Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Here's What It's About and Why It's Hated

Summary:

• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has a terrible reputation among fans, and most Potterheads ignore its “lore.”
• The play directly contradicts the established Harry Potter canon on countless occasions and ruins its characters.
• From Cedric being a Death Eater to Voldemort and Bellatrix having a time-traveling secret child, the Cursed Child’s plot makes no sense.

Since the original Harry Potter books and movies, things really haven’t been going great in terms of new Wizarding World releases. The Fantastic Beasts movies turned out horrid, the Hogwarts: Legacy game took the universe in a highly questionable direction, and the Cursed Child play… Well, there are many reasons why Potterheads as a community pretend it has never existed and never refer to it.

Most fans have never watched or read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — and honestly, it’s a great choice. But if you’re curious to learn why this play is so hated without risking your sanity, you’ve come to the right place: here’s the short version.

Cursed Child Has the Most Ridiculous Plot

Right, so… Albus Severus, Harry Potter’s second son, gets sorted into Slytherin and befriends Scorpius, Draco Malfoy’s son. So far so good, right? Wrong: Harry is so disappointed with his son’s House he wishes he never father Albus in the first place. Also, there’s a certain someone named Delphine Diggory involved, remember her.

Anyway, Albus and Scorpius yonk an Immensely Powerful Time-Turner™ that can take you back years instead of hours and decide to save Cedric Diggory for Delphine’s sake. They sabotage his Triwizard Tournament trials and he gets pissed. Later, Cedric…becomes a Death Eater because of it and kills Neville Longbottom.

But here’s another plot twist if you don’t feel frustrated enough: Delphine turns out to be Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange’s secret daughter, and she fooled Albus and Severus to create a timeline where Voldemort won and Harry is dead. But the Golden Trio somehow learns about it and saves the day. Delphine is imprisoned.

Cursed Child Solely Consists of Nonsense

If you by any chance think we just piled up the most nonsensical bits of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to present it in a bad light, we have great news: we didn’t.

Harry hating his son for being sorted into Slytherin; Time-Turners still existing and being capable of creating alternate timelines; Voldemort and Bellatrix having a secret daughter; Cedric becoming a devout Death Eater because of his Tournament failure… These are not some select moments from Cursed Child — that’s how it is.

Unless you want to feel the unholy rage burning you from the inside out, you don’t need to know much more about this play. But just in case you’re still hesitating, here’s another fun Cursed Child fact: the trolley witch from Hogwarts Express is, in fact, a horrifying Eldritch being bound to the train that keeps kids in check.

Yes, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is just as cursed as the title suggests.