Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book, will be released on July 21. (Hat tip: Brian Foster.)
I’ll be taking the bar on July 24 and 25.
You do the math.
Basically, either: a) I’m going to fail the bar, because I’ll spend the preceding weekend reading Harry Potter instead of studying; or b) Becky will read the book before I do, and will inevitably tell me who dies because she won’t be able to contain herself. (And if she doesn’t let it slip, someone will mention it on the blog. Or, hell, some fellow bar-exam taker will mention it.)
F**k.
To make matters worse, the release of the seventh book comes just eight days after the debut of the fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, on July 13. (Friday the 13th!)
So basically, July will be one giant Pottergasm.
Yep. Definitely going to fail the bar.
UPDATE: Okay, upon further consideration, I have a plan… and I think this might be a good thing, because it will force me to focus on studying rather than my usual distractions. The plan is: from July 21 onward, completely cut myself off from virtually all human contact. :) No Internet, no TV, no reading comments on my blog or e-mails from people I can’t be completely certain won’t tell me about the book, and no engaging in conversations where I might accidentally overhear something. So basically, take my iPod with me everywhere, including to the bar exam (can I do that?), and just keep a constant running soundtrack in my ears so I can’t hear the water-cooler talk about the book. And tell Becky I’ll divorce her if she lets anything slip. ;) This could work…
P.S. For those who aren’t Potter fans, you need to understand: this isn’t just any book. This is the final book, the one everyone’s been waiting for forever — the one in which either Harry or Voldemort has to die. So there is an incredible amount of suspense about that. In addition, Rowling has already revealed that at least two other main characters will die. So everybody and their brother is wondering who will die… and once they find out, everybody and their brother will be talking about it. Trying to go four days without overhearing this will be kind of like trying to go four days after Super Bowl without finding out who won. And yet if I accidentally find out in advance, the whole damn thing will be ruined!
J.K. Rowling, I hate you. And love you.
UPDATE 2: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Please, have a look around.
UPDATE 3: On, uh, third thought…
Reading the sixth Harry Potter book took me somewhere between 12 and 14 hours, not counting sleeping and blogging time. And I could do better than that if I really read fast — maybe 10 hours. So that’s a one-day read, easily. I will have a full travel day somewhere in the vicinity of July 21 or 22, and realistically, I’m not going to be studying much that day. I could easily make that my Deathly Hallows-reading day, and then resume studying the next day. As Mike points out via IM, it’s not like I won’t lose some study time setting up my extensive precautions to not find out who dies. And the distraction of wondering about the book — and of trying not to find out what happens — could be pretty damaging to my ability to concentrate on studying.
So maybe I’ll just freakin’ read it.
Regardless, I think I’ll admonish my blog readers to please avoid any spoilers except in one designated spoiler post, which — taking a cue from this comment — I’ll title “That Which Must Not Be Blogged.” :)
FINAL UPDATE: Much more about this issue here, including quotes from other bar-exam-taking Potter nerds who are equally freaked out.
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Categories: Law School, Harry Potter
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February 1st, 2007 at 9:04:15 am
Here’s a solution: don’t buy the book until after the bar exam.
Problem solved!
February 1st, 2007 at 9:05:27 am
If you’re taking the bar you should probably take a break from blogging during that time anyway…leave it open to guest bloggers so that:
A) You can study.
B) Not read about any HP related topics.
C) You can study.
The movie coming out on the 13th allows you to get a small HP fix.
As for Becky ruining it for you I think thats grounds for divorce…not really but it’s pretty damn close.
February 1st, 2007 at 9:07:08 am
First of all, no way is Becky going to wait to read it just because I’m taking the bar. Secondly, even if she would, that doesn’t solve the problem at all! Literally millions of people will be reading the book between July 21 and 25. There is an overwhelming risk that I’ll overhear something from someone. This isn’t just any Harry Potter book, it’s the one where either Harry or Voldemort HAS TO die. Once people have read it, they’ll be talking about it, guaranteed. The entire nation will be a giant water cooler.
Not only do I have to “not buy the book,” I have to completely cut myself off from all human contact for about five days. :)
February 1st, 2007 at 9:16:18 am
Great minds think alike, Marty. I hadn’t seen your comment when I added my update. LOL.
