A Defense of Spoilers
By Lance Schaubert | December 5, 2017 |
For a culture so obsessed with “enjoying the journey,” we sure do hate a ruined ending — isn’t that contradictory? A ruined ending — and the subsequent spoiler alerts that follow — belies our secret obsession with the destination: to enjoy the journey, we need to know how it ends. We don’t want to know how the story ends because we like to be kept in suspense to see if we’ll actually arrive at… well somewhere, we’ll know when we get there. And yet we tell one another endlessly that we must enjoy the journey. The truth is, there’s more than one way to ruin the ending of any story — indeed to ruin the ending of any life — and the easiest way is to ruin the vision for where you’d like to end up.
The ruined ending actually encourages us to enjoy the unknown journey all the more because we know where we’re headed. I think of all the flights and train rides that delighted me precisely because I knew where I was heading: anticipating the destination made me all the more aware of the details of the trip, of how we got there. The Medievalists understood this. Dante for them was great precisely because he riffed on Virgil’s endings in a new and bold way. Julius Caesar rewarded the Elizabethans precisely because they knew of the plot and assassination in advance. You can almost hear the echo of their whispering how Romeo and Juliet both die at the end and the follow-up questions from a theatre-departing mob who wondered what kind of world would lead to the death of two children in love? A world filled with Montagues and Capulets. If there was any sin to the narrative mind of the Medieval man, it was that one of his friends might spoil the beginning. The start of a story is the seed of the end and the slightest variations in what is sown prophecy that wild variety of crops that will later fill our narrative harvest house.
You see this at work in the “spoiler alert” memes for historical fictions. For Titanic, spoiler alert: the boat sinks. For Pearl Harbor, spoiler alert: the base is bombed. For Sully, spoiler alert: he lands the plane in the river. For The Passion of the Christ, spoiler alert: he dies and rises.
If the power in any historical drama is not what happens in the end but how and why and when and where and, especially, for whom it happened, then the power in any story at all could be the very same. In fact the worse crime would not be spoiling that the ship sinks in the end of Titanic but rather spoiling that the historical Titanic ever set sail at all. Why do I say that? Because that’s what happened during the rerelease of the film at the 100th anniversary of its sinking: tons of kids took to Twitter baffled that such a historical event ever occurred, which added historic insult to historic injury. The kids knew the boat sank in the movie. What they didn’t know was that a hundred years prior, 1,517 human souls really were lost to the sea. In refusing to spoil the ending, they spoilt the entire tale of 1,517 actual lives.
We must know the ending to know our place in the journey. You see, the ending of Avengers wasn’t ruined for me because I discovered via the trailer that Iron Man would destroy the aliens. I didn’t know he would going into the film. Rather, the ending was ruined for me because I knew The Hulk would catch him. I didn’t know “what” would happen, but I did know “how” and “to whom,” which spoils far more than knowing the rough plot outline — even than knowing the Sparknotes version — ever could. Knowing Hulk will catch him takes all of the tension out of Iron Man’s sacrifice. And if you hadn’t figured that out and haven’t seen it, for that spoiler I fully apologize.
The Medievalists understood this. The various tales of Arthur all agree that Camelot fails and Arthur suffers. In some, Arthur dies. In others, he loses his wife and best friend. In one fascinating version Lancelot is the King of the Fae. Guinevere the Queen of the Fae. Therefore Arthur’s union and his vision of Camelot work for the law of men but against the laws of the Fae. Camelot must fail because his ideal does not match up to the forms of the universe. We’ve all encountered at least one self-obsessed leader whose most compelling vision is both a lie and an act of piracy.
All of the endings to all of those Camelot stories would be spoiled in one sense because the audience always knew that Camelot failed. It’s like trying to tell a story in which the Titanic does not sink: to do so would be an act of sci fi and the exception — that it stays afloat — would simply prove the rule. But how and why and for whom it sinks changes the Titanic for us. And how and why and for whom Camelot fails changed everything for the people of that time and they spoiled the ending gladly in order to preserve the beginning. Knowing where they headed, they enjoyed the journey far more than we ever could. When I first wrote this, I knew I was headed to New Haven at the start of February for the launch party of the new issue of The New Haven Review to which I contributed a short story. How I would get there and what obstacles I would encounter remained a mystery. I ruined the ending to preserve the story and in fact the beginning surprised me for I left with a documentary filmmaker I just met, one who might hire me to go to Alaska.
