No spoiler, no windscoot, no magwheels in back

[vovat]

I went with bethje to Borders in order to pick up the seventh and final Harry Potter book at midnight. Well, at least they started selling the books at midnight; it was considerably after that that we got our copies. They were doing some weird system involving color-coded armbands. I preferred the system that they used at Barnes & Noble when we got the sixth book, which involved numbers instead.

I've read the first five chapters so far, and I can't believe Harry has already died! No, seriously, I'm not going to give away anything, good or bad. It's kind of crazy that some people consider spoilers to be amusing. Mind you, I did think it was kind of funny that the soundtrack for Star Wars Episode 1 gave away a plot point, but for some reason I don't think that was anywhere near as significant. Trying to avoid spoilers for a prequel is kind of silly anyway (Hey, Anakin becomes Darth Vader! Shhh, don't tell anybody!), but I also think the Potter books build up mystery and suspense in a way that a lot of other comparable series don't. I mean, I never had much of a qualm with looking ahead in the Oz books, but then, the books in that series that go for twist endings can get a bit predictable. (Wow, this mysterious character who remembers nothing of his or her past is someone else under an enchantment? I never would have guessed after the last twelve times that happened! :P) But I usually try not to read too far ahead in the Potter books.

Aside from this, I think part of the reason why spoilsports get a kick out of leaking information is that there seems to be a certain level of resentment for the Potter series, presumably largely just because it's popular. I know a lot of people just aren't into fantasy, and that's fine. Others have tried reading the books and found that they didn't care for them for whatever reason, which is also cool with me. But it seems like there's also a certain subset of the population that thinks anything popular is worthy of contempt. And hey, a lot of popular things really ARE terrible, but the fact that they're popular doesn't MAKE them terrible. I don't know. I went into the Potter series kind of not really wanting to like it that much, since it was so mainstream as far as such books go. Yet I also pretty much felt obligated to read the books, because they were actually children's fantasy that was being read by someone OTHER than the kids who hung out in the library because they didn't have friends. And while the Potter series still isn't my favorite, I find the books to be quite engaging reads. And it's great to be able to post about a book I've read and have more than like, two people know what I'm talking about.

I'm probably not going to have anything to say about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until I've finished it, and I don't know when that will be. I still intend to use the Internet in the meantime, though, rather than hiding myself in a well-lit cave until I've reached the last page. Anyone else's Potter-related posts are probably going directly into my Memories until I'm ready to see them. And when I do offer my thoughts, I'll be sure to use LJ-cuts. I hope any of you who intend to discuss the book will extend the same courtesy.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Harry dies on EVERY PAGE!

[bethje.livejournal.com]

Heh, Nathan said that yesterday.

[revme.livejournal.com]

hahahaah, he did and I forgot and thought I was being original! I rule!

[bethje.livejournal.com]

LOL, I don't know if he said it on the internets, but he said it to me. {g}

[revme.livejournal.com]

I thought it was in a post a time or two ago... like one of the spoilers! Oh well! Either way!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't think I said it on my journal, but I could be wrong. I had actually thought about working it into this post, but I couldn't quite figure out how. If I DID say it before, it's probably better that I didn't this time. I haven't been doing this long enough to be recycling my jokes (which are mostly all stolen from Simpsons episodes anyway).

[travspence.livejournal.com]

Hey, Anakin becomes Darth Vader!

I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies in their entirety but I knew that. I thought everyone knew that. But my friend Jamie did not know that and I accidentally spoilered it for him. I wanted to feel bad about that but come on! How stupid was he not to know that already? I can't feel bad about spoilering stupidity, can I?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I would have to say that it's been referenced so much in so many different media that everyone (whether or not they've actually seen Star Wars) either already knows or doesn't care. As a spoiler, it's probably along the same lines as "Oedipus married his mom" and "Romeo and Juliet commit suicide."

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

And you can't forget "Luke, I am your father" either. Heck, I knew that line even before I saw the first Star Wars movie. I mean, making fun of that line has gotten to be its own running gag--any time someone has their voice muffled and deepened, invariably they will spout out the famous line and have a laugh. And on the opposite spectrum, saying a line from the Muchkins scene when you voice goes high-pitched.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up and your thoughts on the whole thing. I do wish there was the same kind of suspense with "Ooh! A new Oz book!" that there was, oh...say from 1910 to 1943. I mean, man, could you imagine the suspense and excitement of a Harry Potter type of book every year? Kinda tiring for the parents, I suppose, but not for a hardcore fan like me!

