Also, general curiosity.

[featherynscale]

It seems to me that just about everybody is more rabid about not being told plot points in works they haven't yet read or seen than I am. I don't mind at all if you tell me what's going to happen, as long as you don't tell me the whole plot of the story. In other words, the Internet did not ruin Harry Potter and the Half-Blod Prince for me. By the time I got to the Big Awful Event, I had actually forgotten that I'd been told about it.

So anyway, what do you think?

[Poll #592415]

Comments

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

It depends wholly on the book or film as to whether or not I care to avoid spoilers.


D.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Ditto here. I care nothing about Potter poof, but I rabidly avoided all talk of Episode III stuff until I saw the movie.

And if there is ever a Ya Ya sisterhood II, spoil away!

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I think there was a Ya Ya sisterhood II, or, alternately, that Ya Ya was a sequel to something else. I didn't see the film, though.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Cripes. And I was weirded out enough that there was a Return to Bountiful II. But then there were three or more Toxic Avengers...

[zylch.livejournal.com]

I might have been more worried about Half-blood Prince spoilers if JKR hadn't been so blindingly obvious what was coming. It's sad when an author spoilers their own book.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

pssst....V....it's a kids' book.

[zylch.livejournal.com]

Being a kids' book is no excuse for shoddy workmanship. Foreshadowing is a great plot device, I agree. Especially when an author plays with it and gives you something completely other than what you expect. Take Philosopher's Stone, for instance. Nearly all of the foreshadowing was for Snape to be the villain, but it turns out to be Quirrel. This is part of the reason I started reading the series in the first place -- I thought to myself, "Oh, it's just a kids' book," and she completely got me with the switch.

But in HBP, she pretty much wrapped page 923 around a brick and beat the audience about the head with it from page 3 onwards. No reversals, no surprises, until it got to be a point of boredom, an "Oh, just get on with it already, will you? Sheesh!" What makes it really disappointing to me is that I know she can do better work, because I've read it.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

(shrug) I don't get out enough, or read enough books. I may as well enjoy those sorts of things vicariously, right? Note: agrnmn probably holds exactly the opposite opinion.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

::covers hands with ears::

I can't hear you!

[kaikias.livejournal.com]

I hate surprises with a fierce and burning passion, so the spoilers are my friends. I don't understand why people get so worked up over them.

[lordkalkin.livejournal.com]

I tend to blame my English lit degree, but I just can't get worked up about spoilers. My least favorite thing is to sit in a class where we're only "supposed" to read up to a certain point, and I've read ahead, and everyone who hasn't is spinning their wheels over some ridiculous speculation, but none of them want to be told what actually happens. I tend to approach most works as whole units, and, for me, if learning the ending spoils the book, I doubt it was a very good book to begin with.

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

I think for me it has to do with the whole suspension of disbelief thing. If I know a certain event is coming, I spend the whole time wondering when it's coming, and that interferes with my ability to become "lost" in a book or movie.

Not that I would rip anybody's head off over it. Just be really, really miffed. And that book/movie would, depending on other factors, if any, be moved to the bottom of my to-read/to-see list.

spoilers

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I think the GameMaster helps with not remembering certain things at critical times.

As for spoiler concerns, one of the reasons that I saw Serenity as soon as it was in theatres was so that I wouldn't have to read about spoilers.

[nova-albion.livejournal.com]

It all depends on how predictable the plot twists are.

Really, I think the worst offenders are movie trailers. Did you see "Sideways." A very nice little film, if you like that sort of thing, but once you'd seen the trailers there were absolutely no surprises. Why would the people pushing a film go to so much trouble to undermine the viewing experience?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I didn't see it.

But I'm sure that extensive marketing studies show that people don't want to be surprised by a film, or something. Neophobia. It's related to why Hollywood seems to make the same film over and over and over again instead of telling different stories. People like what is comfortable, so anything outside the norm needs a spoilery trailer to innoculate people with the plot so that it won't be alarming.

Something like that, anyway.