On Friday, a Daily Grist blurb about the final Harry Potter book ended with this:
Which totally makes up for the fact that Harry dies in the end. Oops, did we say that out loud?
We didn’t think much of it. I mean:
- The book wasn’t even out yet, and getting an advance copy was more difficult than breaking into Fort Knox. If we’d really known the ending, it would have been international news, not something to sneak in at the end of a blurb.
- Daily Grist is funny and snarky, pretty much every day, in every blurb. Why wouldn’t that be funny and snarky too?
- We’re not batshit insane crazy people who are insane and batshit crazy.
Despite all that, apparently quite a few readers believed … well, that we’re spectacularly idiotic, crazy jerks — i.e., that we honestly gave away the ending of the final Harry Potter book in a blurb.
They were not pleased. One said we can go "f@**" ourselves. One said that sarcasm is "a sad by-product of our very disturbed, neurotic society" (but, but … if it was sarcasm, why are you mad?). One said, "I now truly dislike you & will do nothing further for ANY of your causes" (sorry earth!). One said that we are henceforth "internet non grata on my computer." One said what we did was "down there with killing defenseless small animals and kicking sandcastles in toddlers faces.”
Ouch.
So anyway, just to clarify: No, we didn’t give away the ending. We didn’t know the ending. We apologize to those who thought we did, especially if it damaged their enjoyment of the book.
Some Grist staffers (not myself — I haven’t read any of the books or seen any of the movies) now know the ending. Some of you readers now know the ending. Suffice to say: please do not reveal the ending in comments. We’ll delete spoilers if we see them, but really, as we painfully learned this weekend, nobody likes spoilers, even faux spoilers. So don’t do it.
