Getting Spoiled without a warning

[daen]

I think how major the spoiler is matters too. If you're spoiling the main *point*, say the twist ending of a twist ending movie, or the murderer in a mystery novel, that is way different than just mentioning, "I wasn't happy with the way X character acted towards the end" or something.

I wouldn't consider the bolded to be a spoiler at all. A bit of a hint, maybe, but I wouldn't consider it spoiled without knowing at least a little about how character X acted.
 "He's a she!" is one thing. "I wasn't happy with what he did in the end," might not be a spoiler at all if you didn't like anything he did throughout the book/movie/game/graphic novel - was it in character? out of character? particularly heinous or just par for the course where character X is concerned?

I suspect that different people have differing ideas of what constitutes a spoiler.

[Allyson]

Yeah, I have had people shout "No spoilers!" at me for the example I quoted, and I agree it's pretty silly. Where exactly the line is, I'm not sure--is talking about a specific minor scene that isn't plot important a spoiler? Well, kind of, but not on the same lines as giving away THE twist, or someone's death, either.

I have a couple seriously spoiler paranoid friends, which has given me an increasing aggravation for people who overreact, though.

[Twik]

O/T a bit - The worst spoiler I ever saw was in a published book, by Ngaio Marsh. One character gave a summary of how he thought the murder in the book might have been committed, to have another character go, "Oh, like in Busman's Honeymoon?"

Busman's Honeymoon was by Dorothy L. Sayer, and this one paragraph completely gave away the solution to her book. I couldn't believe it - fortunately, I'd read Busman's Honeymoon already. It just seemed so gratuitous. I'm not sure if it was malicious (did Marsh have a feud with Sayer?) or if Marsh figured that everyone would have read Honeymoon by that point.

Back on topic - I'm afraid if you're going to read or partake of discussions about a work with people who are ahead of you, you may expect spoilers, because people will not always remember that you are not aware of everything they are. It's human nature. Best thing if spoilers really "spoil" your experience is avoid those sites/discussions.

[AngelicGamer]

Sometimes, not even the set amount of time for movie spoilers is enough.  A friend of mine in Japan didn't get the Avengers a long time after the US (I can't remember how long but what happened was after I saw the movie for a third time in theaters).  I forgot about this and spoiled one of the bigger plot points in the movie*.  She continues to bring it up, which is annoying, but I counter with saying that it was on her to avoid spoilers.  So now she sets up a way on Facebook so she won't get spoiled because I am going to forget that it's x amount of months until she gets a big blockbuster.  I'm not living there so I will forget and feel it is on her more than me.

*Said plot point looks to be moot due to the TV series that is coming a week from today.   

[Cherry91]

I think in this case, there's two sides to it.

Side One - This was not a video about The Last of Us. Therefore the viewers did not go looking for TLOF information, and it should have been warned for, especially as the game is still fairly new.
Side Two - That is an incredibly vague spoiler. If not for the explicit reference to it relating to the ending, it would have been okay in my book.

I used to do a uni radio show about video games, and my rule was that you didn't discuss the game in detail until it was 6 months old, you gave spoiler warnings until it was a year old, and after that point you just gave a single warning at the start "We're discussing X. In detail."

[blarg314]

Sometimes, not even the set amount of time for movie spoilers is enough.  A friend of mine in Japan didn't get the Avengers a long time after the US (I can't remember how long but what happened was after I saw the movie for a third time in theaters). 

I'm in a similar situation, and I just accept that I'm not getting a pristine viewing of American media - I certainly don't expect people to tiptoe around spoilers months after a movie comes out.

[AngelicGamer]

Sometimes, not even the set amount of time for movie spoilers is enough.  A friend of mine in Japan didn't get the Avengers a long time after the US (I can't remember how long but what happened was after I saw the movie for a third time in theaters). 

I'm in a similar situation, and I just accept that I'm not getting a pristine viewing of American media - I certainly don't expect people to tiptoe around spoilers months after a movie comes out.

I think she finally got it when I reminded her that I might not be perfect at remembering for Star Trek Into Darkness.  That's when she figured out how to make filters for herself on Facebook.  I'm sorry she's so far away and yes, I miss her, but it's really on her to not be spoiled.  And I say that as someone who is waiting for GoT to be finished as a book series before I try to read the second one.  Save for Red Wedding - I was curious. 

[AnnaJ]

A few several years ago I went to a movie with two friends, call them Melinda and Rita.  The movie was one of two that came out that year based on people in Scottish history.  Melinda had seen the other movie - I didn't want to see it because it involved what I heard was a fairly brutal death scene - and she and I were talking about it.

Rita misunderstood the conversation and thought we were talking about the movie we were about to see but, being a nicer person than I (I would have been very cranky) said nothing to us until after the movie when she said "I thought you guys said he was tortured to death!"  So, the opposite of a spoiler 

[Virg]

Alpacas wrote:

"In The Last of Us you realize this within the very first 10-15 minutes. So its not like Frankie said " Just like in the end of The Last of us where the Butler killed Joel with the Candlestick in the Library" "

Oh, great, thanks a bunch.  Now you've completely ruined it for me.  Humph.



AnnaJ wrote:

"Rita misunderstood the conversation and thought we were talking about the movie we were about to see but, being a nicer person than I (I would have been very cranky) said nothing to us until after the movie when she said "I thought you guys said he was tortured to death!"  So, the opposite of a spoiler"

We call that a spoiled red herring.

Virg

[zyrs]

We call that a spoiled red herring.

Virg

Mrs. White's nuclear physicist husband was a red herring?

[iridaceae]

We call that a spoiled red herring.

Virg

Mrs. White's nuclear physicist husband was a red herring?

Yes! So was communism!

[artk2002]

We call that a spoiled red herring.

Virg

Mrs. White's nuclear physicist husband was a red herring?

Yes! So was communism!

Sounds fishy to me.