[QUOTE=Jodi]
The gender of a baby is not actually “the birth of an actual human being.” Nice to see your consistency in misconstruing what is said before responding to it.
[/QUOTE]
God, between this and the other thread, you’re quite the raging, humorless, bitch, aren’t you?
Oh, and to put it into terms that your simple little brain can understand (since you saw fit to repeatedly insult my intelligence in the other thread), the gender identity of a real, live baby to a mother should supersede her attachments to any work of fiction if she’s actually sane, IMHO.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Back in 1983, the movie Return of the Jedi came out. After The Empire Strikes Back had been so good, I was expecting a great wrap-up with the third movie. (Turned out not so great, but that’s beside the point here.)
I was young and had nothing better to do, so with some friends I sat in line for an hour or so before the box office opened. Then my “friend” Betsy leans over and says, “Did you know Luke and Leia are brother and sister? No? Well, it doesn’t matter.”
[/QUOTE]
As if that weren’t bad enough, I had it spoiled for me in a radio broadcast the day the movie came out. I hadn’t even had the chance to get in line for it. It is the lowest depth of ignorance, if not outright dickishness to broadcast a spoiler to millions of captive listeners before they even have a chance to change the station or shut the radio off.
At the end, Harry Potter wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette.
[QUOTE=neutron star]
God, between this and the other thread, you’re quite the raging, humorless, bitch, aren’t you?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, I don’t know. I can be quite nice IRL, but your intellectually dishonest habit of misconstruing what others say before you respond to it does kinda piss me off. Because it’s, y’know, intellectually dishonest. But since you’re the sort of asshole who finds great humor value in ruining other people’s good times, I really can’t imagine why you’d object to revealing a baby’s gender to its parents; I’d have thought you’d find that a scream.
It’s an analogy. The two parts of the analogy do not actually have to be exactly equivalent. We’re not actually talking about a single person who has her baby in one arm and the latest Harry Potter in the other, so there’s really no point at which the value of one “supercedes” the other and “her” sanity has to be questioned. Just as an example, this kind of explanation is why I insult your intelligence: You don’t appear to have much.
And, in closing, go fuck yourself.
[QUOTE=neutron star]
Sorry, but I find this hilarious.
It was half a century, man!
Next thing you know, people will start telling me that someone committed suicide in Anna Karenina!
[/QUOTE]
Dude, it’s a 19th century Russian novel. The spoiler would be if someone didn’t die or commit suicide.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
Oh, I don’t know. I can be quite nice IRL, but your intellectually dishonest habit of misconstruing what others say before you respond to it does kinda piss me off.
[/quote]
Yes, I do that. But I do it in a semi-serious sort of way that should be readily apparent to anyone with half a brain. Most people should be able to fill in the blanks on that one.
I’m not quite sure why you put “her” in quotes, since most mothers tend to be women, although I do understand why you did so with “supercede,” which I misspelled, assuming that Firefox’s spellcheck knew better than my own spelling abilities (evidently, it does not). I swear, I spell worse with spellcheck than without!
Anyway, my contention was that it is a horrible analogy, and only serves to illustrate my point that HP obsessives have their priorities completely out-of-whack.
FWIW, I do think that you’re an intelligent person.
I love you, too. 
[QUOTE=neutron star]
FWIW, I do think that you’re an intelligent person.
I love you, too.
[/QUOTE]
Get a room.
[QUOTE=neutron star]
Yes, I do that. But I do it in a semi-serious sort of way that should be readily apparent to anyone with half a brain. Most people should be able to fill in the blanks on that one.
[/quote]
That’s possibly the lamest excuse for intellectual dishonesty I’ve ever heard. The humor of misconstruing what others say is zero. Moreover, if you inflate what people actually say to something they didn’t say, then you make your response irrelevant, because then you’re responding to something no one said. It’s also a lazy-ass way to argue; I can’t (or won’t) bother responding to what was actually said, so I’ll hyperbolize it.
I have no response to this that doesn’t involve insulting your intelligence again.
But, see, you don’t actually make the point that it is a horrible analogy by misconstruing the analogy. Once you’ve misconstrued it, you’re no longer talking about that analogy at all; you’re talking about something else, something worse, but something that is only worse because YOU made it worse. If you want to say how horrible a particular analogy is, you have to start by accurately reflecting the analogy that was actually used.
