Harry Potter and the Deathly spoilers

This is very interesting... it is an article I wrote after the seventh book Harry Potter was released...

At the stroke of midnight when the world slept millions of crazed Harry Potter fans were awake feverishly awaiting the release of the final book of the series. On July 21st every bookstore saw an ever growing line of kids and adults itching to lay their hands on the seventh book of the series “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. And yet there was gloom spread over the Potter community. The week before the book was released the internet was abuzz with purported spoilers that gave away the ending of the series. No Harry Potter fan was free from the avalanche of spoilers hitting them from every where. The only ones who were saved from the spoilers were the ones who had unplugged their broadband connections and cut themselves from the whole world for the one week leading to its release. In other words every one had come face to face with the deathly spoilers
They were coming from even respected newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times actually printed an early review of the book and later claimed that they had not spoiled the ending for anyone (Actually they did in fact give away ending in first two paragraphs). The Indian counterpart “The Hindu” printed the very same article on the last page of the newspaper In fact pictures of what seemed to be each and every page of the yet to be released book were actually put up online without even any spoiler warnings. Not to mention a French newspaper printed the names of all those die in alphabetical order. So who are these people and why did they post these spoilers? Couldn’t they have waited patiently for two days before revealing the ending?

These people who posted the spoilers can be described as literary terrorists (or more affectionately leakers). They post the spoilers for no good reason except for maybe the sadistic pleasure they would derive out of infesting and spoiling the fun of fans all around the world (a Harry Potter fan would call them a “bunch of dementors”). In fact one poster called “Gabrielle” who leaked major spoilers viciously said that he was spoiling the books for the sake of Christianity. Oh for god’s sake no where in the bible does it say “Thou shalt not read Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows!”

And of course the various media houses did not want to be left behind in all the fun. Some actually showed those pages in their news bulletins. In fact an Indian news channel called “Headlines Today” actually showed the final two pages of the series on the screen. The words had been enlarged and one could easily read them from a distance. Any one who was lazily watching the evening news bulletin would have found out that the last line of the book was “All was well” because the news reader read it out aloud!

So who won in end? Who was the loser? Sadly all those who spread around the spoilers in order to dent the sales of the book were defeated in their purpose. In the first weekend 72 million copies of the book were sold. JK Rowling became richer than ever, the publishers were happy and the booksellers all over the world were ecstatic. Even people who had never read the books bought a copy because of the publicity the book received ironically thanks to the very same leakers. The only ones who lost were the fans. Kids who had grown up reading the books, the ardent followers who had been awaiting this book for nearly a decade were crushed at the callousness displayed by these so called media houses. But then again a real Harry Potter fan would know that the journey is just as important as the answers. So my dear leakers, you did your worst and you lost. Long after you've moved on to other innocent curiosities you can ruin for gleeful self-aggrandizement, Potter books will still be delighting the pure of heart. You're not so much as a grubby footnote to a literary phenomenon and remember this : Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titilandus….