In an apparent effort to anger as many people as possible, make small children cry and add another layer of black tar to their foul, cooler-than-thou hearts, this week the Portland Mercury decided to post a huge plot spoiler from the final Harry Potter book on their blog.

Now I'm just a casual fan of the series. I've read two of the books and, while I haven't been impressed, I must admit that the movies ain't half bad. That said, I'm related to people who take all of this as seriously as the Mercury folks take whatever flash-in-the-pan band is hot this second, the newest bit of fashion tedium or the latest network teen yawnfest. If any of them had come across that blog post, they'd be howling for blood right now.

The post was published with little warning of its contents and the spoiler was even in bold letters, making it impossible to miss. The spoiler is the same one that's been making the rounds since Wednesday and they even linked to a photo of what's alleged to be page 726 from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a page which includes two other massive spoilers. Based on what I've seen on other spoiler sites, this isn't a practical joke. Predictably, at least one Potter fan has left the staff a disturbing rant in their voicemail box.

Like it or not, at the stroke of midnight tomorrow night we're all going to see the biggest literary event of our lifetimes come to pass. No one lines up around the block for the latest Don DeLillo tome, no matter how many prestigious awards he's won. Given how important this goofy series of kids books is to who knows how many fans out there, the Mercury could have at least had the common decency to link to the spoiler instead.

Mysteriously enough, the Mercury's site is currently offline. Could this be the work of a Potter fanatic bent on revenge? If so, this just goes to show you should never piss off a massive group of people with too much time on their hands.

UPDATE: The excerpt the Mercury published in their print edition and linked to from that blog post are fake but, from what I've heard, the spoilers contained within aren't. Long story short, they're still big meanies for publishing it.

Labels: nerds