From XKCD.com
It all started one day when I took some criticism for a bit of Doctor Who trivia I wrote about at my day job. I figured since the episode in question was over three years old, any fans of Doctor Who would clearly have already seen it. I was wrong and since hid the paragraph between spoiler tags with a warning for those who hadn’t finished watching Tennant’s run as the Doctor.
This made me wonder…
What *Is* A Spoiler, Anyway?
We can all agree on the broad definition that a spoiler is something that gives away a large plot point. In a sense, a spoiler “spoils” the fun/surprise/fright/etc of reacting to the thing in real time. To use the iconic example: Darth Vader is Luke’s father. I’m sure that to the audiences watching the movie when it was first in theaters, Vader’s line: “I am your father” was probably met with gasps of shock. (I was a baby when Empire came out, so I don’t have any first hand knowledge!)
Heck, in the case of George R.R. Martin, just knowing someone is ALIVE in the next book of A Song of Ice & Fire is a spoiler. (FYI, I’m halfway through book 2, so please be kind to me if you comment.)
But on the other hand, I’ve gotten flak for things that I don’t consider to be spoilers at all. In the first episode where the 11th Doctor appears, he eats fish fingers and custard. Someone told me that was a spoiler. I don’t see how it affects the plot or anything, but there you have it.
There are some that might argue that spoilers enhance your enjoyment of a book or movie. I’m torn. As a reader, I enjoy being surprised by something in a book that I didn’t see coming. But as a writer, knowing what’s coming allows me to see the breadcrumbs the author left for me to follow. I’ve re-read some books just for that reason; I knew there were signs that I had missed the first go-round.
Even though I knew how the Dresden Files novel Changes began and ended (both are huge spoilers), I still found the book to be an insanely good read.
Is There a Statute of Limitations on Spoilers?
Of course, nobody’s suing anyone for spoiling that [REDACTED] is [REDACTED]‘s father, that [REDACTED] is really a [REDACTED], or that [REDACTED] kills [REDACTED]. But people sure will skewer you with their eye lasers. And pointed words. Remember the craziness that went down when the spoiler about Dumbledore’s fate got out in the world before folks had finished their new Harry Potter book?
But my question was… at what point is it okay to tweet that Snape killed Dumbledore? Or what happens to Rose at the end of David Tennant’s run as the Doctor? Or that Darth Vader is Luke’s father?
So I asked you all a while back, and here’s what you said:
I found the near even distribution pretty interesting. The smallest contingent are what I call the Early Adopter Assholes, aka the folks who figure you ought to steer clear of the internet until you’ve caught up to the rest of the world. I’d venture to guess that these folks are blessed with a schedule that allows them to prioritize their pop culture consumption. It must be a nice life, but not all of us can manage it, at least not with all of our fandoms.
In the middle are folks who believe you can discuss spoilers openly anywhere from a week later to several years later.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the folks who will only discuss things privately with people who are on their same viewing schedule. The Super Respectful group. I admire these folks, but I think this one is a bit hard to maintain if you are living the fast and exciting Internet Lifestyle that many of us do.
How About You?
Where do you fit in on the spoilers pie chart?
Did you ever have something spoiled for you and it totally ruined your enjoyment of the book/movie/etc? Tell us about it (but hey, use some [REDACTED] to avoid passing your spoils on to another newbie).
Did you ever have something spoiled for you and it made the book/movie/etc more enjoyable? Tell us below (same rules apply!).
About e
Great article, E! I’m with you regarding major plot points qualifying as spoilers. The ONLY spoilers with which I’m OK are those that warn me of an animal dying on screen. I’m a softy so I’d rather brace myself for it.
“Spoiling” is a point of contention between my younger brother and me as I have committed sins of the spoiler nature in the past. If you’ll allow, I will use your comments to publicly atone for the misstep.
