# Obsessive Harry Potter People **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 19, 2007, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408 "2007-07-19T16:18:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/141 "2007-07-20T20:47:34Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] **Allow** me to try to use **smaller** words, **except** the one you looked up for **yourself** : When you use **hyperbole** to make things sound dumb, the one who sounds dumb is you. There. I used only one **syllable** words, **except** for that one big one I’m sure you know, so **maybe** that will help you grasp the point. [/QUOTE] Eight polysyllabic words. You lose. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/142 "2007-07-20T21:07:16Z")
[QUOTE=neutron star] Eight polysyllabic words. You lose. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Since you apparently have the intellectual capacity of a box of hair, let me clarify again: The relevant sentence using single syllables was the middle one, as was demonstrated by the use of a colon to set off the introduction, and the use of a clear closer (“There.”) to signify its end. Would you care to address the point, or would you like to engage in further obfuscation? (That’s a biggie – feel free to look it up.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/143 "2007-07-20T21:19:52Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] Since you apparently have the intellectual capacity of a box of hair, let me clarify again: The relevant sentence using single syllables was the middle one, as was demonstrated by the use of a colon to set off the introduction, and the use of a clear closer (“There.”) to signify its end. Would you care to address the point, or would you like to engage in further obfuscation? (That’s a biggie – feel free to look it up.) [/QUOTE] The words “intentionally obtuse” somehow spring to mind… ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/144 "2007-07-20T21:34:31Z")
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja] The words “intentionally obtuse” somehow spring to mind… [/QUOTE] Yeah, those words… and some other words also. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/145 "2007-07-20T21:35:15Z")
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool] Yeah, those words… and some other words also. [/QUOTE] Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/146 "2007-07-20T21:52:12Z")
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja] Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! 😃 [/QUOTE] What a shame that the object of your derision will, by his own choice, never understand it. ---
**Author:** ![lobstermobster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobstermobster/32/10033_2.png) [@lobstermobster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobstermobster)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/147 "2007-07-20T21:55:30Z")
Doesn’t this remind you guys of that episode of The Office where Dwight and Andy are trying to out-zing each other and end up just calling each other idiots while pretending to cough over it. But wow **Jodi** sure is wearing her sassy pants today. She’s totally not going to be invited to my birthday party. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/148 "2007-07-20T22:02:41Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] The people who deliberately go out of their way to spoil the book are assholes and I fear I can’t avoid them, and they’re the ones who make my blood boil. [/QUOTE] I would truly love to see a few of these assholes get soundly thumped by the waiting crowd if they did this. Kick the shit out of them, then when the cops come, nobody saw anything. “Them? Oh, they must have tripped or something.” _A riot is an ungly thing… undt, I tink, that it is chust about time ve had vun!_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/149 "2007-07-20T22:53:15Z")
[QUOTE=lobstermobster] But wow **Jodi** sure is wearing her sassy pants today. She’s totally not going to be invited to my birthday party. [/QUOTE] Oh my god are you kidding? She’s not only invited to mine, but I’m going to give her extra cake. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/150 "2007-07-20T23:05:07Z")
_pokes head in_ I’d like to know where I could purchase some of these sassy-pants? Are they available in black? ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/151 "2007-07-20T23:05:40Z")
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool] (a) who are these people who actually never shut up about it? I’m curious. I’ve certainly never encountered anyone on the SDMB (for instance) who can literally not stop talking about Harry Potter, or even anything close to it. [/QUOTE] Having two stickies in CS devoted to HP is the messageboard equivalent of not shutting up about it. It also smacks of entitlement. I don’t recall stickies devoted to any other work of fiction; why is HP so special? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/152 "2007-07-20T23:09:43Z")
