelings about Ginny and how she’s portrayed.
Kim: Really I have one feeling about Ginny.
Sequoia: [sighs] What is it?
Kim: Where’s Ginny?
Sequoia: [laughs] No, that’s good. That’s good. I like that. Where is Ginny?
Kim: There…
Sequoia: Her lines are actively given away.
Kim: Yeah, her lines from the epilogue are given to other characters. Not just changed, given away.
Sequoia: Given to other characters.
Kim: They are said word for word, from the epilogue, by other characters.
Sequoia: Yep.
Kim: Bizarre.
Sequoia: Bizarre. She…
Kim: She’s in several sce… she’s present in several scenes where she has one line in the entire scene.
Sequoia: Mhm.
Kim: She just stands there like a potted plant.
Sequoia: [laughs] Oh my god. The only scenes she speaks in are the scenees that she has just with Harry, where she…
Kim: Generally.
Sequoia: …functions as like a sounding board for whatever Harry has to get out of his lil system.
Kim: Yeah, what’s up with that?
Sequoia: [laughs] She’s just… she lets Harry do whatever.
Kim: She does.
Sequoia: For most of the play.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: She lets Harry do whatever.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: There’s a moment where she’s like… Harry… Harry literally says to her, why aren’t you mad at me?
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And she’s like, [simpering voice] I just know that when the time comes, when the time is right, you’ll apologise to your son. And I’m like, no. [laughs]
Kim: No. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Sequoia: Nope, nope, noooope.
Kim: The scene after Harry fights with Albus is nuts to me, because Harry’s in bed with Ginny instead of lying in a ditch covered in bogeys. [both laugh]
Sequoia: Yep.
Kim: Like, whaaaaat?
Sequoia: Whaaaat?
Kim: And then finally… so she… it seems like she’s about to confront Harry at one point in the play.
Sequoia: Yeah, finally you’re like okay, here she comes.
Kim: They’re sitting across the kitchen table. It looks like they are about to have a confrontation. And what happens instead?
Sequoia: She leaves.
Kim: Draco has the confrontation. Draco fucking Malfoy [Sequoia laughs] has the confrontation with Harry instead of Ginny!
Sequoia: Ginny just like…
Kim: She leaves!
Sequoia: She just leaves the room! And you’re like, okay, she left the room to let Draco in or whatever, so then she would come back…
Kim: But then she doesn’t come back.
Sequoia: …with Draco. She just inexplicably leaves, and then comes back, and is like, you two are fighting? I’ve been gone for three whole minutes! [Kim laughs] And you’re like, what the fuck where were you…? [both laugh]
Kim: Oh, man.
Sequoia: It’s so nuts. She doe… she doesn’t speak.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: She lets Harry do whatever.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: She has no…
Kim: Personality.
Sequoia: …like, personality or agency.
Kim: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then finally, when they’re back in the past about to have the big battle, she’s like, you know, Harry, you really should have told our our son that you loved him. [Sequoia laughs] At any point. And it’s like, Ginny, you have been married to this guy for like twenty years. You… you…
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: You’ve had kids for…
Sequoia: For…
Kim: …nearly that entire time. You’re telling him… you’re choosing today…
Sequoia: Right now.
Kim: …to tell him that he needs to express his love for your children. [croaking] That’s cool. [Sequoia laughs] That’s cool.
Sequoia: That’s cool. That’s cool. That’s cool.
Kim: That’s fine.
Sequoia: Speaking of their children.
Kim: [laughs] What the fuck’s up with James?
Sequoia: What the fuck is up with James? That kid is an asshole. [laughs]
Kim: How did they make such a shitty kid?
Sequoia: And they make this shitty… this shitty asshole kid, and Harry’s like, oh, I relate to him. [both laugh]
Kim: Yeah, this kid makes sense. He… he…
Sequoia: He makes…
Kim: He makes sense because he has one personality trait. Shitty.
Sequoia: Yeah. [laughs] And he’s apparently so shitty that he bugs his dad so much that he gets the invisibility cloak.
Kim: Wouldn’t Harry still…?
