That would be a pretty cruel joke, and an expensive one too, after ten months and a couple of thousand hours of sweat and tears. And for that particular example, I have a couple of supporters and fans that have vowed to drive over and skin me alive if I'd ever pull something like that.
But it wouldn't be the fist time that some unfortunate notion of keeping things fresh or surprising your audience horribly backfired. Otoh, I think that as a writer, if you have a grain of empathy and common sense, you'd think twice before doing something really stupid, like... well we all know an example or two I guess.