bounding-heart replied to your post “There are two things when distantly communicating with someone that…”

Cursed Child 100% acknowledges the wonderful person Cedric was in the main timeline. Harry gives a whole speech about it. But it also acknowledges that no one is immune from the effects of trauma. It’s easy to be a wonderful person when you’re handsome, smart, talented, popular and well-loved by all. When those things you’ve taken for granted are taken away, however, a person can change.

I think I get what you’re trying to say here, but I still disagree with what Cursed Child pulled with Cedric Diggory. I will absolutely agree that people can become twisted and bitter by hardship, and it’s a very tragic thing, but I feel there are far better characters to use to send that message than Cedric Diggory. (Personal anti-CC interpretation and spoilers for the Cursed Child, obvs.)

See, I feel that Cedric is too strongly positioned by GOF as a good, innocent, talented person whose death is a profound loss to everyone who knew him and the world in general. As chosen by the Goblet of Fire, Cedric represents the best that Hogwarts has to offer. When Voldemort (through Peter) kills Cedric, just because Cedric was in his way, it violently shows us that Voldemort really doesn’t care how good or innocent or talented or young a person is. (Voldemort has been trying to show us this for years now, but Cedric’s death is where it finally hits home that Voldemort is without mercy and loves killing, because Cedric’s death is up close, personal, and can’t be undone.)

Cedric Diggory is a very minor character in the original books - he’s a good person, full stop - and he works like that. He works in the narrative being no more than that. He doesn’t need to be more complex. We may even mourn him more because we saw so little of him and were only given hints of who he could potentially have been. His position in the fourth book is powerful in how overwhelmingly simple it (and he) is.

Cedric and Harry’s relationship is more complex than Cedric himself, I’d say, and interesting in regards to its position within the Triwizard Tournament. Because the Triwizard Tournament was brought back supposedly to foster friendship between schools and instead, with Cedric and Harry, it divides Hogwarts as a school. Harry and Cedric are kept largely apart and pushed by others towards this toxic rivalry narrative (aggravated by how Cedric asks Cho out before Harry can, opposed by how Cedric tells people to stop wearing the POTTER STINKS badges), which neither of them wants or deserves, but they instead overcome this toxic competition by helping each other.

Isn’t that the whole point of the Triwizard Tournament arc with all this conflict between Harry and Cedric and Viktor and Fleur? I think the ultimate point is that these fellow students, though foreign and strange and set up against you, are not your enemies. This eventually culminates in Cedric and Harry’s final moments together in the Third Task, when they both give up this pointless competition that’s been pushing them to tear each other down:

Cedric: "Go on, take it! You saved me, take it!“ Harry Potter: "We’ll take it together.” - HP: GOF

It’s a moment of triumph, cut short by Cedric’s sudden murder. Dumbledore’s speech at the end of GOF is heartfelt and touching and personal. Hogwarts students mourn one of their own. One of their best. They go forward into harder times with the simply, straightforward memory of Cedric Diggory - good person, full stop - and the greater message that Cedric’s death sends.

In OOTP, Cedric’s status as a good person who was unfairly murdered is underlined, as a traumatized Harry and Cho both mourn him, AND as the Ministry dismisses or flat-out ignores Cedric’s murder. There is a deep sense of injustice driving Harry and the audience through OOTP from Cedric.

I feel that making Cedric evil in CC cheapens Cedric’s death and the emotional cores of GOF and OOTP. Choosing to do anything with him was always going to risk compromising the tragedy of his death - he’s a simple character with a strong position due to his goodness and innocence, which makes his death a very solid turning point - and choosing to give him such negative character development, to me, feels like, “Oh, well, good thing he died then, if he contained the potential to be a murderous, selfish asshole like that. Actually saved everybody a lot more grief, apparently. Thanks, Voldemort.”

Because, yes, no one is immune to trauma, but… I don’t think trauma works like that? If a good person is traumatized, I’d think that they would, idk, become depressed or even suicidal. Not become a radicalized murderer.

Besides, I’d push back further and ask, “Is it necessary to show that no one is immune to trauma in this way?” Is is good to suggest that trauma can turn a good person into a radical murderer? Is it kind to Cedric Diggory and to every other traumatized character put in a positive light in the series to do this? If Harry Potter is a series supposedly so focused on the power of goodness, why is it necessary to take the simple tragedy of young Cedric Diggory and turn it into a budding tale of malicious manipulation and bitterness turning into hate?

