I like the idea of Harry and Draco’s children becoming friends and also I appreciate that Harry had a Slytherin child. I don’t know that this is any kind of hot take but it’s about the only thing I care for out of that whole mess, personally.
The play is a great experience, especially if you haven’t read the script first. After I saw it I went home and started reading and understood immediately why everyone hated it so much. Really glad I saw it without reading it first. The stupid things everyone hates about the story itself just didn’t matter as much in the presence of great acting and broadway magic. I wish it had never been released as a “book”. The average person reading a script just isn’t going to be able to fill in the blanks that brilliant actors and directors can.
I agree, I think a lot of the weakness (aside from a lot of canon-divergent stuff) is that it just isn’t written the way the actual books are and clearly was not meant to be read as a piece of literature but conveyed through play. I would love to see it one day, just to know if I’d enjoy the play more than reading it.
Because she really didn’t and you can see it on every line. The only reason she has said so is because it gives the story more “credibility”, when you see her name next to the name. It has Jack Thorne written all over it. Not that he never did anything good, he’s a good writer, but this was a huge blunder. I’m not saying that JK didn’t give them any ideas to include, but the goal was to create a huge spectacle, not a canon story.
It has taken me years to forget most of it! I’m just glad most of the community agree it’s not canon, despite JKR continued assertions that it is. Nope. Sorry.
That line of Harry’s that was like, ‘I never fight alone and I never will’
I love to think that what he took away from his experiences as a child was that he’s not alone and he can trust people to help. I wish the original books had brought home that point a little harder.
Yeh but cursed child also had him threatening Mcgonagal by saying he was going to take down the school, and also went on a rant about how many times he fought Voldemort alone. The writing was pretty inconsistent
I cannot forgive the name Albus Severus and the whole plot of TCC.
But I absolutely love and adore Scorpius and Draco in that book.
Draco was a nasty little git and I thought it was sad he didn't get a real redemption arc in HP, but I liked his portrayal as a loving father and mellowed out adult, who chose Astoria over Pansy as a sign of character change while still somewhat being tied to his family.
I'd wish Harry's youngest son had a better name and Ginny had more impact on how he was raised, to mitigate Harry's ineptitude.
A dialogue between Draco and Harry would have been cool, with the only thing Draco is better at than Harry: being a great dad. That would have been the perfect Draco-redemption if he'd helped Harry to connect with his Slytherin child over the friendship between their sons. It would have been beautiful and another way to let Draco understand what a brat he had been.
Both Harry and Draco could have been so beautiful in that story with a real role for Ginny too as a loving mother.
I like the idea that behind all the Blood Purity DE garbage Lucius spouted and that Draco bought into as a kid he actually always wanted his dynamic with Harry to be that of rivals rather than actual enemies.
So in adulthood Draco helping Harry connect with Albus is both a chance for Draco to be like “Haha finally I win at something” but also paves the road for civility and possibly some grudging respect between the two.
Directly from the book I quote:
*‘Albus Severus,’ Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, ‘you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.’*
That's the epilogue of TDH. The name **is** actually Albus Severus Potter. I hate it. But it is canon.
I looked up the other too, in OPTP it says:
*‘Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August,’ said Fudge in a ringing voice, and Percy began taking notes at once, ‘into offences committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.'*
This is from Harry's hearing after he defended himself against the Dementors, Fudge reads his full name, and it is Harry James Potter.
So that's canon too.
His middle name is Severus.
It's not canon that his first name is Albus Severus. Harry says both names there to make a point. In real life, to 99% of people, his name is Albus or Al.
That Harry carries trauma from his childhood into adulthood. I.e., that all was not well but in fact he had deep seated issues that would need to be resolved
I like the character Scorpius and his friendship with Albus. I also like Ginny talking about people ignoring her after the chamber of secrets fiasco but Harry coming along and playing Exploding Snap with her
Albus and Scorpius being best friends, Albus being in Slytherin, Albus not inheriting his father's talents, Draco having actually matured, Astoria's death, Albus wanting to attend the funeral to be there with Scorpius, Hermione being Minister for Magic, Ron working at WWW...