I will adjust your opinion to intelligent raging humorless bitch. Kind of a lateral move, though.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
That’s possibly the lamest excuse for intellectual dishonesty I’ve ever heard. The humor of misconstruing what others say is zero. Moreover, if you inflate what people actually say to something they didn’t say, then you make your response irrelevant, because then you’re responding to something no one said. It’s also a lazy-ass way to argue; I can’t (or won’t) bother responding to what was actually said, so I’ll hyperbolize it.
[/quote]
Attorneys do love to play lawyer-ball, don’t they? Or lawyer-stick-ball, anyway - the stick being the one that’s up your ass.
Precious few people can manage to merge intelligence with gut-busting humor.
You, my friend, are not one of them.
I’m probably not one, either, although I don’t claim to be.
Yeah, I can get bent out of shape over mundane shit, too. I am far from immune to that phenomenon. Hell, we’re probably neck-and-neck in the competition as to who develops an ulcer first.
We just have different agendas. You can laugh at mine and I’ll laugh at yours.
I’ll try to refrain from hating your guts, though.
[QUOTE=Strinka]
I don’t really get the big deal about spoilers.
If I’m only reading something to find out what happens in the end, I’d rather have spoilers, since they’re faster and easier to read. Generally, if that’s the only thing a book has going for it, it’s not worth reading anyway.
If that’s not the only reason I’m reading it, like if the author writes very compellingly, or something, then it doesn’t really matter if I know how it ends or not.
[/QUOTE]
People who are concerned about spoilers aren’t interested primarily in “what happens,” but instead the process of the story unfolding without prior knowledge of events. Knowing the end result ahead of time alters how you relate to preceding events. Consider, for example, TH White’s Once and Future King. Now, everyone already knows how the story of Camelot falls out in the end, so the idea of spoilers in general isn’t really germane to this book. But White was able to use this presumed knowledge of the ending to great effect in his novel. The story starts with young Arthur’s dreams of being a great knight, and as it progresses, and he realizes his dream and more, the reader also knows that he’s drawing closer and closer to the great tragedy of his life. Thus, every triumph Arthur wins throughout the book is indelibly tinged by sadness for the reader, because the reader knows it’s another piece of Arthur’s eventual doom.
Now, like I said, that’s not really a spoiler, because the author assumes that his audience will know how it comes out, and is deliberatly using that knowledge to add emotional flavor to his book. But it does illustrate how knowing the outcome of a novel can alter the experience of reading the novel. And once spoiled, it’s impossible to ever capture that experience of reading the novel for the first time, and having every twist and surprise be an actual surprise, and not just another step towards the inevitable and pre-ordained finish. Let’s say (inventing a “spoiler” here out of whole cloth: so far as I know, this doesn’t actually happen in the books) that at the end of the last HP novel, it’s revealed that Dumbledore really is Harry Potter, and he travelled back in time at the end of the last book to train himself in how to defeat Voldemort. If someone told you this before you started reading the first book, it would flavor how you viewed every interaction between Dumbledore and Harry. Now, some people prefer it that way, and like being able to see how the author builds his plot towards the big ending. Other people prefer the experience of going into the novel blind, sometimes to the extent that they don’t ever re-read books they’ve already read, because they can never recapture that experience of not knowing what’s going to happen next. For people who fall into that group, spoilers quite literally ruin the book for them, because it deprives them, forever, of the opportunity to walk into the story fresh, with no preconceptions.
[QUOTE=neutron star]
Precious few people can manage to merge intelligence with gut-busting humor.
[/QUOTE]
I know I’m just borrowing trouble by butting into this fight, but I have to say, this is precisely the opposite of my general experience. All the really funny people I’ve ever met have been intelligent. And all the intellgient people I’ve ever met have been really funny. The idea that humor and intelligence are rarely co-existant is one of the odder assertions I’ve read on these boards.
Yeah, I found that to be an odd assertion as well. Look at me. I’m highly intelligent. waits See, you’re laughing!
[QUOTE=Miller]
And once spoiled, it’s impossible to ever capture that experience of reading the novel for the first time, and having every twist and surprise be an actual surprise, and not just another step towards the inevitable and pre-ordained finish.
[/QUOTE]
David Gilmour remarked that one of the great regrets of his life is that he has never had, nor will ever have, the opportunity to put on headphones and listen to Dark Side for the first time.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
The humor of misconstruing what others say is zero.
[/QUOTE]
I thought Emily Litella was pretty funny.