Sequoia: From the Auror.
Kim: Wouldn’t Harry still be using that?
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: He’s still going on raids against Death Eaters.
Sequoia: Maybe he needs that, but James is like, Dad! Dad! Dad!
Kim: [whiny voice] I want iiiiiit!
Sequoia: Dad! Dad!
Kim: And Harry’s like, yeah, okay, here you go. Here’s this incredibly powerful magical artefact.
Both: For you.
Sequoia: You asshole. [laughs]
Kim: You shitbag. Goddamn.
Sequoia: Ohhh and now we’re into it.
Kim: Are you gonna let me do this? [Sequoia sighs] I guess let’s do this other… these… let’s hit these other points first.
Sequoia: Okay. Yeah. All right. So we’re gonna talk about Harry. This play is about… [pause] Harry.
Kim: No way. [laughs]
Sequoia: It’s called…
Kim: His name’s on the front, I guess. Huh.
Sequoia: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Kim: Good point. That is his name.
Sequoia: It’s about Harry’s inability to be sympathetic or helpful to anyone. [Kim laughs] Is that what this play’s about? Is this play about… is this play about Harry losing the ability to draw on his past experiences or sympathise with his son in any way? Is that what this play’s about?
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: Great. [laughs] This is what we wanted and asked for. Thank you, playwrights.
Kim: Harry Potter, the character we all grew up with… [pause] is an asshole.
Sequoia: He’s an asshole. He’s so…
Kim: He is a terrible person.
Sequoia: …not helpful.
Kim: Yeah, he…
Sequoia: To anyone.
Kim: He’s bad at his job. Let’s… let’s…
Sequoia: He’s bad at his job.
Kim: He’s very bad at his job. [Sequoia laughs] He gets back from a raid on a veryyyy… on a Death Eater, and he’s recovered an important and dangerous magical artefact. He talks about it with Hermione.
Sequoia: Yes.
Kim: Hermione tells him to go home. Harry goes home, and the next scene is Harry arriving at home to find Amos Diggory there, and Amos immediately asks Harry about the raid that Harry just got back from.
Sequoia: Yeah. So we’re like…
Kim: It’s… it’s… it’s implied by the play that like half an hour has taken… is… about half an hour has taken place in between Harry getting back from the raid and him meeting up with Amos Diggory, who knows about the raid. And Harry’s not concerned about how that information leaked.
Sequoia: No. Not concerned. He’s just like, oh, yeah, Cedric’s dead. [both laugh]
Kim: That is bizarre.
Sequoia: Yeah. He… and he… it’s because he has no… he shouldn’t be in charge of the thing.
Kim: No.
Sequoia: He should just be out there kicking ass or whatever. You know.
Kim: But I mean, I feel like… I feel like that level of leak… like, who knew, to leak it?
Sequoia: Like the three people that were with him, and him, and Hermione.
Kim: [laughs] How does Amos know about it already?
Sequoia: And it… it’s… it’s… Delphi says later that she Poly… that she…
Kim: And the…
Sequoia: …truth potioned somebody or…
Kim: Yeah. Yeah, she said they…
Sequoia: …fucking…
Kim: …truth potioned a Ministry employee who somehow got all the way to the nursing home in the half hour after the raid.
Sequoia: The timeline is just fucking nutso, but the most important part is that [Kim laughs] Harry is not concerned about a leak in his department about a very scary…
Kim: And like the fucking next day Rose knows about it.
Sequoia: Yeah! Jesus Christ.
Kim: [laughs] This is just…
Sequoia: Harry.
Kim: Is Harry leaking? [laughs] Fuck.
Sequoia: Harry is leaking. He’s leaking memories.
Kim: [laughs] Yeah. Yep.
Sequoia: He has no memories…
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: …of his whole life.
Kim: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. He’s got this kid, and this kid is struggling at Hogwarts because he’s kind of an outcast and he’s kind of being bullied, and people at Hogwarts aren’t being very nice to him, and… [pause] Harry struggled at Hogwarts in about half the books.
Sequoia: Yeah. There’s… there’s two entire books, basically, where everybody hates him.