Didn’t expect that.
Did expect to arrive at New Haven’s Institute Library.
The sort of awakening described by some historians as The Renaissance (though I agree with the historians who disbelieve in the existence of such a period) was not so much an awakening as a rebirth, a phoenix which had to be ruined in order to be remade. It was in the embers of the monasteries that Aristotle was preserved, because the end of the monasteries was always to preserve the highest and best and truest and that meant first and foremost preserving that queen of the schools: philosophy and theology. It was in the warm ashes of Assisi that man learned to love nature not as his mother but as surely as his sister and to call that bright bulb in the midnight sky neither “the moon” nor “Lady Goddess Luna,” neither a name of indignity nor a name of worship, but rather Sister Moon. You could say Assisi ruined the chief end of creation in order to let men rediscover its beginning in a Creator. And in the same way, it may well have fatally disturbed those end-spoiling naturalists of The Renaissance had they known that their ideological ancestors would ruin the beginning of their era by describing their naturalism with a word that means “born again.” Which is another way of saying that the start of spoiled endings itself needed a spoiler alert.
As authors of fiction, we’re readers of fiction, yes? Hopefully the best kind: those who draw on fiction in order to first imitate the greats and, hopefully, become great ourselves. That in mind, what do you think would happen if the moment you finished a great book, you immediately went back to the first chapter and read how they set it up? How would spoilers change your view of a great beginning? And would that make it easier to imitate the great stories?
[coffee]
Lancelot Schaubert has sold his written work to markets like The New Haven Review, McSweeney’s, The Poet’s Market, Writer’s Digest (books and magazine), Poker Pro, Encounter, The Misty Review and many other similar markets. He reinvented the photonovel through Cold Brewed and was commissioned by the Missouri Tourism Board to create a second photonovel — The Joplin Undercurrent — that both fictionalizes and enchants the history and culture of Joplin, Missouri.
Getting on my soapbox here: I followed the link to the piece about youngsters and others not knowing the Titanic was real. That information was appalling enough, but I was stopped cold by the caption under a photo of the real Titanic, which stated that “Most historians” agree the ship was real and the disaster actually happened.
“Most historians”? This from the Daily Mail? Do historians exist who are, so to speak, Titanic deniers? If so, they can’t possibly be historians, just empty-headed bloviators. Oh, Daily Mail, what kind of journalists are you? Or who writes your captions?
Now I’ll get back to reading the rest of this promising post and comment later on its actual substance.
Exactly. This is part of the consequence of worrying about spoilers: ignorance.
The folks who lived in Medieval times would learn a thing in outline, memorize the outline, then reread it and recite it.
Spoilers?
Yes.
But when one of that school of thought can finish a quote from any book you pull off their personal shelf as Lewis was reported to have done, it’s pretty hard to argue with it.
I’ll let you finish.
I love the idea of going back to beginning to see how the ending was set up. Now on my reading to-do list.
Come back and let me know how it goes, Densie.
Lance, as a re-reader of favorite books, you are singing my song. No book has ever been spoiled for me by knowing the ending. In fact, it adds to the enjoyment, just like with music. And when I’ve read a particularly good one, I immediately go back to the beginning to see how everything was set up. Thanks for this post.
Exactly, Vijaya! I think of superfans of Rowling and Austen and Dickens and Shakespeare — especially PhDs in each — who read and reread and reread and always find a deeper layer.
Only a culture starved for wonder would care about spoilers. In eras filled with wonder like the Middle Ages — in eras that understood, metaphysically, that forces like gravity must be contingent upon some higher first principle — they loved a good spoiler. They loved it because seeing Quidditch with new eyes and deeper reflection, seeing Noah (from The Notebook) and his poetry with fresh insight, reencountering John Cleever or Jason Bourne at a different stage in life would teach them something new and deeper about ultimate reality.
For the same reason, Opera attendees still love good spoilers. They don’t assume that they’ve “seen it all.” They assume that they haven’t even plunged the depths of the first thing they ever saw, let alone the second, the third… It’s a humble, teachable posture that knows how to reencounter even the kitchen table and the ingrown toenail with wonder.