February 1st, 2007 at 9:53:53 am
Thanks for the heads-up on how vital it is to read the book quickly. I’m gonna place a hold on a copy as early as possible at the local library (the system doesn’t even have the title listed yet).
(Yes, I’m a tightwad when it comes to books and movies, and the local and rather large library system does have a great collection of both).
Some total doofus purposely let slip the spoiler for the last book in a chat room, and I’m determined not to let the next book be ruined! :(
February 1st, 2007 at 9:54:51 am
I feel your pain. Really, I do. But be realistic. Even during finals you have trouble staying away, and the bar is no laughing matter. Nether is Harry Potter.
Can you really stay away?
My advice is to start studying a little earlier for the exam so you can fit in the book. You’ll need the break anyway.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:02:28 am
Wow, that is extraordinarily cruel of JK. You must have pissed her off in a former life.
They don’t HAVE to die. I agree one almost certainly will, if only to make for a satisfying ending. But there’s a small school of thought that both could end up as muggles.
Muggle Harry could do well in life, Muggle Voldamort, not so much.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:04:02 am
Not necessarily. I took the bar on basically the same dates last year. On the Thursday prior, I sat down at 8:30 AM like I had on every other day for the previous two months and opened my books. I took one look at them and closed them. I was done. So I spent the weekend shopping and going out to dinner and stuff.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:16:47 am
Yes, but did you pass? :)
(Just kidding — I assume you did, of course.)
I still have no idea how I’m approaching this bar thing — I defintely won’t be able to attend barbri lectures, or at least not more than a handful. I don’t get how PMBR fits in. And I didn’t take any “bar class,” by design. (Evidence excepted, but I didn’t take it because it was on the bar.)
It’s going to be an interesting summer.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:20:05 am
The same thing happened to me in 2005! JK released the Half-Blood Prince right before the bar exam. I tried to resist, but in the end I needed a break too badly. I pulled an all-nighter marathon two weekends before the bar - checked into a Holiday Inn Express, free from all distractions — and studied; then the weekend before the bar I took off to read Harry Potter. And still had Sunday night and Monday night to review and refresh. You’ll do fine. Don’t sweat the bar exam, and remember - keep things in perspective!
February 1st, 2007 at 10:21:01 am
The security on these books should be applied to our defense secrets. I know a guy who works at one of the printing houses that prints the books. (I don’t know how many there are; but there are far too many copies released at once for any one printing house.) They have to sign special releases to work on this project. They’re not allowed to look at the pages they’re printing unless they’re in the proofing team. The consequences for talking about the contents, both for the employee and for the printing house, are massive. With most books that they print, the employees are free to just take any misprints and mistakes, even give them to friends. But not the Potter books: misprints go straight to the pulper, immediately.
But when it’s done, each employee on the project gets a free copy, practically still warm from the presses. You want to know who will be first to read the book in the general public? It’s the printers and their kids.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:21:47 am
I love how we’re attributing this to her personally as a deliberate move. I can just see her sitting down with her editor in London and insiting that they look at the NCBE website in order to pick the release date. :)
February 1st, 2007 at 10:21:52 am
I work part time at a Borders books…July 21st is going to be hell.
When the 6th book came out I worked from 12 midnight until 12 in the afternoon the next day. People were camping out in front of the store 2 days before the release date and we had an armed guard in the basement where the shipment of books was.
I just ordered mine off of Amazon and had early morning delivery. I read the entire thing straight through.
Brendan is right when he says this isn’t just ANY Harry Potter book…this is THE book. I am beyond stoked for this.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:29:41 am
Oh, stop. Reading one of the recent Harry Potter books takes all of 6-7 hours. If you cannot spare 6-7 hours between now and *#$% JULY–even if you are working 60 hours or more a week–you have no business being a lawyer.
I’m serious. Contrary to popular belief, if you have the chops to be a lawyer, you should have no trouble passing a state bar exam. It is just that law schools now permit way too many mouth-breathers to obtain diplomas, so the bar exam has to weed out the way-too-stupid-to-practice. Plenty of too-stupid-to-practice still get through, as a result.
Plenty of my classmates spent less time studying for the bar than they did certain classes during law school. No one failed in any of the various states, including , California and New York.
