Well, I believe the title of this thread speaks for itself, right?

With the way Cursed Child turned out, it can be summarized as: "Not the best."

However (and here Dumbledore awards last-minute points), I like to believe that DLP can do better than the writers of CC did.

With all the great people of this board working together, I'm sure we'll be able to think of a better story than Albus Severus Potter going back in time to make Cedric Diggory a Death Eater.


Requirements:

1. It has to be called Cursed Child.

2. It has to happen after the main 7 books, epilogue included.

3. Harry has to be the main hero. I mean, we are talking about the Harry Potter series here. Let's not kid ourselves with the notion that Albus Severus can do better (he can't).


That's it, not really a difficult task, right? Right, JKR?!

 

What else needs to be included? Time travel? Voldedaughter?

 

Eleven years after the war ended, Harry Potter is teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. He is sent to guide a girl from a muggle orphanage on her way to Hogwarts. Discovering Delphi, who acts very similar to little Tom Riddle, he sets out to do what Dumbledore didn't manage - turn the dark child way from the path that Riddle took, and into a better one. It gets harder when he discovers that there exists a curse on Slytherin's line.

...God this is cheesy. But more like a family friendly play you would expect from Rowling.

 

How about an auror tale? Harry finds Delphi at the scene of a crime where the entire family is dead except for her and circumstances force him to bring her home, while he works on the case.
The more Harry digs the more things don't add up, eventually suspecting Delphi might be a plant.

Long story short, Delphi is a horcrux. One Voldemort made once he realized Harry had hunted down most of them and now guess who's back for vengeance.

But Delphi is also her own person and has grown fond of the Potters, Albus in particular and doesn't want to hurt him or the family.

Not sure how to end this, but it probably involves a sacrificial play by Delphi after a climax involving a kidnapped Albus.

The rest is just details I suppose.

 

Well, those are some very loose guidelines. The fan fic community has probably (definitely) already made hundreds of stories that could easily fit those requirements, after a quick change of title.

If we were forced to stick closer to the actual plot of the play, the most vital steps would be A: Eliminating a lot -if not all- of the time travel, B: Getting rid of Delphi Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way's unforgivable Sue-ness, C: Bringing Harry to the forefront, and D: Eliminating all instances of bad characterization and outright character assassination.

I'd make her the daughter of Amycus and Alecto Carrow (it's not like incest isn't already in HP canon). They hand the baby off to someone, right before the final battle, claiming that she's the child of Voldemort and Bellatrix, so as to cover up the child's incestuous parentage, and so whoever will be taking care of her will be on their best behavior... and be walking on eggshells the whole time, just for perverse shits and giggles.

Removing Voldemort and Bellatrix as her parents makes her existence much less offensive. Then get rid of the tattoos, hair color, and flying. Goodbye Mary-Sue.

She can even believe Tom and Bella are her parents. Maybe the villains in the play are a group of blood purists who see her as a chance to try and go back to the old ways, using her as a figurehead.

It all falls apart in the end when Harry and company bust some bad guy skulls and reveal who her real parents are, entirely taking the wind out of the movement's sails.

I'd also make Hermione a techno-organic construct, capable of aging and reproduction, who is unaware of her artificial origins, because ♪there's nothing in the books that says she isn't one.♪

 

If we were to measure the distance between the actual plot of Cursed Child and all the suggestions above, we would be doing it in light years I'm afraid.

Not that I blame you. The plot of Cursed Child sucks and the farther one can get away from that toxic mess, the better.

 

How to make Cursed Child good? *Rewrites entire plot*

I'd like to have a chapter or so exploring how life has changed after Voldemort's demise and how Harry is dealing with his newfound fame.

I do like the idea of Delphi being another Horcrux, but instead, I think that I'd prefer seeing Harry doing his job as an Auror and one of his missions forces him into a situation where he has to take the life of another and he slowly comes to terms with this fact. Would be a refreshing change from his refusal to kill, even when faced with a bunch of Death Eaters out for his blood.

