*contains no spoilers.
As I was in the midst of working on this I saw an article** about how Marvel Comics are saving everyone the trouble of spoiling their comics by giving them away themselves. Yeah, ‘cos whenever I see a movie trailer that gives away the entire plot of the film I totally want to pay money to see the same thing take two hours.
Also, if you look closely in the first panel you may be able to see some of my tiny dalek army.
**contains spoilers.
OMG! A new ‘Peanuts’ character – Karen, the little black haired goth girl.
Hey, Karen! When your tiny daleks take over the world, can I rule Texas? please, please, please?
yep, i see them
…aand that’s when Charlie Brown soiled his shorts.
Woohoo for tiny Daleks! And is that a Tardis USB hub I see?
Yes, and it’s appeared before.
Never understood spoiler hatred, myself.. given that the whole plot is going to be known eventually the order in which it’s revealed seems irrelevant. I tend to appreciate stories more as works of artifice than as emotional rollercoasters, tho.
A good bit is no less good just cos i know / can guess it’s coming.
There are two reasons why it’s good not to have spoilers:
1) Knowing what’s coming next gets in the way of the suspension of disbelief. Fiction should take you out of the your life and, for the duration, absorb you into the story. Spoilers get in the way of that illusion. After all, in real life, we don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s harder to feel for the characters if you know how they will act and what will happen. Think of a dramatic moment — the fate of the character could go either way, would you feel any tension if you know what the outcome was in advance?
2) Part of the fun of watching a movie/reading a book is trying to work out what’s going to happen next. People put themselves into the place of the character and try to work out what they would do in that situation. As you’re reading/watching you may feel that the character is taking the “wrong” course. That speculation is more fun if both courses of action could be better or worse choices because it’s the uncertainty that gives it the spice.
You all might find this song amusing:
http://www.tomsmithonline.com/lyrics/spoiler_alert.htm
I try to avoid spoilers when I can…but I still pick up the Diamond Previews every month even though it tells me what’s going to happen in three months…
Because I have access to time travel, I could give away all sorts of spoilers to the plot in “Planet Karen”. However, if I did it would break the space-time continuum, so I won’t.
“Sibling #2, please don’t tell me what happens, for I have not yet seen Aliens 3″
“Why, Sibling #1, Signourney *DIES* at the end.”
“Sibling #2… I… I… meh. You suck.”
Had I read the Peanuts strip in question (I’m guessing it was after I stopped following newspaper funnies) when I was too young for Citizen Kane, I imagine I’d forget the revelation long before getting around to the movie, unless it was very very explicit.
On another hand, spoiler-avoidance ought to have some time limit, else how can we discuss books or movies meaningfully?
Jekyll and Hyde has been spoiled for most of us ….