Recently, the magical world was caught by storm with the release of “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” – a brand new book in the fabled Harry Potter universe! Hooray! Fans of the books have waited for almost ten years for a new entry in their beloved franchise, and it seems like they finally got it! Oh, what magical adventures await Harry, Ron and Hermione this time? But wait a minute… Something about that Amazon page seems kind of off… This isn’t a book, it’s a play script! And worst of all, it’s not even written by “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling, but rather by some dude named Jack Thorne, based only on an original idea by Rowling! Hell, this isn’t even a direct continuation of the books – it takes place years later and focuses on their kids! Wait a minute… This isn’t a proper book at all! It’s… It’s… It’s fanfiction, isn’t it?
Fanfiction, or original writing set in a fictional universe created by someone else, has existed for practically as long as time itself. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” – one of the very first stories ever recorded in the history of humanity – is essentially fanfiction, as the different tablets were written by different people, and thus the story of Gilgamesh was likely shaped by numerous authors. The same goes for various mythologies, which developed over hundreds of years and had thousands of different authors, each of which developed over what their predecessors built. But those things are kind of different from our modern understanding of “fanfiction”, aren’t they? If Person A created a Greek hero (say, Heracles), and then Person B decided to create a story about his death, then that story is part of Heracles’ legend despite the fact that it wasn’t created by the original author.
Meanwhile, when it comes to modern fanfiction, the overwhelming majority of it is not “canon” and doesn’t in any way affect the fictional universe we chose to explore. If Person A creates a hero today (say, Harry Potter), and then Person B writes a story about Harry Potter’s death, Harry Potter will still technically be alive because his original author has deemed it so. The same principle even holds true for comic books, which are the closest we’ve got to our own mythology – despite the fact that dozens of people write the same characters and build their world, if someone who is not specifically authorized to do so writes a story about them, that story will not affect them in any way, shape or form.
That brings us to a matter that many people in the ancient world didn’t really need to deal with – copyright. Thousands of years ago, there was no copyright – creating a story meant releasing it into the world. If Homer wanted to create a character for one of his epics (like the sorceress Medea), he had absolutely no claim over that character. Things have changed a lot since then, and now it’s really up to the copyright owner to decide what is canon for their universe and what is not. In fact, over the years, several fanfictions have been elevated to canon status, and in addition certain authors have been hired to create brand new entries in certain franchises that they didn’t originate (a good example is JJ Abrams with both “Star Wars” and “Star Trek”). Hell, purely technically speaking, the latest season of “Game of Thrones” is fanfiction, as the books haven’t caught up yet.
So, I guess the right question we should be asking is whether something should still be considered fanfiction if it’s canon, even if it wasn’t created by a work’s original author. How important is authorship, anyway? Are works of art really just a vision of their creators and nothing else, or are they ever evolving, living things much like the myths of the past? I guess an argument can be made for either. With that said, I’m afraid I can’t really answer the question whether “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” is fanfiction or not. Sure, it wasn’t written by Rowling, but it’s still an established part of the universe, so… I guess you’re the only one who can draw your own conclusions! What do you guys think? Please let me know by clicking that big old Contact button at the top!