--- title: J.K. Rowling Asked Fans Not to Spoil Her Play. She's Wrong. description: We have to talk about art—spoilers included—to engage with it canonical: https://time.com/4359766/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-spoilers-j-k-rowling/ author: Daniel D'Addario article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-07T16:21:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T22:26:25.763Z article:section: Ideas og:title: J.K. Rowling Asked Fans Not to Spoil Her Play. She's Wrong. og:description: We have to talk about art—spoilers included—to engage with it og:url: https://time.com/4359766/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-spoilers-j-k-rowling/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f726b8e91c0f39a/698896cd5f570f2d98b213c8/harry-potter-play-london-spoilers.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: BRITAIN-LITERATURE-POTTER-THEATRE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: J.K. Rowling Asked Fans Not to Spoil Her Play. She's Wrong. twitter:description: We have to talk about art—spoilers included—to engage with it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8f726b8e91c0f39a/698896cd5f570f2d98b213c8/harry-potter-play-london-spoilers.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # J.K. Rowling Asked Fans Not to Spoil Her Play. She's Wrong > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=8983c792-9284-495f-9319-469a192b5293&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1)  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Jun 7, 2016 4:21 PM UTC  The front of the Palace Theatre promotes its new show 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' in London on June 6, 2016. The front of the Palace Theatre promotes its new show 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' in London on June 6, 2016. Daniel Leal-Olivas—AFP/Getty Images  by [Daniel D'Addario](https://time.com/author/daniel-daddario/)  ## Daniel D'Addario Jun 7, 2016 4:21 PM UTC J. K. Rowling has issued a plea to her fans not to spoil the plot of her new play, _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_. “You’ve been amazing for years at keeping _Harry Potter_ secrets so you didn’t spoil the books for readers who came after you,” the novelist and newly-minted playwright said in a YouTube video. “So I’m asking you one more time to keep secrets and let audiences enjoy _Cursed Child_ with all the surprises that we’ve built into the story.” Rowling’s request is eminently reasonable—the play, which is to open in London next month, will be inaccessible to all but a select few fans. Though a book of the script is to be released, those who wish to experience the play as a play will have to get themselves to London and obtain a ticket that might be in higher demand even than _Hamilton_. And it has historical precedent: Miramax, for instance, specifically asked critics and moviegoers not to reveal that [_The Crying Game_ ](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/31/movies/film-view-the-crying-game-wins-at-gimmickry.html)character Dil is a transgender woman, to name just one example. But it’s also wrongheaded. Within the very broad parameters of reason, people should feel free to discuss the art that they consume. If it’s good, the art will survive. The question of when one is truly “spoiling” art—a movie, an episode of TV—has been litigated [in the past](http://www.vulture.com/2008/03/spoilers%5Fthe%5Fofficial%5Fvulture.html), but evidently not to anyone’s satisfaction. (Telling people to avoid social media and relevant websites when they’re waiting to check out a popular work of art others have seen is well intentioned and will never, ever work.) Even the most anodyne writing about _Game of Thrones_ on a Monday morning will get criticized for unduly revealing plot points; earlier in TV-criticism history, AMC and show creator Matthew Weiner requested that writers not even reveal the year that _Mad Men_ episodes took place. Rowling’s directive seems to fall along similar lines: She doesn’t indicate what, exactly, is a “secret” to be kept, so therefore everything could be one. There’s little left to talk about, with such stringent guidelines, other than how good _Game of Thrones_, _Mad Men_, or _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_ is, which is exactly what the creator wants. If her play is anything like her novels, Rowling has particular reason to fear spoilers. It’s apparent, in retrospect, that Rowling’s _Harry Potter_ novels were reliant on the shock provided by one sort of twist in particular; her much-derided apologies to fans for “killing” characters seem like acknowledgments that death was an easy place for her to go to lend her narrative heft it didn’t consistently earn. If you know in advance which characters in the Potterverse die, their deaths seem programmatic and are perhaps less interesting. Similarly, the reveal of _The Crying Game_ is one that’s been experienced by audience members who already know Dil’s secret: That the movie is really not much to write home about, but for its surprise. By contrast, the lonely death of Lane Pryce on _Mad Men_ (to name just one example of a major twist in the work of a spoiler-phobic creator) works as drama even if one has been told about it before watching it. _The Sixth Sense_ is still engaging and moving even if you know Bruce Willis is a ghost. (Sorry! No, not sorry—it’s been nearly 20 years.) Art has the capacity to do more than viscerally surprise—it is, after all, made up of components other than just story—and art that does so can’t really be spoiled. All sides but for the trolls can surely agree that going on Twitter and posting the end of _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_ just for fun is loutish behavior. But, within the context of a review or even a conversation, talking about Rowling’s play in all its particulars—even the surprises—is fair game. And eschewing talking about it out of an abundance of caution actually spoils the tradition of taking art seriously enough to engage with it. 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