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So.............



Where to start ?



(First of all, ATTENTION SPOILERS EVERYWHERE. Second of all, this got tragically long, I'm really sorry, and honestly this is just a mess. but so is this play. u reap what u sow xoxo)



Ok so first this is a message to harry james potter fans, and them alone. Please, PLEASE, do not make my mistakes, do not read the cursed child. If you love Harry you know that he is the best person that has ever lived and therefore it is clear for everyone he doesn't deserve any of the shit happening in this book. ANY OF IT. And neither do you! He's beautiful, and you're all beautiful, and I'm beautiful, and none of us deserved this. (but especially harry)



Now that that's been said, i need to add: if you think this review focuses solely on harry james potter and ignores everything every other character has been through, well, you'd be right. To be perfectly clear, i give zero fucks about other characters. i don't care about their sad lives, i don't care about their feelings and it's perfectly obvious to me that whatever they go through, none of it comes even close to whatever horror harry's living. so, i don't care about albus severus, i certainly don't care about draco malfoy, and i don't particularly care about talking about harry's flaws either, so be sure that i won't. bye



ANYWAY, i still don't know where to start. i don't know, as a person who has been resentful of her own parents and who is as a result suspicious of parents in general, i don't particularly appreciate this attempt to make harry james potter, my favourite character ever, someone who i've loved for 16 years and who got me through the worst moments of my life when i thought i had nothing else, someone that i've always looked up to, become everything i hate. So, really, thanks for that ! (That still doesn't stop Harry from being the most beautiful person, but still, disgusting)



And aside from this personal disgust about the whole thing, i'm pretty sure there are more original ways to tell a story. because of course everyone struggles with the war, and with everything else they've been through, and the kids have to deal with who their parents are, that makes perfect sense to me, but i don't KNOW why this has to be achieved by making harry look like an asshole. i also don't know why we get this whole HARRY IS A BAD FATHER!!!!11§1&!&! thing when we don't even get the perspective of his other two children, who don't really seem to have a problem with him. maybe they do, but either way, we don't know. why? WHATEVER THIS STORYLINE WASN'T NECESSARY AND I HATE IT. but if it that wasn't enough (of course it wasn't) we then have to deal with harry behaving in ways he actually would never. my first question is WHY on earth is he head of magical law enforcement when 1) he hates the ministry 2) he has always opposed the ministry's decisions 3) he was himself a victim of the ministry and of this same department 4) he witnessed first hand how crap they are 5) WHY!!! WOULD!!! HE!!! WORK!!! FOR!!! THEM!!! AND WHY WOULD HE BE THE BOSS. I know Harry's wanted to be an auror but HE WAS FOURTEEN and in the middle of a war, and obviously i know he always wants to save the world and get the bad guys so they won't hurt anyone else but i just can't see why after the war he would have wanted this to be his daily life, and especially not by working at the ministry. But whatever i've never agreed with this anyway and i'm always going to be angry about it soooo.



ok anyway being head of magical law enforcement then turns him into some asshole that threatens people for no valid reason, a person that is literally the opposite of who harry james potter is, but ok. ok. i also can't figure out a way to believe harry would actually threaten his son to spy on him by putting a spell on him to see and hear everything he sees and hears. what the fuck?????? what the fuck. good for you if you want to write harry like this but IT IS NOT HIM and he would never be this person, he was never like this and he has no reason to become this as an adult. NEVER!!!!!! And, on top of it, after i had to read this nonsense with my own eyes, who shows up to offer harry some well-needed parenting advice? DRACO MALFOY. i mean....... i don't actually have words for this. but thanks for making harry look like a loser while everyone around him is so much more sensible and better.



