The spoiler wasn't for his father, it would have been for him:
> I thought it was a brilliant move and I certainly would have been sad to know it was coming. When an author is reversing tropes and dumbfounding your expectations, when you're suspended between possible outcomes and don't know what's going to happen next, that's the golden time in reading.
"My pleasure would have been reduced to know about the spoiler in advance."
Correct. Sorry if I was obtuse. Neither my father nor I knew about the "shocking event" before reading it. I would call this a spoiler (certainly I would encase it in a spoiler warning before mentioning it online) but I guess you can argue about whether it's really a spoiler if it wasn't actually spoiled for anyone in the story.
For similar reasons I do not hesitate to say "John was walking across the street when he was hit by a car." As it turned out, John was walking to the middle of the street when he was hit by a car, but from his point of view he was engaged in a very different activity.
I have another story on the same lines. About 18 months ago a friend was giving a presentation on a new software module at work. We were waiting for supervisors to arrive and to pass the time, I showed everyone that I had recently seen the entire Star Wars trilogy (IV, V, VI) uploaded to Youtube in ten minute increments.
In the course of this, the friend giving the presentation mentioned he had never seen them. He was from China, but also did university in Canada. He watched a lot of anime but wasn't much into Western media.
Somewhat at a loss, I made him promise to watch them that weekend. He did, but right before he started his talk someone else asked about it and he said, "I am your father."
That, friends, is a real tragedy of spoiling and I defy anyone to defend it.
Postscript, my friend did actually watch all the movies that weekend, but he said they didn't hold up well. He watched an extremely suspect order though, something like 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6.
gwern|14 years ago
> I thought it was a brilliant move and I certainly would have been sad to know it was coming. When an author is reversing tropes and dumbfounding your expectations, when you're suspended between possible outcomes and don't know what's going to happen next, that's the golden time in reading.
"My pleasure would have been reduced to know about the spoiler in advance."
msg|14 years ago
For similar reasons I do not hesitate to say "John was walking across the street when he was hit by a car." As it turned out, John was walking to the middle of the street when he was hit by a car, but from his point of view he was engaged in a very different activity.
I have another story on the same lines. About 18 months ago a friend was giving a presentation on a new software module at work. We were waiting for supervisors to arrive and to pass the time, I showed everyone that I had recently seen the entire Star Wars trilogy (IV, V, VI) uploaded to Youtube in ten minute increments.
In the course of this, the friend giving the presentation mentioned he had never seen them. He was from China, but also did university in Canada. He watched a lot of anime but wasn't much into Western media.
Somewhat at a loss, I made him promise to watch them that weekend. He did, but right before he started his talk someone else asked about it and he said, "I am your father."
That, friends, is a real tragedy of spoiling and I defy anyone to defend it.
Postscript, my friend did actually watch all the movies that weekend, but he said they didn't hold up well. He watched an extremely suspect order though, something like 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6.