Spoilers and Life as the Little Mermaid

[neadods]

Hello to everyone who just friended me! *waves* Keep your hands and feet inside my LJ at all times, and enjoy the ride. Please wait until my babblings have come to a complete stop before exiting.

Golly, I'm going to have to figure out how to be entertaining now.

...but not for this entry. Today, I want to bitch about being the little frickin' mermaid and spoilers.

The Little Mermaid
Today I get to be the little mermaid. Not in the young and handsome prince sense (or even the hung and pransom yince version.) Not in the lose my voice, or deal with a witch, or even having Disney-perfect hair sense.

No, I get to be the little mermaid because I sliced the sole of my foot open this morning and now I leave a little trail of blood, like a vampiric Hansel and Gretel. Much as I love those Advanced Healing bandaids, my feet are proving a little much for them. My summer-filthy feet. I'm really not looking forward to finding out what might have gotten in while all my blood was getting out.

I think it's DB who did it; he was overly fascinated with a basket that had wire ribbon on it, and kept doing something really noisy until I took said basket away. The sharp thing was right where the basket had been, and I don't know if it's a shard of wicker or a snip of wire, but either way, I'm hoping that Bozo Boy didn't eat anything. It's one thing to have a cat who eats dust and pastry because he's strange; it's another to have him actively attempting suicide by basket.

Gah.

Spoilers - Why are Fans So Crazy About 'em?
This was prompted by a poll in mtgat's LJ, which was in turn prompted by filkertom asking us to stop quoting Firefly in his f-list because he hasn't seen it yet. Which made me write the first draft of this:

There's a difference between "appropriate" [her wording, as in "is it appropriate to"] and "what I personally do" since I'm a big old spoiler whore, and was chastized for quoting a parody of Harry Potter two weeks after HBP came out. (I figure once it's been around fandom enough to start more than one flame war, it's not a secret anymore.)

However, (taking off the fan hat and putting on the reviewer hat) I Just Don't Get the whole thing about blocking quotes and images as spoilers. What are previews? Quotes and images, used to give you a taste and leave you wanting more. What's on the front of every book? An image from the story, to lure you into picking it up. What's on the back of every softcover and the dustjacket of every hardcover? Quotes to get you to buy the thing.

I have yet to hear someone pick up a book in Barnes and Noble and squeal "OMG, there's three whole lines of dialog on the back. It's ruined! RUINED!! I can never enjoy this now!!!" But fandom is full of this kind of nonsense - even if the quote has nothing to do with the plot, someone's going to plotz. This is not just a hypothetical issue either - someone posted a picture of the front cover of Half Blood Prince somewhere and got an avalanche of "You spoiled it!" and "Oh, that's totally fake and wrong, I don't belieeeeeve you, I'm shutting my eyes and going lalalala" posts.

In the meantime, sane people could go to Amazon and look at the exact same picture. Or go to Amazon.co.uk and compare the "adult" and "child" version pictures. Without so much as a spoiler warning for their tender sensibilities when they ordered the dang thing.

At the same time, fandom is pretty damned schizophrenic on the issue - there's a huge overlap between the subset of fans who are all "Don't tell me, don't tell me, I don't want to know" and the subset of fans who obsessively watch ads and previews. Huh? Why is it not a spoiler to see "I'm unarmed." "Well, I'm not." but a spoiler to have someone describe that scene or post a photo grab?

Yeah, I can see not wanting to know major plot points. (If there is a hell, that stinker who spammed unrelated LJs with a jpg of Half Blood Prince with a huge, late plot point underlined in red deserves his own spot on the griddle, with extra grease.) But the basic plot setup? It's human nature to want to look before you leap, so what's that on every DVD & book cover, in every preview, every review, every blinkin' issue of the TV Guide? A teaser plot synopsis and maybe a quote or image or two. Does it really ruin Stargate to read "Col. O'Neill leads his team to a new planet where they fight Gu'aold"? Or Harry Potter to read "Harry goes to Hogwarts but his studies are interrupted by a fight with Voldemort"?

Hell, quotes are outright expected in the reviewing business. That's why the ARCs warn that quotes should be taken from the final copy, lest text change.

Since that's the way the entire rest of the world works, why is fandom so squiffy about quotes and basic plot descriptions as spoilers?

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That's the thing - I can understand not wanting to have plot twists spoiled. A long time ago an episode of Beauty and the Beast was ruined for me that way, and I'm going to try to go into the last Harry Potter blind.

But to have fits over the cover? Unrelated images? It's a given that Harry Potter will be waving a wand or that Capt. Tightpants will shoot his gun. It's lumping the obvious in with spoilers that confuses me.

[msdori.livejournal.com]

Oh, OWW about the foot. Yike.

As for spoilers, I'm a great big ol' spoiler ho, me, so I don't get that whole freak-out over promo stuff. AFAIC, anything that's aired is fair game to talk about. I will cut for spoilers on shows that I get before some of the West Coast folks on my flist, because, well, that's polite, because they haven't had a chance to see it yet.

But something like Firefly? I'll be damned if I'm going to cut for Firefly spoilers, because there AREN'T any of those for the series any more. Dude, that series is in the can and out on DVD, and if you haven't seen it, that's your lookout, because it's not like it's not out there for you to watch. And I'll be DOUBLE damned if I'll put up with somebody telling me what I can post in my own journal.

[shawan-7.livejournal.com]

I don't like Spoilers so I always appreciate when there's a warning about them. However, if I see something despite the warning then ... well, I cope with it and go on. Ask people not to comment? Seems ridiculous. I agree with your two week limit -- the hardcore will have see it by then, and anyone else will probably have at least heard about it.

Firefly turns out to be a lot of fun (as I work through the episodes) and I'm glad that a friend caused me to take a second look.

As for quotes in reviews -- I use them to see if it's a style of writing I like. When doing a review on Anne Rice, I included a fat quote -- and it served as fair warning to anyone picking up the book as to her style (and in that case content.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

When doing a review on Anne Rice, I included a fat quote -- and it served as fair warning to anyone picking up the book as to her style (and in that case content.)

Yeah, I often put quotes in reviews for that reason myself - "This book is boring, and that's not just me; doesn't this quote make your eyes glaze?" Or "If you laugh at this quote, you'll love the book."