* Harry Potter spoilers are mean. Just. Plain. Mean.

...
... Why?

... Why would you do that?

What possible pleasure can you get from giving away plot and ending details before the INTENDED MARKET [i.e. children] could possibly have read it?

Ooh look at you, all big and clever and ironic and post-modern and superior and patronising, all this hype and fuss over an over-long not-written-by-a-literary-genius kiddies story about magic, you are SO much better than the pathetic kid-ults who are openly and unashamedly reading a children's book, I know, why not PROVE how much better than them you are by spoiling it for them by revealing the important bits in public? That'll show them!

#sigh#

I respect your right to free speech.
I respect your right to have an opinion.
I agree that the media frenzy has gone overboard and that there are other, more important things going on in the world.

From an adult reader perspective: please respect my right to be able to chose what I read, when and where I read it, to read it as the author intended and get to the plot points as part of the journey and enjoyment, and to switch off from the real world every once in a while by reading fun stuff.

From a parental perspective: stop and think about how it feels, as a child, to have something monumentally exciting that you've looked forward to for aaaaaaaaaaaaages ruined before its even happened.

Because that's what you've done.

I've been lucky so far, I've been able to avoid seeing or hearing spoilers. I don't even know how accurate any of the spoilers have been, nor how many of them have been seen by children [I would expect that at least a few have been unable to avoid them].

Publicising information about the book which ruins it for anyone is just mean.

Publicising this information where children will see it is cruel.

Why not add in about there being no Santa or Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, or that Big Bird is really a guy in a suit and Elmo is an old dressing gown wrapped around a big black guy's hand?

While you're at it, why not just tell them the facts of life?
Sex education in all its hormonal stickiness, you'll never be a star athlete or award-winning actor so forget that as of right now, you will instead end up in a menial unfulfilling job in a life where debt is the norm and people cheat and are rude and selfish and will ruin things for you just for their own pleasure; life is hard and cruel a lot of the time and there's no magic to solve things with, just hard work, endurance, and sacrifice.

In fact, why not just send the kids out to work?
Might as well make themselves useful and start earning their keep, rather than hanging about the neighbourhood or school and 'playing' or 'reading' or 'learning' all day.

Well, why not?
According to you, childhood means nothing.
It is, according to you, OK to ruin childhood.
Everyone has to grow up sometime, might as well be now, and you're just helping them see reality and life for what it really is, aren't you?

Oh, PLEASE...!!

Childhood is being eroded away so much already: look at how they dress and act and what they own and know and do, compared to 30, 20, even 10 years ago.

Yet even a simple pleasure like reading all 600-odd pages of the last part of a series of magical children's stories that have helped raise interest in books and reading across the globe and finding out for yourself how the whole thing ends - even a sweet little thing like that can't be kept sacred.

Sad, isn't it?

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