I did. I bought it Saturday when I went to Best Buy to return something, and read it Tuesday. I managed to avoid any spoilers until then.
While you don’t mind hearing spoilers, I and a lot of other people do. Just because something doesn’t annoy you doesn’t make it okay.
Some people enjoy surprises. That’s all there is to it. Think of all the books and movies that have become tremendously popular due (at least in part) to the surprise ending or unexpected plot twists. When I read a book or watch a movie for the first time, I prefer not to know everything that’s going to happen in advance. And when somebody comes along and deliberately ruins the suprises for me, I regard it as akin to somebody backwashing into my drink. The work of fiction is not diminished, but the first-time enjoyment is.
(sorry my internet was disconneted)
Shit! We all like surprises. Sometimes people blow the surprise, most of us can cope.
Read something beause you enjoy it, not because you feel some need to beat someone else to the super duper ending.
I haven’t read any HP book and I have only seen one film but I bought the child the book ten minutes after it was available (it will probably take him another week to finish it). If knowing the ending makes the book crap then don’t read it!
Cripes, man, that’s rough. Me, I’ve just begun the series, and I just finished The Chamber of Secrets on Sunday. While I was reading this book, I happened to go to the Rants & Raves section of Craigslist and some prick revealed a major plot point of The Half-Blood Prince in the header of his post. I don’t know if he just made it up or if it’s a genuine spoiler, but I’ve been telling myself that it was just made up. However, considering that this horror of a waitress told you about something traumatic that happened, it jibes with what I read. Regardless, I’m going to convince myself that someone was lying, and hope that that’s the case. I hope you left this vermin no tip, or worse, some religious tracts. (Having worked in a restaurant, I know of nothing that infuriates the waitstaff more than getting religious tracts.)
Anyway, thanks for being decent enough to hide your spoiler (as if this modicum of decent behavior weren’t something we should expect as a minimum.) I haven’t read it, and by the time I get to The Half-Blood Prince, this thread will probably be long buried.
I love The Usual Suspects. I think that it’s a movie that stands up under multiple viewings based upon the acting, the direction, and especially the writing. I know what the twist is and I can still appreciate the path it takes to get there.
That said, had someone spoiled the movie for me before I even saw it the first tiem, I do not believe I would have enjoyed all the subsequent viewings quite so much. I wouldn’t have those memories of the first time the twist was revealed to look back upon. What good is the well crafted path if the payoff never was and never will be there?
Absolutely! I’ve seen The Sixth Sense a couple of times since the first time I saw it, and even though I know that… um… Darth Vader was his father, it’s still a good ride to the end. You remember what it felt like when you didn’t know what was coming.
My sister turned me on to Ranma ½ without telling me a thing about it before she showed me the first episode, which made for a wonderful surprise. Most people know the premise before they see the show, and it’s still a good show even if you do, but not knowing made a bonus for me.
No endings should be spoiled for anyone. There was a film professor when I was a Penn State who believed in explaining why Kane says “Rosebud” at the beginning of Citizen Kane—and then showing the class the movie. His point was that it didn’t matter what the facts are, that it’s all about the craft of the movie. Sure, there’s more to the movie than the ending, but hell, it’s not right to spoil it like that.
How many people would watch a football match, if they already knew the outcome and the highlights? How many people like it when the outcome of Olympic games (which are broadcast three hours earlier on the East Coast) are broadcast on the radio as you’re driving home to watch the games? I’d heard The Crying Game was a good film and I wanted to watch it; but the ending was given away on the radio on my afternoon commute. I haven’t watched The Crying Game. I tried very hard to avoid spoilers for the first season of Survivor, to the point of not coming to the SDMB or any other place on the 'net where the show might be discussed – only to see RICH WINS! in the title of a post on eBay, where I was looking for something.
It doesn’t matter if you (anyone to whom this applies) doesn’t mind spoilers. It’s common courtesy to avoid spoiling things for people for whom it does matter. Is courtesy too much to ask?
Spoilers are a strange thing, especially when you consider that probably 99% of all literature and films can be spoiled by this spoiler The Good Guy Wins It is still extremely rude to reveal the plot devices of any book or film especially when the reason to do so is to be a spoil sport (like puting things in the title for no good reason other than to spoil other peoples enjoyment). Such action is scummy, like a person who urinates on purpose upon a toilet seat to inconvinience others. It is a particularly low action of the most pathetic of individuals.
Note I don’t count those who accidentally reveal spoilers, or simply through foolishness do such a thing (like occured earlier in this thread) that is just unfortunate and stupid.
I am replying to this thread because I have now been a victim of the troll spoiler. The fucktard began enough threads to cover the entire first page with the same spoiler posted in the OP of this thread.
