Hey y’all! It’s apparently my 2-year blogiversary today! And while it probably would make more sense to post a new recipe or travel tip, there’s something I just have to say.

I read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child last night, guys. And…..um…

It sucked.

Like, I legitimately feel offended that J.K. Rowling would be involved in this project, it sucked so bad. Granted, it’s not entirely her fault; this work is a play, it’s meant to be performed. But she got so much flack for creating new canon that only a select entitled group (rich London theatergoers) would be able to see, that she caved and released the rehearsal script as a new work.

And it just…fails miserably. So, as a means of trying to forgive my beloved J.K., I decided I would create a list of all the MASSIVE problems I have with this new work. Maybe in the comments you guys can help me understand what went so horribly, horribly wrong here.

!!!CAUTION: HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Let me try to take these in the order they come up in the play…

1. Why would the Sorting Hat, which so carefully took Harry’s choice into account, not take Albus’s choice into account?
2. Why does Rose say “Thank Dubmbledore” after being sorted? The sorting hat is not Dumbledore’s creation…unless this is meant to be a substitute for “Thank Goodness”, which is still weird and not likely something linguistically that would take root in just a single generation since Dumbledore’s death. It’s not like we go around saying “Thank FDR” for getting rid of Hitler…
3. Why would Harry think that after giving his oldest son James his invisibility cloak as a back to school present- which is not only just a damn cool magical artifact but also a priceless piece of magical history – that giving Albus his old baby blanket would elicit anything OTHER than scorn? A blanket? Seriously? I’d be pissed too.
4. Why would Harry give James his invisibility cloak anyways? All it could possibly do would be to get him into trouble. Surely it would be better used by Harry as the Head of Magical Law Enforcement?
5. Why does Harry’s scar starts hurting again/why can he re-understand Parseltongue? This happened in the past because he was literally part Voldemort. So even if there are little Voldemorts out there running around, that doesn’t change the fact that the part of Voldemort that resided in Harry is no longer, and so his scar shouldn’t hurt. You could argue that it’s because there are alternate realities in which Voldemort still exists, because of the time turners.  But that would be true regardless of this specific plot with Harry’s son, which would mean that Harry’s scar-hurting should have never stopped in the first place. So for it to have stopped, then suddenly restarted is ludicrous. Does he know that people get headaches? Maybe he just thinks every time he gets a headache that it’s his scar ominously hurting.
6. Why would Albus Potter want to help “rescue” Cedric in the first place? He’s got angst, we get it. But the whole convoluted thing about stealing a ministry-guarded time turner and using it to bring back Cedric Digory, a man he has no connection to and has barely even heard of, even if it’s to impress a girl, doesn’t make any sense. When teenagers get surly and mad at their parents, they usually go shoplift a bottle of Boone’s Farm, not attempt to heroically rewrite a key piece of history.
7. THE MOTHER-FLIPPIN’ TROLLEY WITCH ATTACK. This is just a moment of OMG fuckery that is COMPLETELY non-supported by any realm of Harry Potter canon. First, she’s apparently more than 190 years old.  Um, what? Does she have a Philosopher’s Stone? Secondly, why does she start throwing PUMPKIN PASTY GRENADES at them as a way to get them to STAY on the train??? I don’t know about you, but if someone started throwing grenades of any sort in my direction, yeah, I’d run away from that too. Third, she’s a witch, right? So how, about, instead of throwing pastry-based bombs at children, just use a stunning charm or Petrificus Totalis to get them to not jump off the train.  Fourth, her “hands transfigure into very sharp spikes.” Again, WHAT? Why would that encourage anyone to stay ON the train? And why haven’t we EVER seen another person in Harry Potter lore spontaneously transfigure themselves into a monster (werewolf transformations, aside)? And after they’ve jumped, why doesn’t she tell the conductor to stop the train so they can go pick them back up? This whole scene is just utterly bizarre. It reminded me more of a scene out of the Percy Jackson series, only without as much humor. It doesn’t advance the plot, it doesn’t conform to the magical world we’ve come to know and love, and it just doesn’t make any frigging sense.
