On Spoilers, or Spoiler Warning For Pretty Much Anything

[scifantasy]

With the flood of people discussing possible spoilers for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, I started thinking about spoilers in general.

First, some ground comments. The Darkfriends of my acquaintance have a rule about spoilers: Once you get past maybe a year or two tops, it's no longer feasible to protect against them. Certainly not for old material like Citizen Kane. The rule is summed up best by prince_corwin: "Caesar dies. Frodo lives. Christ does both."

Spoilers are often not the whole story anyway...as in the case of Citizen Kane, the spoiler doesn't destroy the movie, because it's often just as much about the process. Babylon 5 mastered this.

That said, there are some movies (or books, or possibly even video games) that have spoilers, now long since past expiration of course, that qualify as Big Deals, or would have when they came out, or are just ones that people pretty much know or know about. Revelations that really change the equation, or are historically significant. I'm curious what some of you think they are. I'll seed the pot with a few of my own; feel free to leave a comment with more.

Ground rule: If it's still spoiler-protected (read "less than a year or two old," unless you'd have to be living under a rock not to know it), don't post it. This is about more "classic" spoilers. If you complain about spoilers, don't do it here, because you're given plenty of warning. Don't piss me off about that either...you will get no sympathy.

The Current List Of Big Spoilers (last updated Saturday July 16 0215 PDT):
Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Star Wars
The Usual Suspects
Soylent Green
The Sixth Sense
War Of The Worlds
The Crying Game
Final Fantasy VII
Fight Club
Psycho
Harry Potter
Memento
Vertigo
Babylon 5
Spartacus
Escaflowne
The Third Man
Watchmen
Old Yeller
Planet Of The Apes
Primal Fear
Chinatown

(Those are the ones I really consider spoilers, or recognize. There are some that really don't count in my mind [such as, I kid you not, Kefka being crazy in Final Fantasy VI] or whose source material I am completely unfamiliar with that I've not listed here.)


Citizen Kane: Rosebud is his sled.

The Maltese Falcon: The statue's a fake.

Star Wars: "I am your father."

The Usual Suspects: "Verbal" is Keyzer Soze.

Soylent Green: Is people. (credit to jchance)

The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis is dead. (credit to JC as well)

War Of The Worlds: The Martians die of the common cold.


Any more from the peanut gallery? What spoilers are (or were) big?

Comments

[rincebrain.livejournal.com]

Star Wars: Leia/Luke siblings, you forgot.

There is, of course: "I'm an honest-to-God prince."

Let's not forget Final Fantasy I: Chaos is Garland

Also, Super Mario Bros 2 (US): it was all a dream

Final Fantasy X: Tidus doesn't exist

Final Fantasy VI: Cid dies, Kefka goes nuts, Terra is half Esper, and a few others.

Earthbound: you time travel into the past to prevent pokey from helping to destroy the world with giygas as robots

StarCraft: Kerrigan becomes the queen of the Zerg, comes after you all, Tassadar DIES.

WarCraft: MOST MAIN CHARACTER DIE

Star Trek: DS9: SISKO DIES EXCEPT OH WAIT HE'S NOT TECHNICALLY DEAD WAIT WHAT

Star Trek: TNG: Picard saves humanity by blowing up three versions of his ship O WAIT IT NEVER HAPPENED EXCEPT IT DID AND ONLY HE REMEMBERS IT

Sandman: I'd post it, but I don't know if you've read that far.

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

The Crying Game: She's a he.

[chaoscheebs.livejournal.com]

Wild Arms 1: Rudy's not human.

Wild Arms 2: Irving's behind the Cocytus. Also, he did his sister.

Sonic Adventure 2: Shadow DIES.

Final Fantasy VII: As does Aeris.

Xenogears: Krelian apparently has no genitals. Citan is working for Solaris.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Here via fanthropology.

Fight Club: Tyler and the narrator are the same person. (I think all of Palahniuk's books have really good twists that I wouldn't have wanted to be spoiled on, but Fight Club is the only one that's sort of collective consciousness, because of the film.)

[eibii.livejournal.com]

I don't actually know if this counts - it probably doesn't, as the whole point of it is to be spoiled, seeing as how it's nearly thirty years old - Rose of Versailles. Seeing as how a few of the cast were prominent real-life aristocratic figures during the French Revolution, you know they're gonna die right off the bat - and even the narration in the comics and anime immediately acknowledges it for the sake of creating tragic character development.