I think that's all for BAD DAD HARRY, SHIT DUDE HARRY (no it's not but i don't want to talk about it anymore), but if only that was the only problem. No, because when they finally decide to write Harry as himself (finally indeed), they go back to what's worked so well in books 1 to 7: MAKING. HARRY. SUFFER. So i'll just make a list if you don't mind of all the SHIT (shit is a truly weak word for what he actually gets here) he has to deal with in this exciting play:

- harry standing alone in his office, tired, "the weight of the world upon his shoulders" tell me something i don't know??????? this is harry james potter at ages 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. LET HIM LIVE

- amos diggory shows up to his doorstep in the middle of the night to blame him for cedric's death

- his own son, piece of shit son albus severus, mocks him for the abuse he's been through and acts like harry's ever asked any of this to happen to him, or like the world would be better off if harry hadn't been there to save it (an opinion that quickly gets shot down when scorpius stumbles into voldemort lives au. thanks harry for saving the world indeed and pretty much dying doing it)

- albus severus also blames him for everyone that died during the war. why not.

- this obviously results in harry feeling guilty and blaming himself for everything which, again, i have already read about in the seven previous books

- albus severus who has the audacity to say harry "doesn't care", spare me with your teenage emo problems buddy, come to my face and tell me that harry, harry james potter, who constantly feels so much about everyone and everything, DOESN'T CARE.

- (side note, i find it funny that everyone calls harry whiny during order of the phoenix and blames him for dealing with everything that happens then, when we have here in albus a perfect example of what a whiny person actually is)

- harry's scar hurting again after TWENTY TWO YEARS like either he thought he was free of it and now he's not or either there was always a part of him who never totally believed voldemort was really gone, and now he has to be like "is he. could he be back." fun times once more

- flashbacks of the dursleys abusing harry in case, again, we haven't seen enough of that before

- harry then gets to yell at dumbledore('s portrait) for 5 short seconds about him sending him back to privet drive every year which is like, ABOUT TIME, but of course this part only exists so that harry can forgive dumbledore who is, i quote, "weeping openly" and have harry agree to say that love "blinds people" and make them make mistakes and that therefore everything dumbledore did is perfectly justified. which then makes harry compare dumbledore sending him to the dursleys, where he was sure to be hated and treated like shit, to himself sending albus to hogwarts, where he was sure to have friends bc HE ALREADY HAD FRIENDS. well, that's not the same, harry is not dumbledore, and i don't see why they have to make him think that. fuck you

- harry then being used to say that dumbledore and snape were great men, i don't care how great they were, they wEReN'T, AND I DON'T WANT HARRY TO SAY THAT. i could write pages about forgiveness and i've never had a problem with harry forgiving them but i think there's a difference between forgiving them because that's who he is, because he always forgives, and actually justifying whatever horrible things they did, and i don't see why he always has to be the one justifying it, because if he forgives and justifies it then it almost makes it look ok. BUT IT'S NOT. FUCK OFF.

- "harry is consumed in his grief" story of his life

- another moment where he blames himself and thinks everyone would be better off if he had died like he was "supposed to" listen to me harry james potter i don't want to hear this!!!! you didn't do anything wrong!!!! you saved the world!!!! where would they be without you!

- and then of course, the whole time turner business brings him back where? October 31st 1981, Godric's Hollow, night of his parents' deaths. excellent.

- but not before having to transfigure himself into voldemort!!!!!!!! like nothing that happened to him has been enough, he has to BE voldemort. why??? W H Y. WHAT JUSTIFIES MAKING HIM GO THROUGH THIS. WHAT.

- "it has to be me" of course it has harry. OF COURSE.

- and then....... finally...... we finally reach what seems to have been the purpose of this whole play..... order has been restored, the world has been saved, they fought evil and won, all of this for what????? yes, to stand there and watch lily and james die. Yay !

- before actually seeing this tho he also has to see voldemort actually ALIVE, which is a great moment for him. i'm pretty sure this figures in his top 5 things he wanted most in his life, 23 years after his death

- ginny is like "you don't have to watch" thank you ginny, but SADLY "i'm letting it happen, of course i have to watch" NO, YOU DON'T, YOU BLOODY FOOL, YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING IN YOUR LIFE THAT JUSTIFIES DOING THIS TO YOURSELF. HARRY, I LOVE YOU, DON'T DO IT--

- but no. he does. because having to relive his parents' murder in memories and nightmares or whenever a dementor comes close to him apparently was NOT enough, no, what he clearly was missing from his life was to witness it as a 40 year-old man. cool. just cool.

