'Cursed Child' Sells 2 Million Books In 2 Days, Is Still Bad
The script of the Harry Potter play is flying off bookshelves even though it's terrible.
The official script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is selling like crazy, even though most people who’ve read it think it sucks. J.K. Rowling describes the play as the “eighth story” in the Potter world, and fans are rushing to get their hands on a copy. Scholastic, the script and original Potter novel’s publisher, reports that the Cursed Child has sold two million copies in the past two days, making it one of the fastest selling books of the year. For comparison, Rowling’s ambitious but nihilistic The Casual Vacancy sold 375,000 copies in its first week. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, however, sold 8.3 million copies in its first twenty-four hours in bookstores.
The problem is, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is bad. It’s so bad, we don’t even think it should be considered canon in the Harry Potter universe. There are several reasons for this, not the least because it’s a different medium. Cursed Child also directly contradicts the Potter canon in places like Ron’s characterization, its understanding of how Fidelius charms work, Harry’s age, and its understanding of why we even like the series (basically, the actual Potter books were smart enough to hold up to this kind of scrutiny and nitpicking). But it’s possible the few good elements won fans over, aided by a dose of felix felicis and Draco’s ponytail.
Either that, or this is just how we react to every new release that is even vaguely related to Harry Potter, because even fully grown adults are still waiting for their Hogwarts letters, damn it.
