Not My Canon!

WTF: Manipulation

Tactics

How can it be stated that Cursed Child has no heart when it's filled with emotional triggers and people leave the theater in tears?

"Come on, Mike. Don't be so prejudicial. There's a few scenes I can think of right now that tugged on my heart!"

I hear you. Allow me to share the reasons why I came to that conclusion.

A key component of any writing task is to emotionally connect with the reader. To coerce them, in a sense, towards a certain objective. It's a sterile description, I know, but any good author should be constantly holding the reins at the front of the carriage, leading the narrative with intention. This should be done in the most genuine way, with a deft hand. An author is continually both storyteller and ghost - an invisible deity who speaks to you in whispers. As storytellers, we must know the power we hold and appreciate its authority. Most importantly, writers must grasp the difference between guidance (fair) and manipulation (unfair).

When a reader eases back the cover of a new book, a bond of trust is formed - an unspoken contract that the journey they're about to take is completed (at least in the mind of the author), consistent, and never underhanded. We Potterheads had no scruples about re-entering the wizarding world. We trusted the content of a new Harry Potter book because the story always treated us fairly. For twenty years, trust was never broken between the reader and J.K. Rowling.

That is to say, it had credibility.

Unfortunately, JKR was not the sole author of this play and there are a few ways in which HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD used manipulative tactics to force connectivity and prompt an emotional response from the reader.

In basic English: It was engineered to get you to like it.

Fan Insert

The first example of this tactic is the most powerful, and the one you'll find expressed often in fandom. It's the single most common factor upon which readers like myself refuse to dislike Cursed Child entirely: Scorpius Malfoy.

Scorpius is one of the best, if not the only good thing to come out of the play. Everyone loves him. He's adorable and funny. He's a refreshing change from his father and grandfather. In many ways, he's perfect. Scorpius is a Slytherin hero with a heart of gold, and a mind that could rival the best student at Hogwarts. Basically, he's a Ravenclaw from a Slytherin family, with the qualities of a Gryffindor and the soul of a Hufflepuff. Ha! He's the first student who could be sorted comfortably into any house.

I'll give props where props are due. Scorpius is an ingenious decision, albeit manipulative. We like him so much because he represents Potter fandom. He is the meta character. Scorpius is the ultimate fan insert and fictitious stand-in for the audience. He's the geeky, magical history-obsessed student, squee-ing over Bathilda Bagshot, wary of all risky magic... as if he's read this all before. I mean, at times, they don't even pretend to hide it. Somehow, a fourth year student is fully aware of Severus Snape's deepest secrets, knows that the Minister of Magic never liked Divination when she was in school, and can recall the most obscure canon detail of Lily Potter's Patronus being a doe.

What else? He talks like a meme and uses fandom lingo, like when he called Albus "the worst spoiler in the world". I wouldn't have been surprised if Scorpius was revealed in Act Two to be an avid cosplayer. This is literally a line from the script:

"All I ever wanted to do was go to Hogwarts and have a mate to get up to mayhem with. Just like Harry Potter."

Scorpius Malfoy stole the show, and he stole it by design. We were swayed with precision to cheer for him. And by the final curtain, they had succeeded in turning Scorpius into the fan favorite.

I mean... of course, he'd be our favorite! He's us!

It's not wrong that they wanted fans to like the play. Or to make us feel like we were represented by a main character on stage. It's just that, when you break down the motivations, this tactic reads as if they weren't confident that the story could stand on its own and needed a tricky backup plan for victory.

Were this the only case, I'd say I was reading too much into this scenario. But this was not the only example of authorial manipulation in the play. And the other examples are a little more troubling.