I try desperately to not have any spoilers in my reviews for this exact reason. I HATE spoilers. One of the great advantages to reading brand new books, or reading books that no one else you know has read is that you can generally avoid having things spoiled for you. (There is a great episode of Big Bang Theory called The Spoiler Alert Segmentation about this, Sheldon spoils a HUGE plot point in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for Leonard, which leads to hilarity, but at the end of the episode he spoils an episode of The Walking Dead and I hadn't seen the episode either so it spoiled it for me too! WTF! Roland just laughed when I freaked out though...)
There is also this big conundrum about how big of a window there is before it is the fault of the viewer (or non-viewer) for not watching in due time. For example, if I say that Old Yeller dies at the end of the book/movie, no one can really be like "UM, HELLO! SPOILER ALERT!! Sheesh." I mean, how can you be mad? The book and the movie are both 60+ years old!!! If you wanted to read the book or see the movie, you should have done it already! Granted, if you were, say, 12 years old, I might not say anything and just tell you to read the book... but that is another point entirely. But, Harry Potter for example, the most recent book is 5 years old, and I still try not to let out any spoilers. So where is the line?
Yes, anywhoo... don't spoil books. Or at least ask if your conversation partner is planning on reading the book... it's just common courtesy.
I'm sure I told you about my spoiler experience. I guess it was about 10 years ago, I'd been reading Lord Of The Rings. I finished the first novel and a bit of the second. This was after the first movie had come out. So I hadn't finished reading the series. I went to a website, I think I was looking for desktop pictures or something, and I think it was theonering.net. They had a small little box on their main page, "on this day in lotr history" and they listed THE ending of the entire story. What happens to The Ring. I couldn't believe it. I thought, "it's my own damn fault" but I wholeheartedly blamed the site. Really, that was the Main Page! It was only one sentance but gave away all the details as to how it happened. Took me a while to get back into reading because it was like "well now what's the point?". Of course, "the journey is as important as the destination" or "the trip is half the fun" but I was disappointed. Instead of reading another novel-and-a-half I'd just had it summed up for me in one sentance. I'm still a bit bitter about it. And again, this was a series that'd been out for 50 or 60 years. But everyone has to READ the books, you're not born having read them. And even if someone hadn't been reading the books, the movies were in the process of being released and were wildly popular. Why would someone put such a spoiler front and center?
ReplyDeleteIn short, I would try not to say that Old Yeller dies at the end, but I know I've slipped up sometimes.
-JMc