I was lucky enough to get the family copy of the book from B&N. However, their system did have problems as well. Such as calling out intervals of numbers at random: "100 to 125! 126 to 150! 151 to 200! 200 to 250! Oh, hell, 100 to 300!" That's very nearly exactly how it played out last night. Plus the people who were dumb enough not to order in advance and had to wait outside the store to let all the reserved people in the store go first.

The downside of the whole event was the massive number of people who thought they could lounge on the floor and not move; not to mention the books that were out of place on every shelf, because people were too lazy to put their readings back on the right one. Wow, I was really surprised at how many teenagers and college students were there. And the majority of them looked like the type that never read anything more than Cosmo or FHM. You know, the (gasp! horror!) jock types.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I do wish there was the same kind of suspense with "Ooh! A new Oz book!" that there was, oh...say from 1910 to 1943. I mean, man, could you imagine the suspense and excitement of a Harry Potter type of book every year?

I guess there might have been that kind of excitement over the Potter books back when THEY were being cranked out once a year. As is typical for me, I got into the books around when Rowling started writing them more slowly.

I do wish I'd been able to see people's reactions to new Oz books back in the former part of the twentieth century, and how they compared to the Potter hysteria nowadays. In some ways, the Oz books filled kind of the same niche, as far as being popular fantasy fiction written for kids but enjoyed by adults. I'm not sure how many people read them compared to the Potter series. I get the feeling that more kids read books back then, seeing as how it was before the advent of TV and video games, but there might have also been more intense competition in the book market at that point. I don't know.

Regardless, I tend to doubt that the Potter books will suffer the same fate as the Oz books. Their relative obscurity seems to be based largely on the movie supplanting the books in the public eye, and people who read the first book not knowing there are any others. With Harry, the movies are more complementary to the books; and while The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as a stand-alone, Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone obviously wasn't. So I think it'll be a case of people either continuing to read and enjoy the whole series, or else largely forgetting about it, rather than the Oz situation of one book still being popular and the others not.

The downside of the whole event was the massive number of people who thought they could lounge on the floor and not move

We actually sat on the floor in the fiction section while waiting to be called, but that was out of the way, so it wasn't like we were blocking anyone.

And the majority of them looked like the type that never read anything more than Cosmo or FHM. You know, the (gasp! horror!) jock types.

It looked to be mostly women and children at the Borders we went to, although there were a few loud-mouthed guys who kept yelling out fake spoilers. And I DID notice an issue of Maxim carelessly tossed over one of the CD racks when we passed them. Really, the whole place was pretty messy; I'm not sure what it is about being in a crowd that makes people want to leave their empty plastic water bottles on the shelves in the political section. Or maybe it's just that, with that many people there, the chances that some of them will be slobs increases.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I didn't start reading HP until the pace slowed down a little, too. I think I started on the books the year before GoF came out. When I was sixteen, I'm sure of it... At first, I thought the HP books were a bunch of hooey and a waste of time; some new stupid fad. But then I got hooked once I started reading.

I wonder if the Harry Potter series might suffer the same fate as the Narnia series. For example, most people have read and make comments about [i]The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe[/i]. It's also usually made as a stand-alone movie, including the most recent version. So there are other books in the septology, but the first one is the one that stand out. Maybe in the future, other filmmakers will make the first HP book into a movie but neglect the others. Compared to the other books, it stands by itself a bit better. It's possible to read it and not read the other six books.

Oh, I'm sure you were very polite and got out of people's way when asked. The people lounging (mostly older kids) were doing so before the line for buying the book started. Quite a few of them didn't even have books to skim through, which would be more understandable why they were sitting.

[yosef.livejournal.com]

My dad gave me the first book for Christmas in 2000, and I thought it was just a silly fad book too. I finally read it the next summer and now here I am, hooked forever.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the Harry Potter series might suffer the same fate as the Narnia series. For example, most people have read and make comments about [i]The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe[/i].