Heck, some of us were pulling hard hours as associates at big firms during the study period. (Contrary to what you may have heard, they didn’t *really* give you reduced billable hour loads to prepare for the bar.)
The bar exam simply is not that all-consuming…unless you make it so.
February 1st, 2007 at 10:45:45 am
Hey, it was supposed to come out on 7/7/07… so it’ll be late, but either way, you would have been screwed, right? And at the cheap(!) price of $34.99, you can afford to get several, no?
(And no iPod at the exam site, btw)
February 1st, 2007 at 11:06:46 am
Harry Potter and Voldemort die. Now you don’t need to read my final book.
February 1st, 2007 at 12:08:29 pm
Get your priorities straight: postpone the bar exam, or, if you cannot do that, abandon law studies and get into another line of work (any openings for hurricane warners?).
There are way too many lawyers around, anyway.
February 1st, 2007 at 1:00:24 pm
Psssst ! Don’t tell Brendan, but Harry and He Who Must Not Be Named start a blog together, and decide not to kill each other …
February 1st, 2007 at 1:09:53 pm
Heh. It will be called “That Which Must Not Be Blogged.” :)
February 1st, 2007 at 1:34:18 pm
Um, yes — I did pass. AND I took no real bar review class. AND I got a 160 raw on the MBE. So there :). I believe, though, that even BarBri advises taking the weekend before the bar off.
The Daily Show did a hilarious piece on the security surrounding the last book called “Could It Happen Here?” My work computer is technologically retarded, so I only *think* this link is right:
www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=16334
February 1st, 2007 at 1:41:20 pm
Possible final book scenarios:
Voldemort dies: Fans rejoice at hero’s triumph, books become popular sensation that give a ray of hope in a dark, cruel world, are largely forgotten by the year 2102, Brendan passes bar
Harry dies: Fans pissed/outraged at hero’s death, riots, tragic ending elevates what was once popular children’s fiction to high art worthy of substantial academic consideration, Rowling achieves immortality as books pass into literary canon for centuries to come, Brendan passes bar
Rowling weasels out some weird ending that technically meets the “either Harry or Voldemort must die” condition, but the ending is vague and unsatisfying: controversey erupts, blog hits skyrocket in midst of speculation, Brendan fails bar
February 1st, 2007 at 1:43:00 pm
LOL.
(But you forgot one possibility that I believe is perfectly fine under the prophecy: they both die.)
February 1st, 2007 at 2:08:14 pm
Ah, you could be right. What’s the exact wording of the prophecy?
February 1st, 2007 at 2:14:51 pm
According to Wikipedia:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…
So, one has to kill the other. But nothing in the prophecy rules out the possibility that the killer would then himself die.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Voldemort kills Harry, but then somehow, in the course of killing Harry, he kills himself. Dunno why that would be, but Rowling could certainly come up with something. :)
February 1st, 2007 at 2:32:43 pm
Alternative, perhaps even more likely:
Voldemort kills Harry. Snape kills Voldemort.
Motive? No idea. But like Gollum, it’s clear that Snape has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before this is over.
February 1st, 2007 at 2:34:06 pm
On the other hand, I suppose the prophecy does imply rather strongly that there is only ONE who has “the power to vanquish the Dark Lord.” So that would rule out the Snape theory.
Still. Snape will have something to do with how it ends.
February 1st, 2007 at 2:35:02 pm
It would have been much easier figure this out if Rowling had named the book “Harry Potter and the Death of Lord Voldemort at the Hands of Harry With the Help of Snape, After Which Harry Also Dies.” Or vice versa.
:)
February 1st, 2007 at 2:56:48 pm
OR, C: YOU SPENT THE WHOLE TIME BLOGGING INSTEAD OF READING OR STUDYING FOR THE BAR.
February 1st, 2007 at 3:02:55 pm
LOL… uscroger wins.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:01:21 pm
Sorry — no electronic devices in the bar exam except for a watch. And it can’t beep.
February 1st, 2007 at 4:03:56 pm
OT, a great article on the weird rules vary states have about bar exam conditions.
http://www.lawschool.com/whattoexpect.htm
February 1st, 2007 at 4:40:57 pm
This being fiction, Voldemort’s death seems a near-certainty. (Or the functional equivalent of death, as happened to Sauron.) The odds on Harry’s death I’d put at no more than 30%. Maybe Snape’ll kill Harry?