Kim: And Harry, upon learning that his child is struggling at Hogwarts, has no advice for him. He’s like, you should make friends. That’s it. That’s all he has. He doesn’t have any sympathy. He doesn’t have any empathy?
Sequoia: No. And he doesn’t acknowledge the fact that he, like, lived in that emotion. In that space. He…
Kim: He’s… he only…
Sequoia: He was…
Kim: …remembers the good times at Hogwarts.
Sequoia: Yeah. He was like… he… for two whole years he was just sad and upset and angry.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And he does not acknowledge that that’s an okay… that… that, like, you can continue to live in that emotion, you know. He’s just like, no, you need to get over that emotion by making friends. Harry had friends!
Kim: Yeah. Nuts.
Sequoia: Oh my god.
Kim: His inability to sympathise with Albus is insane to me. Like, he looks… this kid, Albus, is just Harry but gayer. [Sequoia laughs] And the fact that Harry can’t see that is nuts.
Sequoia: And the fact that he can’t see that, and then goes as far as to like, you know, James? I get that kid. [Kim laughs] Like that is [laughs] that is so bonkers.
Kim: That is nuts.
Sequoia: That is so bonkers.
Kim: And… and even beyond Harry’s time at Hogwarts, he spent the first ten or so years of his life bullied by his cousin and… and not having any friends in elementary school.
Sequoia: Yeah, and there’s like… [Kim laughs] so they… they fucking… they call up Rose Granger-Weasley, and they’re like, hey, you should be nice to your cousin. [Kim sighs] And Rose is like, fine, I guess I’ll talk to him, whatever. But at no point are they like… is Harry like, James!
Kim: What the fuck?
Sequoia: Be a good fucking brother to your brother, you dickface!
Kim: You piece of shit. You actual piece of shit.
Sequoia: [laughs] Jesus Christ.
Kim: Yeah, that’s… that’s nuts.
Sequoia: That’s nuts.
Kim: Man.
Sequoia: Whoo.
Kim: It’s just incredible to me how awful Harry is in this play.
Sequoia: Yeah, he’s not… he’s not a good guy.
Kim: He’s very… he’s very much… can we just say it?
Sequoia: You can say it, and then we’ll be done with this portion.
[pause]
Kim: [with forced calm] They turned Harry Potter into a child abuser. Thank you so much for that. This is what I’ve always wanted. Harry Potter, the boy who only ever wanted a family, screaming at his child that he wishes he wasn’t his son. Thanks. Thanks. Cool. Great.
Sequoia: Okay, let’s talk about… [laughs] now that we’ve given you that. There we go.
Kim: I hate it so much.
Sequoia: It’s… we… this is… this is… that’s the big point where we.. [Kim sighs] have to stop talking about it, because then this episode will become not fun for anyone.
Kim: Hey, you know what’s funny?
Sequoia: Delphi? [both laugh] What the fuck is Delphi? [Kim laughs] You guys.
Kim: What’s wrong with her?
Sequoia: What is wrong with her? She is not good at anything.
Kim: But you have a reason for that.
Sequoia: I do. She was raised by C-list Death Eaters. [both laugh]
Kim: That’s why she sucks at this.
Sequoia: And that’s why she’s incompetent. [laughs]
Kim: Man, is she incompetent. [both laugh] Where do we wanna… where do we wanna start?
Sequoia: Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay, first you’ve got your vague ass prophecy, and then she takes this vague prophecy, and she has the most insane interpretation.
Kim: Very specific.
Sequoia: So specific.
Kim: She gets very specific with this prophecy.
Sequoia: She’s like, Albus specifically [Kim laughs] must do the following thing in order for… and you’re like…
Kim: My Daddy to come home.
Sequoia: Yeah, and you’re like, how did you get that? How did you get that out of this fucking vague prophecy?
Kim: Uhhhh yeah, she certainly did. [laughs]
Sequoia: Why did she steal ingredients from Hogwarts? [laughs]
Kim: That’s… yeah. Yeah. That is a bit of… I… I… I think we can say that that’s what happened. It’s implied that that’s what happened.
