Harp the Wigglytuff @wigglytuffitout@computerfairi.es

@InspectorCaracal completely valid tbh

i've not really watched any dr who, but i think very little of him because of how bbc sherlock ended up, even if i don't think he's wholly directly responsible for the crimes against the character of Irene Adler there

i mean jfc when the victorian source text is more feminist with a stronger woman heroine than the modern adaptation, It's Bad!

@georgesquares@snouts.online honestly? yes.

i mean, tbh, i'm not entirely opposed to those 'force of nature' villains. especially in YA lit. but they have to be a force of nature while still being *interesting*.

i feel like several times Rowling stepped up to the plate to try and make him sympathetic - and more interesting! - and whiffed it EVERY SINGLE TIME. just swing and a miss straight into "also evil 'cos he's evil".

in the end, Cursed Child is like a friend saying she's going to cook a great roast dinner for you, you're going to love it. you mark your calendar, get all excited. you're sitting at the dinner table. it smells amazing. she tells you how she's been working on it all day, AND brining it all night, and basting it, and all of this. she pulls it out of the oven and it looks fantastic.

then she carves off all the meat, tosses that in the trash, and proudly serves you a single drumstick bone

it comes close. it comes *irritatingly* close to realizing that.

but instead, in among all of the time-travel sloppiness, and in among the stories of that second gen of characters struggling with THEIR legacies!, voldemort's daughter just ends up...

well, a chip off the old block with some cliche daddy issues.

boring.

bland.

a disappointment.

these... these are interesting characters.

they get to be themselves, all wrestling with the same problem, some coming up with bad answers, some coming up with good answers, some trying to come up with good answers and failing.

they are messy, and real, and INTERESTING.

they are everything that Delphini ends up not being, yet *could have been*.

one tried to just keep his head down and survive. he found a wife and loved her deeply, truly, as he did his children, right up until it became clear that he couldn't outrun all of his father's sins. and so he feels all he can do is isolate himself from those he loves - and the only thing he can do for his father's legacy is make it end with him, his axe, and every shallow grave dug for those who follow Voldemort still.

one was told he would have to follow in his father's footsteps, told to kill, and could not betray his own horror at this. instead he rebelled, and gave over his trust into redemption. one considers it his duty to balance the massive suffering his father dealt by working towards kindness, towards charity, for all.

one thought she could escape to numbers, which have no morality. and was horrified to be wrong.

so that's why i have this fanfic i'm slowly writing where there are just Too Many Of Voldemort's Kids.

one lived in fear of herself, until her fears were realized and she was killed for it. but until then she ran from magic and onto something that made sense to her - to ballet. and she learned over time that her love and care for her ballet students was real, and only aided by being afraid to hurt them.

so to have the titular Cursed Child just be... flat

to just be evil?

it's boring. stale. an extra serving of reheated Voldemort that somebody popped in the microwave that tastes mostly of freezer burn.

let her be human. let her wrestle with her legacy.

give voldemort's daughter the same chance to struggle that harry did with being lily and james's son.

this - THIS is interesting.

this is juicy. these are really riveting stories to tell.

because you're touching on something more universal and human, there. you're striking the hot iron of how people formulate their identities, their self, and how family weighs heavily into that, as something to embrace, as something to struggle against - all of those things.

what do they think about this?

do they try to balance how they feel they are dangerous to be around, with their own human needs to be loved?

do they try to escape to somewhere entirely different where those measures of good and evil don't matter at all?

do they seek someone else to purify them? to cleanse them? do they trust anyone or anything enough to do so?

what do they do?

even more juicy, interesting, and so on to me -

what if they're struggling? what if they're in flux?

what if they believe themselves corrupt and damaging to those around them, but seek constantly to overcome it?

what if they are paralyzed by self-loathing?

what if they try to be good and fail?

what if they desperately seek somewhere out from under the family shadow?

what happens then?

are they bad because their father was bad?

or are they bad because everyone told them they would be?

are they bad because they were groomed to be 'heir to the throne' and only know that way forward?

are they bad because they feel doomed to be?

are they bad because everyone treats them as if they're a rabid animal preemptively and thus abuses them?

...are they bad at all?

it feels like rowling was ok writing harry struggling under the weight of his legacy, and even snape fumbling to find his identity because of this, but... when it comes to voldemort's kid, everyone just gave up.

and that is when i think the stakes are highest, and the odds most interesting!

why would you turn down an opportunity to write a character struggling with THAT LEVEL of albatross around their neck?

the conflict ends up flat and inevitable. hatfields and mccoys. montegue and capulet.

notice how romeo and juliet is an interesting story only BECAUSE it's NOT about the titular characters in fair verona unquestioning the idea that they are destined to fight and be enemies because of who they are related to?

THEREIN LIES THE PLOT - the interest - the intrigue!!!

sure, the reverse hurt is somewhat addressed as harry wrestles with the massive legacy left on his shoulders. but i think just telling people "you're bad because you're bad" is a huge and bitter blow.

and - honestly - not only does it do readers dirty, it does the story dirty, too.

it takes away agency and interest from voldemort's kid. it makes them an extension of dad, not their own person.

how many of those readers are going to feel that they're *doomed* because of this sort of philosophy?

maybe there's a parent in jail. maybe a bad divorce let them see how one - or both - are nasty and cruel. maybe there's abuse. maybe they're adopted and this is a hard new worry.

and such a story ends up just saying - "well, it's in your blood. you will always end up evil, just like your forebears."

but you know what kills the juicyness there?

if it's just. "well, voldemort's kid is of course evil, because voldemort."

tiresome. TIRESOME!

not only does it leave so much meat on the bone - of someone struggling to deal with the legacy they inherited, sometimes well, sometimes badly - it's also, i think, not a real good moral to push into the heads of young readers (even now grown up).

i mean, how CAN it come down anything less than hard nature over nurture when you've got the villain revealed as this "bad seed" right from his childhood, even before he was ever at Hogwarts?

so honestly - the concept of Cursed Child, the idea of voldemort having a kid - i like that concept. family is messy. family guilt is juicy to pry into. how much does the child pay for the sins of the father?

i mean one of the books is literally called 'and the half-blood prince'. it's not actually a subtle dynamic at play here.

and while the racism ends up rebuked, and some minor characters defy their genetic fates - like draco, or sirius - family is a huge part of the series. and it comes down pretty hard in my opinion on nature instead of nurture.