Spoiler Alert!
Why?
Why are there spoilers?
‘Cause we just HAVE to know.
The slightest idea that someone else knows slightly more than we do irritates us to no end. In that vein it’s not about the information, it’s about bragging rights and egos and who’s got the gossip first. Big shit.
I was flipping through the newspaper last week, the front end for a change (i.e. not the sports) and on the little entertainment page was a series of pictures featuring characters from the Harry Potter series. From them, I procured some information (that I didn’t want) and subconsciously added it to other information I had earlier overheard (that I didn’t ask for) and basically ruined (eh, certainly diminished) the reading experience of the sixth Harry Potter book.
Maybe it’s my fault. I got the book last weekend but have been very busy and didn’t make much headway until Friday afternoon — after I got Entertainment Weekly and saw Harry Potter on the cover. I feared even to touch the magazine, lest I drop it in transit and let it fall smugly to the ground, open to a page that for some sad, pathetic, sensationalist reason, contains information about the sixth book. It was in there.
Entertainment Weekly also ruined the fifth book for me, when it summarized the entire series around the time of the third movie.
But I don’t blame the particular publication. I generally find it informative and witty.
No, I blame a culture of self-destruction and denial — that destroys what little delight it may have by spreading these spoilers around, tacitly agreeing that it’s not only fine but a GOOD thing to peek at the gift under the Christmas tree twenty-four hours early.
Knowledge is good, but without the usual discipline required to attain it, it is just information.
On the plus side, I’ve been avoiding television and newspapers all week and haven’t thought this clearly in months. Whatever.
P.S. I did finish reading the sixth book. And won’t tell you what I thought.
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