Not My Canon!

WTF: Sounding Dumb

Believability

Some of the dialogue in Cursed Child just doesn't fit. Either it's wrong for the character, wrong for the world, or just wrong altogether. Take this quote from Ron:

ALBUS: I have an Aunt Padma?

RON (to HARRY): Taken a Confundus Charm to the head, has he? (To ALBUS.) My wife, Padma. You remember. Talks slightly too close to your face, smells a bit minty.

Like, I get that your version of Ron is out of wack, but in what scenario would anyone ever talk like this? When speaking with a nephew, you describe your wife by her smell?? Did an alien write this play, attempting to understand the way hoomans interact? Because no one would do this.

Here's another strange quote from Delphi about her first time to the castle (which we know to be untrue):

DELPHI: I've never been to Hogwarts. Pretty lax security here, isn't there? And so many portraits. And corridors. And ghosts! This half-headless, strange-looking ghost told me where I could find you, can you believe that?

Oooh! There's so many walls! And doors! And ceilings! I swear I just saw some people walking up flights of stairs. Didn't know you had people here. Or stairs!

What is this printed trash heap of words we're all forced to suffer through? Yes, Delphi. There are many corridors in a large castle. Again, this doesn't feel like believable dialogue.

Sounds Good On Paper

In the infamous baby blanket scene, when Ginny and Harry are attempting to decode a message from the past through burn holes, Ginny gets impatient and takes the blanket away from Harry's grasp.

GINNY: Give me that. My eyesight is better than yours.

What? Did Harry take his glasses off? Because someone with glasses arguably has clearer vision with them on. This line is the kind of thing one spouse would say to the other, if neither of them wore glasses. Therefore the sudden conflict would provide a deeper insight into their relationship. How maybe one of them had been refusing to see an Optometrist, and now they've reached a moment in which having good eyesight was critical to the challenge they were facing. That, my friends, is an example of real conflict. This quote from Ginny falls flat.

For more confusing dialogue, we now turn to the suddenly stereotypical villain monologuing of Act Three, Scene Sixteen, when Delphi reveals her totes evil identity.

ALBUS: But why? But what? But who are you?

DELPHI: Albus. I am the new past.

She pulls ALBUS's wand from him and snaps it.

I am the new future.

She pulls SCORPIUS's wand from him and snaps it.

I am the answer this world has been looking for.

Nope. Don't think so. What is Delphi even talking about? How can she be the new past? And *all* future is new... And no one in the world is looking for her!

Both of these instances are an example of the type of dialogue that sounds good on paper but just doesn't work in reality. You find this a lot in tv dramas, where a character delivers a line out of nowhere that feels like it was pulled directly from a worn notebook that one of the writers had been keeping in a drawer since college.