[QUOTE=Euthanasiast]
This is the absolute height of assholism when it comes to spoiling. These fucktards, who evidently got hold of the book long enough before the thing went on sale to read it and go out riding around bookstores throughout their city with a megaphone spoiling everything for those waiting in line outside of said stores until midnight and let fly the spoilers and what page numbers they would be found on.
Why would anyone be amused by this?
[/QUOTE]
I only watched about 20 seconds. If I were the girl with the beak I’d have punched the smug motherfucker in the face upon hearing the words “On page number.” On camera.
[QUOTE=Euthanasiast]
This is the absolute height of assholism when it comes to spoiling. These fucktards, who evidently got hold of the book long enough before the thing went on sale to read it and go out riding around bookstores throughout their city with a megaphone spoiling everything for those waiting in line outside of said stores until midnight and let fly the spoilers and what page numbers they would be found on.
…
Why would anyone be amused by this?
[/QUOTE]
Most people are amused by the suffering of others, if the victim is deemed to be deserving of the punishment. Like, let’s say you had a real asshole boss, who was always screaming at people, harassing the women in the office, screwing up his job and then blaming his underlings, that sort of thing. One day, you see him running across the lawn in a rainstorm, and he slips and falls in a giant mud puddle.
Most people would find that funny, right? He’s a total asshole, and then something unpleasant (but not really harmful) happens to him, and it makes you laugh. Well, the chief difference between most people, and the guys who made that video, is that liking something “too much” is, in their view, deserving of punishment. Because they’re assholes. But the basic reason why they find it amusing is the same. It’s just their scope that’s all fucked up.
[QUOTE=Millerainstorm]
Well, the chief difference between most people, and the guys who made that video, is that liking something “too much” is, in their view, deserving of punishment. Because they’re assholes. But the basic reason why they find it amusing is the same. It’s just their scope that’s all fucked up.
[/QUOTE]
If I might play Devil’s Advocate here for a moment- and I would like to stress I am not condoning the activities undertaking by people such as those in the linked video, but merely providing a differing viewpoint to prevent this thread from turning into a “Hate teh sp0ilerers!” fest- a lot of people see people dressing up as Darth Vader/Elves/Hogwarts Students as being incredibly sad and pathetic, and in need of a return to the real world.
There’s also a school of thought which tries to spoil things like HP as part of a backlash against the popularity- a kind of “Your continual harping on about this subject is annoying, so now I’m going to spoil it for you, thus removing a large amount of your enthusiasm for this subject and encouraging you to shut up about it” reaction, if you will.
That doesn’t make this sort of behaviour completely excusable, but one could argue that your average person as as much right to go about their daily lives without being assailed by people carrying on about Harry Potter/Star Wars/LOTR, as much as those carrying on about SP/SW/LOTR do to not to have the ending spoiled. YRMV, of course.
[QUOTE=Miller]
I know I’m just borrowing trouble by butting into this fight, but I have to say, this is precisely the opposite of my general experience. All the really funny people I’ve ever met have been intelligent. And all the intellgient people I’ve ever met have been really funny. The idea that humor and intelligence are rarely co-existant is one of the odder assertions I’ve read on these boards.
[/QUOTE]
Eh, maybe I’m just weird, or maybe I phrased my assertion in an unclear manner.
It’s always seemed to me that intelligent humor is far tougher to pull off than the low-brow stuff, although when rare people like Jon Stewart or Lewis Black can manage to do just that, it’s truly the best kind of humor.
When smart people go for smart jokes, it’s a lot easier for them to fall flat than, say, “football in the groin.”
Or perhaps I just have high standards for intelligent humor and low standards for stupid shit.
Also, I’d like to note that one of the primary reasons I found the linked video funny is what Martini Enfield expressed so well in the previous post.
I have never and would never do anything like that, but I do find it funny when others do. Actually, I almost feel guilty for laughing at it, kind of like I did during certain scenes in Borat, but often those guilty laughs can be some of the most satisfying ones.
Worth unearthing because I’m pissed at **Isosleepy ** for posting huge series-finale Justified spoilers in a thread having nothing all to do with that show.
DO NOT CLICK IF YOU HAVEN’T CAUGHT THE LAST EPISODE YET!!!
It couldn’t have fucking killed you to box those, could it? Asshole.
??? No spoiler for me. I’m a season behind so I have no clue what that meant.