In defense of spoilers

[k9bfriender]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

I have never seen a spoiler that enhanced a film in any way and do not understand that mindset.

Sure, different people enjoy things in different ways. I don’t understand the mindset of people who like cats, either.

@Thudlow_Boink

The first watch, without knowing any spoilers, and the subsequent watch(es) are different experiences, and I am open to the possibility that the rewatch could be a better experience than the first. But, by avoiding spoilers before that first watch, you get to have both experiences.

Part of the reason that I don’t mind spoilers is because I want to read reviews of something before I commit to watching it, and part of that is knowing what is going to happen in it.

I don’t want to commit to watching something twice without even knowing if I want to watch it once.

Besides, I’m good at compartmentalizing, and if there is actually something that is better off as a surprise, I can make part of my mind forget what is coming and react appropriately. A good “surprising but inevitable” development can stand up to multiple re-watches.

@B.Serum

Someone maybe open to it or not. The important thing is that you ask permission before whipping it out. And if someone declines, respect their preferences.

Absolutely. I know that many or most prefer to stay spoiler free, and I respect that. If I am watching something with a friend I know doesn’t like spoilers, even if I know everything that will happen, I don’t tell them, what do I get out of diminishing their experience?

@needscoffee

The author built the story in a deliberate way and that’s how I want to experience it. Otherwise, just read the Cliff Notes version (are they even still a thing?). As has been said many times already, it’s the journey.

I can look at a picture of the eiffel tower before I decide to go visit it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same as visiting it. As you said, it’s the journey, which isn’t in the cliff note version.

@needscoffee

I’m probably an extreme example, but I can’t even read threads here about ongoing shows where people chime in with ideas about what’s going to happen. Often they’re correct, and it has spoiled it for me. If you think you know what’s going to happen, then just keep it to yourself. It’s still a spoiler even if it was a good guess!

I agree that there should often be separate threads for speculation, but I enjoy it. It’s most of the reason that I don’t like how many shows are dumped a season at a time, it removes the ability to get with other fans of a show and speculate as to what happens next.

Don’t you ever think to yourself, “How are they going to get out of this one?” If you do, then what’s wrong with actually having that discussion with another person?

@needscoffee

Knowing a spoiler ahead of time, to me, is like being given a puzzle to solve with the answer already filled in.

I don’t see movies or shows as puzzles to be solved, but stories to be enjoyed.

@WhyKickAMooCow

As the OP said if the media is good it will stand, spoilers or no.

There are a number of shows and movies I have watched many times, even though I know exactly what is going to happen. It’s about a good story told well.

[LoneRhino]

I’m in the no spoilers camp. I can only read/see/hear something for the first time once. I want to know as little as possible. I can’t experience that again after that.

To the people that say it’s the journey not the destination, I say that not knowing the destination is part of the journey.

[Telemark]

@WhyKickAMooCow

No “twist” can possibly be even remotely shocking to a person who has consumed a moderate amount of media.

And yet writers and directors continue to create shocking reveals.

[Miller]

@WhyKickAMooCow

No “twist” can possibly be even remotely shocking to a person who has consumed a moderate amount of media.

TIL that I haven’t consumed even a moderate amount of media in my life.

[Eonwe]

Knowing this is something people feel personally strongly about, I will just suggest the following:

Knowing facts about art before you experience it changes your experience. Whether it makes your experience worse, better, or neither is just a matter of personal opinion.

Art that is explicitly designed to be better when it contains surprises and worse once you know the surprise is certainly a thing. I would argue that most art is not of that variety, and so being aware of twists and turns in the plot gives one a different experience, but not necessarily a worse or better experience.

Also, I know that the internet puts some of this information in front of us in ways that feel much more unavoidable than in the past (perhaps), but I also feel that the expectation that society remain quiet in the public sphere about works of art in order to protect the “know nothing going in” experience for a perpetually-replenishing population who haven’t seen the thing is an unreasonable way to expect society to behave. And, as an artist, it’s an unreasonable way to expect a piece of art to exist in the world.

[carrps]

@needscoffee

. Often they’re correct, and it has spoiled it for me. If you think you know what’s going to happen, then just keep it to yourself. It’s still a spoiler even if it was a good guess!

There’s another site I go to where both spoilers and speculations are segregated from the regular thread discussion. I appreciate that. Sometimes if it’s a dumb reality competition show I don’t mind being spoiled, but there’s nothing quite like that little thrill of being fooled. I enjoy that as much as anything else about viewing/reading a work.

ETA: I watch a lot of murder mysteries, so I’m aware of a lot of the tropes and techniques. It’s gotten to the point that I’m very accurate at guessing whodunit. That’s a different kind of pleasure. Outside of something as clockwork as this I like to have expectations upset. And I’m someone who also will watch something twice if I really liked it, and I had my expectations subverted. Two pleasurables viewings of the same work!

[Maserschmidt]

@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness

A great example is Ira Levin’s debut novel A Kiss Before Dying.

I read this sentence, and then off I ran to check out this book without reading the rest of the paragraph. Now having read the book, I concur with your comments; and I greatly enjoyed it, so I’m glad you mentioned it.

That’s the second interesting thing I’ve gotten from this thread, thank you straight dope!

[hogarth]

@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness

A great example is Ira Levin’s debut novel A Kiss Before Dying.

Apparently I had read the plot summary (complete with spoilers) on Wikipedia years ago and I’ve completely forgotten it since then!

[Darren_Garrison]

@WhyKickAMooCow

No “twist” can possibly be even remotely shocking to a person who has consumed a moderate amount of media. Spoilers therefore don’t spoil anything. As the OP said if the media is good it will stand, spoilers or no.

