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A Grave Worry.

Sun 8th Jul, 2007

Excuse the pun in the title of this bulletin, but I have a worry and a bit of a plea to make to the community at large.

As most of you know, The last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released on the 21st of July. For me, it's 9:01 am, for others, it's a midnight release. For me, that 9:01, I'll be at my local bookstore dressed as Nymphadora Tonks, talking with people for a good few hours, grabbing my already paid for book and going straight home to start the final journey with my husband, because that's what it's like for me. The final journey. The last time I'll get to do this with JK Rowling's world.

When OOTP was released, I was spoiled. I foolishly looked at a Harry Potter Livejournal community while I was reading the book and found out what happened. I managed to avoid this for the sixth book. I didn't get it for quite some time after it was released because I was in the middle of my HSC exams (The Australian big scary university entrance end of year twelve exams like the A levels or the SAT). I was attending a school that had banned the Harry Potter books from their halls, which just meant that I red my american copy of OOTP with the dust jacket removed. I went to a bookstore during my exams with my then boyfriend, and we read it together. I fell asleep one night and he read through to the end, thinking that I was still awake, so in the morning he was like "Isn't it sad what happened?" Thankfully, he didn't tell me and I got to experience that for myself.

Anyway, to the point. I'm asking something of all of you, and that is the following.

I ask you all to find it in your hearts not to spoil this for other people by sharing spoilers in places that can be found by people who do not want to know about it. I do not want to know what happens or who dies until I experience it by reading the book. I know there are some of you out there who enjoy posting comments that could potentially spoil the entire experience of reading the last book for someone, but I beg you not to.

I am not asking for everyone to stop talking about it. If you do want to share your grief over anything that happens in the book, I ask you to place a spoiler label. A clear large one, and not one that's like "Oh, by the way here's a spoiler, Snape kills..."

I'm talking a big label that you can't see what's underneath without scrolling down, like the following.

!SPOILERS BELOW!!SPOILERS BELOW!!SPOILERS BELOW!

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Darth Vader is Luke's Father

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!END SPOILERS!

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Or, alternatively, where HTML is allowed, post the spoilery comment in the same colour as the background.

I do not want to cut the One Million Masterpiece out of the short list of sites that I am going to visit before I reach the end of Deathly Hallows. This list mostly consists of sites that do not involve user content, like Livejournal, Myspace, Wikipedia and the like. But, if I find myself with a genuine concern that I might be directed toward images containing what happens, or messages containing spoilers, I will cut the site out of my daily visiting schedule until i am finished.

I thank all of you in advance, and I'd love to see the community band together a bit in an effort to make sure that this is enjoyable for everyone. I'm aware that I'm obsessive and geeky, but for some of us, this is very, very important.

Cheers, guys. Just so this message resounds loud and clear, I'm going to post something of similar effect in the forums.

Comments & discussion:

Paul Fisher
Wed 25th Jul, 2007

Good call Angeli, I'll aviod Amazon until I reach the end!

Angeli Arndt
Sun 22nd Jul, 2007

I stumbled upon an unmarked spoiler on Amazon.com yesterday. I should have known to stay away! I will, in any case, enjoy getting to the end on my own. I just wish I'd been a little smarter and stayed away like you've been doing. I'm on page 350 right now. I had to give the book up to my husband so he can catch up. I'm enjoying the journey nonetheless. Have you finished the book yet? I can't wait to pick it back up again :) It's strange - like a huge sporting even that kills a town's activity for a day. It seems like I can't go outside of my apartment without hearing people warn their friends and relatives that they won't be available this weekend because they're reading the book. This is insane to me - especially since I'm one of those people. I never thought it would happen to me :P

Alicia Thompson
Tue 10th Jul, 2007

unfortunately, it happens. Last time there were a group of people who made Livejournals with the username snapekillsdumbledore/snpkllsdmbldr/SSkillsAD or similar and went serial adding people from the harry potter fandom, which was a bit of a shame, people getting messages in their inboxes saying "snapekillsdumbledore" added you to your friends list!

Paul Fisher
Mon 9th Jul, 2007

I never thought of that before - i.e. reading a spoiler on a community website. I'm looking forward to reading the last book too, so I really hope everyone heeds this warning!!

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