- allow me to quote the exact second where he sees lily die : "and it's like lightning passes through harry's body, he's sent to the floor, a pure mess of grief"

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Why ????????? WHO. Who thought this was great. What was this person's thought process? "Hey you know what i think? harry hasn't suffered enough in his life, i think what's missing is that he should be there in godric's hollow in 1981, to see his parents die, right? he totally deserves this."

- i don't know. i don't understand this play. if i wanted to see harry suffer well i already had 7 books of it, 7 books where his life constantly gets worse, and whatever rare moments of joy (i can't even say happiness, when has this kid ever been happy?) he gets are soon replaced by moments of horror. the books end with an epilogue that make it look like harry gets to live and to be happy, but 9 years later, we find out that that's actually not the case? why doesn't his suffering ever end? obviously i know that given what he's been through he's always gonna have nightmares and he's gonna carry his scars with him and he's never gonna forget but does it have to be all he gets?? i know he's always gonna live through some painful moments ok bc he's human and we all have to go through painful moments, and the pain doesn't stop just because he's defeated voldemort and saved the world, but my question is: do we really need to see it??? what does this bring to his story ? is it character development to see him go through the same things over and over again ? is it narratively satisfying?? like, of course he feels guilty, he's always felt guilty, i know he feels guilty, i don't have to be told about how often he goes see cedric's grave to say he's sorry to know just how sorry he feels. did i mention i've loved him for 16 years ? i know very well he blames himself for everything, he feels everything is his fault and he feels personally responsible for every person he couldn't save, and while i very much love him for it, because he cares so much, because of everything he is, i actually don't want to see it. i've already seen it.



i know he's sad. but i love him, and i want him to see him happy. i deserve to see him happy, and he deserves to be. contrary to popular belief stories don't have to be awful all the time. that's not what makes a story good or worth telling. at the very least, it is all sorts of terrible and disgusting to use BAD DAD HARRY as a PLOT DEVICE just to make him go through horrible things, again. the reason any of it happens is because of albus and harry's relationship. this story wasn't necessary. there were plenty of stories about harry to tell, that respected him as a person and as a character, that didn't make light of what happened to him but that also allowed him and us to see beyond it. i for one would have very much liked to see harry happy, struggling sometimes and feeling sad occasionally but still being happy, someone who is still very much caring for others, helping other people, and making the world a better place. because that's who harry is, and there were much better stories than him being a shit ass auror, a shit ass dad, because we've always known him as such a good person, and even in this horrible play, that's still what comes through, how much he cares, how much he wants to save everyone, because you can't take that away from him no matter how much you try your hardest to make him look like he's not as great as an adult as he was a kid. Ginny even says at some point that everyone sees him as The Hero, but that they fail to see how he's been heroic in quiet ways, and i think that's true, and i think focusing on that would have been better, not some grand epic hero moment where he defeats evil, because he's already done that, but just moments of his every day life where he saves the world one day at a time, one person at a time, quietly, just by helping people and making the world better. But i suppose doing that would involve being a good writer, and no one involved in this play has proven to be one.



Of course, even if you focus on something in this play other than harry, though i don't see why you would, you'll realise that it is still super shit. The storyline itself, if it can even be called that, shows no originality as 1) the books have dealt with time travel before 2) let alone characters who are not who they say they are 3) i've read fics like this a thousand times before as well, as if no one has ever had the idea to make voldemort and bellatrix have a secret baby, and now we're supposed to act like this is just magnificently written and plotted. (The fics were actually better, not sorry to say, bc none of them treated harry like this.) Well, it's not, it's stupid, it is not a good story, and everyone who has the audacity to act like this is incredible and excellent storytelling frankly needs to read better books.