But it seems to be pretty much the initiation in fandom, in that you talk openly about how the main characters (fictional) also die horrible and tragically in the finale as well, even if you haven't seen it. (In fact, the last episodes were just released on bittorrent with this as the main advertisement!)

[telynor.livejournal.com]

Here from metaquotes

I was amazed when people were quite upset about Titanic spoilers a few years ago.

Um, duh. The Boat Sinks.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Psycho: it's not his mother! Mother's DEEEAAAAADDDDD!!!

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Here via metaquotes.

In The Name of the Rose, the pages are poisoned.

Bambi's mother dies.

The Fifth Element is rumoured to be lurrrve.

In Last Night, the world ends.

[divabat.livejournal.com]

There's actually a website that deals with this sort of thing. Let me look it up and I'll get back to you.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorceror's Stone - Professor Quirrel is Voldemort's helper; Snape is innocent.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Ginny was used by Tom to attack and vandalize Hogwarts. Lockhart is a fraud. (though that's kinda obvious)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Sirius is innocent, and he is also Harry's godfather. Peter Pettigrew is the traitor. Remus Lupin is a werewolf. Sirius, Remus, and Peter were friends of James's, Harry's dad.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Cedric dies. (I think someone else dies too but I can't remember who) Professor Moody is really Barty Crouch Jr and it was he that put Harry's name in the goblet.

Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix - Sirius dies. That's about 2 years already, but people are still touchy about it. (and I think this is the most memorable spoiler from the HP series so far.)

Memento was pretty mindboggling. Sammy Jenkins was actually a con artist. It was Leonard who killed his wife with insulin injections. The supposed "killer" had already been killed; Natalie was using Leonard to get back at Jimmy Grantz, a drug dealer (and her ex, I think) by manipulating his weakness. Leonard willingly chooses to forget Teddy's murder, and goes out in a search for another JG.

Vertigo - Judy Barton was hired to act as Madeline; the real Madeline had already been "dealt with" (killed?) by the husband.

[texas-tiger.livejournal.com]

Babylon 5: Delenn turns human; Sinclair is Valen; Talia is a spy; Sheriden lives.

The Phantom Menance: Qui-gon dies.

A Song of Ice and Fire: The Red Wedding, basically.

[muppetfromhell.livejournal.com]

you're all famous now.


I don't know any new spoilers, but I know all the ones you've posted... and I haven't seen any of the movies, except Star Wars and the last 5 minutes of Fight Club.

[eiviiaru.livejournal.com]

Spartacus: Spartacus loses, but all his troops claim to be him, so everyone dies.

The Conqueror: Everyone dies. No, really. From cancer.

Escaflowne: Dilandau is actually a woman.

Basically every Gundam ever: The girlfriend dies.

Fellowship of the Ring/The Two Towers: Gandalf is neither really dead nor capable of ever becoming really dead.

[docfilth.livejournal.com]

The Third Man: Harry Lime isn't dead.
Watchmen: Adrian Veidt is the killer.

[psychojediboy.livejournal.com]

I'd say The Village but that I'm the only person in the world who like it. Wasn't there some big twist to Unbreakable? Of course, I didn't care enough to remember, so...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Just about the only good one in your contributions so far is Watchmen, and that's seriously small fry.

Also, who the fuck needs "spoilers" for War Of The Worlds? The book is a century old and it's one of the classics of sci-fi. If you've ever heard of it, you know how it ends, period. That's like demanding spoilers on the Bible, the Illiad, the Odyssey, or fucking Chaucer. Oooh, no, Sydney Carton's going to sacrifice himself, OMG DICKENS SPOILER U N00B. You mean Dracula is really a vampire, and Mina's going to help destroy him? NOOOOOO! You've totally, like, ruined that for me!

One addition to your list: Psycho.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I think you really need to define "spoiler" better.

If "spoiler" means "thing that people going into the movie are not expected to know", then everything has lots of them.

If "spoiler" means "revelation of critical plot point, which is built to by author of work, which diminishes the rest of the movie if revealed to the viewer BEFORE that point", then your suggestion list needs to shrink, a lot.

Since we're only listing classics, that shrinks us further.

> Citizen Kane

Can do.

> Star Wars

Sure.

> The Usual Suspects

Okay.

> Soylent Green

Not particularly avoidable, but sure, knowing it's people ruins most of the build. Okay.