[QUOTE=MaxTheVool] What a shame that the object of your derision will, by his own choice, never understand it. [/QUOTE] Much like Peter Pettigrew, no? 😛 I like what Jon Stewart had to say about this issue (slight paraphrase): “to ruin someone’s pleasure in something like [HP] seems like nothing more than mean-spirited dickery.” amen. You don’t get it? You think it’s lame? That’s great. Don’t stand in line in robes and a hat. I don’t understand the judgement and derision here. I think Star Wars sucks, as does Buffy, but I don’t Pit fans of either. What is the point of this? Why is HP so special? Because it’s the top bestseller for how many years now? (for all I know, it may have outsold the Bible by now). Because this is concurrent world release, coming soon after an HP movie premier. Because it is the last of a series of 7 books, written over the past 10-15 years or so. If those threads offend you so horribly, you can choose to avoid them. Do we really count the number of stickies to determine the worthiness of said stickies? Perhaps you need more to do with your time… ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/153 "2007-07-20T23:15:56Z")
I tried to stay out of this, because I have a nice co-worker who’s been incessantly rambling about this book for about the past two weeks. We had to work today (we don’t normally work Fridays), and when I told my group a week ago that we had to work today, she said “I guess I’ll be there…as long as we get done in time for me to be at the bookstore.” Yeah, considering this is your job, I guess you’ll be here. But I agree it’s getting ridiculous. From the CS sticky that has “SPOILERS APLENTY” in the title: > [@Jodi](#): > > Seems to me you’ve misunderstood the rules. The book isn’t out yet, so people might still be wandering in here and not expecting to see specific spoilers set out without spoiler boxes, as yours are. CKDexter said quite specifically “Look, gang, the idea was that this was the thread for DISCUSSION of the new book AFTER it comes out. . . . I don’t expect to see any posts here until after Saturday morning.” > > Not sure what part of “AFTER it comes out” and “Saturday morning” you misunderstood. I’m not sure what part of “SPOILERS APLENTY” in the thread title you misunderstood. If people might still wander into the thread, as you say, “not expecting to see specific spoilers set out without spoiler boxes” when there’s an all-caps SPOILERS APLENTY in the thread title, they’re probably too dumb to have gotten much out of the first six books, no? I also don’t get the point of starting a thread and then telling people not to post until after a certain time – if it’s so important, lock the thing. That just seems obvious to me. I think there’s a bit of a disconnect here. Yeah, the idiots who will buy the book, flip to the last page and yell the ending are dumb, they’re ruining it for those in line, etc. We get it. But people posting a spoiler in a thread marked SPOILERS APLENTY are hardly doing the same thing. [Salon.com](http://Salon.com) posting an article clearly marked as a review, and clearly marked where spoilers are is not doing it. The NY Times posting a clearly marked review ahead of time (that doesn’t even contain spoilers) is not doing it. I think the driving analogy is apt. If you’re driving down the road and someone broadsides you as you drive through a green light, there’s probably little you can do to avoid it, it sucks, and no one would say you were at fault. But if you’re blindly driving around, not paying attention to where you’re going until after you already get there, then you bring it on yourself. If it’s so all-fired important that you hear ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the book before you have your hands on it and start reading (not even that there may or may not BE posts in the spoiler thread, let alone what they are :rolleyes: ), then here’s a clue: Be pro-active. Don’t visit threads which have “Harry Potter” in the title and don’t read Harry Potter book reviews. The more important it is (the most important book of the century? :rolleyes: ), the more precautions you need to take. Yes, YOU need to take. Don’t watch the news, don’t listen to the radio, don’t be online, don’t pick your book up at the store. If it’s that important to you, it should be important enough to take matters into your own hands and not leave such things to chance. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/154 "2007-07-20T23:31:12Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] Having two stickies in CS devoted to HP is the messageboard equivalent of not shutting up about it. It also smacks of entitlement. [/quote] I would say that the management deliberately putting those two stickie threads there so as to NOT have 8 or 9 threads at once (as might happen) is, in fact, the very definition of being considerate. And if you are browsing on, say, an iPhone, where those two stickies take up more than 7% of your screen real estate before you scroll down, well, that sucks. > [@](#): > > I don’t recall stickies devoted to any other work of fiction; why is HP so special? No mystery there. It’s because it’s incredibly, unprecedentedly, popular. There was, if not a stickie, at least an official spoiler policy thread during the last world cup, for instance. HP isn’t getting treatment that any other work that was equally popular with an equal percentage of dopers and coming to an equally spoilable equally looked-forward-to conclusion wouldn’t get. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2007, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/155 "2007-07-20T23:46:56Z")