8. Albus & Scorpius are supposed to be in their fourth year, so about 15. Which means they’d still have “the Trace” on them. Hermione is the MINISTER OF MAGIC.  Why doesn’t she just use that to find them after they leave the train?
9. So Delphi has convinced Amos Diggory that she’s his niece, and they later surmise that this is done with a Confundus Charm. But why? That’s like the most bizarre meandering route to try to bring Voldemort back ever. We can only assume, as we find out later, that Delphi seized on this particular plot because of the prophecy of “spares will be spared” and Cedric Diggory was the spare. But why would she need to befriend Amos Diggory to make that happen anyways? His role is utterly inconsequential.
10. Hermione calls an “Extraordinary General Meeting”, whatever that is, and asks anyone if they know or feel anything dark happening, and McGonnical says the Hogwarts potion stores are missing Boomslang skin and lacewing flies. EVERY HARRY POTTER FAN EVER knows those two ingredients mean that someone is brewing Polyjuice Potion. And neither Hermione nor McGonnigal, two of the smartest witches ever, seem to think anything of this. Conveniently, we find out in a couple scenes that Delphi has a crap-ton of Polyjuice potion. And since we know it takes a whole month to brew, this means she was stealing from the Hogwarts potions stores in the summer when no students were there for her to blend in with. Don’t you think someone might have noticed her doing that? A painting, a ghost, someone?
11. McGonnigal sends an owl to alert Harry/Ginny and Draco that their children never made it to Hogwarts. Umm, perhaps, choose a faster method of communication there McGonnical? An owl? Really? Not to mention, she was just in a meeting with Harry, why didn’t she mention it then?
12. So Albus, Scorpius, and Delphi use Polyjuice Potion to turn into Ron, Harry, and Hermione respectively. But how did they get the hair from them to customize the potion? I guess you could assume maybe Albus had one of his father’s hair on some of his clothing or something, from when he hugged him at the train. But how did he get Hermione and Ron’s hair? No explanation? Just a gaping plot hole there? Mmmkay.
13. Why would Hermione decide to hide the time turner with riddles in her bookcase? After all her experience as Minister of Magic, she really thinks *thats* the way to go? Why doesn’t she keep it at Gringotts where the only people that have ever broken in are essentially her, Harry, and Ron? (well, and Quirrel, who is dead, but still). Wouldn’t that have been a lot more secure?
14. During the bookshelf attack, it’s mentioned that the Polyjuice Potion has worn off.  But they never address how the trio gets out of the Ministry without disguise.
15. Harry sees Albus in a dream wearing Durmstrang robes, and so decides to go looking for him in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. Um…what? Wouldn’t a more logical place to go be DURMSTRANG? Seeing as how they don’t know that the timeturner has been stolen yet, they would have no reason to believe he’s going back in time to the Triwizard Tournament competition in the Forbidden Forest. So why are they there?
16. Where did Delphi get Durmstrang robes anyhow?
17. When you disarm someone, their wand generally flies towards the disarmer. So how come no one seemed to notice that Albus & Scorpius disarmed Cedric at the tournament, nor the fact that they disappeared shortly after doing it?
18. What broke Albus’s arm? This is never explained.
19. How do Albus and Scorpius fit through the pipe in the girls bathroom that dumps them in the Lake?
20. Is Hogwarts plubming really so shitty (no pun intended) that they are dumping their brown water and grey water directly into the lake without some sort of filtration? Gross.
21. Where did Albus get the gillyweed? When did Albus get the gillyweed?
22. The boys take the gillyweed, which we know from the Goblet of Fire, gives you gills and fins for about an hour. But when Scorpius reappears, like, a minute later, he doesn’t appear to still have gills or fins.
23. When Scorpius gets out of the lake, he’s informed it’s “Voldemort Day”, apparently some sort of holiday. But, um, why? Why would this date have been consequential to Voldemort? It’s not the anniversary of when he killed Harry’s parents, or of when he came back to life, or of when he “defeated” Harry (in this universe, at least) in the Battle of Hogwarts. Why is this random day Voldemort Day?
