A Desperate Plea

by · July 12, 2005

by Asphault

My name is…well, I can’t exactly tell you that. What I can tell you is that I am not your average Potter fan. No, not at all. In fact, I am a diehard Tolkienite, who openly denies ever liking “those filthy books.”

Which may lead you to wonder what in the blazes I’m doing here.

Please, before you send me hate mail, hear me out. It is in the Unwritten Tolkien Code of Honor that if you place Middle-earth as your heart’s calling, you cannot place any worth on the Harry Potter series. We must constantly barrage Potter with insults and allegations that Rowling filched half of her ideas from Tolkien (which I admit, though there are a startling number of similarities, the bulk of the wizarding world is entirely original, and the series is most definitely not a cheap rip off of Middle-earth).

The rule is unreasonable, foolish, idiotic — I know, I know! But in order to hold my head high when I lead meetings at my school’s Tolkien Society, I must hide this one fact with all my force: I greatly enjoy the Potter books, and I’ve read and re-read them countless times.

But please, I am not here to emphasize this immature ideology, nor provoke any Potter fans out there. I am here to communicate a message, which I am thoroughly convinced can only spread rapidly enough through MuggleNet. In a matter of days,Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be distributed. By the time you read this, I will have left for a summer program on the other side of the country (the States, if you were curious). I will not be able to return until August.

I have already pre-ordered my copy from the local Barnes & Noble. I suppose I could try to buy an overpriced copy at the university I will be attending for the next few weeks, but I dare not risk it. The books are so clenching that I know I will not be able to pull myself away from the sixth and study. Chances are, I will fail out of my course if I gain access to the book.

You may ask, what is your point?

I believe it is agreed among many in the Potter world that the sixth book will be darker, mainly conveying many deaths to signify VoldWar II (I always thought this was such a clever name!). Consequently, some major characters will probably face their ends. The clock is ticking; time will only tell when the next Sirius will fall (or perhaps more than one).

I assume I am not alone in the grave shock I felt after reading of Sirius’ fall — in fact, shock is far too weak of a word! It is a good thing that I barricaded (for the most part) myself in the room after purchasing my own copy until I finished, for the moment I rejoined civilization, everyone I knew was talking about Sirius’ death, chatting online about it, crying in their profiles — need I go on? And now, it is here that I reach my thesis.

I must go two to three weeks without reading the sixth; no doubt that in that time countless others will have finished it. And the one thing I fear the most, the one thing I know would absolutely ruin the experience of book 6, is spoilers.

I am begging you, each and every one of you, to post carefully (at least give a warning) before you spoil the sixth, no matter that it’s been weeks since the sixth was released (and “everyone should have finished it by now anyway”). I am begging you not to run through the halls screaming, “Curse you Rowling! How could you kill _____?!” (Well, that’s almost what I did.)

I am begging you to spread this word, to tell others to please, please, do not spoil it for those of us who are too unfortunate to access a copy. I don’t know if I can prevent spoilers from reaching me by sending MuggleNet this article; I don’t know if I’ll be taken seriously, or mocked to the depths of Mordor; I don’t know anything. But I truly hope that maybe at the university I’ve attended, someone will have read this article online, or heard a warning not to spoil from a friend, to the point where he or she will think twice, especially after I have requested anyone with the book in my line of sight not to spoil it for me.

That is my only hope, and only this hope brings me a step closer to sustaining my chances to enjoy the sixth — no matter how “blasphemous” it may be in the Shire — as much as I have enjoyed the last five. Thank you all.