>>>Spoiler Alert! This article discusses spoilers associated with Bioschock, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Harry Potter, Final Fantasy VII. <<<
When I was younger, my sister and I used spoilers as a way of revenge. You really knew that you’d pissed the other off if they went and did research on the book you’re reading right then (or, if you were me, read the book first, and faster), just so you could spoil the ending. It took a special kind of spite, but we’d do it to each other. We only did it once in a little while, but you’d know when it happened. Typically a LOT of screaming, crying, and someone would get bit.
Sometimes I wonder if my twin and I did most everything together, later in life, simply to avoid giving the other one leverage for that sort of thing. I say that because, before college, the few times that I’d play a game that my twin wasn’t watching, I’d best finish it before coming home. Else she’d have a new weapon in her arsenal.
Though I am fortunate that she believed “Atlas is Fountaine!” was the big spoiler from Bioshock.
—
I’ll be the first person to admit it. I vehemently hate spoilers. If I have an interest in something, I expect to get to experience it in my own time, my own way. I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to ruin that for me. Spoilers, in general, will ruin the connection I have with something. It produces a wall that partitions me off from being fully immersed.
But I also know that this sort of thing comes from a place of not being able to keep up. It’s been a problem since high school. I joke about being so behind on media that it hardly is relevant by the time I get there, but that’s what it is. I’ve mentioned it in almost every article I’ve written to date. I’m so behind on everything that I’m probably a huge annoyance to my friends because they want to talk about the “up and coming” and I’m still stuck in 2004 media releases.
I know. I’m That Guy™.
Thing is, how people deal with spoilers reflects, to me, on respect. How do people respect a request? What’s their reaction? It reflects, to me, a certain consent: how does someone react when they are asked to not change someone’s experience?
The way I see it, there are three categories of Spoilers:
- Accidental Spoilers: Everyone does it. I’ve done it too. It’s when you accidentally say a major part when trying to avoid all other spoilers. Or you see a group of cosplayers and wonder why they’re posing in a certain way. Or someone makes a joke or references a lyric or drops a line in a certain conversation. But you know it’s an accident because when asked about it, they own up and apologize. They change the subject.
- Purposeful Spoilers: Typically used by folks who are impatient, trolls, or people who think you’re further along than you should be. They’re the folks that post the end of the Walking Dead season online moments after the show has finished (or before it even airs). Or the people who went out into the Internet and posted about Star Wars VII. What’s new and popular that they can ruin for you (or rather, anyone they can reach)?
- The ‘Okay’ Spoiler: This is the spoiler you ask for. When you dance around the spoiler warnings or enter a conversation about something that you’re not quite caught up for. You may not care about spoilers, or you find more interest in the “how” of the act rather than the “what.” In games, this could also be the spoiler that warns you not to use a certain character (Don’t level up Aerith…she won’t end up being a useful healer later) or go to a certain level, or use a certain item, until the right time. This spoiler shouldn’t shock you.
I absolutely detest people who fall into Category 2.
—
It always seems to put people out when I say “please don’t spoil XXX for me.” The typical reaction is “But it’s been out for months/years/a long time.” That may be so, but I might just be getting to it. Or maybe I just found out it existed. Or maybe I’ve been avoiding the spoilers carefully, but wanted someone to talk to about where I’m finally at.
SPOILER ALERT
That doesn’t mean, of course, saying “What’d you do when Kamina died?” when I say “Guys I’ve started Gurren Lagann.” And then, when I ask you why you said that, responding “Well he dies super early!”
That’s nice.
He hadn’t died for me yet though.
SPOILER END.
It comes down to time.
Sometimes, it comes as amazement, but it also seems like ire. “How haven’t you spoiled Chrono Trigger? It’s been out as long as you have been alive!” Basically. It came out when I was three. I mean, obviously, I didn’t play it then. I didn’t start gaming till I was basically fourteen. I didn’t find out the Chrono Series existed till I was seventeen. How haven’t I spoiled it? Well, first, no one talks about it anymore. And second, it’s hard to spoil something you don’t know exists.