[QUOTE=Amazon Floozy Goddess] That’s probably one of the main reasons why I’ve avoided Harry Potter altogether. I avoid other mega-popular things for the same reason. I really don’t like the herd mentality of it all. [/QUOTE] Whether you like something should be independent of whether other people like it. Avoiding something just because it’s popular is just as stupid as embracing something just because it’s popular. ---
**Author:** ![shamrock227](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@shamrock227](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shamrock227)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/156 "2007-07-21T00:11:34Z")
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee] Can any HP-craze apologist in here defend the fact that CS has TWO stickies devoted to just HP? I mean, WTF? That implies that the board itself is equivalent to the ultra-obsessive losers that everyone in here appears to denounce. [/QUOTE] Did you read them? If you had an explanation wouldn’t be necessary. They are there to prevent Pit threads like this and contain the discussion to two threads. The one says (paraphrasing) “Don’t make a million Harry Potter threads. Contain your non-spoiler discussion here. Use the other thread for spoilers. I’m stickying them so no one can say they didn’t see this.” The other thread is the companion spoiler thread for those who have read the book or want to read spoilers. I think it’s a great idea. I, personally, enjoy the books and will be picking mine up tonight, but I have no desire to see a dozen threads about the book when it could be contained in one or two. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/157 "2007-07-21T00:22:07Z")
[QUOTE=neutron star] **Max** and **Dante** , I think this OP from a completely unrelated MPSIMS thread sums it up for me: THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF OUR LIFETIMES IS COMING, but, uh don’t forget that time we landed on the moon… [/QUOTE] **neutron** , I hope you’re not twisting my words to imply that I think HP7 **is** the most important event of my lifetime and the moon landing is an afterthought. Certainly, if you read my second post in that thread, or for that matter, the rest of the OP, you’d realize that I do regard the moon landing as a matter of high importance. I thought my use of the word “freaking” would indicate a certain impatience with the “OMG 7/21 I CAN’T BREATHE” hype, as well as impatience with myself for forgetting the significance of 7/20. > [@](#): > > **Originally posted by Cecil Adams** > Some people…require advance notice if they’re to recognize a joke when they see one. In polite society it’s customary when in the presence of such people to signal the onset of a joke by means of some subtle stratagem, such as a siren, large firecracker, or gong. BOOM. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/158 "2007-07-21T00:25:16Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] (for all I know, it may have outsold the Bible by now) [/QUOTE] Get a grip. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/159 "2007-07-21T01:10:05Z")
Why does she need to get a grip? The HP series, in aggregate, **has** broken a great many sales records. Are we at the point now where it’s taken as obsessive just to state that? ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408/160 "2007-07-21T01:49:36Z")
> **[List of best-selling books](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books)** > > This page provides lists of best-selling books and book series to date and in any language. "Best-selling" refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned. Comics and textbooks are not included in this list. The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources. > According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best selling book of all time with an estimated... While not outselling the Bible, the Qur’an or even the book of Mormon, the first HP book is apparently #8 in all-time best sellers, and the sum total of all the books published so far (1-6) would put it somewhere between 4 and 7. It is the #3 series of all time, and the #1 by a single author (not that that’s really significant except to JK Rowling herself). I think we can reasonably expect that the sales of book 7 will be hugely high, and that the sales of the other books in the series will probably jump, since people will buy box sets, collectors editions, or were simply waiting to get them all at once. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince holds the record for fastest book sales, with 9 million books sold in the first 24 hours of it’s release. I don’t really have a point with this, other than to say it is a pretty big phenomenon, and in that respect alone it’s kind of interesting. I am expecting a Canada Post delivery man at my door tomorrow morning. Of course, knowing Canada Post…! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsessive-harry-potter-people/412408.md?page=9)