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There's a big plothole in the 'Harry Potter' play that some fans absolutely hate

Harry Potter Play
Harry Potter Play/Twitter

Warning: There are major spoilers ahead for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." Proceed with caution.

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The eighth installment of the "Harry Potter" series — a two-part play written by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany titled "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" — has finally debuted to the public. Reactions from the lucky fans able to attend the play's premiere (including Business Insider's own Barbara Tasch) were overwhelmingly positive.

However, fans who weren't there to see the production themselves have begun reading spoilers of the play's contents, and they are not happy. 

Last chance to stop reading before we explain part of the play's storyline!

J.K. Rowling reading Harry Potter at White House
Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla

The main plot of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" involves Harry's son Albus, and Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius, getting their hands on a Time-Turner and using it to meddle with the past. During the course of their adventures, they accidentally set off a butterfly effect which creates an alternate timeline in which Harry dies and Voldemort rules the world. 

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This eventually gets sorted out but from what we've read online (and confirmed with those in attendance), the entire play revolves around the devastating effects of the Time-Turner and how going back in time can alter the present. 

Here's where the fan gripes come in. 

How Time-Turners worked before

J.K. Rowling first introduced Time-Turners in the third book, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." This magical device is a teeny hourglass that hangs on a chain. When one wishes to go backwards in time, you simply place the chain around your neck (and the neck of whoever is coming with you) and then turn the hour glass once for every hour you want to travel.

Hermione is given special permission to use the device in order to take multiple classes at the same time. Then Hermione and Harry use it together in order to save Sirius Black from the Dementor's Kiss. 

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harry potter time-turner
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As we saw through the events from "Prisoner of Azkaban," Rowling chose to use a type of time travel logic called a "causal loop." What this means is Harry and Hermione weren't technically "changing" the past when they went back and saved Sirius. They were simply completing a closed loop of events. 

The clearest example of this happened when Harry casts a Patronus charm from across the lake. Before we knew about the Time-Turner, readers saw (through Harry's perspective) as the Dementors closed in on him. Then a mysterious figure appeared across the lake and conjured a large Patronus. Harry, in his near-unconscious state, thought he was seeing his father, James.

But when Harry goes back in time, he realizes it was himself the whole time. The Time-Turner didn't create a new series of circumstances, it simply allowed Harry to carry out an action that he was always meant to carry out. 

Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban
Warner Bros.

Now fans are upset because Rowling seems to have done a complete 180 on this "causal loop" approach in "Cursed Child." Suddenly, Time-Turners create entirely new futures. 

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How Time-Turners work now

Based on what we know about "The Cursed Child" plot, Albus and Scorpius use the Time-Turner to go back in time to Harry's own days at Hogwarts. They meddle with people and events in the past, and return to find the present drastically different. Characters are completely written out of existence due to actions taken by Albus and Scorpius in the past. 

One new villain, Delphi, even tries to go back and stop Voldemort from ever attempting to kill Harry, thus destroying the fulfillment of Professor Trelawny's game-changing prophecy. Remember, Trelawny predicted that a boy was destined to rival Voldemort, and would have the powers to destroy him.

There are two issues here. 

First, this means that Time-Turners in "Cursed Child" are no longer functioning as causal loop creators. Rowling has — without explanation — altered the way Time-Turners' magic works, and now things you do in the past were never part of a fixed timeline but instead throw the wizards into an alternate universe situation.

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Albus Potter
Albus Potter as he appears in "The Cursed Child." Harry Potter Theatrical Productions

The play also contradicts a second plotline from Rowling's original book series. In the fifth book, "Order of the Phoenix," Harry and friends accidentally destroyed all of the Time-Turners being stored in the Department of Mysteries. 

So why are there Time-Turners again in "Cursed Child?" Not only is there one that Scorpius and Albus swipe from Harry's work desk at the Ministry of Magic, but apparently Draco had one hidden away that was passed down to him from his father, Lucius. 

