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I've been mystified for most of my life by the way in which people object to spoilers. And over the last couple of days, I've seen some fine examples of giving out, complaining, and outright temper tantrums over Serenity spoilers. It's becoming clear to me that other people don't watch films - or plays, series, novels, or anything else like that - in the same way I do. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm starting to think they're missing out.
I take on anything that has a narrative in a non-linear - or at least multi-dimensional - way. I sit there, and I suspend disbelief at the same time as I take note of everything. The order that elements arrive in my mind is not as important as the gestalt - and there's definitely a gestalt. I'll flip forward in a novel, then go back a few pages and read a segment again. I'll read the entire script of a movie - and two fan-written alternates - before I see it. I'll listen to a recording of a symphony before I go to hear it played live. I'll happily read up on the history of a set-designer before I see a play (ok, haven't done that last in years, but the principle's there).
There's the argument that the event should be arrived at without prejudice, so that you see it all as the author intended it. Which I have to label nonsense, because there is no work in existence that is perceived as the author intended. You can't do it. You enter any work with your own pre-conceived ideas, stereotypes, archetypes, and concepts. The tragic figure may be amusing to you. The comic relief may be tragic in your mind. The awe-inducing scene at the beginning may bore you. You may hate the theme music, and think it anachronistic, even as the author thinks it sets the scene perfectly.
And I have to ask, if the linear arrival of the elements in your mind is so important, what about preludes, cut-scenes, flashbacks, multiple points of view? There are plenty of fantastic books and films out there that tell you the ending in the first scene. The obsession with remaining spoiler-free, as far as I can see, does nothing but inhibit the enjoyment of the event itself, and give you all sorts of hassle in the process.
About the only place where I can see the argument for remaining spoiler free is the first-person experience - the videogame, the RPG, the LARP, where the very point is that you don't know what's happening next. In any other case, you reduce your experience of the event by not preparing for it.
Although as it happens, I don't yet know the spoilers for Serenity. I'm not going to go looking for them, because I've done my speculating and am now content to wait, but if someone tells me, I won't be in the least worried - and I'll be reading transcripts of Firefly and Buffy, and interviews with Joss and the crew between now and then.
I take on anything that has a narrative in a non-linear - or at least multi-dimensional - way. I sit there, and I suspend disbelief at the same time as I take note of everything. The order that elements arrive in my mind is not as important as the gestalt - and there's definitely a gestalt. I'll flip forward in a novel, then go back a few pages and read a segment again. I'll read the entire script of a movie - and two fan-written alternates - before I see it. I'll listen to a recording of a symphony before I go to hear it played live. I'll happily read up on the history of a set-designer before I see a play (ok, haven't done that last in years, but the principle's there).
There's the argument that the event should be arrived at without prejudice, so that you see it all as the author intended it. Which I have to label nonsense, because there is no work in existence that is perceived as the author intended. You can't do it. You enter any work with your own pre-conceived ideas, stereotypes, archetypes, and concepts. The tragic figure may be amusing to you. The comic relief may be tragic in your mind. The awe-inducing scene at the beginning may bore you. You may hate the theme music, and think it anachronistic, even as the author thinks it sets the scene perfectly.
And I have to ask, if the linear arrival of the elements in your mind is so important, what about preludes, cut-scenes, flashbacks, multiple points of view? There are plenty of fantastic books and films out there that tell you the ending in the first scene. The obsession with remaining spoiler-free, as far as I can see, does nothing but inhibit the enjoyment of the event itself, and give you all sorts of hassle in the process.
About the only place where I can see the argument for remaining spoiler free is the first-person experience - the videogame, the RPG, the LARP, where the very point is that you don't know what's happening next. In any other case, you reduce your experience of the event by not preparing for it.
Although as it happens, I don't yet know the spoilers for Serenity. I'm not going to go looking for them, because I've done my speculating and am now content to wait, but if someone tells me, I won't be in the least worried - and I'll be reading transcripts of Firefly and Buffy, and interviews with Joss and the crew between now and then.
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I care about spoilers. I want to avoid knowing what happens in the end and if something unexpected happens while we're getting there, I want it to be just that - unexpected. If the story is very plot-driven, I don't want to know about things beforehand. I want to witness things for myself, be properly shocked if the story takes a wild twist or a character unexpectedly dies. Knowing those things beforehand would ruin some of the fun for me. Like someone said, you can only get the unspoiled experience once - then you've seen it, and the things that are supposed take you offguard won't surprise you anymore.
Many people used Sixth Sense as an example, and I tend to agree with what they said. Had I known how it ended before seeing the movie for myself, now what would've been the fun about the movie then.
As I play a lot of story-based videogames, spoilers are big thing to me. Before I played Final Fantasy VII, for example, I got spoiled over a character's death. Now, I didn't like the character in question to begin with, so their death wasn't that big a deal to me, but the event lost a lot of its impact and failed to shock me when it finally happened. Imagine if it had been a character I actually liked. Someone already mentioned this as well, but knowing that something bad (like death) is going to happen to a character, you distance yourself from them on purpose, saying "why like them, when they're going to get killed anyway?", and that way lose a part of the experience. (Unless you're like me and are in the trend of falling for the people that always end up dead, like the bad guys for example. That way you sort of learn to expect the worst, but that's beside the point.)