The Harry Potter franchise has been on a steady decline in popularity following the release of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. With many thoroughly boycotting anything that has to do with author J.K. Rowling, the obvious cash-grab nature of the new Harry Potter series on Max, and the ever-present failure of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, it is clear that time is up for Harry Potter. However, no piece of media within the Harry Potter canon is as hated as the supposed eighth book, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The Cursed Child is a play written by Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, meant to be a follow-up to the epilogue of Deathly Hallows. Most fans, when referring to The Cursed Child, are mostly referring to the script, which they perceive to be quite awful. This leads to the question: is the script as bad as people say it is?
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child follows Harry and his friends immediately after the epilogue in Deathly Hallows, covering the Hogwarts career of Harry’s son, Albus Potter. Albus becomes friends with Scorpius Malfoy (Draco Malfoy’s son), clashes with his father, and ends up going on an adventure through time under the guidance of Delphi Diggory, Amos Diggory’s supposed niece. However, as the story progresses, it is revealed that Delphi is Voldemort’s daughter, and she attempts to travel back to the night Voldemort tries to kill Harry to prevent the prophecy from coming to fruition.
Within this basic plot summary, readers will already find the main issues within the play that fans love to complain about: the numerous retcons present within the plot. The most commonly acknowledged retcon is that of the time turner, as it was confirmed on the official Harry Potter website, Wizarding World, that every time turner was destroyed during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix. In addition, it is stated in the canon game, Hogwarts Legacy, that when the user of a time turner travels back to the time they came from, they age the number of years they traveled. This means that because Albus and Scorpius should have aged seventy-two years during their time-traveling shenanigans, and when the adults travel, their cells should rapidly die off, causing them to all die. Another unfortunate retcon for this play is how Harry inexplicably regains his ability to speak Parseltongue, even though it should have been destroyed along with the Horcrux inside of him. While these nitpicks can be annoying, you can try to look past them and enjoy the story regardless, as The Cursed Child is more of its own thing, even if J.K. Rowling pronounced it as canonical in a desperate ploy for money. Perhaps my stance of apathy about the original series allows me to look past these issues more easily than most, but even so, it should not be too difficult to look at this play independently of the books it hails from.
Another common complaint about The Cursed Child is the way it handled its characters. Many fans complain about how unlikable Harry is in this play, saying that the Harry from the original series would never act like Harry in The Cursed Child. While some of Harry’s actions, such as telling Albus that he wishes he were not his son, and being incredibly rude to McGonagall, do paint the protagonist in an awkward light, I would argue this makes sense. For one, the play takes place about twenty years after Deathly Hallows, and a lot can change within this time, but Harry had always been a bit irritable, and I would argue that it is not much of a stretch to say that he would treat his friends and family like this. Harry yelling at McGonagall is comparable to events that are typically glossed over by fans, such as Harry snapping at Lupin in Deathly Hallows and Sirius in Order of the Phoenix. Ron’s character is also picked apart, with fans saying that he acts more like Fred and George than Ron, but it makes sense for Ron to be a jokester. With his sister having children, Ron taking on a fun-uncle persona is hardly unlikely, on top of the likelihood that Ron would become more like Fred in the wake of his death.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is not good by any means. It has its fair share of jokes that simply fall flat, actual plot holes such as Voldemort having children, and written dialogue, mostly courtesy of Scorpius. However, with a fair share of redeeming qualities and reasons to defend it, The Cursed Child is also far from being bad. I would give it a score of five out of ten, being the perfect example of something completely mediocre. Ultimately, my pettiness toward the hardcore Harry Potter fanbase elevates it a point or two, but even then, the script is not nearly as bad as people say it is.