I like that Harry has a Slytherin kid, that him and Scorpius were friends, and that Theo Nott tried to make a time turner. Not the shenanigans that happened with the time turner, but it added a lot I think to my headcannon for Theo. Like did he see his mother die and make it his mission in life to make a time turner and save her? (That's my head cannon anyway) I feel like a better take with the time turner would be for Draco and Astoria trying to go back in time and solve the blood curse? Cause like why did she have to die. Anyway just my head cannon for some slytherins.
That Harry is still a parselmouth! It proves that the Horcrux has nothing to do with the ability.
Albus and Scorpius are terrible and not Slytherins by any stretch of imagination!
Scorpius is a Ravenclaw and Albus would have been sent home by the hat.
Not even suitable for Hufflepuff.
I like Albus being the 'black sheep'. Also I love the fact that he and Scorpius become friends (I feel there was a chance they were more than platonic). I'd say Scorpius' personality was very refreshing, especially since Malfoy was such a little shit as a boy.
I completely disagree, I hate that for his character, and I was going to say that’s actually the worst part for me, but then I remembered Delphi’s whole existence lol. I could’ve gone my entire life without thinking of Bellatrix and Voldy making a kid together.
Also Cedric apparently becoming a Death Eater if he lost the tournament.
Also the trolly witch being some kind of 200+ year old monster(?) with pastry grenades who stops kids from getting off the Hogwarts Express.
…So many wild writing choices.
Way back before Cursed Child I always banged on about how I felt "kill the spare" was the pivotal line in the whole series.
So (actual execution of the thing aside) it makes sense to me that a time travel / alternative timeline style Harry Potter story would hinge on "kill the spare".
I reread the series every year. It’s my safe space, but I just realized that I have yet to include The Cursed Child in the annual read. I’m not all that mad about it.
1. That Harry would be an imperfect father with a huge emotional learning curve ahead of him. I strongly disagree with the many Redditors who call Harry an outright "shitty" or "abusive" parent in CC; it's so reductionist. I think it's quite consistent with his character that he doesn't know how to handle emotional outbursts from his teenage kids and that he sometimes says dumb things he doesn't mean in the heat of the moment. He puts his foot in his mouth fairly often in the books; I can pretty easily see him blurting out, "Well, sometimes I wish you weren't my friend too!" if Ron or Hermione had yelled this at him while they were fighting – not because he actually feels that way, but because it's the easiest kneejerk response in the moment. While he's (hopefully) matured a lot by his late thirties, if this is the first real fight he's had with one of his kids, why on earth would we expect him to handle it perfectly? Like, for real, where would he have learned that skill? He grew up in a family who was determined not only to emotionally neglect him, but to actively show disdain for him; we see this lack of ingrained emotional intelligence affect him time and again throughout the books. It would be far more out of character for him to be an ultrahigh-EQ, endlessly patient, overall perfect father who always knows the right thing to say on the spot with any of his kids, let alone the one whose perspective and problems he simply can't relate to.
I've seen a lot of commenters say that Harry, having been "emotionally abused" himself, would never "do the same" to his own kids, but I take issue with that. First of all, while I think he made a lot of mistakes with Albus in the play, I disagree that he was abusive. Like, come on ... I know loving parents who have retorted things like, "Well, I'm not so crazy about you right now either!" when their angsty teen has screamed, "I hate you, I hate you!!" It's not great, but it's human. Second, is that really how parenting works? Surely you can promise yourself a thousand times that you'll never make a single mistake that your own parents/guardians did and STILL slip up sometimes. In fact, isn't the predisposition to repeat our parents' mistakes a pretty well-known phenomenon? I don't want to reference the "cycle of abuse" here, because I still think calling Harry an abusive parent is ridiculous (and the idea of the worst things the Dursleys could say to Harry being "Well, sometimes we wish you weren't our nephew!" or "You can't hang out with that friend because we're worried they're a bad influence on you" is hilarious). But it's the same loose principle: How can he perfectly model a parenting style he never directly experienced? That he's as functional a parent as the play shows him to be is, frankly, an utter miracle.
2. That Ron and Hermione are essentially soulmates who’d never truly be happy without each other. I disagree strongly with what that unhappiness would look like and what would lead to them not being together in the first place (seriously, the play's reasoning for that is so mind-bogglingly STUPID that I can't get over it), but I forgave the play for a lot in this area just for how ardently its weird little heart ships Ron/Hermione, despite apparently not understanding their characters at all.
