Do spoilers ruin a story?

[Chainsawkitten]

Claim 1: Knowing the solution to a puzzle means it is no longer a puzzle. The enjoyment of figuring out the solution is gone.
Claim 2: Some stories have puzzle elements that are a significant part of the appeal, eg. riddles (intensely so) or whodunits (not as intensely so).

Conclusion 1: Some stories are adversely affected by knowing them in advance.

Claim 3: Puzzles can be good.

Conclusion 2: Stories that are adversely affected by knowing them in advance are not inherently bad.

Spoiler: Claim 4

Any absolutist statement about art is bound to have counter examples.

 

[Timeaisis]

And you can also spoil why a character did something.

It's really simple: let storytellers tell you their stories, instead of some random people re-tell them to you. Spoilers are shitty.

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Most spoilers don't get into motivation at all. Take "Snape kills Dumbledore" as a perfect example. Without context, its a spoiler that seems stupid and bad. With context, it's a really interesting plot development. But you kind of have to read the whole book to grasp the why, which is the fun part.

I guess I'm differentiating between spoilers and laying out an entire plot, which I don't really consider a spoiler, that's a plot summary.

 

[Chettlar]

I love this reply, because in the last year or so I've begun subscribing to the Penn & Teller school of thought when it comes to magic, in that it's daft in this day & age to pretend that it's anything more than skill and that knowing how the trick is done is even more impressive than just putting it down to "it's maaaagic" and walking away. Some of their own demonstrations of their own tricks are absolutely breathtaking.

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Well but notice they don't show you the first time.

In order to make it impressive, first they must fool you. Then you watch the explanation, expecting it to totally make sense, and sometimes it does and you're impressed. And sometimes it still is confusing and you're even more impressed.

Like when they do the classic infinite cigarette trick. There's no point in the trick unless they trick you. But once they have shown it successfully, then they show you again with the explanation. Both experiences are fun, and really the first experience makes the second experience MORE satisfying than it would be, because there's resolve there. There's payoff.

 

[Rendering...]

Yes, personally, spoilers almost always ruin a story. For me a huge part of experiencing a story is the pleasure of anticipation. Spoilers don't just ruin my chance to guess what's going to happen, they rob the whole experience of freshness and immediacy, because my mind won't stop revolving the details I didn't want to know about.

This can even apply to stories that are more about the journey than the destination, unless the story itself reveals the outcome.

Basically, I like to experience stories on their own terms.

 

[Aexact]

I don't think so but my brother does so I try to avoid giving spoilers. Its just recognizing people experience media differently and trying to be empathetic.

Can't say that this difference in opinion doesn't cause friction sometimes though. Like, I misunderstand what he thinks constitute as spoilers and he gets annoyed that I've spoiled something and I get annoyed that he considered that a spoiler. An ouroboros of annoyance.

 

[D.Dragoon]

Spoilers don't ruin stories for me and I'll actively seek them out. For example, I read all the leaks for the later Game of Thrones seasons as they became available online and still tuned in every week for the show. The leaks didn't ruin the story for me, it was the story itself that I found atrocious.

 

[Oddish1]

This excuse for justifying spoilers is just the worst. I keep seeing this thrown around like a legit take.

It's not about ruining the story. It's about ruining the payoff from experiencing the story beats how they were intended.

The Shawshank Redemption is a fantastic film, in which the journey of the protagonist is engrossing throughout. But the impact of the ending would be lost if you knew it was coming.

Not knowing the 'end/story reveals' naturally makes you see it from a perspective you will only ever experience once, why would you cheat yourself from that?

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I actually noted that, the surprise is something you can experience once so I get why people are so hung up about spoilers. But losing the surprise does not ruin the story. I would even argue that it doesn't really ruin the payoff because the payoff is a culmination of the events that lead into the ending. There are people who read the last page of a mystery book first because what they value isn't who did it, but how the story itself unravels and lets you see how effective the story is at doing it.

 

[SinOfHeart]

I would echo what others have said, it can't ruin a good story.

Marketing for media is super reliant on stuff that would still be considered spoilers to some people (you have to show/describe some amount of the story to sell people on it). But many people wouldn't know if they wanted to see a movie or play a game without a trailer, or read a book without having a basic description of what the book is about.

I also think that sometimes a spoiler could get someone more interested in something. For instance if they happened to see a really cool scene or gif of something and now want to track it down to actually watch it with context. Or maybe a major story beat or gameplay aspect is described to them, and now they really want to see it for themselves.