That’s certainly true. For instance, The Mandalorian. Having watched lots of television before, it was immediately clear to me that the assassination target was going to be a baby Yoda. Or that the TV series Search Party would end in a zombie apocalypse. Oh, wait, I meant to say that I didn’t know that, and your assertion is overly-broad enough to be silly. And I’m going to go out right now and kick a moo cow.

[DesertDog]

@WhyKickAMooCow

Every plot twist imaginable has been filmed and re-filmed, see tvtropes or similar web sites. No “twist” can possibly be even remotely shocking to a person who has consumed a moderate amount of media.

Not every spoiler involves a plot twist. When we were at a family gathering we were looking for something to watch. Brother’s sister-in-law had not seen Wednesday so we recommended it. About halfway through the second episode when the eponymous character is interacting with another character, brother, who has seen it, passed through the room and uttered, “Don’t trust 'em!”

SIL was ticked. “I thought everybody had seen it.” “No, you thought you’d be clever.”

If you watch every single work or read every single book saying, “Yup, saw that coming,” I pity you.

[MrAtoz]

I thought of this thread when watching Jeopardy last night. The anecdote from one of the contestants was that she always reads the plot summary on wikipedia before she goes to movies. “I like knowing what’s going to happen.”

Ken suggested that you should see a movie before you read the book it’s based on, because “the book can spoil the movie, but the movie can’t spoil the book.” The contestant chirpily replied, “Or you could just read the wikipedia summary for both of them!”

She would have fit right in here!

[Thudlow_Boink]

@MrAtoz

Ken suggested that you should see a movie before you read the book it’s based on, because “the book can spoil the movie, but the movie can’t spoil the book.”

That doesn’t make sense to me.

[rocking_chair]

it does to me. books usually give you an inside the mind view of the characters. movies rarely do.

[MrAtoz]

I also kind of understood what he meant. Oftentimes there’s more in the books–backstory, inner thoughts, motivations, etc.–that have to be left out, compressed, or merely suggested, in movie adaptations. Reading a book after you’ve seen the movie can sometimes be a richer experience, while many people find a movie version of a favorite book to be disappointing because of all the stuff they had to leave out.

[MaxTheVool]

I’m militantly anti-spoiler, because even if some people don’t mind them, plenty of people do, so be courteous.

But I also find it very very hard to believe people who claim that, in some absolute sense, they don’t mind spoilers. Sure, there are plenty of stories where it doesn’t really matter too much. I mean, if you told someone (at least, a grown-up with a life time of media consumption) ahead of time that the death star was going to get blown up at the end of Star Wars, it’s not like that was really going to shock them. In fact, no part of the fun of A New Hope really comes from a surprising twist or revelation.

But that’s very different than, say, The Sixth Sense, or The Good Place (S1), or The Usual Suspects, where the entire show/movie is structured in such a way that a reveal late in the game fundamentally alters everything you though you knew about what was going on. And note that this is definitely a level of spoilage beyond just “Whodunnit” or “who dies” or something like that. It’s something which irreversibly alters the watching/reading/viewing experience away from what the creators worked very very hard to create. (And, despite the unbelievably smug claim from WhyKickAMooCow, there were plenty of intelligent media savvy adults who were absolutely floored and enthralled by the twists in all of the above.)

And those are the types of “spoiling” which come closest to “ruining”. Someone who sees one of those “unspoiled” gets a remarkable storytelling experience which can never be replicated once they are spoiled ahead of time. That particular experience is denied them forever. Doesn’t mean they can’t still get enjoyment out of the work, but it will never be the same.

I am incredibly skeptical that anyone enjoys any work of that sort as much if they start out knowing the twist. (And if they claim they do, honestly, they’re a bit of an untrustworthy observer. I mean, how would they know?)

I’d rank seriousness of spoilage in a few tiers:
(1) As mentioned above massive ongoing twists which totally recontextualize everything that went on in the entire story (rare that these are done really well, but absolutely precious jewels when they are)
(2) Whodunnits (at least, good ones) or other “the entire point of this entire story is to resolve the mystery” stories
(3) Genuinely shocking deaths/events/defeats/appearances. For instance, lots of the big character deaths of Game of Thrones. Definitely more fun not to know (at least for me), but it’s not like “ooh, that character died, now I have to rewatch everything they ever did because, wow, it’s all different”
(4) Normal plot twists and turns (ie, each episode of a show like 24 where obviously things are happening, and probably people are going to betray people or die or whatever)

As mentioned above, I basically can not believe that anyone does not have their enjoyment at least diminished by spoilers for type (1), but it seems more and more plausible moving down the list.

[needscoffee]

It would be like wanting to hear the punchline before the joke (at least to my way of thinking).

[Thudlow_Boink]

That’s not a bad analogy. And in fact one particular type of spoiler is the kind that spoils a joke—for example, watching Ghostbusters already knowing the “form of the Destructor.”

[Maserschmidt]

@Thudlow_Boink

for example, watching Ghostbusters already knowing the “form of the Destructor.”

That’s a great example.

[carrps]

It really is. I saw Ghostbusters in the theater, and the first time you see “the Destructor,” the audience in the theater went insane with laughter.

[hogarth]

@MaxTheVool

But that’s very different than, say, The Sixth Sense, or The Good Place (S1), or The Usual Suspects, where the entire show/movie is structured in such a way that a reveal late in the game fundamentally alters everything you though you knew about what was going on.

I almost never watch a TV show or movie the instant it comes out, so by the time I watched any of the above I had already heard “there’s a big twist, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise!”. But if I know there’s a surprise coming, I tend to be underwhelmed when the surprise is actually revealed.

I saw The Sixth Sense unspoiled and I was surprised by the twist, but not “OH MY GOD!!!” level of surprised. The other two I looked up the twist beforehand; I enjoyed The Good Place but I thought The Usual Suspects was kind of stupid.