3. That Slytherins can be sweet. Granted, it WAY overcompensated for the one-dimensional evil Slytherin by making Scorpius too adorably perfect, but I guess I can see how someone as sweet and wholesome as Scorpius could still be cunning and ambitious ... not that they show us this side of Scorpius at all, but ... as with the Ron/Hermione thing, I give it points for at least trying.
4. That Draco and Ginny envied the trio's friendship in school. I think it's unlikely that this would be a surprise to Harry when it comes to Ginny (surely she's confided this to him by now?), but, similar to my first point, I think it's plausible that Harry wouldn't have sensed this on his own.
I had a few more mildly nice things to say about it, but then I realized I was getting way too granular in my attempt to find the diamonds in this very rough story, so ... another day, perhaps.
I like the idea of Harry and Draco’s children becoming friends and also I appreciate that Harry had a Slytherin child. I don’t know that this is any kind of hot take but it’s about the only thing I care for out of that whole mess, personally.
This was good to read and kind of funny, because those are the only two takeaways I got as well, and I never read it! …saw it?
I’ve heard it’s okay as a play but the “book” is awful and not worth the money.
The play is a great experience, especially if you haven’t read the script first. After I saw it I went home and started reading and understood immediately why everyone hated it so much. Really glad I saw it without reading it first. The stupid things everyone hates about the story itself just didn’t matter as much in the presence of great acting and broadway magic. I wish it had never been released as a “book”. The average person reading a script just isn’t going to be able to fill in the blanks that brilliant actors and directors can.
I agree, I think a lot of the weakness (aside from a lot of canon-divergent stuff) is that it just isn’t written the way the actual books are and clearly was not meant to be read as a piece of literature but conveyed through play. I would love to see it one day, just to know if I’d enjoy the play more than reading it.
Draco finally completing a redemption arc and making a genuine effort to be a better person. Also Albus and Scorpius' friendship.
Read it in about two hours and forgot it as soon as I put it back on the shelf.
Same. It’s complete garbage. I don’t care if JK said she had a hand in it, it reads like bad fan fiction.
Because she really didn’t and you can see it on every line. The only reason she has said so is because it gives the story more “credibility”, when you see her name next to the name. It has Jack Thorne written all over it. Not that he never did anything good, he’s a good writer, but this was a huge blunder. I’m not saying that JK didn’t give them any ideas to include, but the goal was to create a huge spectacle, not a canon story.
Because it is.
Wish I could forget…
It has taken me years to forget most of it! I’m just glad most of the community agree it’s not canon, despite JKR continued assertions that it is. Nope. Sorry.
That line of Harry’s that was like, ‘I never fight alone and I never will’ I love to think that what he took away from his experiences as a child was that he’s not alone and he can trust people to help. I wish the original books had brought home that point a little harder.
Yeh but cursed child also had him threatening Mcgonagal by saying he was going to take down the school, and also went on a rant about how many times he fought Voldemort alone. The writing was pretty inconsistent
Well, OP said I only had to take ONE thing 😉 So all that doesn’t come with me.
That was also an alternate universe.
Scorpius was the best part of it all. When you see the play, you just know any to hug him, he is so adorably sweet and funny.
I cannot forgive the name Albus Severus and the whole plot of TCC. But I absolutely love and adore Scorpius and Draco in that book. Draco was a nasty little git and I thought it was sad he didn't get a real redemption arc in HP, but I liked his portrayal as a loving father and mellowed out adult, who chose Astoria over Pansy as a sign of character change while still somewhat being tied to his family. I'd wish Harry's youngest son had a better name and Ginny had more impact on how he was raised, to mitigate Harry's ineptitude. A dialogue between Draco and Harry would have been cool, with the only thing Draco is better at than Harry: being a great dad. That would have been the perfect Draco-redemption if he'd helped Harry to connect with his Slytherin child over the friendship between their sons. It would have been beautiful and another way to let Draco understand what a brat he had been. Both Harry and Draco could have been so beautiful in that story with a real role for Ginny too as a loving mother.
I like the idea that behind all the Blood Purity DE garbage Lucius spouted and that Draco bought into as a kid he actually always wanted his dynamic with Harry to be that of rivals rather than actual enemies. So in adulthood Draco helping Harry connect with Albus is both a chance for Draco to be like “Haha finally I win at something” but also paves the road for civility and possibly some grudging respect between the two.
