I'm wondering how Harry Potter fans, and not peripheral ones like myself, will react if they're not happy with how she ends the series, much like the backlash to David Chase‘s recent ending to "The Sopranos." There's certainly the same problem faced by sports dramas, which anyone who's read this column knows that they either end with the favored team winning or losing, but learning a valuable lesson, and no matter what Rowling does, she can't win. If she goes ahead and kills off Harry Potter in the upcoming book, she's likely to have a lot of pissed fans, but if she doesn't, then she's just as likely to have many people feeling like she copped out, maybe to have an easy out in case she ever wants to write another book in the future.

What annoys me though is that this is going to be just like "The Sopranos" in that every news source, whether it be TV or newspapers or internet site, is going to be jumping on the story as soon as the book comes out to "report" the "news" of how the books end, basically ruining it for anybody who doesn't sit down and read it right away. Some people (like me) won't be running out to get the hardcover, instead waiting until it's available in a more compact and easier-to-transport paperback, but by then, the big secret will be out about who lives, who dies, what happens to Harry, etc. so there's no chance of surprises for some of us.

I wonder if releasing the seventh book before the release of the sixth movie might actually hurt the movie franchise if fans aren't happy with how things end. (I haven't seen the movie yet but early reviews from major sources seem to claim that it's better than the previous movies while my close friends who've seen it have said it's just okay.) This certainly puts Warner Bros. in a weird spot, having just signed Daniel Radcliffe to star in the last two movies for a reported $50 million, and you have to feel bad for David Yates, making his second theatrical film with Order of the Phoenix, because he's already tapped to make the next movie and if people don't like what he does, it could kill the franchise before they even get to adapting the last book. Either way, Order of the Phoenix (or what I've read) seems to be more set-up for what happens in Half-Blood Prince, so there could be a lot of disappointed movie fans if the movie doesn't stand-up to the last few. Of course, we have three years to worry about that since that's about how long it will take to get two more movies made.

In the meantime, it's been reported that Scholastic has already sold 12 million copies of Rowling's last book without anyone having read or reviewed it, so it probably doesn't really matter what people think of the finale or the movies, because she's already laughing her way to the bank with the fact she'll never have to work another day in her life.