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rewritingcanon · 10 hours

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what do u think of the portrayal of harry and ginny in the cursed child (i feel like it's so out of character, especially for harry) also that he works at the ministry and that ginny gave up her quidditch career (same goes for harry)

alright ive had this in my inbox for so long because i wanted to do this ask justice so i really hope that anon is still around to read this. in saying that harry was ‘out of character’ in hpcc, i assume you’re talking about how he was a bad/flawed father, as MANY fans have argued the same. so i will address that first and then i will talk about ginny and hinny’s careers.

disclaimer: when i say “you” im not talking specifically about anon but about fandom.

harry potter vs fatherhood

harry’s whole life resolved around being the chosen one and the prophesied saviour of the wizarding world. it was either being The Hero or being the unwanted, abused and scorned freak living with the dursleys. when thats your home life, then you tend to cling on to anything that is an escape from that— and in harry’s experience that was hogwarts.

if you really think about it, hogwarts was very nasty to harry as well. he was always getting picked on or bullied or in some life threatening danger that he got blamed for half of the time— but because it was better than living with the dursleys, his mind idolised it as a safe haven.

harry also reflects this idolising behaviour onto parental figures, especially paternal figures. he doesnt actually know his parents, only has an ideal of them in his head that was constructed as a coping mechanism to the abuse and neglect he went through at home. he projects The Perfect Father onto every one of his paternal figures (i think the only exception to this is arthur but i mayyy be wrong)— sirius and dumbledore are the biggest ones that come to mind, even though sirius only knew him for two years, and dumbledore would manipulate and use harry for the betterment of the world, which is unlike a parent who would put their child’s needs first (harry did not recognise these issues at length at the time as he was used to the idea of self sacrifice and probs understood that it came with the territory of being The Hero). harry even projected his father onto himself in PoA and nearly died from it.

in saying this, its reasonable to argue that there’s a disconnect with harry and the idea of what a good father actually is. this is challenged in the books itself (with SWM, harry seeing that james was not the Perfect Man he built up in his head), but this is challenged the most in the cursed child.

throughout the play, harry acts as the personified ideal he grew up with. easygoing, confident, wise— when in reality he is the opposite of those attributes and albus can see right through it (ginny says this to harry in the play, i would find the line but alas, im on the train rn). hes not easygoing or confident— he’s fearful that he doesn’t know what hes doing or how to be a father, and hes scared not knowing makes him a bad father. hes acted out in fear multiple times— the biggest moment is when he bans albus from seeing scorpius to keep him ‘safe.’ he has constant nightmares about his trauma as a child when living with the dursleys and not having the stability or love he craved. his ‘wise’ advice is not applicable to his children because he is harry potter, The Hero, and they are just normal kids. this is why albus and harry get on each others nerves so badly— because they are constantly stomping on each others sore spots by accident. albus doesn’t appreciate the facade that harry tries to uphold, and harry doesn’t understand why— because he’s projecting that ideal onto all of his kids, and if it works for james and lily (presumably), why doesn’t it work for albus? harry would’ve done anything for a father figure like himself!! there must be something wrong with albus!! (🙄)

now The Blanket SceneTM is very controversial and pissed off a lot of longtime fans into denouncing the entire play as canon. ive talked about it at length and since theres more to discuss in this post, i will shorten it down as best i can for you:

as a way of bonding, harry tries to give his precious blanket to albus. he believes albus may be more like him and may be able to understand the sacredness of the present unlike his siblings.

unknowingly, harry is still projecting his ideals onto albus. the blanket is only so extremely precious to him because it represents his parents, who he still views in an idolised light. therefore the blanket is the ideal.

albus scorns this ideal so he scorns the gift. however, because hes a confused and possibly depressed fourteen year old, he doesn’t communicate the rejection of this in a healthy way and basically insults the blanket by calling it old and mouldy and comparing it to james and lily’s presents, which outwardly could make him seem like a brat.

