We Need to Talk About Delphi
SPOILERS BELOW. You’ve been warned.
For years I genuinely thought that J.K. Rowling had little more to squeeze out of her billion-dollar toothpaste tube than the theme park in Orlando. Friends, how ignorant I was. Enter: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part play and accompanying script that follows our beloved characters and their children (!) through a plot based on time-travel (!!).
Yes, this sounds like a travesty, but credible sources will assure you it is not. I, for one, am at least 80% on board with this play. But because this is the Harry Potter fandom we’re talking about, it almost goes without saying that no matter the critics’ consensus, the play must live in a cocoon of controversy until the end of time.
Besides the queerbaiting, I’d say its main point of contention is the existence of Delphi(ni). Who is Delphi? Good question. I’m mostly going off of is this moodboard I found on Tumblr:
Courtesy of auguryblackgaunt.tumblr.com
But I also read the script and about one hundred HP subreddits that informed me she is the offspring of Bellatrix Lestrange and Lord Voldemort. Bellamort, if you will (Google the ‘ship at your own risk).
Though Cursed Child serves its purpose in plugging the Time-Turner plothole, Delphi opens up a whole other can of worms that makes me wonder if this was all worth it, really. Burning questions include:
Is she really Voldemort’s daughter or is this her own delusion? Did Voldemort have to get intimate with Bellatrix or was it a kind of artificial insemination situation? Why did the writers choose to torture us by forcing speculation about that? Maybe she was incubated in a snake egg? What is her last name, and is it hyphenated? What is her zodiac sign? Did she even ask to be a part of this narrative?
A pretty big margin of fans are angry about her, and I understand where they’re coming from. I’ve seen people cast her off as a “Tonks/Luna wannabe.” Some think she’s a slapdash fusion of Bellatrix and Voldemort in a way that seems ungenuine. Others don’t have reasons, they just hate her on principle. And then we have this:
In the other camp, there are the fans who think it’s unfair to reduce her to the embodiment of early 2000s emocore aesthetic. They think it’s time to give her character some credit. She was orphaned at a young age and raised by a stone cold set of foster parents and a bird with malice in its heart, and she had no friends until at least age fourteen. Can you really blame her for wanting to bring her father back? To be able to feel important and noticed for once in her life?
Yes, she’s a lightening rod of evil doomed for Azkaban. But she’s complex, gripping, and devastating. All in the best way possible, in my own opinion. But what about you? Have you accepted Delphi as part of the series, or do you want to throw this script into Fiendfyre? Below, you’ll find a handful of opinions from our bloggers and editors, because in the words of our illustrator/Harry Potter maestro Vitoria, “We gotta stop pretending Delphi Voldemort never happened and just start coping.”
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Courtney
I hate that she’s the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix, because I refuse to believe that “Voldemort” and “sex” are two things that could ever happen concurrently. However? I can’t bring myself to dislike her as a character. Her role in the story speaks to the continued existence of orphans of war, a common (and tragic) motif in the overarching series. War made orphans of Teddy Lupin, Neville Longbottom (to an extent), and most obviously Harry. Delphi serves to remind us that tragedy doesn’t only create heroes—it also creates villains. And that’s some good storytelling.
Jessie
Who among us has not wanted to be a weird, all-powerful bird?
Vitoria
Plot wise, I don’t like her existence. I don’t think it makes sense and I wish we found out in the end she’s not reeeally Voldemort’s daughter, just a lonely girl who really thought she was. I’d like her better this way.
But on stage, I thought she was great. Started off really kooky and likable like a fun big sister before she gets evil. I thought she was very convincing. And I really like the design—I think seeing the words “silvery blue hair” maybe evoked very 2005 pictures in people’s brains and everyone just jumped to a very emocore pastel goth “ebony dark’ness dementia raven way” and got a bit put off.
But she really just looks like a cool 2016 girl. Which makes sense, considering the story is set today-ish.
Janet
Even though I feel 50% she is just a plot device, 50% a sort of lazy ripoff of Deb from Empire Records, I don’t think I know how to put this into words because I was so focused on whether or not Albus + Scorpius would play out! But I will say that it does seem like Harry Potter characters skip the wild 20s and just go high school > family men/career women. There is no place in the wizarding world for gap years or contiki trips. Let’s discuss!
Maddy
All I know is I liked her hair right off the bat.
