So there I was, sitting harmlessly in my fiction writing class, participating in an interesting discussion about symbols in literature, when someone decided to bring up Harry Potter. And what were the first words out of her mouth? “Has anyone not been spoiled?”
Sigh…
I don’t understand this. Is it really true that a person’s enjoyment of a story could be dependent on not knowing what’s going to happen? Look – there’s only one ending to any story: “They died.” It doesn’t matter whether the story goes, “She lived happily ever after in a little house on the coast,” or “He was pushed off the cliff by a pack of wolves,” the end result is the same. “and then they died.” Okay, okay – I suppose, “they lived for eternity,” is a possible ending, but that make… two? You know how the story’s going to end already! This applies to Harry Potter too – guess what! He’s going to die, either now or later.
Get over it.
And the plots in the middle aren’t much better. I once read a Dickens novel (Hard Times, I think it was), which had an introduction containing this sentiment: (paraphrased) “Nobody but a small child would read this book to find out whether the [protagonist] foils the [antagonist]. Instead, we read it for the characters, the emotional meaning.” I think that this is true of everything. Remember Shakespeare? He’s supposed to be a pretty good writer, right? (I happen to think that he’s overrated, but still…) Get an edition of his plays containing plot summaries of each play, and just read the summaries. Than go read the ’soap update’ in TV Guide. Shakespeare’s plots suck! They really do! Now, I suppose you could make an argument that they were fresh and original when they were written, but I doubt it. Fortunately, we don’t watch and read Shakespeare for the plots – in his case, it’s the language that matters. And that goes for most other books. You read Austin and Tolstoy and Alcott for the characters, Asimov for the ideas, etc., etc., etc.
That’s not to say that plot only exists to provide a vehicle for characters and language, of course. I’ll argue all day that the plot is the main feature of The Handmaid’s Tale. (It’s mostly indirectly expository, but still plot) But in order for a plot to be worth caring about, it has to stand up to scrutiny, to bear repeated readings or watchings, not fall apart when you find out the ’secret’!
So please, people, don’t be so crazy about being ’spoiled’. If it was worth seeing in the first place, it won’t hurt anything to know about it beforehand.
Note: Spoilers for games are a legitimate worry – if you know the solution to a puzzle, it’s often not as much fun. But: 1. Puzzles are usually meant to only be solved once, and 2. These sorts of games are not literature!