Scorbus Shippers React to Cursed Child
By Katie Majka
Scorbus fans are going down with their ship as it’s presented Cursed Child, and they’re airing their grievances that it didn’t sail.
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Can a Potter and a Malfoy really be friends? The general consensus seems to be no. At least, they can’t when the sexual electricity crackles as it does between Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy. Fans remain disappointed as the ship popularly known as Scorbus takes sail in Cursed Child, but ultimately goes nowhere.
The dynamic duo of Cursed Child is the talk of the fandom, and many readers’ only positive takeaway from the script. Fans are taking to Tumblr to celebrate their headcanons and bemoan the fact that they’re nothing more. While a romance between Albus and Scorpius isn’t canon, the writers may as well rename the play The Scorbus Steamboat of Love for all the good it would do.
Thanks to the series’ epilogue, the Harry Potter Next Generation fandom has been alive with ships since 2007. Teddy/Victoire, Rose/Scorpius, and Albus/Scorpius are among the most popular, and Lorcan and Lysander Scamander make the rounds as well. While Teddy and Victoire were made canon, the only ships addressed in Cursed Child are Rose/Scorpius and the more contextually prominent Albus/Scorpius.
If Cursed Child wasn’t already bubbling with angst, the homoeroticism kicks into high gear whenever Scorpius and Albus are within kissing distance. But true to heteronormative form, that burgeoning romance never comes to fruition. If only it had, Cursed Child would boast at least one satisfying and believable relationship.
I’m a Rose/Scorpius shipper myself, but that was before Cursed Child. The play hardly encourages you to root for the couple, considering Rose makes nary an appearance throughout. Albus’ crush on the one-dimensional Delphi is a stretch that serves no real purpose but to insist upon Albus’ heterosexuality. Albus and Scorpius, meanwhile, are all but making moon eyes at each other for 300 pages.
Now, I won’t sit here and tell you that Albus and Scorpius are gay. I’m certainly not going to tell you that they’re straight, either, because I know how to read context clues. In this case, those clues are more like neon signs declaring that the pair have been not-so-secret boyfriends all along. But neither boy has to be one or the other. To tweak the wise words of the Doctor, there’s a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, sexy-wexy… stuff… in between, all of which is more likely than Cursed Child’s ultimate “No homo.”
Fourteen may be too young to define your sexuality, but then why craft these awkward heterosexual attractions when there’s such an obvious spark between the male leads? The relationship between Albus and Scorpius is the most effortlessly heartfelt in the entire play. Yet the potential romance is ignored in favor of Scorpius’ unrequited crush on Rose. Adorably endearing as it is, there’s no real foundation to make that relationship resonate the way Scorpius and Albus’ does.
Now fans are asking: Of all the absurd, dramatic, and canon-divergent plot bunnies that hop around Cursed Child, we can’t get a contextual romance between same-sex characters? J.K. Rowling may have outed Dumbledore after the fact, but that wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of representation. It would have been ill-advised to force a Scorbus romance for the sake of romance, but the Rose/Scorpius dynamic is as forced as they come.
In the end, the writers shirked an opportunity for representation for no reason at all. Fans celebrate Harry Potter for its inclusion and diversity, but frankly it falls just as short as any other popular media. Cursed Child could have turned that around, and yet here we are. Considering the nature and evolution of Albus and Scorpius’ relationship, it would have been natural for a romance to blossom. The chemistry between the characters is enough to make the pairing work; all the writers had to do was polish it off by having Scorpius ask Albus out instead of being rejected by Rose.
I suppose that’s what fanfiction is for, but that still renders this “diverse” series more exclusive than anything else. If Voldemort and Bellatrix can have a kid, I don’t see why Albus and Scorpius can’t have a romance. So all aboard the Scorbus steamboat of love, I say. Let’s keep this ship sailing.