Rise of Iron - Forged in Fire ViDoc (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Sunday, August 21, 2016, 16:25 (3019 days ago) @ Funkmon

I truly don't get why people do this. It's mean-spirited and disrespectful.

It's a reaction to feeling as if we're being silenced whenever we want to discuss anything with a story. I hadn't had a water cooler chat about Black Sails or any of those high drama shows airing recently because someone says "SPOILERS" in the physics room, for ages. This year I got tired of it and I just do it anyway, plus usually throw in the ole Kylo Ren kills Han. I want to talk too, and I deeply resent being obliged to put things in spoiler tags.

It's s pain and sometimes seems silly but talking to hundreds of people at once is a power not that many people had 25 years ago, and with power comes responsibility.

About spoilers, I get that it’s not a big deal. I get that studies show that people actually enjoy stories more when they know what’s going to happen. (It’s probably one reason why I enjoyed Stranger Things so much—I felt like I knew what was going to happen in the next minute throughout that show.) All that said, staying unspoiled about stories in popular culture is harder than it’s ever been. And even though the delight that comes from surprise is one of the lesser pleasures of good storytelling, that experience DOES have value, and I think it’s rarer than ever to get that experience if, say, you’re active on the internet. And that’s too bad. In fact, to me, being genuinely delighted by a surprise in a story is so rare I value it more than ever. I used to argue with one of my roommates who avoided trailers or really knowing anything about a movie before he saw it. “It’s not where you go but how you get there,” I’d say. i get that argument. Now I lean in his direction. I want the surprise the first time, and then if the story's decent, I’ll get the nuances that knowledge brings the second and third time. With raids, I like going into an experience that feels epic because I don’t know what sights I might see, and I like not knowing what I’m seeing at first, and having to figure out what I’m seeing. I like having my brain engaged that way, and I like being with others who are engaged in the same way and the collective reasoning that happens because no one knows anything going in.

Yeah, saying things like "the missing kid was to lure someone to the island for a sacrifice," is disrespectful and mean-spirited, but that's why people do this. The catharsis is great, even though I know it angers people I like, and also Kermit.

Heh. What a jerk. We'll always have fountain pens.