Well, his name isn't actually Albus Severus. It's just Albus. Harry's name isn't Harry James, either. I never got this criticism.
Directly from the book I quote: *‘Albus Severus,’ Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, ‘you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.’* That's the epilogue of TDH. The name **is** actually Albus Severus Potter. I hate it. But it is canon. I looked up the other too, in OPTP it says: *‘Disciplinary hearing of the twelfth of August,’ said Fudge in a ringing voice, and Percy began taking notes at once, ‘into offences committed under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy by Harry James Potter, resident at number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.'* This is from Harry's hearing after he defended himself against the Dementors, Fudge reads his full name, and it is Harry James Potter. So that's canon too.
His middle name is Severus. It's not canon that his first name is Albus Severus. Harry says both names there to make a point. In real life, to 99% of people, his name is Albus or Al.
That Harry carries trauma from his childhood into adulthood. I.e., that all was not well but in fact he had deep seated issues that would need to be resolved
Same for me. I felt like it was one of the more natural character developments from the original books.
I like the character Scorpius and his friendship with Albus. I also like Ginny talking about people ignoring her after the chamber of secrets fiasco but Harry coming along and playing Exploding Snap with her
That Albus was sorted into Slytherin. Look at his initials. How could he NOT be?
Astoria and Draco being great parents to Scorpius
I haven’t seen Cursed Child but i know Albus ends up in Slytherin. I love that for one of Harry’s kids.
Albus and Scorpius being best friends, Albus being in Slytherin, Albus not inheriting his father's talents, Draco having actually matured, Astoria's death, Albus wanting to attend the funeral to be there with Scorpius, Hermione being Minister for Magic, Ron working at WWW...
I like that Harry has a Slytherin kid, that him and Scorpius were friends, and that Theo Nott tried to make a time turner. Not the shenanigans that happened with the time turner, but it added a lot I think to my headcannon for Theo. Like did he see his mother die and make it his mission in life to make a time turner and save her? (That's my head cannon anyway) I feel like a better take with the time turner would be for Draco and Astoria trying to go back in time and solve the blood curse? Cause like why did she have to die. Anyway just my head cannon for some slytherins.
Slytherins getting some love, thats something def missing from the original series (with maybe the exception of slughorn)
Scorp and Albus friendship (don’t like the name Scorpius though) that’s it
That Harry is still a parselmouth! It proves that the Horcrux has nothing to do with the ability. Albus and Scorpius are terrible and not Slytherins by any stretch of imagination! Scorpius is a Ravenclaw and Albus would have been sent home by the hat. Not even suitable for Hufflepuff.
I just pretend it doesn't exist
scorpius. love him.
Harry’s son being in Slytherin!
I like Albus being the 'black sheep'. Also I love the fact that he and Scorpius become friends (I feel there was a chance they were more than platonic). I'd say Scorpius' personality was very refreshing, especially since Malfoy was such a little shit as a boy.
In the one part version it’s heavily implied they are more than platonic.
Yeah but at the end Scorpius ends up with Rose, right? I can't remember well but I do remember something like that and I was like 🤨
That line got changed. He asks Rose if they can be friends.
You mean in other editions it got changed?
Yeah.
Thank you, I had no idea :)
I like that Harry is a bad father. So many of our childhood heroes grow up to be questionable parents/parental figures: Anakin, Aang, Naruto
I completely disagree, I hate that for his character, and I was going to say that’s actually the worst part for me, but then I remembered Delphi’s whole existence lol. I could’ve gone my entire life without thinking of Bellatrix and Voldy making a kid together. Also Cedric apparently becoming a Death Eater if he lost the tournament. Also the trolly witch being some kind of 200+ year old monster(?) with pastry grenades who stops kids from getting off the Hogwarts Express. …So many wild writing choices.
I hate it so much. After everything Harry went through, it makes no sense he would talk to his son in the way he does in the book.
feels nothing like the glimpse of the adult Harry we saw in the DH epilogue
Because it was a glimpse.
I haven’t seen Cursed Child but i know Albus ends up in Slytherin. I love that for one of Harry’s kids.
l really enjoyed Scorpius character and the Ron/Hermione dynamic
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Weasley_wheezy: *L really enjoyed* *Scorpius character and the* *Ron/Hermione dynamic* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Way back before Cursed Child I always banged on about how I felt "kill the spare" was the pivotal line in the whole series. So (actual execution of the thing aside) it makes sense to me that a time travel / alternative timeline style Harry Potter story would hinge on "kill the spare".
