On 5/22/07, Skyring <skyring(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What person, I ask, what thinking person is going to
go to an article on
Harry Potter and the Order of the Boot and be surprised to find plot details
freely given away? Surely they would expect the plot to be described and
would be righteously indignant if we didn't describe it. Are we writing an
encyclopaedia for cretins?
Your argument is fallacious. It goes something like this:
1) An article about the book must contain spoilers.
2) A thinking person knows that it must contain spoilers.
3) A person who reads the article and is "spoilt" is therefore a cretin.
It's wrong because a person could rightly believe that the article
will contain spoilers *with a warning*. Or that it will be possible to
read an article *without reading the spoilers*.
Why should I not be able to read about a Harry Potter bock without
having the ending spoilt? Maybe I'd like to know the basic plot
outline, without knowing whether or not Harry dies at the end?* How is
that unreasonable or cretinous?
Steve
* I don't know whether Harry dies at the end. So if you do, keep it to yourself.