Ron faced the unbelievable humiliation and cruelty of “Weasley is our King” and we get to see him triumph in the face of his bullying. Harry faced being ostracized by the school multiple times and came out on top. Neville Longbottom faced bullying and cruelty from peers and professors (counting Snape, Umbridge, and the Carrows) and became a truly courageous hero. Remus faced terrible discrimination for being a werewolf and remained fairly strong in the face of it, until his untimely death. Luna Lovegood faced being ridiculed and shunned for years, and remained nothing less than a determinedly lovely person.

Yes, Cedric has a lot going for him. He’s handsome, smart, talented, popular and well-loved, but… none of those things inherently make you a good person? Or a bad one? His life may have been relatively easy, but I don’t think it was necessary to tear him down for that. It reeks to me of that grimdark “oh, no one’s REALLY a good person / everyone’s just x number of bad things from becoming a bad person” narrative, which… personally… I feel should be the exact opposite message the HP series should be sending? Why does Cedric have to be punished by the story for being good-looking and skilled and friendly?

Again, I read the Triwizard Tournament arc as Harry and Cedric finally breaking in the maze and giving up on fighting each other. Because there wasn’t ultimately a point in being jealous of each other. Cedric didn’t do anything wrong by asking Cho out first. Cedric didn’t do anything wrong by wanting to be Hogwarts’ Champion. Or by being wary of Harry, whom he didn’t know and might have cheated his way into the tournament for all Cedric knew.

If anything, I read Cedric as being set up as almost another “chosen one” (as in chosen by Hogwarts as its champion) to parallel Harry, someone being pushed up on a pedestal who could have been a great and understanding friend to Harry. If there’s a story to be had about Cedric losing everything and everyone, being traumatized and outcast (and deeply failed by society), then I feel it would have been a story about suicide. A young man who has his community turn on him like that? It could have been an interesting way to explore how the wizarding world enjoys building people up and then tearing them down again (which happens with both Dumbledore and Harry), through how they built up Cedric against Harry. Both boys are victims of an overzealous press and scandal-hungry audience.

Personally, I don’t really care what CC supposedly acknowledges. Maybe Harry gave a well-written speech, fine. But suggesting that Cedric could switch tracks from “wonderful person” to “radicalized murderer” so easily (if not easily, as perhaps that’s not the right word, then in the way it happened in the CC) suggests to me that Cedric was never really a good person to begin with, and suggesting that Cedric wasn’t good, I think, undermines the tragedy of his death. It feels like a case of “cool motive, still murder” to me, for bullying / humiliation to make Cedric Diggory into a malicious, awful person.

(Quick tangent here, but I love that scene in ASOUE. Character: “You’ll have to forgive Sir. He had a very terrible childhood.” Klaus Baudelaire: “I understand. I’m having a terrible childhood right now.” And there’s also a good one from Agents of SHIELD, I think, but I can’t remember that one. Speeches or not; you can’t just talk the talk with your story, you gotta walk the walk too.)

I think it’s easy to keep up the appearance of being a good person when you have a lot going for you and aren’t being tested on it, but I don’t think that’s the same as “it’s easy to be a genuinely wonderful person”. I think that being a sincerely good and kind person is hard and sometimes thankless work. If Cedric was ever a young man with a decent understanding of goodness, then I personally feel he should have internalized this conflict than externalized it, unless he was strongly radicalized.

And we already have characters being twisted by radical notions like Draco Malfoy and Regulus Black (or any other young Death Eater) – who were, I want to point out, already deeply bigoted people raised in very malicious families, as opposed to Cedric who was supposedly good – and characters and character arcs dealing with extreme jealousy like Ron in both GOF and DH.

Again, what’s the truly worthy point in turning Cedric Diggory into an angry person who takes out his negative feelings on the world in the form of murder? What’s the necessity of potentially compromising Cedric’s position within the original books for an edgy shock moment?

All that being said, back to one of the first things I said: I will absolutely agree that people can become twisted and bitter by hardship, and it’s a very tragic thing, but I feel there are far better characters to use to send that message than Cedric Diggory. There are other stories to tell or, as I agree that “life is hard and people are changed by it” can be an interesting narrative, other avenues to take when seeking to tell a particular story.

“A lack of support is a very dangerous thing and these people have been failed by society” is not at all an unworthy theme or subject. You’re right in that. I’m not trying to argue against the value and power of that story.