Sequoia: It is, yeah.
Kim: McGonagall comes to the general meeting and she’s like, these ingredients, which are for Polyjuice potion, have disappeared from Hogwarts. Hermione stole those potions ingredients from Hogwarts because she was at Hogwarts, and that’s the only place she could get them as a… as a… as a twelve year old, or a thirteen year old.
Sequoia: Here’s the thing. Delphi is an adult.
Kim: Adult wizard.
Sequoia: Who… who… an adult wizard who…
Kim: Has money.
Sequoia: …I assume has some money and could go buy the ingredients at the store. [Kim snorts] [laughing] Why did she steal them from Hogwarts?
Kim: Why would you go all the way to Hogwarts to steal them?
Sequoia: What the fuck?
Kim: It’s so da… it’s gotta be so dangerous to break into Hogwarts.
Sequoia: Whoooo!
Kim: Why does she do that?
Sequoia: Delphi, what are you fucking doing? [Kim laughs] This story would be a lot shorter if Delphi was at all competent as the villain.
Kim: Yeah. Oh man, speaking of the Polyjuice potion.
Sequoia: [laughing] How?
Kim: How?
Sequoia: How? How?
Kim: How?
Sequoia: How does she just…?
Kim: How did she get…?
Sequoia: Where did she get…?
Kim: How did she have pieces of the trio? Where did she get those?
Sequoia: [laughing] How do you just, like, pick up a piece of the Minister of Magic? [laughs]
Kim: In a world where you have not protected the Ministry of Magic from Polyjuice break ins, and you are the Minister of Magic, I feel like you would be very protective of your biological material.
Sequoia: Yeah, as do I. But you know, who knows? She’s bad at her job, too.
Kim: [laughs] Oh, man.
Sequoia: She’s… so she’s got this… okay, we’re assuming she had a plan…
Kim: No.
Sequoia: …at any point, because the Polyjuice potion…
Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sequoia: …was done.
Kim: Yeah, that’s true. [Sequoia laughs] She has…
Sequoia: Al… Albus…
Kim: …made Polyjuice potion.
Sequoia: Enough for three people.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: And stolen the biological components of three people.
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: To do the Polyjuice potion, so we have to ass… we have to assume…
Kim: Yes.
Sequoia: …that she had a plan.
Kim: Sure.
Sequoia: What’s the plan?
Kim: Get into…
Sequoia: Geeet into…
Kim: …the Ministry.
Sequoia: …the Ministry, and get the…
Kim: End of plan.
Sequoia: …time tur… [laughs] yeah. Just, like, what is your plan? Your plan is that, okay, you have to get this time turner, whatever. For some reason you’re not doing it yourself. You have three… three people.
Kim: For some reason you’re taking Albus. Yeah, why would she not just…
Sequoia: Why would you take the children with you?
Kim: Why would she not just…
Sequoia: They’re a liability.
Kim: Why would she not just steal it herself?
Sequoia: Exactly. What is the plan?
Kim: If Albus needs to go back in time to save Cedric and to kill his father, why would you risk him so early on?
Sequoia: What is the plan? See, why take them to the Ministry with you?
Kim: I don’t know.
Sequoia: And then let them go do the first task without you.
Kim: [whispering] Nuts. [Sequoia laughs] They’re like, we’re gonna go back without you, and she’s like, uh… um..
Both: Oh, uh, um, uh, uh… okayyy!
Kim: Like. she doesn’t fight that at all.
Sequoia: No. She’s like, oh, do… do you really think so? And they’re like, yeah, and she’s like, oh well, I guess so.
Kim: I feel like that’s the point where if she was normal she would have revealed herself to be evil. I guess she… I just… I don’t understand. Or at least, like, pushed back a little more to make sure that the plan works.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: I guess we needed to get three more acts.
Sequoia: We also… we needed eighty timelines.
Kim: We needed three more acts of this play. [Sequoia laughs] It had to happen…
Sequoia: It had to happen over…
Kim: …over four acts.
Sequoia: …two days!
