so i think it was in the cursed child, but apparently harry told his son, albus, he wished he wasn’t born and he didn’t love him or smth like that.
the harry potter i grew up with and canonically read about would NEVER EVER say that. keep in mind this is a child who spent 10 years of his life never hearing the words “i love you” directed at him.
there is no way harry had a child, multiple children and chose to say he wished that albus wasn’t born when the dursleys told him that so many times.
this is a man who did everything he could to love hermione, ron and his other others to the best of his abilities. even when ron ditched harry in fourth year, harry never said he hated ron.
harry spent 10 years being unloved, so why would he ever push that onto his own child?
Tbf, Harry didn't actually mean it. He says this at the heat of the moment in response to his son saying the same thing("I just wish you weren't my father", "Well, there are times I wish you weren't my son") and then immediately regrets it and tries to backtrack which doesn't work(obviously since no kid is gonna be mollified easily after hearing a sentence so emotionally scarring). He then later actively tries to improve but fucks up a few more times before he finally gets the hang of parenting Albus in the last few scenes.
Harry didn't go to therapy. This is a guy who had experienced unimaginable horrors. There is no such thing as a perfect victim and even Harry mentions that the reason why he struggles with parenting is because he does not have any father figure. And ofc he is gonna terribly clash with Albus since Albus is unhappy and lashes out. Albus is unhappy because of Hogwarts, a place which Harry considers to be home. A place where he finally feels welcomed and where he does not have to endure the Dursley fam's abuse and this is also why Harry has such a rose-tinted perspective of Hogwarts despite nearly dying there every year.
Additionally, during the argument, Albus did say triggering stuff to Harry(sorta mocking Harry's experience with the Dursleys, rejecting Harry's only connection to his dead mum(but in Albus' defense, it is a really shitty gift, esp compared to fairy wings and an invisibility cloak), implied that Harry was lucky his dad died, etc) which is terribly shitty(tho again, Albus is a teenager with mental issues but that doesn't excuse his actions). He was rage-baiting Harry. That, and Harry failing to properly connect with Albus in the past three years(which took its toll on Harry) obviously made Harry fed up.
Also notice how Harry nearly mirrored the same sentence that Albus spoke, with a few changes.
"I just wish you weren't my dad"
"Well, there are times I wish you weren't my son"
This sorta reminded me of how little kids would be all "I hate you" "I hate you too". So basically Harry, in his anger, legit stooped down to a 14 year old's level lmao. I have a feeling that if he truly hated his child, he would've used different wording. And if he weren't that triggered and angry, he wouldn't have said the sentence.
So tldr, 40 year old traumatised man tried hard to connect to his son for 3 years and failed, son kept triggering him in one argument and he cracked. And spent the entire play trying to atone this sin. Which is... realistic. I don't think that people realise the Cursed Child!Harry is basically an older version of OOTP!Harry.
This DOES NOT excuse Harry's actions. But yeah, Harry would def act like this considering his trauma, lack of parental figures and how he generally acts when angered(again, OOTP is a fine example of this).
Ik this reblog kinda made Albus out to be a brat but Albus has his own reasons for acting the way he did. He is NOT a brat and he acts the way he does because of his own struggles(bullying, isolation from his fam, pressure to be just like his dad, mental health struggles, etc). But this reblog is for Harry and that is why I typed things in Harry's perspective.
But I would like to say that the blanket argument is a fine example of a disagreement where both parties' motives and actions are understandable but not at all justifiable.
I don't have much stake in this specific argument, but I very often notice how people's fandom takes are based on these unreal, detached from reality opinions, like what here appears to be the misunderstanding that people who grew up in abusive homes are less likely to become abusive parents because they know better. That's the opposite of true - which in addition to being easy to find on google is also very observable irl in my experience. When your opinions are resting entirely on a misunderstanding of how humans work, no conclusion drawn from them is going to be reliable
There's also this assumption that people are completely logical, clinical, and straightforward beings who always behave as they're programmed either by society or by themselves. Emotions and psychology and everything that separates humans from robots is never taken into account. It would be horrible writing as well as very boring to read if characters always behaved as straightforwardly as the fandom seems to think.
This this this! This also fits the outrage against whole Cedric as a death eater thingy and the existence of Voldemort's daughter. Esp Voldemort's daughter issue.
"But Bellatrix already has a husband" - Let me introduce y'all to this entirely novel, bamboozling concept of ✨️cheating✨️ (obviously being sarcastic but it is very funny how they think that the characters esp death eaters are innocent lmao)
"But Voldemort can't feel love" - Mate, the concept of one night stands do not exist because of the love in the air. And I'm pretty sure that the whole Voldemort can't feel love is a headcanon. Also hate that villains are automatically considered aromantic and/or asexual.
"But Cedric is such a good guy and would never ever become evil 😡😡😡" - Irl, there are many cases of good people going down the wrong path esp when vulnerable. Time travel causes butterfly effects; imo, there is no way Cedric became a death eater just because he got humiliated. He prolly got bullied hard and faced isolation and other social repercussions. This is purely a theory, but I always thought that some death eater prolly preyed on Cedric in his prolly vulnerable state. And Cedric just went down the death eater hole the same way a mentally ill teen boy goes down the incel pipeline irl.
The fandom has such a sunshine and butterflies view of the characters and that is why they get angry when they are proven wrong. A proper understanding of human behavior would explain away all the criticisms of the Cursed Child abt the characters.