But if we want to talk about people being twisted and made bitter by hardship, how about Dumbledore? Dumbledore’s interesting in how he’s apparently “overcome” any bitterness and “seen the error of his ways”, but hints of it still poke through in his resignation over Harry’s inevitable fate and his manipulation/recklessness and his regret over Ariana. (There’s also Aberforth, who is definitely bitter, though apparently less twisted. Or Ariana herself.)

Or how about Snape? I will admit that plenty was talked about with Snape and Dumbledore in the original book series, but they’re prime candidates for thorough and complex investigation in a play starring a boy named after both of them. And they’re both already complex and morally ambiguous characters. Snape is already a very good example of someone very talented who turned towards malicious evil because of personal bitterness/jealousy.

What about Percy Weasley? Who grew up poor and unappreciated, and let his ambitions to be more than that twist him into a Ministry flunky? What about Ginny? A Ginny who was traumatized by her time with Tom Riddle’s diary but never received help or attention for it could have been interesting.

How about Kreacher? I can’t remember getting confirmation that Kreacher wasn’t still kicking, and Kreacher’s a perfect example of people getting twisted and made bitter by hardship.

Or Harry. Harry may have been talented, smart, athletic, good-looking, and rich, but he was also deeply abused and manipulated. Harry struggled massively with his own bitterness, but ultimately managed to be a pretty good person.

Or you could just invent a new character. Delphi has been failed by society and been twisted by her own bitterness. If that’s what the story wants to talk about, how people can fall and fail and become villainous when their resources are taken away (because they can and it’s tragic), I personally feel there are far better avenues (like Delphi and Harry and etc.) than travelling back in time to pull the story with Cedric Diggory, which I think undermines his significance in the original series. I don’t think there was a value is going back to show people “oh yeah, look how bad this world is, where even Cedric Diggory is evil”; I don’t think it was necessary to tell that story.

Personally, I’m biased (isn’t everyone?), and the time travel in CC squicks me because it retcons how time turners supposedly work (magic is magic, but you have to keep your own magical laws straight, please) in the original books and I think the evil plot was too convoluted and ridiculous. I think the whole “evil alternate universe” was done for the shock value and aesthetic rather than for actually exploring the consequences of an alternate timeline. I don’t like most “Dark AUs”, especially “Dark for the sake of being dark AUs”. I just don’t enjoy them. They don’t do it for me.

I also don’t really see why we had to go back and relive the past, instead of moving on towards something truly new. Albus Severus could have still had issues living in his father’s shadow without having to resort to (making Harry a bad father / making Harry essentially witness his parents’ death) bad-Star-Trek-levels of bullshit time travel. Something really new would have been nice.

If you enjoyed CC - for whatever reason you enjoyed it, whether it was because you sincerely liked it, because you found it interesting, or you enjoyed it ironically or something - then I’m glad for you. Your taste and my taste are always going to be different, no matter what we do! None of us can really read anything the same way; it’s all subjective. Maybe you didn’t interpret Cedric’s narrative position the same way I did and that’s fair; I’m definitely predisposed to disliking or being disinclined to defend or care about certain characters based on personal preference and readings. We interpret the characters and stories differently. We enjoy things for different reasons. It happens.

(I know plenty of people who enjoy stuff just because it’s terrible. I don’t mean to say I think the Cursed Child is absolutely terrible, I just mean we all have different standards for things. We all have our squicks. I have, myself, sincerely enjoyed some pieces of media by overlooking flaws that another person might not be able to stomach beyond one chapter or episode.)

JK is pretty darn good at turning a phrase and creating interesting characters. The Harry Potter books are hardly perfect (and I feel they begin to really fall apart in the later ones), but that doesn’t make them not enjoyable. No series is really ever going to be perfect. And it can be fun to explore ideas of alternate universes/timelines and re-examinations of the past.

At this point, though, I’m really starting to think JK needs a better editor. Or more sounding boards. Someone to draw lines in the sand and more carefully plot things out into a larger, well thought-out, well researched picture, instead of pressuring (perhaps benignly) yes men eager for the next Harry Potter anything (and its money, if they’re not so benign) because she’s already “proven” herself. Fantastic Beasts is an example of this, I think, or the other movies in general (which aren’t, I know, her fault). Or maybe she just needs more time to sit back and analyze her own work and really take her time with things.

It’s something a lot of big name creators can suffer from, I think.