by attacking the blanket, he attacks harry’s parents and the ideal. and harry is very sensitive about this

albus then accidentally triggers very central fears surrounding being an orphan and being a father when he says “i wish you werent my dad”

harrys first thought is that albus wants him dead. at this point, hes stopped listening to albus trying to explain himself as he’s already triggered, so he’s acting in complete defence when he responds “sometimes i wish you werent my son”

this was said with the intention to hurt albus, it was a mindless act with one goal. saying this is out of character for harry is ridiculous, because he’s done the exact same thing in the books multiple times to the people he loves.

another important note: these characters trigger each other accidentally. the intent to connect is there, but there are deep seated issues on harry’s side that was never confronted leading to these issues. and as albus is a young angsty teen who does get bullied and is a little self-centred (again, very normal for a 14yo), he can’t really communicate these issues to harry effectively (harry being dismissive of the bullying (that he believes is normal for hogwarts students) albus goes through doesn’t help the situation either), leaving harry stumbling in the dark and further emboldening that The Perfect Father he imagined as a child may not exist.

ok that wasnt very economical but anyways! those are the issues! what happens next is harry spiralling and confirming those fears, being forced to confront them and deal with them, and then the steps toward healing his relationship with albus.

im not defending how harry treated albus (dismissing his bullying, lashing out, the enmeshment abuse) but offering insight and trying to explain that he was certainly in-character. i think people simply had an emotional reaction to seeing their loved character being very realistically flawed, and decided they didnt like it without doing much analysis as to why harry was acting the way he was. trauma is very complex, and theres no expiry date for it if you simply refuse to confront it or heal.

a lot of harry’s journey with interrogating the Perfect Father concept was to confront and acknowledge his inner child. he has to recognise his childhood for the childhood it was without the flashy titles or impressed ideals. the confrontation with dumbledore is the pinnacle of it— harry idolised dumbledore as a central father figure, and he realised when confronting the portrait that his relationship with dumbledore was much more complex and nuanced than he originally thought. suddenly dumbledore ceases to be an ideal, and harry sees him for the man that he was: conflicted, more uncertain in his own choices than he let on, heartbroken and self-sabotaging.

when harry presents himself at the end of the play to albus, he presents himself as human— an escapist, unsure in his decisions, insecure, and scared of the dark, small spaces and pigeons. and albus appreciates the flawed, real version of harry. those expectations and ideals that albus struggled to uphold in the face of harry’s projecting simply disappear, and he finally feels like he can adequately be harry’s son just by being.

another less obvious moment that shows this, is how harry and delphi mirror each other. delphi is the more extreme version of this— she is completely deluded in her worship for a father she never knew, so desperate for the love and respect shes built up in her mind that she’s dedicated her life to it and feels empty without the ideal to go off of. its why harry defends her when albus asks him why they shouldn’t just kill her— because hes the only one who understands the pain of being an orphan, living in an abusive household, dreams of ‘what ifs’ and what it can do to a person.

whats important to take away is that harry and albus love each other immensely, which is why they are able to turn over a new leaf at the end. it speaks of incredible strength on albus’ half, and i really want to stress that albus LOVES harry, because i see so much content about him straight up butchering or slandering harry when that is sooo not them!! if albus saw the way some of yall were misinterpreting his relationship with his dad he’d be livid. whether or not you would do the same in forgiving harry is irrelevant— albus has always wanted to have a good relationship with harry and the same goes both ways. people hurt each other, sometimes egregiously so, but when one promises change and is serious about it, than chances are there will be change. this is especially so in the case of family.

ginny weasley vs age

what is paradoxical is how self-centred harry is, despite also being very willing to sacrifice himself for other people. albus possesses a self-centredness similar to him. harry is so caught up in his own world and comparing it to albus’ situation, and vice versa. ginny is normally the middle man who can see both harry and albus for what they are and the individual worlds they inhabit, and tries to communicate effectively between them. the play mostly revolves around harry and albus, so what i’ll have to say for her will not be as in-depth.