> The Sixth Sense

It's the point of the movie, so okay.

> War Of The Worlds

No. The story is still the same, regardless of the Deus Ex Virii.

> The Crying Game

Yes.

> Final Fantasy VII

Knowing that Cloud is a clone does not change this game.

> Fight Club

Yes.

> Psycho

Yes.

> Harry Potter

Uh, no. Children's books, especially children's mysteries, always rely on the sudden twist.

> Memento

Knowing Joey Pants' story doesn't invalidate the rest of the movie.

> Babylon 5

Classic and large, remember?

> Spartacus

#1: Not a spoiler because it's not a secret.
#2: Not a spoiler because it doesn't spoil the story.

> Escaflowne

Including this would imply that there is something to spoil.

> Watchmen

I'd take it off, because it's limited to the trivial subset of "comic book geeks", and hence doesn't fit any of the mainstreaming requirements

[larabeaton.livejournal.com]

Old Yeller?

[blackjackrocket.livejournal.com]

Pokémon Special--the identity of Giovanni's son (may not sound big to most, but in-fandom it caused a flow of wank like you would not believe)

Digimon Frontier--"So that means I'm--" "A spirit only!"

[normalone.livejournal.com]

Here via fanthropology...

How about Planet of the Apes - it's really earth?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

To narrow your question, I suggest defining spoiler as "a fact of the narrative, which, once revealved, fundamentally alters the meaning of all which has preceded it." So many of these suggestions are not "spoilers" so much as "surprises".

If we go with this narrow definition, then I wouldn't consider the "surprises" of War of the Worlds or the Harry Potter or Spartacus to be true spoilers -- knowledge of the surprise does not change our sense of what came before. That said, I think you are missing a handful of huge spoilers from literary and cinematic history:

Planet of the Apes's revelation of which planet the Planet of the Apes is;

Primal Fear's revelation of the true nature of Aaron's illness;

Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge's revelation of the condition of the rope; and

Chinatown's revelation of Evelyn Mulwray's relationship to Katherine.

I'm sure there are a few others, but it's 3:15 in the morning. ;)

Oh, and about Psycho -- I agree that it should be on your list, but the spoiler isn't the true identity of the killer. Hm - the problem with discussing Psycho, w/r/t spoilers, is that we've come so far since then. It's hard to imagine what was so revolutionary about it, but it was staggeringly so. The real "spoiler" is that Psycho is not a noir caper film, because the first third of the film *is* a noir caper film. Marian Crane (Janet Leigh) is stuck in a dead-end job, can only meet with her lover Sam during lunch breaks, he can't marry her because all of his money is going to alimony, etc. etc. etc. One day, Marian is entrusted by her boss to deposit $40K for the business and she sees a chance for escape. She takes off with the money, heading for Sam's workplace. It's a very long drive for one day and she gets caught in a storm, so she pulls off the road and signs in at the Bates Motel for the night. After talking with the proprietor and being shown her room, she takes a shower. This is the movie you've been watching for thirty minutes, and it has set up specific narrative expectations for how the rest of the film will go. And then - suddenly this isn't the movie you paid for. The spoiler is that Hitchcock was changing film - in a way, it's a meta-spoiler.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Here via meta_fandom.

How about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? Telling the murderer of any detective story is of course a rather big spoiler for someone just reading it, but that one is special because people weren't just surprised at the twist but upset and pouting that it was "unfair".

These days, making your narrator the murderer is quite a common thing, but it wasn't back then...

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

No one ever mentions this, but there are only two movies that I'd wished I hadn't been spoiled for. One was The Crying Game, and the other was Cinema Paradiso. The revelation of what the projectionist had done all those years with the censored bits of film packed an emotional wallop, even to me, who'd been told ahead of time; and yet, even as I watched, I knew that if I hadn't been expecting it, it would have hit me like a freight train.

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom, and I think you have to add Hard Core Logo to the list for sure. That movie came out almost 10 years ago, and there are still people who haven't seen it who are upset that there are vids that spoil the end.

Websites

[divabat.livejournal.com]

http://thebookspoiler.com
http://themoviespoiler.com

It's sort of messy but it may be helpful.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I once caught seven kinds of hell in an APA I was in for "spoiling" Heinlein's The Cat Who Walked Through Walls some 10+ years after it came out. But I'm incorrigible, so here it is again: Not only do the good guys lose, they all die!