Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Study Guide

Thorne was born in 1978 in Bristol, England and was educated at St. Bartholomew’s School before attending Pembroke College at Cambridge and graduating in 2002. He then began writing on Shameless and Skins, two British TV series, before going on to write many other TV series including HBO’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Thorne is also a prolific playwright—his first play was produced in 2005 and was followed by many others on London’s West End. He wrote the stage play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the early 2010s and has since written several other Broadway shows, including a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol and the musical adaptation of King Kong. Thorne has also written many feature films and radio plays.

While the Harry Potter series largely takes place in a fantastical world, readers often draw parallels between Voldemort and his followers and other fascistic governments, particularly Nazi Germany. Just as Nazis targeted Jews, the Romani people, gay people, those with disabilities, Voldemort and the Death Eaters target “Muggles” (non-magic people) and “Mudbloods” (people who have non-magic parents) for persecution, death, and torture. The play even makes an additional connection to the regime by using a fictional bird called the Augurey as one of the Death Eaters’ prime symbols, as well as a hand gesture along with the salute “For Voldemort and Valor.” This sets up a distinct connection to the Nazi eagle symbol and the “Heil Hitler” salute which became widespread at the time.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes place 19 years after the events of the original seven-part Harry Potter series (starting with the epilogue from Deathly Hallows) and it builds on events from all of the books—particularly Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Other books in the extended Harry Potter universe include The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Quidditch Through the Ages, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Unlike the rest of the Harry Potter series, Cursed Child explores parent/child dynamics within a fantasy context. Other fantasy books that similarly explore this relationship include N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy, Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, which specifically deals with family legacy and power. Cursed Child also focuses on time travel and specifically on the dangers of creating alternate realities; other books in this vein include Elan Mastai’s All Our Wrong Todays, Stephen King’s 11/22/63, Stephen Fry’s Making History, and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life.