Sorry for all the to’ing and fro’ing. I like being online… and I like using the blog as a reminder of what’s happening in the world. But I’m not sure now that I can carry on even writing in here.
Why? Well the release of ‘spoliers’ for the Harry Potter series is reaching epidemic proportions. You can tell things are getting really silly when even the local media are starting to spread spoliers and ‘confirmed endings’ to the series. Ok not everyone takes it all seriously, and I suppose deep down I can’t say I’m that ‘serious’ about it either. It is after all just some interesting, escapist literature. However, there *are* some out there, your truly included, who occasionally prefer to read a book through the first time *without* knowing what the main part of the plot… and especially the ending… is! This is even more the case when you’ve been reading a series for ten years and this is almost certainly the finale.
As with a lot of other people, there have been times when I’ve wandered into a bookshop, read a few pages of a book, then skipped to the end to see if the ending justifies the process of buying and working through it. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. This sort of attitude might be best used for books to accompany you on plane flights or holidays where you can’t easily change your source of reading material. But whilst I might do that with the *first* of a series of books.. I’d would never do that with an ‘ending’… and especially one I’ve been reading for such a long period!
There are reports (in the local media as well) that the entire book is already available online… and it might be… I looked but not downloaded 🙂 Tain’t there though!! The only ‘version’ I’ve seen has been a copy of some ‘fan fiction’ that was once entitled “The Seventh Horcrux” and was rebadged by a troll (usenet version) to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in an attempt to mislead people and spread confusion… which seems to have worked quite well!
Of course the book *is* already out there and available in some places , it would be crazy to assume otherwise. In the past the publishers had the warehouses and bookshops by the short and curlies telling them they would not be getting supplies of the *next* book if they released that episode early. This hold isn’t there any more so every bookseller and his wife will be opening their supply early… if only to read it themselves so it’s inevitable *real* spoilers will make their way online. In fact, before I left the alt.fan.harry-potter newsgroup people were already posting chapter headings, extracted pages and other details from what are clearly ‘authoritative sources’ – i.e. the book itself.
Note: By the way… do *not* click on the newsgroup link if you don’t want to see the message headers which tell more than you need to know!!
It’s inevitable therefore that the the entire book will be there as well and that is ok in its own way… albeit illegal. If the whole book is there then we can *still* read through without having the ending spoiled. What irks is those little pieces of information about the book that spoils the pleasure of reading it for the first time.
Anyway, in the light of its history, this might be almost reasonable in the uncontrolled wastelands of the internet, however it *isn’t*, in my opinion, a satisfactory way for the day-to-day media to behave. Personally, my opinion is that the general media ought to be more careful what they print in the papers about something hundreds of millions of people read and enjoy.
So I’m trying hard now to ignore *all* news media… on *or* offline. This included newspapers, radio news broadcasts (except Classic FM which seems to be ‘above’ all that) and anything news related on tv. Three days to go and it’s getting harder by the day!! 😀
You know would *really* get up my nose? If I turn up at the shop to buy my copies, and before I have a chance to get to read it, someone shouts out “Harry Dies” or similar… arrgghh….!! Maybe ear plugs would be a good idea as well??
Rant over… for now!! 😀
The Eclectic Interweb 