On 5/22/07, Skyring skyring@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.