Saying this as the guy who just now — at thirty — got his wisdom teeth taken out. I’m pretty swollen and in a FANTASTIC amount of pain (though on the plus side, I’m available for comments more than normal, so here we are). Anyways, I’ve done dental work before, but this is something entirely different and fresh. There’s wonder in the pain, even though I knew what was coming. There’s also wonder in having oxycodone for the pain again (for good reason, of course, and in moderation).
I guess you could say the reason I don’t care about spoilers is precisely because grass still surprises me even after all these years. So does rain.
As an aside: it makes me wonder if my parents got a divorce precisely because they couldn’t truly imagine themselves keeping that appointment they made on their wedding day — “till death.” It makes me wonder: what if they had truly believed in the infinite depth of the soul?
What if they had truly believed that they could never plunge the depths of one another’s quirks and moods, habits and addictions, glories and failures?
The spoiler of “till death” may well have been the best part.
“Only a culture starved for wonder would care about spoilers.” This. You’ve retained your child-like wonder even with the extraction of wisdom teeth :) Never lose it. I think this is why I love writing for children best. And you have such good thoughts about marriage–it has to be till death do us part because two flesh really do become one. We can bear fruit in a child, another soul for all eternity.
Congratulations too, on the acceptance at NHR!!!
I’m reminded of the article On Chasing After One’s Hat which taught us that “an inconvenience rightly considered is an adventure; an adventure wrongly considered is an inconvenience.”
Wisdom teeth: what an adventure. Particularly with a CPAP! My god! I’ll never have a chance to navigate a night of sleep like that again.
Honestly, my goal is to help adults reclaim The Fae in their lives — how do you get jaded New Yorkers to believe, once more, “they all lived happily ever after” ?
Thanks so much!
Lance, thank you for that link. Such a delight! I can’t stop smiling about “A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.”
And the answer to your question is to live it– happily ever after.
My pleasure. He’s a master without a masterpiece — every one of his works delights me as much as that one.
Good call.
Shout out to the New Haven Review!
Tales told in reverse, retellings, alternate history…we long to undo the story, to make it come out differently. Why? Perhaps because conflict hurts, and if it hurts enough it never feels fully resolved.
Endings don’t always end the feelings.
On the other hand, we journey in the hope of arriving. In story terms, we hope everything will–finally–come out okay. What disappoints me is when in a novel I never doubt that it will. A sense of genuine suspense is a rare thing.
So what does all this mean in terms of writing a story? It means that the journey ought to feel like the destination is impossible to reach. It means that conflict ought to be so great that ending it still leaves us rewriting in our minds.
Thus, in a way, for writers endings are irrelevant. Getting comfortable with discomfort is the task. Big trouble means big engagement. Spoilers will never spoil a novel written that way.
Thoughtful post, Lance. How’re you doing? Been a while.
Yeah man — they’re great people. Best launch party I’ve been to, I think. And New Haven was a fascinating town — both good and bad.
That’s true, we definitely do that. Perhaps we try to rewrite the stories others tell because we disagree with the “final and irreversible change” their protagonist went through. I can see myself, for instance, rewriting swaths of Game of Thrones precisely because the book only pulls from the bad parts of history’s War of the Roses and ignores all of the great strides in our hope and humanity made that century. Dante, for instance, repurposed Virgil for his own philosophy but did it autobiographically: he made it both more and less personal.
Yeah, that happened to me recently with Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep. The book was great, but I never really doubted that the good guys would win and the bad guys would pay dearly. And that made it weaker than some of King’s other work. On the other hand, I went into the movie theater KNOWING the ending of IT and yet I didn’t know the journey and to make me doubt — seriously doubt — that spoiler in the theaters this fall was a work of genius.
Which is what you’re saying: to make a reader think that said spoiled ending is impossible. Romeo and Juliet would NEVER, at first blush, seem like the kind of story where two teenagers commit suicide. And yet it is.
It’s no wonder why According to research by UC San Diego psychology professor Nicholas Christenfeld, spoilers don’t ruin a story: They make you enjoy it even more.