Yeah, possibly. I still think more people are aware of the Narnia series as a whole than the Oz books, though. I actually have the entire Chronicles of Narnia in one volume. There are multi-volume editions of the Oz books (I believe they're called "The Oz Chronicles," which might be a Narnia rip-off; there's a reference to "The Chronicles of the Land of Oz" in one of the Snow books, but since these volumes are limited to Baum, I don't know that the publisher would have been aware of this), but they lack the illustrations, which ruins some of the fun. But then, the first edition of the Alice books that I had only included a few illustrations, and the first book had its heroine say right near the beginning that she didn't understand the point of a book with no pictures.

It's also usually made as a stand-alone movie, including the most recent version.

True, although I've heard that Prince Caspian is in production. And I know the BBC did at least The Silver Chair in addition to The Lion.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Oz Chronicles or something like them in the bookstore. I believe they have dark green leather covers and contain several Oz books in one at random (or it seems like random). Also, it's the Baum Oz and Oz-related books; none by other authors. Actually, weren't they part of a discussion on Regalia recently?

I didn't hear that! I wonder how they're going to pull that off. The actors are going to age faster than the movie(s) can be produced.

BBC did the complete series in the late 70s/early 80s. It's rather good. My local library has them, so yours might as well. Because there was no CGI back then, they used 2D animation for the more diffuclt characters (griffins, etc). I think Mr. Tumnus and Aslan were a person in costume and an audio animatronic, respectively.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Oz Chronicles or something like them in the bookstore. I believe they have dark green leather covers and contain several Oz books in one at random (or it seems like random). Also, it's the Baum Oz and Oz-related books; none by other authors. Actually, weren't they part of a discussion on Regalia recently?

Yeah, they were. I saw one of them at Borders recently, and I believe it was the first seven books, although I didn't look all that closely.

The actors are going to age faster than the movie(s) can be produced.

Well, after the third one, the Pevensies don't appear again until The Last Battle, which takes place several years later (seven, according to the Companion to Narnia). So it's definitely a concern, but probably not as much as it is for Harry Potter.

I saw the BBC The Lion on PBS, and I believe The Silver Chair as well, although I can't really remember the latter (I think I watched it on a black-and-white TV with lousy reception).

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

yeah, that bugs me, the people who don't like the series so they go on and on about it. It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't so popular-- those people just would never have read the book, so be it. Nobody's forcing them to! It was more annoying to me several years ago though because I WAS one of the first people-- at least one of the first Americans (back when the books were being released in England months before they were here)-- to get into the series, then suddenly it becomes POPULAR and it's harder to justify! But it's been happening so long now I guess I just tune it out.

But what really annoys me about the spoiler thing, and even with people in the fandom itself, is that everybody goes on and on about Who Dies. My husband just called and was like "So did he die yet?" and I was like "First of all, I finished the book two hours before you left for work, and second of all, YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT." Really, who died, and I say this without intent of spoilering (I mean, you knew people were going to die already), is really incidental to HOW THE STORY COMES TOGETHER. So get over the Who Dies thing, already, Universe!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't so popular-- those people just would never have read the book, so be it. Nobody's forcing them to!

Yeah, and as much of a cultural phenomenon as Harry Potter has become, it isn't generally thrown in people's faces as much as many other things. To give an example I've already mentioned in this post, I'd say Star Wars is probably a lot harder to avoid. But maybe I'm biased because I'm dating someone who likes Harry Potter and doesn't like Star Wars. (I like both, personally, although I'm more of a Potter fan.)

As for the deaths, hasn't Rowling herself often concentrated on them in interviews and such? Maybe she's just aware that that's what the general public is always asking about, so she obliges them. Besides, the death scenes do make the Potter books stand out somewhat from a fair amount of other children's fantasy.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

And living with death is pretty much one of the main themes of the series...

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

PS-- one of my sister's childhood nicknames was "Magwheels" and I thought for a second this post was about her. Then I couldn't figure out why YOU'D written a post about her.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The title is actually a line from a TMBG song, which I used purely because it included the word "spoiler" (albeit presumably with a different definition). I'm not really sure what magwheels even are.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

me neither!