February 1st, 2007 at 5:02:09 pm
This:
“It would have been much easier figure this out if Rowling had named the book “Harry Potter and the Death of Lord Voldemort at the Hands of Harry With the Help of Snape, After Which Harry Also Dies.â€? Or vice versa.”
Made me laugh so hard my five-year-old daughter thought something was wrong with me.
I generally don’t buy the “Harry is a Horcrux Theory,” but — if he IS a horcux, then might not Voldemort snuff himself out if he kills Harry? If Harry had found and destroyed all the other Horcruxes, such that only that part of Voldemort’s soul that is in Harry is keeping Voldemort alive, then once Harry is destroyed, Voldemort is too . . .
That has a compelling logic to it. But I really hope Harry’s not a Horcrux, because that makes no sense at all.
OOH OOH
How about this? Remember the gleam of triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes when he heard that Voldemort used Harry’s own blood to restore his body at the end of GOF?
Well — maybe, just maybe, Harry *was* a Horcrux, but when Voldemort took Harry’s blood back, Voldemort himself destroyed it! They would still be connected, of course, with the scar and the wand and the Prior Incantatem and all that. But the actual Horcux is gone.
Although the problem with this idea is that either there were originally 8 Horcruxes, OR now there are only 6. And neither 8 nor 6 has any mystical quality about them whatsoever.
February 1st, 2007 at 5:09:48 pm
yOU MUST WATCH CATCH ME IF YOU CAN BEFORE TAKING ANY BARS
February 1st, 2007 at 6:06:17 pm
“(But you forgot one possibility that I believe is perfectly fine under the prophecy: they both die.)”
And manage to destroy the entire realm of magic (a “Potterdammerung” if you will) in the process…
February 1st, 2007 at 6:12:24 pm
Any future lawyer who reads and loves Harry has my support. Good luck.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:34:31 pm
Better idea: study for the bar exam waaay before the book comes out. Then read it when it comes out, and brush up on bar exam stuff as exam approaches.
It’ll totally work!
February 1st, 2007 at 7:56:35 pm
Dumbledore lives!
February 1st, 2007 at 9:13:32 pm
Hey, fellow reptile here, took the bar last July. I didn’t buckle down and study until a week and a half before the exam, and I still managed to pass. :)
Mind you, it’s not a strategy I’d recommend, but if you want some tips on how to study (responsibly) for the exam, I’m happy to provide. And you should be able to read Harry Potter when it comes out. :)
February 1st, 2007 at 9:20:19 pm
Brian Foster - you err !
That number which is between 7 and 9 is the number of the Colour of Magic !
Just ask Rincewind !
February 1st, 2007 at 10:32:43 pm
Pal, at least you are an English speaker… I had to learn your language to avoid spoilers, otherwise I would have had to wait until Italian translators would have done their job (and damaged it, as they always did). Have a nice bar, and don’t worry: as Hermione says, get your revisions done before the time comes! Just pretend your exam comes BEFORE all of that! :D
February 1st, 2007 at 11:16:11 pm
I echo some of the more reasonable suggestions here: Start the studying early. Don’t treat it like one of your finals where you blog away until 9 the night before and pull an all nighter. You will be sufficiently prepared when the book comes out and you can relax, read Harry Potter, and review in between chapters. If you tried to wait to read the book until after the bar, your studying would be tortured, and Beckles would most likely spill the beans anyway.
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:01:26 am
Snape will sacrifice himself to save Harry from Voldemort and Harry will then avenge all those who Voldy killed
February 26th, 2007 at 7:56:12 pm
Heeheehee. I am SO with you Brendan! I have finals that week, but nothing will stop me from reading Harry Potter SEVEN!!!
July 16th, 2007 at 2:44:38 pm
I’m in nearly the exact same boat… My wife and I are both huge HP fans and she will inevitably get to read it first… I took time away from studying to see the movie… but that was a 3 hour break I don’t think I could swing the 10 to 12 hours to read the book…
She really does want us to fail, and she’ll laugh it up all the way to the bank.