24. We find out at the start of Act 3, Scene 4 that in this alternative universe, Cedric Diggory has lived and became a Death Eater, but not how Scorpius came to learn this little fact. Did someone tell him? It’s unclear.
25. So Scorpius goes back in time twice more, blocks Albus’s earlier tomfoolery messing with Cedric. But it says nothing of the Ron loves Hermione fireworks that were also set off when they went back to the second challenge. Did those still happen? Unresolved.
26. Why would Scorpius not offer up the time turner immediately to the grownups when he just realized how horribly it can change the past? Why would he hide it? He goes to Albus and asks for help destroying it, so if he was just going to destroy it anyways, why would he make some big lie about losing it?
27. Where are Albus’s roommates? Harry sure seems to be spending a whole lot of time at Hogwarts, which is pretty damn weird. No other parents ever did that. And he goes in and pulls back Albus’s bed curtains in the middle of the night at one point and no other students are there? Huh?
28. Who the hell is this Craig guy?? In alternate universe #2, he was a fellow student who did Scorpius’s homework. But now in real universe, he’s like, ratting out Harry Potter for walking down the halls of Hogwarts?  Weird.
29. So, they discover Albus and Scorpius are missing again. Why don’t they use the Marauders Map to find them this time? Instead they “turn over” Hogwarts looking for them? They’re on the map, idiots.
30. Ron “saw” Albus and Delphi in the Owlery while walking back from Hogsmeade? Does he have like, super-vision now? Are we now completely ignoring how big Hogwarts has been in every movie?
31. So, now we’re back to Amos Diggory, who is suddenly totally lucid. If he was confounded by Delphi, then why is he suddenly un-confounded when Harry and gang show up?
32. So Delphi has painted this prophecy around her room in fluorescent paint. Where did the prophecy come from? Who made it? How did she come by it?
33. AND THEN THE BIG REVEAL: Delphi is Voldemort’s daughter by Bellatrix Lestrange, born at Malfoy Manor just before the Battle of Hogwarts. UMMMMM….B’ESCUSE ME MOTHERFUCKER? That doesn’t make ANY sense. When was Belatrix pregnant? She certainly never looked pregnant when she was trying to chase Harry all over the friggin’ United Kingdom. Did Voldemort know? And if all of this was happening at Malfoy Manor WHICH IS WHERE DRACO ALSO LIVED then why did he never volunteer this crucial piece of information, especially when there were rumors going around about his own son being Voldemort’s son? This is one of the biggest, stupidest flaws in this whole thing, quickly followed by:
34. So Malfoy just HAPPENS to have a time turner? And you waited to save this information until this point in time? How convenient. But if all the death eaters had secret time turners that Nott made them, how come no one went back and killed Harry beforehand? Why is this Delphi the only one to get around to it?
35. Once Harry figures out where in time the boys are, he again tells Ginny to “send an owl” to Hermione and Draco. Ummmm….again with the owls? That’s gonna take days, idiot. Surely, you’d just apparate there, or do the face in the floo network thing, or send your Patronus announcement, or HERE’S AN IDEA: use a friggin’ cellphone.
36. Why doesn’t the transfiguration they do to Harry hold? Are the top ministry wizards really that bad at transfiguring things that it only lasts for a couple minutes? Guess they should have had the Trolley Witch to come along, apparently she’s great at transfiguration…
37. Delphi and Harry fight. And despite being like, the greatest wizard ever, Harry is overcome by a girl that has had no formal wizarding training at all? She doesn’t even appear to use a spell, it just says “Harry’s wand ascends upwards towards her.” That’s…um….uncharacteristic, let’s say. But then, despite the fact that he no longer has a wand, it tells us that “they fire bolts mercilessly at each other”.  Did Harry Potter learn that fingertip lightning thing from Emperor Palpatine? What’s he even firing bolts with?
38. Oh, and Harry’s afraid of pigeons and the dark. Actually, I’ll let them have this one.  Nasty-ass street birds, all.

So there you have it. 37 ridiculous plot holes that I just can’t get past. This whole thing read like badly-planned, badly-executed fan fiction. I’ve been told it “works better as a live play.” Which is good, because IT COULDN’T GET ANY WORSE as a written manuscript.

If anyone would like a copy of this piece of crap, please officially consider mine for sale.