10 Ways J.K. Rowling Has Ruined Harry Potter

J.K. Rowling has become an increasingly divisive figure over the past few years.

While still heralded as the queen of children's literature and a defining figure in the childhoods of millions, her days as a universally loved figure are long gone.

Between questionable choices regarding the mainstream continuation of the series, small but terrible pieces of extra information and her general behaviour on social media, her image is in tatters when compared to its height ten years ago.

The discourse surrounding Harry Potter and its related property has changed well and truly for the worse, and a lot of it is thanks to the personal conduct and oversharing of its creator.

It doesn't help that its sequel series Fantastic Beasts has taken a complete nosedive in terms of storytelling competence and general quality, indicating that the franchise is starting to outstay its welcome. And with three movies in the series still to come, it seems unlikely the problems will stop any time soon.

While it's always important for a public figure to flourish and express themselves outside of the restrictions set by their work from decades ago, Rowling certainly has questionable ways of going about it all.

No matter how hardcore a Harry Potter fan you are or how much you loved the staged version of the play, it's likely you absolutely detest the plot.

So many things in the play are problematic and contradictory to the source material, like the fact that Harry is a terrible father who tells his kid he wishes he'd never been born because he's in Slytherin. The 19 Years Later section of Deathly Hallows very specifically told us Harry would support his son no matter what because of Snape's legacy, so this is ridiculously out-of-character.

There's also the fun stuff like breaking timeturner lore and Voldemort - the monster whose whole arc is that he's incapable of love - having a child with Bellatrix Lestrange. It reads like bad fanfiction, and the fact that J.K. Rowling had nothing to do with the actual writing of the script isn't hard to believe.

The problem is that the play has Rowling's blessing as canon to her books. Which is just wrong, and pretty much every Potter fan disregards Rowling's proclamation that it's a story from her head.

Still, this terrible story is canon to Rowling's universe, meaning all material going forward has to be viewed in light of The Cursed Child. Bummer.