Not My Canon!

WTF: Pandering

Sometimes I wonder if Thorne or Tiffany, during one of their writing sessions, asked Jo the question, "What could we throw into the mix that would make the fans really go nuts? How do we make this a sure thing?"

I feel this way, because of the many examples of how they brazenly pandered to Potterheads and baited us at every turn.

Dramione

It's one line by Draco near the end of the play, but it's *more* than enough.

"Hermione Granger. I'm being bossed around by Hermione Granger. And I'm mildly enjoying it."

Redemption

The pandering to Draco fans didn't stop there. JKR once told fangirls to stop fawning over Draco Malfoy because he had no redeeming qualities. And yet, he's been given a redemptive arc in Cursed Child, leading us to surmise that JKR renegotiated an opinion of her own character in an effort to pander to a subset of readers (which is not unlike her). She went from chiding remarks at fans to giving Draco a heart-to-heart with Harry Potter, where he expresses a never disclosed jealousy of the trio and a desperate attempt to rewrite his own past. Ugh...

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed seeing this side of Draco, but it left me unsettled as a fan of JKR. Like, will you just find a position and stick with it? Even if it pisses some of us off, stop waffling and pick a lane.

Baiting

Another reason why the play is often likened to fanfiction is that the origin of fanfic was an underground desire to spread amateur stories that would speak to the alternative views and tastes of the fanbase, often for a glimpse of unexpected pairings and particularly to satisfy the taboo. Which brings us to what I would call the most shameful example of authorial manipulation in the play, the homosexual overtones between Albus and Scorpius.

Ask almost anyone who has read Cursed Child, and they will tell you that Albus and Scorpius should have been a thing. #Scorbus! This interpretation isn't your typical case of fan shipping. The script implies a romantic interest between them with the subtlety of a garbage truck crashing through your living room window.

Whether platonic or not, the connection between them was unmistakable. Scorbus is more than your average friendship. In fact, the story seemed to be constantly leading them into each other's arms. They repeatedly expressed their feelings for one another, and the sexual tension between them was even more believable than that of Alternate Reality Ron and Rebel Hermione. Here's just a sampling:

On the train:

"Thank you for staying for my sweets..." That's some gay subtext if I've ever heard it. And I'm a mega-straight!

When they were lost in the past:

"If I had to choose a companion to be at the return of eternal darkness with, I'd choose you."

Or this passage:

"As pleasurable as it will be to hide in a hole with you for the next forty years..."

Or this one:

Albus hugs his friend. With fierceness. They hold for a beat.

SCORPIUS: Okay. Hello. Um. Have we hugged before? Do we hug?

The two boys awkwardly dislocate.

Then later in the book:

Scorpius reaches in and hugs Albus.

ALBUS: What's this? I thought we decided we don't hug.

SCORPIUS: I wasn't sure. Whether we should. In this new version of us - I had in my head.

Get a room, you two!

And how about this zinger:

SCORPIUS appears at the back of the stage. He looks at his friend talking to a girl - and part of him likes it and part of him doesn't.

Or the prime example:

ALBUS: I can't, okay?

SCORPIUS: You can't what?

ALBUS: Just - we'll be better off without each other, okay?

SCORPIUS is left looking up after him. Heartbroken.

Just Friends?

Could this all be predicated on the strong bonds of friendship between Albus and Scorpius? Sure, there's nothing to say that their individual conflicts couldn't cause two friends to connect on a deeper, atypical level. But, as I've said before, JKR isn't going to enter into something unless she desires that outcome, and there is no way on god's spherical earth that they didn't know fans would be baited into finishing the book so they could see if Albus and Scorpius would end up together.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this one, gays, but it seems to me that by rejecting the relationship between Albus and Scorpius, JKR and Co. deliberately created their own homosexual ship (short for fan-made relationship) that could live on outside the book and create endless buzz.

The reason the attempt failed is that they made it obvious. So when they snatched the hopes of gay Potterdom away with the insincere attractions of Scorpius to Rose and Albus to Delphi, the "Excuse me? What?" cough of Queer Baiting started bubbling to the surface. Especially when it was reiterated so assertively at the end of the play with that gawdawful acorn-to-marriage comment.

But, you know, fans are still going to be fans. The ship is real, just like the writers knew it would be. But the desires of fandom don't make the attempt any less insulting. And after the race-baiting casting decisions for Hermione and Rose, this felt even more manipulative. Forcing a hetero-normative relationship onto a duo after dedicating much of the play to their connection and their assumed denial of homosexual feelings for one another was especially upsetting, knowing how much JKR claims to be a voice for LGBTQ+ rights.

Dumbledore? Oh, yeah...Dumbledore is gay. Super gay. But not Sirius Black. NO no no. And definitely not Albus and Scorpius. They just like hugging. With fierceness.

"Rose Granger-Weasley. I asked out Rose Granger-Weasley."

Nice try, Cursed Trio. We know Scorpius is down.