Harry Potter and The Cursed Child Review, All Is Not Well (Spoilers)

Just a few days ago, I read Harry Potter and The Cursed Child and today I’m still trying to process it. I wasn’t too excited about this play in the first place, because it involved the next generation and a future for characters that I would have rather left open to the imagination. Harry Potter’s world is big enough for more than Harry Potter himself, and even more than just his kids, why tap into his life again? All was well, and I wanted it to stay that way for Harry and his family. Alas, it was not to be in The Cursed Child.

The story of TCC centers around Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy. Both children are being bullied at Hogwarts due to their fathers’ legacies -- Albus for being in Slytherin and ‘nothing like a Potter’, and Scorpius for the rumors that he might be Voldemort’s son. The two form a friendship as outcasts, which causes even more problems at school and at home. As fathers, Harry and Draco are both hopeless at connecting with the two kids, and Harry can even be harsh to Albus when under stress. For some reason I’m still not sure about, Albus decides to go back in time with Scorpius to save Cedric Diggory, something Harry refuses to do. Delphi, a young woman claiming to be Amos Diggory’s niece, helps them along in the quest. She is later revealed to be Voldemort and Bellatrix’s child, and the use of time travel is a scheme to resurrect her father.   

If that last sentence made you say, ‘hey that’s like fanfiction I’ve seen ,’ then you’re not alone. 

Many fans have noticed the similarity and have gone a step further by calling it bad fanfiction. Unfortunately, I see their point. Had the summary of TCC been put on a fanfiction site, I would not have been at all tempted to read it due to the unlikeliness of Voldemort’s daughter and the time travel plot. There were some good things to come out of the play, which I’ll touch on at the end of this review. Overall I was disappointed, and I’ve made a list of some issues with the play that could have been better with sometimes minor, sometimes huge, adjustments in the writing.   

1. TCC needed a new Big-Bad that wasn’t associated with Voldemort.

Voldemort having a daughter makes no sense in canon characterizations or timelines (Bellatrix wasn’t noticeably pregnant at Malfoy Manor in DH). Voldemort was a loner, relied on no one, didn’t have or want friends, intimacy, or love. He didn’t want an heir because he was his own legacy, never intending to die. He also certainly wouldn’t have a child on accident. So why in the world would he have a daughter? This contradicts everything we know about him. In any case, at the end of Deathly Hallows, Voldemort’s story is conclusively finished. A new Big Bad could have done wonders for The Cursed Child. As we’ve seen in the HP universe, there’s a ton of underlying conflict in the wizarding world.  A new evil didn’t have to deal with blood purity at all. It could have been a house-elf or goblin or centaur sick of being mistreated. It could be someone with a grudge against the Potters or the Malfoys, or someone within the Ministry. Even if they still wanted to tell the time travel story of TCC, Delphi is unnecessary. Amos Diggory could have been the sole catalyst for the plot, and a more believable one since he honestly might have wanted his son back. 

2. Time travel is messy and should have been left out.

The canon universe is beloved for a reason, and so giving characters the power to change everything we know about it should have been avoided. All the time-turners were destroyed in Order of the Phoenix, and yet two more conveniently turn up over the course of this play. That’s the coincidence on which the whole plot of The Cursed Child is hinged, and that’s way too unlikely for devoted fans to believe with so little explanation. It does not help that the time travelling also leads to several more unlikely scenarios, such as a Bitter and Cruel Hermione, Death Eater Cedric Diggory, and something called Voldemort Day. If the writers really wanted to incorporate the past, it could have been by having Albus and/or Scorpius view the past via memories or other magic. In any case, I’m sure the future holds a lot for these kids—there was no need to revisit their fathers’ adventures. 

3. Harry could be a little inept as a father, but not that much.

In the middle of a fight, Albus tells Harry he wishes Harry wasn’t his dad. Angry, Harry tells Albus that sometimes he wishes he wasn’t his son, essentially proving Al’s worst fear. It seems pretty unbelievable that Harry would say this to his child, even at his most frustrated. Perhaps an angsty fifteen year old Harry might have said that, but not an adult Harry who is acutely aware of how it feels to be considered a waste of space. Harry’s family is the most important thing in his life, all he’s ever wanted, so he certainly knows better than to treat Albus this way. 

A lot of the Harry and Albus drama doesn’t feel justified. Albus is in Slytherin and is bullied in school for not being like a Potter, and this is the core of his resentment towards Harry. But in Deathly Hallows, Albus confides his fear of being placed in Slytherin to his father, and it is Harry who reassures him. The entire epilogue suggests that at this point, Albus is actually closest to his father. He trusts him and is easily comforted by him. Harry and Albus are more similar than not. Albus is not popular at school, but neither was Harry for 90% of his time at Hogwarts. At times people considered him a liar, mad, or a show-off just wanting more fame. He was frequently humiliated by Draco, Snape, and Rita Skeeter. If anything, Harry should be able to connect more to Albus than to James and Lily, who seem to have more boisterous and outgoing personalities than Harry ever had. Like most teenagers, Albus might still be angry and trying to prove himself a little recklessly, but Harry is a mature, loving father and the writing should reflect it.