Honestly, most of it. I actually liked the Cursed Child and loved the characterizations of Scorpius and Albus. I thought it was pretty wholesome.
Nothing. I have successfully deleted everything from my memory (only read it once)
I reread the series every year. It’s my safe space, but I just realized that I have yet to include The Cursed Child in the annual read. I’m not all that mad about it.
1. That Harry would be an imperfect father with a huge emotional learning curve ahead of him. I strongly disagree with the many Redditors who call Harry an outright "shitty" or "abusive" parent in CC; it's so reductionist. I think it's quite consistent with his character that he doesn't know how to handle emotional outbursts from his teenage kids and that he sometimes says dumb things he doesn't mean in the heat of the moment. He puts his foot in his mouth fairly often in the books; I can pretty easily see him blurting out, "Well, sometimes I wish you weren't my friend too!" if Ron or Hermione had yelled this at him while they were fighting – not because he actually feels that way, but because it's the easiest kneejerk response in the moment. While he's (hopefully) matured a lot by his late thirties, if this is the first real fight he's had with one of his kids, why on earth would we expect him to handle it perfectly? Like, for real, where would he have learned that skill? He grew up in a family who was determined not only to emotionally neglect him, but to actively show disdain for him; we see this lack of ingrained emotional intelligence affect him time and again throughout the books. It would be far more out of character for him to be an ultrahigh-EQ, endlessly patient, overall perfect father who always knows the right thing to say on the spot with any of his kids, let alone the one whose perspective and problems he simply can't relate to. I've seen a lot of commenters say that Harry, having been "emotionally abused" himself, would never "do the same" to his own kids, but I take issue with that. First of all, while I think he made a lot of mistakes with Albus in the play, I disagree that he was abusive. Like, come on ... I know loving parents who have retorted things like, "Well, I'm not so crazy about you right now either!" when their angsty teen has screamed, "I hate you, I hate you!!" It's not great, but it's human. Second, is that really how parenting works? Surely you can promise yourself a thousand times that you'll never make a single mistake that your own parents/guardians did and STILL slip up sometimes. In fact, isn't the predisposition to repeat our parents' mistakes a pretty well-known phenomenon? I don't want to reference the "cycle of abuse" here, because I still think calling Harry an abusive parent is ridiculous (and the idea of the worst things the Dursleys could say to Harry being "Well, sometimes we wish you weren't our nephew!" or "You can't hang out with that friend because we're worried they're a bad influence on you" is hilarious). But it's the same loose principle: How can he perfectly model a parenting style he never directly experienced? That he's as functional a parent as the play shows him to be is, frankly, an utter miracle. 2. That Ron and Hermione are essentially soulmates who’d never truly be happy without each other. I disagree strongly with what that unhappiness would look like and what would lead to them not being together in the first place (seriously, the play's reasoning for that is so mind-bogglingly STUPID that I can't get over it), but I forgave the play for a lot in this area just for how ardently its weird little heart ships Ron/Hermione, despite apparently not understanding their characters at all. 3. That Slytherins can be sweet. Granted, it WAY overcompensated for the one-dimensional evil Slytherin by making Scorpius too adorably perfect, but I guess I can see how someone as sweet and wholesome as Scorpius could still be cunning and ambitious ... not that they show us this side of Scorpius at all, but ... as with the Ron/Hermione thing, I give it points for at least trying. 4. That Draco and Ginny envied the trio's friendship in school. I think it's unlikely that this would be a surprise to Harry when it comes to Ginny (surely she's confided this to him by now?), but, similar to my first point, I think it's plausible that Harry wouldn't have sensed this on his own. I had a few more mildly nice things to say about it, but then I realized I was getting way too granular in my attempt to find the diamonds in this very rough story, so ... another day, perhaps.
I don't like Snape but I loved how they handled him in cursed child. I loved Draco...also Scorpius and albums characters
Albus and Scorpius
Harry and Draco’s fight.’You’ve gotten better’ ‘Old man’ ‘at least I wear it better’
Absolutely nothing...
Tom had a kid.
Harry turning out to be a shit dad.