It’s the time thing again. I realize that I can’t be the only one who finds out about things late, or can’t play things the moment they come out. Can’t afford the movies till they’re streaming on Netflix or read a book till you get a chance at the library. In this day and age, it seems like those of us who have to wait are the ire of the community. The very fact that people have to go on social media and plead for folks to not spoil the ending of everything speaks volumes.
There seems to be this entire concept that media has to be experienced one way, collectively, at the time of release. That those who are not capable of keeping up, because of money or time or capability or it just wasn’t on their radar, don’t deserve to have their own experience. They don’t deserve the same respect as those who had the ability to keep up. It’s those sort of people who get so defensive when someone asks “please don’t spoil this for me.”
Maybe some of it’s excitement. Something horribly dramatic happens and you have to let your reaction out. That makes sense. There are ways to do it without ruining it for the whole community.
But now it seems spoilers are a weapon. Those who seek them out specifically to ruin the experience for others. It’s the people go onto forums unrelated about video games and post the endings to popular movies, or make public Facebook statuses. It is the people who thought it was funny to walk into bookstores, find the people who were reading Harry Potter and state “Snape Kills Dumbledore” and walk away. Or, better yet, the people who drove by waiting lines outside bookstores and yelled it. I want to be in those people’s heads. To find out why they do it. What is it? Did they not enjoy it so no one else can?
It isn’t an accident. They’re doing it on purpose. I just want to know why.
Is it control? Knowing that they hold the balance between someone’s enjoyment and someone’s ruination? I’m sure those people exist; the ones that like ruining people’s day. Is it because people shouldn’t get emotionally invested in things? Does that make them childish? So that people have to go out of their way to spoil things to show them how childish they are?
If that’s the case, I wonder who’s the actual person who’s being childish here. Let the people play, damnit.
—
I experience games. I’m typically not there for the game play, I’m there for the story and the world. There’s no way about it. When I’m invested in something, I try to block out the real world and fall into the fantasy so hard that it becomes real. As the characters interact and learn about the world, so do I. This connection I form with things makes the experience all the more impactful.
Perhaps that is why I am so against spoilers. Knowing the twists, knowing turns, knowing who lives and who dies, makes it impossible for me to fall in. I stay one level removed, watching not as a participant anymore but as an outsider. I distance myself from the events and wait for the moment that I was told about. When it happens, I am not shocked, surprised, saddened…I knew it was coming, so why should I be? It removes the adventure. When you’re somewhere you’ve never been before, time goes slower. Your brain is taking in so much more information. Sure, you might have an idea of where things are going, but that remains a guess until the something actually happens; there’s still room for surprise. Spoilers remove that mystery, opens the box and shows whether the metaphorical cat’s alive or not. If you already know the status of the cat, why even bother opening the box?
Not everyone works that way, of course. Some people get more out of the event knowing it’s coming. But that’s not me. And it’s highly reliant on the story. Some stories gain more value after knowing that something bigger has been going on since the beginning. Other stories are one-and-done events, where all the beauty and emotion occurs after the event, and thus spoiling it removes the means to care about the outcome. Knowing a jump-scare is coming can be comforting, as it removes tension, but that tension can be essential as an instrument of storytelling. Take it out of the right narrative and the whole things falls apart.
And if I had an attachment to the game, show, book, movie, what have you, and someone spoils it for me, it’s almost impossible for me to finish it. There’s no way I can form the emotional connection, the suspension of disbelief, so why bother?
Of course, it’s not everything that I want to form that connection to. Truly, I only have a list of about ten pieces of media that I don’t want spoiled for me. Sure, some of them are very popular, like RWBY or Life Is Strange, and some have been out forever, like Shadow Hearts and the Chrono series. But shouldn’t I have the right to experience them how I want?
That’s all I ask, honestly. A little respect.