4. The books taught us about friendship, the play should have taught us about family.

Harry was an only child with no family, and so it made sense that it was a story about friendship. In TCC, however, the Trio all have multiple kids that are rarely seen. Albus’s brother and sister, raised together and very near his age, do not actually appear in the play for more than a scene or two. I’m pretty sure James Sirius Potter would have a lot to say about the events surrounding Albus, possibly trying to make the bullying better for his brother but perhaps accidentally making it worse. Lily could be supportive or bratty or both. Albus’s cousin Rose turns against him early on in the play, so we never get to see any significant interactions between them either. I love the Scorpius and Albus friendship, but there is way more going on in the future generation then we ever get to see. Teddy Lupin, the whole Weasley clan -- they’d all be front and center in Albus’s life, so they should have been front and center in the story.

5. Take everything convenient and get rid of it.

I understand that plays can’t have the nuance of novels, and that some things must happen far more quickly for the stage. However, the long list of convenient plot devices in TCC still read like lazy writing, and each convenience literally holds the story together. Here are some of the most problematic plot points: Voldemort having a daughter. Two time-turners existing and being found by the gang after they were supposedly all destroyed. Harry being an inexcusably bad dad, causing Albus to be reckless. The parents being unable to find the kids even though they use tons of trackable underage magic. The kids being able to break into the Ministry of Magic with very little planning. The blanket from Harry's mom, never mentioned in the books and yet all important to Harry now, and the way Albus communicates with him from the past. Kind and fair Cedric Diggory becoming a Death Eater just because he was humiliated once during the Triwizard Tournament. Harry’s transfiguration into Voldemort wearing off, when a time limit to transfiguration has never been mentioned in any of the books. These things are just unlikely and don’t fit with what we already know about magic, the wizarding world, or the characters. They shouldn’t have been used to patch up holes in the plot.

6. Get. The. Characters. Right.

This is probably the biggest issue that people had with TCC.  Many of the characters of the series just didn’t seem like themselves. Harry lashes out at Albus, tries to keep him away from his only friend, and is rude to McGonagall and Ginny and nearly everyone else at one point or another.  Hermione is kind of irresponsible in keeping the time-turner, and protects it so poorly that two fourteen year old kids can get to it. Ron is hardly in the book, but when he’s mentioned by the others, they make him out to be some Fred/George replacement, only there for comic relief. Ron could be funny and sarcastic in the HP books, but he was never a prankster, and yet Harry and Hermione refer to several of his pranks as Ron, ‘just being Ron.’ Some argue that the characterizations seem closer to the movie versions of themselves, but even the movie versions were never quite this flat and off.  

                                                         

7. There were more interesting and less forced stories to write.

 Overall I think it was a mistake to do the next generation, and specifically to focus on Albus Severus Potter. He has two parents whose stories we know essentially in full, he was named after two of the most controversial HP characters, and he looks just like his famous father. Al would always unfortunately be either a rehashing or an obviously intentional departure from Harry, and it was too fine of a line to walk. 

There were a lot of different stories that could have been told without a need for such convenient or unlikely plot points. These stories are ones fans have been most interested in seeing, and with conflicts that have already been hinted at in the books. Stories that basically write themselves. Some of particular interest to me would be seeing Grindewald vs Dumbledore, the story of Regulus Black, the love story of Pureblood Andromeda Black and Muggleborn Ted Tonks, the Marauders, or perhaps even seeing Neville’s transformation to hero in Deathly Hallows. If absolutely set on a next generation story, they could still shift the focus.  Scorpius could have been the main protagonist with Albus as the supportive sidekick instead of the other way around. Albus’s drama with Harry is less justifiable than Scorpius’s resentment towards Draco, since Draco’s actions actually hurt others and the repercussions would still be felt among Hogwarts-age students. This shift would help a lot, since Scorpius could have a much more tempting reason to want to change his father’s Death Eater past. Or instead of either boy, learning about Teddy Lupin would have been my preference. He has metamorphmagus powers which would have been fun to see a kid/teen use and abuse, and he was in Hufflepuff, a House that finally would have gotten a chance to be in the spotlight. All of this stuff would be more exciting, new, and require less mental gymnastics to make work within the HP universe.

I guess I'll end my list at 7 since it is the most magically powerful number there is.

Though I was disappointed, let me end on a brighter note by talking about the good stuff to come out of the play. The list is short but certainly worth mentioning.  The Malfoys were written in character, and we finally got to see Draco turn into a somewhat respectable human being and father. Albus Potter being in Slytherin and friends with Scorpius Malfoy was a nice chance for some House redemption. The Albus/Scorpius friendship feels very sincere and loving, and had the writers played it less safe it could have been turned into a believable romance (and many fans will forever see it that way). Speaking of Scorpius, he’s a nerdy, righteous little hero and some of his lines really show it. Ron’s become the best dad and uncle of the bunch. I enjoyed the play affirming that in any universe or timeline, Ron and Hermione's love for each other never seems to go away completely. The interactions between Portrait Dumbledore and Harry were beautiful and probably my favorite part. They highlighted the struggles of protecting kids while letting them grow, and this dialogue sounded straight from Rowling’s pen. 

And of course, although there were problems, seeing the Golden Trio still together as friends will always be magical to me.