Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

⛰ What It's About

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is mainly about Harry Potter's son, Albus, who befriends Draco Malfoy's son, Scorpius. Out of Albus' struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted and Scorpius' struggle with rumors surrounding his parentage, the two friends go on an adventure to bring Cedric Diggory back to life by preventing his death, but they find themselves in deep trouble. 

🧠 Thoughts

Overview

First and foremost, this book is a script for the play and it isn't written by J.K. Rowling; it's written by Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. Second, you need to have read the books — or at least have a very good understanding of the story — to know what's going on in the play. The book deals with how Harry deals with fatherhood, as someone who was severely abused as an orphaned child. The crux of the book is Harry Potter's behavior with his child and how that behavior helped to form his Child's own behavior.

Radical Changes

The playwrights made radical changes to some of the characters. Firstly, Hermione Granger is dark-skinned in the play (ain't no racism, just mentioning the changes). Secondly, Albus Potter, Harry's son, was sorted into Slytherin. Ain't that a bit weird? Thirdly, the playwrights depicted Ron as a freaking clown in the play! Ron is always saying jokes and mocking everything; he's rarely serious in the play. Also, Harry is too ill-mannered in the play. This is evident by the way he talks with his son Albus, his rude attitude towards McGonagall when he said that he'd bring the school down if she didn't obey him. Harry is also depicted as ungrateful which was obvious when he told the portrait of Dumbledore that Dumbledore never helped him in facing Voldemort. Like c'mon, what were the playwrights thinking writing this?

Ron, Harry and Hermione

The Basis of the Book is too Complicated

Due to the complicated nature of time turners, J.K. Rowling minimally included it in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Moreover, They were all destroyed by the ministry of magic in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. But here they appear again in the play with no clear explanation. To make the matters worse, the whole plot is BASED ON time turners! Here's J.K. Rowling's view on time turners:

“I went far too light-heartedly into the subject of time travel in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While I do not regret it (Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my favourite books in the series), it opened up a vast number of problems for me, because after all, if wizards could go back and undo problems, where were my future plots?

I solved the problem to my own satisfaction in stages. Firstly, I had Dumbledore and Hermione emphasise how dangerous it would be to be seen in the past, to remind the reader that there might be unforeseen and dangerous consequences as well as solutions in time travel. Secondly, I had Hermione give back the only Time-Turner ever to enter Hogwarts. Thirdly, I smashed all remaining Time-Turners during the battle in the Department of Mysteries, removing the possibility of reliving even short periods in the future.

This is just one example of the ways in which, when writing fantasy novels, one must be careful what one invents. For every benefit, there is usually a drawback.”

The matter of time turners is highly complicated  and raises many questions, many of which are real-world theories. Take the grandfather paradox as an example. It is a potential logical problem that would arise if a person were to travel to a past time and kill his/ her grandfather before he had any children. This would make the birth of that very person impossible.

Book Summary (Spoilers Ahead)

I don't often write book summaries on this blog, but I will this time because this particular book proposed some astonishing ideas that I want to share. I'll summarize the book in the form of points to make it as short as possible.

• Albus is sorted into Slytherin. He is very clumsy at school; not as good as his father.
• Albus and Harry had many father-son disputes and so did Draco and Scorpius. Harry was struggling to be a good father; he just didn't know how to deal with his children due to his rough childhood.
• A girl named Delphi pretends to be Amus's niece (Amus is Cedric's father) and that she wants to help him return his son by using a time turner. Delphi turns out to be lord Voldemort's daughter.
• Albus wants to prove himself due to the weight of the family legacy (his father being "the boy who lived") he never wanted. As a result, Albus and Scorpius volunteer to bring back Cedric Diggory. The plan was to make him lose in the second task of the triwizard tournament so as to prevent his death in the third task.
• They return to the past three times. The first time mistakenly made Ron and Hermione not marry after casting a spell on Cedric. To fix this mistake, Scorpius returns once again to the past. Scorpius finds himself in an alternative dark world, which is ruled by Voldemort. Umbridge is the head of Hogwarts and Harry Potter is dead, so his son, Albus, never was there. Scorpius manages to fix this huge mistake. He tells Snape about every thing. Ron, Snape, Hermione and Scorpius use the Time-Turner to go back to the Triwizard tournament and Albus is prevented from casting his spell on Cedric. When they return, Dementors arrive and suck out Hermione and Ron’s souls. Snape is also killed.
• Scorpius goes back in time and finds Albus alive. Scorpius wants to destroy the Time-Turner. They hand it to Delphi but realize that she is the daughter of Lord Voldemort. Delphi wants Albus to travel back in time to bring Voldemort back from the dead.
• Albus, Scorpius and Delphi transport to the day that Harry’s parents died. Delphi aims to stop Voldemort from attempting to kill Harry so as not to get himself killed.
• Draco Malfoy has a concealed time turner, and Harry, Ginny, Draco, Ron, and Hermione travel in time to the day, on which Voldemort killed Harry's parents and meet Scorpius and Albus. When they arrive, Harry is transfigured into the shape of Voldemort to lure Delphi. Delphi realizes it's Harry, not Voldemort when the transfiguration started to disappear. They all duel and beat Delphi. They then hear the real Voldemort arriving to kill Harry’s parents and realize they cannot intervene or risk changing the future. Harry watches his parents being murdered.

That should be a very brief summary of the book. Some of the ideas mentioned in the book really intrigues me. First, the world, to which Scorpius travelled through time to, is a dark alternative world, in which Voldemort rules and muggles are brutally killed everywhere in huge massacres. Visualizing an other ending for J.K. Rowling's series was mind-blowing for me. Second, I liked that Harry, Ron and Hermione are friendly with Draco in the play. Thirdly, harry transfiguring into Voldemort. WTF? Since I mentioned Voldemort, I also want to say that the idea of Voldemort having a daughter from Bellatrix is quite strange. Voldemort's character is not based on the need of anyone. He's so independent and alright by himself. Moreover, he didn't need an heir because he thought that he would live forever, so I think that it wasn't a good decision to make Voldemort have a child.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this book was a bizarre experience that will - without any spoilers - make you explore a whole new world of HP universe. It touches on a very important idea which is that trivial actions can radically change the future.  And as Dumbledore once said in The Prisoner of Azkaban: “The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.” This idea by itself blows my mind when I think about it.