Main 'conflict' could be Harry trying to solve the mystery of why his scar suddenly started hurting again and it leads him to Delphi, a cunning brilliant former-Slytherin who's believes in Voldemort's ideals of pureblood rule and Wizards over Muggles and tries to resurrect him. Harry kills her in an epic duel of magic.

EDIT: Sounds awfully cheesy after rereading my post. I stand by it though.

 

Well, congratulations DLP. You have successfully made Cursed Child better - that is, reading most of the ideas in this thread has made Cursed Child look like a masterpiece.

I largely agree with Warlocke's modifications to the play. The two biggest problems with the play for me were:

1. That Voldemort had had a daughter.

2. That Harry was depicted as largely useless.

So change Delphi into Bellatrix's daughter with someone else, and make Harry lose fewer duels and not be such a terrible father. Those two small changes immediately make Cursed Child much better.

I'd keep the time travel, however, because a) it's kinda key to the whole plot and b) on the stage it works very well.

 

Took a quick look at the headline and thought this had something to do with Infinite Elgintensity. :facepalm

 

I agree 100% with CheddarTrek.

If you change too much, you end up with something that is not the Cursed Child but another story all together.

To make the Cursed Child actually good, we would need to take the basic plot (time travel, Albus, perhaps even Delphi) and make it better.

In my opinion, the Cursed Child should be a tale about why time travel is an awful idea- and why people have not tried this before.

You have Albus and Scorpius stealing the time turner and at first changing little things without much consequences, so they decide to do something crazy like save Sirius or Cedric, and things backfire badly. They try to redo it, and screw it up even further... etc, etc.

It would be more like a lowkey horror story rather than this weird adventure that makes no sense.

 

I don't really see how it could be done, but if it could then the first step would be to get rid of Voldemort's daughter or at least try not to make her seem so fanfictiony.


Oh and thanks for the happy birthday email, I wasn't expecting it.

 

For some unidentifiable, niggling reason, I thought of Back to the Future the moment I read this... Does that make me weird?

 

Awesome alliteration.

But yeah, I agree. It does sound like it could work. Though I wonder who'd have the ability to successfully pull off a story of such scope. Well, if the author's talented enough, anything is possible.

Yes, I'm looking at all y'all DLP authors. Where y'all at? :|

 

Eh, what's wrong with Voldemort having a daughter?

To make it clear, there's no way in hell he'd want a kid, but assume he hasn't disfigured himself so much I'd suspect he'd still enjoy "carnal pleasures" and accidents happen. I don't think the kid would be with Bellatrix though.

 

I think the play would have been just fine if she had been Bellatrix's daughter by Rodolphus rather than Voldemort. There are just so many problems with making her Voldemort's daughter.

Firstly, Voldemort believed himself immortal and was fully confident in that fact. He didn't need an heir for any pragmatic purpose.

Secondly Voldemort had no sentimentality so he surely wouldn't want a child for any reason other than pragmatism.

Thirdly, it ruins the Voldemort-Bellatrix dynamic of her being obsessed with him but him feeling nothing in return and using her feelings.

Fourthly it gives Voldemort a sexual identity when he always seemed so inhuman and thus asexual in the books.

Fifthly it undermines the idea that wizards are not determined by their birth by having Voldemort's daughter be not only evil but also extremely talented at magic like he was. It also undermines Voldemort's special status if other dark wizards quickly equal his level of threat just decades after he died.

And last but not least, it's just so cliche, so predictable, for the new villain to be the heir of the old.

 

It's fucking Voldemort. There is no way in hell he wouldn't make the witch abort.

 

Just stick your wand right up in there and cast a Killing Curse. I'm sure it's completely safe.

 

Would Voldemort even care whether he has a kid or not? It might not bother him the slightest either way.

Plus, Voldemort had said that the Lestranges would be "rewarded beyond their dreams" or something to that effect in GoF. We do know that Voldemort atleast makes a nominal effort to honour his servants' wishes - he was willing to spare Lily for Snape, and he is much more fond of Bella dearest than he is of old Snape (note his reaction to her death in DH). It doesn't take much imagination to figure out exactly what Bella's wish would be.

I dunno. It's not that unrealistic.