I happened to see “Dick Tracy” with Warren Beatty in the theater before my brother Jordan did. For anyone that was a kid in 1990 you may recall there was a great deal of hype around this particular feature. The aggressive saturation campaign exposed would-be viewers to a lot of the characters and generated much anticipation in doing so. Because of this, Jordan was eager to hear my review. The interaction went something like this:
Jordan: “How was Dick Tracy???”
Me: “Great. [REDACTED] is The Blank.”
Jordan: “Dude!!!”
For those of you familiar with the movie, well you know the deal. Yup, I was THAT GUY.
Please all, learn from my mistakes. Jordan, all the internets knows now of my idiocy. Sorry!
@Johnny – I’m with you on animals dying. HATE THAT. I’d rather see hundreds of people die on screen than a kitty or dog or even a horse.
Someone (I forget who exactly) spoiled The 6th Sense on a late night talk show while the film was still in theaters. I saw it a week later anyway, and found it to be thoroughly unentertaining. Rather than blame the spoiler for my lack of enjoyment, I decided that it was just not a great film if a “twist” ending was all it had going for it.
I also had the ending of The Usual Suspects spoiled for me, and key events in the Harry Potter series, and still manged to enjoy those experiences.
So, I’d say spoilers are annoying, but only ruin experiences that rely soley on surprise in order to be entertaining.
I’d say there is no one answer on when spoilers are okay. Obviously, maliciously revealing key plot points is not cool, but otherwise you need to use good judgement. If you enjoyed finding something out in the course of the story, you shouldn’t take that experience away from someone else.
I remember when the actors in Blair Witch Project were making the rounds on the talk shows, before the premier, TOTALLY ruined all the great hype for me, I was able to stay convinced that this was actually found footage until then. Sigh.
I always ask if people want spoilers, if they plan to see the movie/read the book
I agree that there’s no one answer for spoilers, but I’ll try to parse out some of my opinions of OK vs not OK:
First off, I am very careful not to spoil someone for anything, no matter how old, without them asking. Even then I’m wary. When my sister was first reading Lord of the Rings, she asked me exactly how the Ring got destroyed, and I told her. She’s still miffed at me for that, even though SHE ASKED ME!
There are a lot of things that I consider way past the statute of limitations for spoilers. In these cases, I try not to spoil anyways, but if someone is spoiled for them, I don’t feel too sorry for them.
There’s an interesting case of this going on in the Sherlock Holmes fandom right now. The stories are 120 years old, so there are things that people just aren’t too careful about. It’s assumed that everyone knows that [REDACTED] isn’t really [REDACTED], and that 3 years later he [REDACTED]. How that’s handled in the RDJ movies or BBC series is without question a major spoiler. However, there are people who are fans of the new stuff who get unhappy when spoilers from canon are talked about, because this is there first exposure to everything. And again, this comes back to the point that I try not to spoil that stuff, but I’m not too sorry when it happens.
As for me personally, I seem to be pretty immune to spoilers affecting my enjoyment. I’m a major re-reader/re-watcher, and the fact that I already know the plot of something is irrelevant. This carries over for me to first viewings: I was spoiled for The Usual Suspects, the Gandalf the White reveal, and almost everything in series 1 of BBC Sherlock, and none of it mattered.
I think that’s really the crux of it: people who can only read or watch something once are probably way more sensitive to spoilers than those who love to re-read/watch. So I think the rule should just be: always try to ask if someone’s OK with spoilers. And if you’re spoiled for something, you’ll get less sympathy the older the spoiler is.
It gets trickier when talking about material adapted from an older source. I’d say you should consider your audience. If you are on a broadcast for movie fans, you probably shouldn’t go into too much detail about plot points occurring toward the end of the Hobbit, as you can’t reasonably assume that everybody listening has read the book. But if you are in a Tolkien discussion group, it’s a somewhat safe bet that everybody has either read the book, or is prepared to be spoiled.
