2 days until Harry Potter

July 18th, 2007 - 21:19 | 3 comments

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Monday. It was great. I am now very, very excited about the book’s release this weekend.

I don’t know how Bloomsbury are threatening retailers, but I doubt they have the leverage to keep the book locked up until Saturday. It seems likely that the Daily Mail or some other cretinous organisation will decide it’s clever to run spoilers before release day, and that’ll be tough to avoid. It amazes me how many people find this funny - a couple of years ago BoingBoing ran video of ‘drive-by-spoilers’ of people standing in a bookshop queue, and seemed to think it was entertaining. There must be some interesting psychology behind the desire to spoil things for others, but it can probably be summed up with ‘being a jealous dick’.

The only way to hopefully avoid spoilers will be to go into full media blackout mode from Thursday onwards, then read very quickly as soon as it arrives on Saturday morning. Which sucks, because I don’t like to read that fast, but given that it’ll take two words to spoil the ending it seems necessary. Hopefully it’ll be possible…

C&P link to wonderful alternative dust-jackets, for people who ‘love Harry Potter’ but think they’re ‘too old and awesome to be seen reading the books’. Lots and lots and lots of bad language, if that kind of thing bothers you.

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3 Responses to “2 days until Harry Potter”

1 Lauren Jul 19th, 2007 at 4:19 am

I won’t spoil it for you, but good luck avoiding the other spoilers — it surely won’t be easy. Through an entirely stupid turn of events, I’m pretty sure I’ve already read the (actual) ending. Hopefully it was a fake, because 1) then I can still be surprised when I get the book and 2) I wasn’t that thrilled with what I read.
2 used vans girl Jul 19th, 2007 at 11:02 am

I think the general principle behind spoliers is because they can! that’s why they do it. Any time I hear Harry Potter mentioned on the radio, or TV i just turn it off or stick my fingers in my years and humm. Works for me no one is going to spoil the surprise for me if I can help it.
3 Lil Jul 21st, 2007 at 10:25 am

I was VERY impressed by HP5 =)

Did you see DeepDiscount.com released HP7 early? I was particularly amused by their solution: “The company added that they had a list of customers who had ordered the book from DeepDiscount.com and were asking them to put it to one side if they have already received it by mistake.” =P

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