Some troll, who probably found his/her way to my blog via the New York Times blog article linking to “That Which Must Not Be Blogged,” just posted a bunch of Harry Potter 7 spoilers in various threads. Luckily, I saw them quickly and, immediately realizing what they were, stopped reading them and moved them to the proper thread (while literally holding my hand in front of the screen, so that I wouldn’t see what was written).

I will be taking various steps to hopefully prevent such things from occurring again in the next few days, but unfortunately, there are a lot of a**holes on the Internet, and there’s only so much I can do to combat them. As such, I cannot guarantee that spoilers will not appear where they shouldn’t, at least for a brief period of time.

If you want to guarantee that you won’t stumble upon any spoilers, the safest course of action is to not read ANY comments on this or any blog until after you’ve read the book. For that matter, you should probably stop surfing the Internet altogether and turn off the TV for the rest of the week. Now that the book has (apparently) been leaked on BitTorrent, lots of people are going to find out the (alleged) ending, and even well-meaning folks may inadvertently let something slip (explicitly or implicitly). And of course, as this afternoon’s incident proves, plenty of jerks will deliberately try to ruin everyone’s fun.

In any event, I beg the good faith of regular readers on this blog. I realize this whole situation is a major “don’t stick peas up your nose” temptation for those who scorn Potter fans as a bunch of obsessed nerds, but for the love of all that is holy, please resist it. (Obviously, anyone who doesn’t resist it will be instantly and permanently banned from the blog, as the aforementioned New York Times troll already has been.)

Just in case this isn’t already clear, don’t post spoilers in comments on this post! This thread is for discussing this issue without revealing anything about the book. Spoilers go in “That Which Must Not Be Blogged.” Thanks!

P.S. Also, don’t stick peas up your nose! :)