An even more difficult call is when the adaptation strays significantly from the source. Example: The Walking Dead. I haven’t read the comics, but intend to eventually. But I’ve been watching the TV show and only participate in conversation about it when I am current on all of the episodes. It has been made clear that the show and the comic do not have identical storylines, but fans of the comic have still been wondering why [REDACTED] hasn’t happened yet. It may not even happen on the show, but now I’ve been spoiled for when it happens in the comic, and if it does wind up happening on the show, I won’t get to experience it as a moment of surprise.
@TK – I agree on 6th Sense. It just wasn’t that great of a movie. In fact, I don’t remember ANY of it except the twist part.
@Erich – I had to walk out of the theater during Blair Witch. Not because it was bad, but because I was getting motion sickness from the shaky-cam. Watched it years later on a TV and it was much better (for the nausea).
@Christine – I totally agree with your last paragraph. The older the spoiler, the less sympathy. But you’re right about certain franchises that are being redone (like Sherlock Holmes, Hobbit, etc). There are folks tho totally missed it the first go-round.
@TK – The Walking Dead is a tricky one since it does veer so far from the comics. I don’t plan to read the comics so I don’t really worry about hearing about what did/didn’t happen in them.
Game of Thrones, on the other hand, sticks fairly close to the source material, so watching the series will spoil you for most of the books. I watched season 1 before reading the book and I have to say that going back and reading the book really cleared up a lot of the questions I had while watching the series. There’s only so much they can put into a TV show. Now I just need to finish book 2 before season 2 begins!!
Unlike e, I am not torn: I don’t want things spoiled. The writer or creator of a work wanted to set me up for a surprise, so I want to experience the surprise the way he or she intended. I like finding the breadcrumbs, too, but I’m content to save that part for the second or third time through. If I’m discussing a work, I like to preserve at least the important surprises for the people with whom I’m discussing it if I know they haven’t seen or read it.
Now, I could ask, “Have you read or seen X?”, for every single work we might wish to discuss, but that gets tedious after a while, so it’s reasonable to make certain assumptions. For me the work’s age, per se, is less important than what I feel like I can reasonably expect the person with whom I’m speaking to know about the work. The age of the work certainly contributes to that factor, but it’s misleading if treated as the only consideration. For example, the Star Wars movies, or at least Episodes IV, V, and VI, are well-known enough that I’d probably assume most Americans under 60 have seen them, and therefore don’t need me to keep the secret about Darth Vader, unless one tells me otherwise. But even though the TV series Blake’s 7 is approximately the same age as the Star Wars movies, I’ve encountered far fewer people who are familiar with it, so I’d be much more circumspect about making any references to the surprise ending of the final season. Or take Sherlock Holmes: everyone knows who he is, but neither I nor quite a few people I know have ever actually read the stories about him, despite their age and fame, so I’m quite happy to be surprised by whatever happens in the current BBC series.
So the probable well-known-ness of the work, of which its age is one but not the only component, is one criterion. Another is the in-universe importance of the information being revealed. For example, the bit about fish fingers and custard isn’t much more than a fun little in-joke, with little apparent importance to the overall plot. Even though technically I guess I’d call it spoilable inasmuch as it’s information that can be given away in advance, it isn’t something I’d feel at all guilty about ruining for someone who hadn’t seen it yet–but certain information about [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] that comes up in seasons 5 and 6 totally is. (And on that note, I’m grateful to certain friends who’ve kindly refrained from spoiling season 6 for me by discussing it with each other in my presence.)
A third criterion, usually related to the second, is the degree to which the information to be revealed seems intended to be a shock or surprise to the first-time reader, viewer, or listener. To return to Blake’s 7, I’d certainly take some care not to reveal the ending of any given episode or the fates of [REDACTED] or [REDACTED], but I’d take far more care not to reveal the ending of that final season. (The surprise, incidentally, was ruined for me by the Internet, which seems to be unable to discuss the series anywhere without giving away the ending–so if anyone reading this decides to watch Blake’s 7, don’t look anything up anywhere until you’re done with the series. It’s a good ending anyway, but it’d have been much better if it had been able to shock me like it was supposed to.)