Death and Sacrifice Theme Analysis

Several of the characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child sacrifice their lives for the greater good. For example, when Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy create an alternate timeline in which the dark wizard Voldemort reigns over the wizarding world, Hermione and Ron give themselves up to the dementors in order to help Scorpius reverse this reality. Similarly, Severus Snape helps Scorpius even though he knows that he will die if he does. In other cases, characters allow others to die—despite wanting desperately to save them—because they know that interfering will disrupt the future: Albus and Scorpius, for instance, eventually recognize that they have to let Cedric Diggory die at the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry is heartbroken when he has to watch Voldemort kill his parents without intervening. Time and time again, the play illustrates how sacrifice improves the lives of countless others, and thus it is what marks a person as a true hero.

The play’s most straightforward depiction of the benefit of sacrifice comes from those who give their lives to make the world a better place. In the alternate timeline that Scorpius and Albus accidentally create in which Voldemort lives, the group trying to fix the timeline is threatened by a dementor attack. But Hermione and Ron stay back and fend off the dementors, knowing that they will lose their lives—and their souls—as a result. They’re willing to endure this horrific fate because it will “give [Scorpius] the best chance” to fix the dystopian world they’re in—and it does allow him to change the fate of the world. This sequence portrays sacrificing oneself for the benefit of society as an exceptionally heroic act. Snape ultimately makes an even more consequential choice. In helping Scorpius, Snape knows that—even as he is improving the world overall—he is ensuring his own death because he will not be alive in the corrected timeline. When Hermione points this out, Snape replies, “Sometimes costs are made to be borne.” Like Ron and Hermione, he sacrifices himself for the dementors, and as he does so, the stage direction reads that Snape is “every inch a hero.” He understands the gravity of the situation, and his intentional decision to sacrifice himself for the good of the wizarding world is what makes him heroic.

The play also demonstrates how even sacrificing others, when done for the benefit of society as a whole, is an ethical and heroic thing to do. Although Scorpius and Albus go back in time to save Cedric, they come to realize that if they were to prevent Cedric’s death, this would set off a series of events that would lead to Voldemort ruling the wizarding world. As a result, when they fix the timelines, they let Cedric complete the maze and walk to his death. Later, the boys affirm that Cedric would have understood that he had to die to save the world from a terrible fate. In this way, the play positions all of them—Cedric, Scorpius, and Albus—as heroic, since they are all acting in the interest of others. The same is true at the end of the play when Harry has to watch Voldemort kill his parents. While he wants desperately to save them, thereby avoiding his foundational childhood trauma, he doesn’t act, because he knows that saving them could potentially wreak havoc on the future. Albus says, “There is something you could do—to stop him. But you won’t.” Draco affirms, “That’s heroic.” Like Albus and Scorpius with Cedric, Harry knows that doing nothing is actually a just and moral sacrifice because it will benefit society as a whole—and that’s what makes him “heroic.”

The play also illustrates how simply putting oneself in danger for others can be an important and heroic sacrifice. At the end of the play, Harry pretends to be Voldemort in order to try to capture the dark witch Delphi. When Delphi figures out Harry’s ruse, Albus sneaks inside the church where they are fighting to help his father. Both of them are nearly killed as they fight Delphi, but the fact that they are willing to risk their own well-being for society marks them as the true heroes of the play. Later Harry affirms this choice, telling Albus that he “saved us”—meaning the entire wizarding world—and that’s what makes him a hero, too. Whether it’s putting oneself in harm’s way, sacrificing one’s life, or sacrificing others, the play illustrates how acting in the interest of countless others is a noble choice to make.