Kim: Two days!
Sequoia: Whoooo!
Kim: Why?
Sequoia: [laughs] And then… and then, what is the plan? What is her plan? I’m gonna force you two to come back to the third task with me so that Albus can do this insane thing that I have extrapolated from this very vague prophecy.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: And… but before we leave… before I want you to do some magic, I’mma break your wands. [both laugh]
Kim: You…
Sequoia: What is that?
Kim: You need to… you are the one who needs to humiliate Cedric, but also you’re not allowed to do magic. [Sequoia laughs] Here we gooooo!
Sequoia: What is your plan, Delphi? [both laugh] [both sigh] But it doesn’t… I mean, I… I’m surprised she didn’t have her whole plan just written down in her bedroom.
Kim: She had most of it. [both laugh] Man, she’s bad at covering her tracks.
Sequoia: Whooo.
Kim: They all go to her bedroom. They, like, knock over a lamp, and it shoots out… [Sequoia laughs] I am…
Both: …Voldemort’s child.
Sequoia: [laughing] Yeah, just like why is your whole plan just like written down in your room?
Kim: Look, Sequoia, it’s her vision board! [Sequoia laughs] She’s… she’s just putting it out there!
Sequoia: She’s manifesting it.
Kim: Into the world! [both laugh]
Sequoia: Oh my god.
Kim: Wooooooo Delphi.
Sequoia: But she was raised by C-list Death Eaters.
Kim: It’s not her fault.
Sequoia: So we get it. It’s not your fault, Delphi. Okay, to finish off our Cursed Child review, we are doing what we’re calling a fanfic round up.
Kim: Because this play is just bad fanfiction.
Sequoia: It’s just bad fanfiction.
Kim: That’s all it is.
Sequoia: And it’s the worst fanfiction.
Kim: It has so many elements from fanfiction.
Sequoia: That we are going to list them off rapid fire.
Kim: Cool.
Sequoia: Polyjuiced Albus makes out with his aunt, Hermione, a lot.
Kim: Jesus fucking Christ. Voldemort has a kid.
Sequoia: There is a vague prophecy.
Kim: Time travelling to major moments in canon.
Sequoia: Using the movie characters instead of the book characters.
Kim: Using Dumbledore or Harry’s name as an expletive or something to swear to.
Sequoia: Mirroring scenes from the books, i.e. breaking into the Ministry using Polyjuice.
Kim: A super obvious villain.
Sequoia: Just need a friend Draco.
Kim: Fuck that, man. [Sequoia laughs] Draco, eat shit!
Sequoia: [laughs] And that’s our fanfic round up. We…
Kim: It’s got so many elements of fanfiction. It’s just…
Sequoia: That we could keep going forever.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: But those are some of our faves. So we… if you got this far…
Kim: Hey.
Sequoia: Hey.
Kim: Whassup?
Sequoia: [laughs] Thanks for sticking with us through our Cursed Child…
Kim: You have… you have one more thought. Who’s your… you had a ship that stuck out to you in this.
Sequoia: Oh yeah. You guys, Rose Granger-Weasley plus Polly Chapman forever. [laughs]
Kim: Yeah, my…
Sequoia: They’re both the worst.
Kim: That’s a good… that’s a good one. My final thought is #JusticeForPanju. [Sequoia laughs]
Sequoia: Oh, thanks so much, guys. We willllll…
Kim: [pause] We’re… we’re gonna be back next week.
Sequoia: We’re gonna be back next week with our anniversary episode.
Kim: Look forward to that.
Sequoia: And all sorts of other stuff too.
Kim: Yeah.
Sequoia: There’re gonna be all sorts of announcements, so…
Kim: Lot of new stuff coming.
Sequoia: Yeah.
Kim: Man, it feels good to get this out of the way.
Sequoia: [sighs] Oh yeah, I feel relieved.
Kim: Yeah, it’s like a weight…
Sequoia: Has been lifted from my shoulders. Wait, no, I still have to edit this. [Kim laughs] Thanks for listening!
Kim: Byeeeee!
Sequoia: Byeeeee!