And the play doesn't even really have a resolution. Where do Albus and Harry go from here? What do James and Lily think of the whole thing? IS HARRY GONNA BE HAPPY ONE DAY ? Not to mention it is laughable that the whole story is sort of about albus and scorpius' friendship, with some moments between them worthy of the angstiest romance novels i've ever read, only to end with scorpius asking rose out. we get it, everyone is a straight, but that adds nothing to the story and is only just another example of a boy randomly wanting a girl who doesn't want anything to do with him. And they're FOURTEEN. And why did draco randomly replace ron as harry's best friend, ron was just there to make jokes and everything happened without him, and even as someone who has definitely not been his greatest fan, i can tell you he deserved much much better. who would have thought that in the year 2016 ron weasley would be the newest victim of the drarries. everything happens i guess. and why do we have to care about draco's feelings for that matter i wish i knew (PS: special mention to severus snape basically requoting a kingdom or this to albus and scorpius. truly iconic)



i don't know what else to say. this was terrible and disappointing in every possible way. The best part was ron and hermione, so i guess there will be at least one group of people satisfied with this. Good for them. But i'm just angry that Harry Potter, as a character and as a series, has meant so much to me for so long, only to end like this, for no valid reason. like deathly hallows actually ended with hope (and im not counting the epilogue), it was about harry finally being free of voldemort and the war and of course horrible things happened because it was a war and people died, and it was going to take them time to deal with this, but harry was seventeen, and he had his whole life before him, and you could feel he was going to be ok (the book literally ends with the words ALL WAS WELL). and now we're here, he's 20 years older, but he's not ok, it almost seems like no time has passed, and it almost seems like he's gonna be stuck like this forever. and even if you wanted to play the bad father harry card, there was no need for this story, like you could just introduce that harry and albus had a bad relationship, whatever, and then they could have spent the whole play fighting to make it better, to talk to each other and to learn and to become better together, but no, instead nonsense happens and we end with one shit conversation about how dumbledore and snape were great men and we're supposed to believe that they're gonna be ok after this. that is of course until jkr decides she isn't done with harry's story at all, and writes another sequel where albus murders harry in 20 more years because it turns out their relationship never became better at all. who knows? i wouldn't put it past her.



idk i just really don't know what to say, no one needed this, the last book came out in 2007, which is almost 10 years ago, and we didn't feel such a hole in our lives that a sequel had to be written and especially such a shitty one. I DON'T KNOW. i just don't understand. there are just so many ways to write something good but instead it seems like they just took the easy way and wrote straight up nonsense because they knew the fans would eat it up and buy the fucking books no matter what. well, as a fan: fuck you! and by the way, when you write something for money and not because you actually care about the characters, or that you have a specific story about them you need and want to tell, everybody can see it.



(PS: if JKR doesn't want to write the story where Harry dismantles the oppressive system of the wizarding world that has allowed the ministry to be the shit that it's always been, i will, and in the meantime i will let harry take a well deserved break on a beautiful beach with his beautiful boyfriend. xoxo)



To finish put an end to this horrific review (i'm so sorry) let me just say that i love my darling Harry, i don't care if he's fictional and i shouldn't love him this much, he's always been the realest and the most important for me, he means the world to me and he has saved my life in more ways than one. Even through this pile of shit he remains everything he's always been, the hero he's always been but also so much more than that; always so brave, always so ready to help people, always ready to do something horrible so that someone else doesn't have to, always blaming himself so people won't blame themselves, always trying to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders so that no one else will have to, always worrying over everyone even when no one really actually worries about him, and pretending he's fine so people won't worry, always kind, always trying to be better no matter what, always struggling with many things but still trying to overcome it, always trying so much, and always seeing the best in people, even when they don't deserve it, constantly hilarious, prince of freedom, and always and still such a good and beautiful person. So, Harry, my love, happy birthday, you are the light of the world, i love you all the time and always, and thank you for everything.