So I spent a large chunk of my weekend reading the final Harry Potter book. It was pretty ok. I mean I wasn't as invested in it as, say, The Dark Tower, which I started reading in, say, 1990 and finished with the final book in 2006. I mean, 16 years spent wandering MidWorld's deserts and immersing myself in the rich and spanning mythology is one thing. Picking up the Harry Potter series as book three was coming out is another.

I've really enjoyed this series. It's been fun. I recall rolling my eyes at all the initial hype. I'm usually of the mindset that says "If this many people like it, it can't be any good." However, on the recommendation of my sister-in-law, I borrowed her copy of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. To my surprise I liked it. I jumped on the bandwagon whole-heartedly.

A week ago the book was reportedly floating about the Web as scanned PDF pages. Many die hard fans flocked to it to tear it apart and expose it as a hoax. As of Saturday, we now know it was no hoax. And this has caused a rather sizebale uproar in the Harry Potter fan community. And by that, I mean sad, broken individuals: fanfic writers.

Don't Google fanfic. For the love of your sanity don't Google slash fic. I'm an Internet professional. I've been handling these toxic materials for years. If you can't off the top of your head define the following three things, you should just consider this the end of this blog. You've been warned.

1) goatse
2) tubgirl
3) ytmnd

(Don't Google those either. For the love of God and your job security)

I've been reading discussion threads on this and it's all just a pile of sad. However, three choice quotes came out of it that made me LOL IRL (OMGWTFBBQ). I wanted to share them with you:

"What happened was that the book got leaked and a ton of HP fans read it. With the apparent air of anonymity behind the real author--as it wasn't 100% known if it was the real book--lots of die-hard fans looked for holes in the writing to convince themselves it wasn't real. That the REAL book would be super amazing awesome because they just knew that Rowling was the best author ever.

Now that it's been confirmed as real, they have to admit to themselves that Rowling isn't the amazing author they'd built her up to be. All the flaws they found in the final book were ones made by Rowling herself and they can either backpedal like mad or plow on through. So, in order to compensate for that, they go way overboard with the hatred for her and take it completely personally."

This was further distilled by another user:

"What this is all about: It's fat chicks writing off the last ten years of their lives rather than admit that they were wrong."

And, finally, zen wisdom:

"I've uncovered the secret! THEY'RE CHILDREN'S BOOKS."

Huzzah! Now go look at some LOLcatz to rinse yourself clean.

PostScript

As I said, I like the books but I just stumbled on what may be the most succinct analysis of the books ever:

And maybe it's just me, but it seems like Harry Potter is the most insignificant hero of all time. The kid never really accomplishes anything... everyone else does the work, and he reaps the rewards. His mother effectively is the one who destroyed Voldemort the first time, but Harry got credit as the boy who lived. Then he's basically given a vault full of money that he spends on books and wands, etc, and then tons of candy on the train, but when it comes to important things like his broomstick, someone else buys it for him, despite him being immensely wealthy. He's handed all the things he ever needs to get around... an invisibility cloak, potions, a time-travelling watch, a book full of scribbled spells, etc. He proceeds to be lead around by either his friends or the adults and stumbles his way through a bunch of adventures. Whenever things get too dangerous, the grownups show up and drive off all the bad people, often resulting in somebody's death or disfigurement. Finally, in the end he faces the big bad guy, who only ends up destroying himself completely through sheer incompetence and arrogance. The only real thing Harry ever does is kill a basilisk, and that would have gotten him if it weren't for the deus ex machina of a phoenix with a hat containing a sword coming to his rescue.