i hasten to add that honestly i've only read summaries, not seen the play/read the script. but i think rowling took an interesting idea, and instead of pushing back against some perhaps-unintentional bullshit in the main series, she just ended up reinforcing the same old shit.

namely, that morality - for the truly important people - is often determined by blood.

this is kind of a theme throughout the whole series - the idea of blood ties, how important a family legacy is, and so on.

and rowling tries to make a moral stance that blood isn't everything. the "mudbloods" are heroes. the "purebloods" are often villains. but honestly i feel that falls apart when you actually look at the hero and villain, especially as we learned more of voldemort.

voldemort wasn't just eventually turned to evil. he started out that way, as a kid. he was a bad seed from the start. we see his parents - both terrible in their own right. merope is a rapist; tom sr is callous and cruel.

whatever sympathy for merope as a victim of abuse herself is erased when she is the main cause of voldemort's problems - someone conceived without love cannot themselves love, as the plot point goes.

and why is harry a hero? well, because his parents were. sure, his dad is revealed as something of a shitter. but his mother was pure and saintly, and through her sacrifice created a blood-bond that ends up protecting harry and being crucial to voldemort's ultimate defeat.

not to mention - the idea of being heir to gryffindor, to slytherin, and so on, running thru all of this.

i mean one of the books is literally called 'and the half-blood prince'. it's not actually a subtle dynamic at play here.

and while the racism ends up rebuked, and some minor characters defy their genetic fates - like draco, or sirius - family is a huge part of the series. and it comes down pretty hard in my opinion on nature instead of nurture.

i mean, how CAN it come down anything less than hard nature over nurture when you've got the villain revealed as this "bad seed" right from his childhood, even before he was ever at Hogwarts?

so honestly - the concept of Cursed Child, the idea of voldemort having a kid - i like that concept. family is messy. family guilt is juicy to pry into. how much does the child pay for the sins of the father?

but you know what kills the juicyness there?

if it's just. "well, voldemort's kid is of course evil, because voldemort."

tiresome. TIRESOME!

not only does it leave so much meat on the bone - of someone struggling to deal with the legacy they inherited, sometimes well, sometimes badly - it's also, i think, not a real good moral to push into the heads of young readers (even now grown up).

how many of those readers are going to feel that they're *doomed* because of this sort of philosophy?

maybe there's a parent in jail. maybe a bad divorce let them see how one - or both - are nasty and cruel. maybe there's abuse. maybe they're adopted and this is a hard new worry.

and such a story ends up just saying - "well, it's in your blood. you will always end up evil, just like your forebears."

sure, the reverse hurt is somewhat addressed as harry wrestles with the massive legacy left on his shoulders. but i think just telling people "you're bad because you're bad" is a huge and bitter blow.

and - honestly - not only does it do readers dirty, it does the story dirty, too.

it takes away agency and interest from voldemort's kid. it makes them an extension of dad, not their own person.

the conflict ends up flat and inevitable. hatfields and mccoys. montegue and capulet.

notice how romeo and juliet is an interesting story only BECAUSE it's NOT about the titular characters in fair verona unquestioning the idea that they are destined to fight and be enemies because of who they are related to?

THEREIN LIES THE PLOT - the interest - the intrigue!!!

it feels like rowling was ok writing harry struggling under the weight of his legacy, and even snape fumbling to find his identity because of this, but... when it comes to voldemort's kid, everyone just gave up.

and that is when i think the stakes are highest, and the odds most interesting!

why would you turn down an opportunity to write a character struggling with THAT LEVEL of albatross around their neck?

are they bad because their father was bad?

or are they bad because everyone told them they would be?

are they bad because they were groomed to be 'heir to the throne' and only know that way forward?

are they bad because they feel doomed to be?

are they bad because everyone treats them as if they're a rabid animal preemptively and thus abuses them?

...are they bad at all?

even more juicy, interesting, and so on to me -

what if they're struggling? what if they're in flux?

what if they believe themselves corrupt and damaging to those around them, but seek constantly to overcome it?

what if they are paralyzed by self-loathing?

what if they try to be good and fail?

what if they desperately seek somewhere out from under the family shadow?

what happens then?

what do they think about this?

do they try to balance how they feel they are dangerous to be around, with their own human needs to be loved?

do they try to escape to somewhere entirely different where those measures of good and evil don't matter at all?

do they seek someone else to purify them? to cleanse them? do they trust anyone or anything enough to do so?

what do they do?