These plotholes are compounded by Rowling's own commentary on Time-Turners back in 2013. Before Pottermore was revamped and removed a lot of its original content, Rowling wrote out some thoughts on "Prisoner of Azkaban" and the writing challenges of time travel. Before the post was removed from Pottermore, the unofficial "Harry Potter" wikipedia preserved her comments, as did several Redditors

Keeping in mind the details of "Cursed Child," read Rowling's excerpt below:

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I went far too light-heartedly into the subject of time travel in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban." While I do not regret it ("Prisoner of Azkaban" is one of my favourite books in the series), it opened up a vast number of problems for me, because after all, if wizards could go back and undo problems, where were my future plots?

I solved the problem to my own satisfaction in stages. Firstly, I had Dumbledore and Hermione emphasize how dangerous it would be to be seen in the past, to remind the reader that there might be unforeseen and dangerous consequences as well as solutions in time travel. Secondly, I had Hermione give back the only Time-Turner ever to enter Hogwarts. Thirdly, I smashed all remaining Time-Turners during the battle in the Department of Mysteries, removing the possibility of reliving even short periods in the future.

This is just one example of the ways in which, when writing fantasy novels, one must be careful what one invents. For every benefit, there is usually a drawback.

So Rowling herself said that not only were Time-Turners a risky plot device, but she intentionally wrote her way out of needing to explain them again. Fans are picking up on this contradiction, and they're not pleased with the current lack of explanation for her change of heart.

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What fans are saying

Rampant discussions of the spoiled plot can be found on /r/HarryPotter. So far, reviews to the plot itself (and not the in-person play experience) are looking bleak. "There's a great irony to all this," Redditor Bardorba writes. "After all the controversy about being a play, the production and acting seem to be the bright spots which are obscuring how terrible the story is."

Harry Potter Ron Weasley hogwarts Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.

The new approach to Time-Turners is particularly peeving to some people. 

"I don't really get this since the time travel in ["Prisoner of Azkaban"] is self fulfilling," Redditor thebondoftrust said in a discussion thread. "Nothing actually changes when they go back in time because they'd gone back in time even back when it happened so the nature of the time travel she wrote makes it impossible to go back and change things anyway. I don't know. I'm very confused."

Another Redditor, goodlife123, made a point about the overall meaning of time-travel in the play. Technically, when the play ends, all of the events are reset to what we already know. Here's the full comment:

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Here's a problem I have with the Time-Turner plot. It's highly likely that everything gets reset to basically normal because otherwise its like rendering the original series moot. But by doing that, only one of two scenarios can logically play out. Everyone knows what Al and Scorpius did and there is no way they can't not go to jail for that. You can't just laugh off what they did. Or, everything goes back to normal and no one realizes it. In which case, none of the characters actually did anything. We all spent 5 hours or however long it takes to read the play to get to the same point we started. We go in wanting to know more about Harry's life and what happens next for him and instead we get reset to the epilogue (or maybe 4 years later). As much as I am trying to hold reservations until I read it, as some spoilers hint at a better story, this one plot point is hard to overcome.

In general it seems as though expectations were not met. At least not for this group of Redditors who are dedicated "Harry Potter" fans.  "I was hoping it'd be a tale of growing up and maturing, not the time travel and prophecy clusterf--- we got," Redditor dysphere wrote.

Scorpius Malfoy
Scorpius Malfoy as he appears in "The Cursed Child." Charlie Gray/Harry Potter Theatrical Productions

Since many of the people with these feeling were not there to see the production in person, their criticisms should be viewed with the understanding that the story is coming through several layers of iteration. However, the full script for the play will be published in July for all to read

Andrew Sims, editor-in-chief for Hypable and host of the "Harry Potter" podcast MuggleCast, saw the premiere of "Cursed Child." He believes it's a story better told through a play, not a book. 

We'll (try to) hold out judgment until we're able to read "Cursed Child" for ourselves. But if this round of non-viewer reactions is any indication of the wider response, the fandom might be in for some major disappointment. 

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