Saturday, July 21, 2007

target acquired

Yes, I've got the newest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and will be spending the evening (along with a goodly chunk of tomorrow) reading away.

And then I'll post the spoilers.

Just kidding.

I will note, though, that I'm amazed at my own will power this time around: not being the best practitioner of "delay of gratification," I've deliberately read or accidentally stumbled upon the spoilers for most of the major media events of the past few years. The Star Wars prequels come to mind: I knew the plots to all of them before seeing them. I also knew the salient points of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince because I floated over to Wikipedia and read the entire spoiler article. But this time around, I've somehow avoided the spoilers (aside from those rumors passed along to me by a coworker).

For those who have been following the recent foreknowledge/freedom posts on this blog, it's worth observing that JK Rowling's Potter books, from Book Five onward, do deal with this very question, though in Rowling's universe the question takes the form of prophecy. Prophecy is itself an interesting issue to explore, because there are several forms of it and different authors and thinkers handle it in different ways. Perhaps a post for another time.


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