short answer: ginny matured with age. she is probably the most mature character alongside draco, although draco does let his emotions get in the way at times (funnily enough i think this is why ginny and draco get along so well in the cursed child and are able to recognise each other for who they are). she was very brash and courageous and wonderfully chaotic in the books, but she was also blunt and impatient, which is not something thats presented in the cursed child. instead, she is VERY patient and communicates extremely well, being able to navigate both harry and albus without prodding their weak spots like they do to each other.

she offers her own experiences to albus as her own experiences, not projecting them onto him as an unequivocal truth. this can be seen in how she opens up to him about how she was exploited by tom riddle, and she lets albus draw his own comparisons to himself and delphi without pushing his experiences into a box.

her relationship with harry is interesting, because she is the only one who sees him for him and the only one that harry’s not bothered by when she makes honest judgments on his actions. he’s only okay with her seeing him for the flawed man he is. she doesn’t make him feel defensive, nor does she make him feel demonised for not knowing how to parent albus, or for messing up with him (though she does call him out when he is in the wrong, something her younger self would be quick to do too). one of the most heart wrenching scenes is when ginny blows up at harry and really screams at him about albus being missing and him being self-centred about it, making it out to be about himself and his issues surrounding fatherhood. despite this, harry does not get defensive— which shows that he trusts even her negative judgments of him because she knows him so well (very very similar to the library scene with scorpius screaming at albus over his self-centeredness as well btw).

she still possesses key qualities from her younger self, she’s just ironed out the rougher ones as she’s grown— she’s still impossibly brave, fiercely loyal, extremely devoted to those she loves and also very logical. you can tell harry and albus are more emotional than she is, which is part of the reason why she is able to construct her points so effectively. she puts her logical thinking to good use in emotional situations. i think people are forgetting that people aren’t typically going to be the same as who they were as teenagers.

why has ginny been able to grow so much in comparison to harry? because she’s recognised what she went through as a teenager and made peace with it. you can see it in the way she freely offers her own experiences about it. she’s been able to build on top of what she went through in a healthy way, and was able to experience real, healthy change. and she is so much wiser and kinder for it.

hinny vs their careers

first i’ll talk about harry because i think i have more stuff to go off of with him.

we’ve already established that hes The Hero first and foremost. after he fulfilled the prophecy and saved the world i dont think its such a stretch to argue that he may have needed another similar purpose to latch onto, and that being an auror granted him that. quidditch was fun for him, but it couldn’t give him the same purchase that being an auror could. heroes dont play quidditch, they save the world. the same could be said for neville and ron, who were also aurors at first. was it the healthiest road to go down for harry? i dont think so, but considering his characterisation in the cursed child, i think it works. ron ended up quitting to be a father, neville ended up quitting to focus on his real passion (herbology), and harry continued to cling onto The Hero image he’s used to presenting. yes, the ministry was impossibly corrupt and worked against him in his youth, but to harry that could’ve served as more of a reason to change the institution from the inside. this, i imagine, was most definitely the case with hermione, who was always an idealist.

that being said, i don’t think continuing being an auror is such a great idea post-hpcc. he at least needs a break in order to continue his job in a healthy manner and not misconstrue his identity with it.

in terms of ginny, i don’t believe she’d still be playing quidditch in her 40s. if you think about real athletes, very few of them continue playing professionally in their 40s (i think the average age is 34 but i may be wrong), especially after birthing three kids. we dont know much about her retirement, but there are many reasons one can assume ginny retired for, kids and/or age being the most reasonable deduction. its not so much a question of characterisation but more about the reality of having to give up your passion earlier than most if its sports.

despite retiring, its clear ginny is still very passionate about quidditch as shes still working within the field, just not playing the sport professionally anymore.

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