Of course, I have to pit myself also, because stupid me has let so much time lapse since my last reading of HP that I can’t remember which characters are which.
And this after I just spent $90 ordering the audio CD of Book 5 & 6 so I can pick up where I left off. Book 6 arrived before Book 5 so I haven’t even started yet. That’s it, when Book 7 comes out, I won’t leave my bed until I finished it!
Fuck you! Fuck you all!
I also got nailed with an internet troll spoiling part of the ending. I was browsing groups on Usenet, and some idiot put it in the subject line of their message. Last time I go into that stupid newsgroup I guess. I tried to disbelieve it with all my heart, but it was just too plausible and made too much sense as the book went on.
Idiots.
We are about three episodes away from the end of the first season of “Lost” here in Australia. So far I have managed to avoid what happens in the final episode, but not without having to go very carefully. It sucks that I can’t participate in any threads on current TV shows because of this extended time delay.
I unfortunately was looking at an episode guide on one website and it had a huuuuge spoiler in one encapsulation that was actually from a future episode I hadn’t seen at the time.
Argh!
There are few shows on TV where being spoiled can ruin it. I don’t care about being spoiled about Everybody Loves Raymond, but being spoiled on a game show or a mystery adventure show can ruin my entire month.
So my only request is this - that Americans please be aware that foreign countries are not up to date with the shows you watch, we are often weeks or months late in getting them.
Oh man, that sucks. And I mean that in the bad way. HBP was spoiled for me, too, but that was due to my own blundering stupidity. So I feel your pain.
I know I’m an ass for this, but I like to “spoil” things for people who I know will appreciate the joke. For instance, I had finished HBP and was IMing with a friend who was only about 1/4 of the way through. I pretended that I was also IMing with my neice, and I faked a mis-sent IM (supposedly, intended for my neice, but sent to my friend):
“Yeah, I know! Anyway, after Harry accidentally killed Draco in the bathroom, Snape came in wearing that ring!”
Of course, I apologized deeply and repeatedly.
Good thing she’s too busy to get much reading time in- I have an ass-beating waiting for me when she finishes.
Although it took me nearly a week to read the book after I got it – when normally I would have had it read within a few hours – I was able to remain spoiler-free by a combination of possibly not pleasant but very successful moves: I packed up all my worldly goods (except the pets, my computer, and Harry Potter) and had no TV, no internet, and then drive 1200 miles to our new house with said pets, computer, and HP, reading a chapter every chance I got. By the time I was hooked back up online and all and could have possibly been spoiled, I’d made it through the book.
There are probably less stressful ways of doing it, but this one was quite effective, albeit rather exhausting.
:wally :wally :wally
This is why I became a hermit for four days - ensconced with me walkman, forgoing SDMB and other wankers wanting to spoil my day. :smack: :smack: :smack:
The problem with being spoiled is that you never have that experience of reading the book/seeing the movie for the first time again. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. How you react to the book/movie is different if you’re spoiled and you’ll never ever know how it would have been if you hadn’t been spoiled.
I was spoiled for Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince before reading them, so I wasn’t surprised, wasn’t shocked, and wasn’t emotional because I expected it. I read through the whole books knowing. What would the reading have been like if every line involving the spoils hadn’t been colored by what I knew was coming? I’ll never know, and it bugs me. The knowing didn’t lessen my enjoyment and I’ll certainly read the books several times again, but that first time experience was changed from what it would have been had I not known.
This is true about a lot of things. Things have been awfully close between my girlfriend and me, and my brother keeps making references to her as my inevitable “wife.” This may well happen, but we’ve only been going out for thirteen months, so there’s no point in rushing into things. He’s been doing this ever since I first told him about her, and it’s really getting on my nerves. He’s hoping to say, “I told you so!” one day, which would also spoil things. Coming from a guy who married his girlfriend just a few days after the first anniversary of their first date, this is unwelcome. I’ve told the prick that I’d rather move through the steps at my own pace, but he’s all too eager to write the ending himself. I really don’t get this impulse.
I guess this might be a bit of a stretch, this comparison, but it feels like the same thing to me.
OK - now I’m confused - should I read Magician’s Nephew first? Is it the first book? I just bought the boxed set and now I don’t know where to start 
No.
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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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Prince Caspian
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
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The Silver Chair
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The Horse and His Boy
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The Magician’s Nephew
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The Last Battle
I feel compelled to add that while Rilchiam’s order reflects the order they were published and the order in which most of us read them, the reason they have been re-sequenced is so they would be chronological and because Lewis wanted them ordered that way. I doubt it’ll make much difference for your enjoyment either way.