Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That is, however, the whole point of a detective story, and the reason that most people read them.
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This.
However, I don't think that the "we want spoilers" crowd is that surprising. I mean, we see the concept that people like tropes, and want to know what to expect, in serial TV and in serialized novels. That part isn't new at all. What's the explanation for the blockbuster success of the Marvel movies? A built-in fanbase that more-or-less knows what to expect. Why are some book series extraordinarily successful, whether it's the Dresden files or the dreaded Laurell K. Hamilton's porny former-action-adventure series or Janet Evanovich?
It's because people want the same thing over and over--because they want to know what to expect. While GOT may throw viewers for a loop (I suspect hardcore mystery lovers are more attracted to GOT than "classic" fantasy viewers, interestingly enough, but this is merely a theory of mine), there's still, more-or-less, a repeating cast of characters. Sometimes less than more, as we see. ;-) Sometimes fewer BITS of cast members, too....
Personally,
I loathe spoilers. To me, that's reruns, without even having the pleasure of seeing the damn thing in the first place. Leftovers without having the bravo meal served the first time. I have been infuriated with the dolts who post spoilers on "reviews" of shows/series/movies on IMDB and ditto ditto Amazon. I go looking for a review of some "new to me" series that I've found on my Roku, and some idiot says "I was so upset about X dying in Season 2..." (in the damn HEADLINE for the IMDB review) and the entire "what's to come" experience is
utterly ruined for me.
I mean, hell, it's bad enough that everything is regurgitated and recycled as it is. "
Olympus Has Fallen?" People said it was
Die Hard, but it wasn't; it was
Under Siege (Segal). Almost verbatim. I saw something the other night with the ubiquitous, "fly the [insert flying machine type here] right up the [vaginal/anal] mother spaceship orifice-sacrifice by anti-hero" scene that is now almost mandatory in alien-invasion sci-fi. It's all done-to-death. Those who contribute to this, by using spoilers, to ruin the few fresh things, scenes, endings or books that are out there? URRGGHHH.
I can't tell if the idiots that do that, without at least having the decency to type "SPOILER ALERT" in their review, are deliberately and gleefully taking some smug know-it-all delight in ruining things for others ("I know more than you do, I know more than you do, nyah-nyah-nyah"), or if they're just too stupid to be considerate about it. To cut them a break, perhaps they are so blithely unaware that they believe that the
entire world is watching (or reading) the show/book/series at the
exact same time that they are.
(I admit I'm a bit boggled to read that some folks thought the Sixth Sense was "scary." Intriguing, yes, but scary?
Really?)
Hitch