He read ahead just to spoil it for him.note
"Fans, as Hollywood Hogan walks away and you look at this 40,000 plus on hand, if you're even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, fans, do not, because we understand that Mick Foley, who wrestled here one time as Cactus Jack, is going to win their world title. Ha! That's gonna put some butts in the seats, heh."
Few people enjoy having twists in a story they're interested in ruined for them. So naturally, it serves as a good way to cause someone grief.
When a person feels like the somebody is very immersed to that book or movie, or wants to upset somebody, be it as a form of revenge or sheerly for their own amusement, they'll spoil a moment from a work that they know their target wants to experience for themselves. This is often done as a form of petty revenge when they feel as though they've been wronged. In the worst-case scenario, the character will give spoilers out loud to everyone in the theater.
This prank spans back to the era of movie ushers where an Unsatisfiable Customer kept demanding to be seated somewhere else, and once they were finally content with their seat, the usher whispered the movie's big twist in the customer's ear before leaving.
A slightly more benign version of this is to give fake spoilers for equal troll factor.
Subtrope of Spoiler.
No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Advertising
- The Mucinex expectorant runs ads featuring humanoid mucus blobs that regularly inconvenience people by making them cough throughout their everyday activities. In one ad, a mucus man is making a woman cough during a movie. When the mucus man is being escorted out by security after the woman takes the Mucinex, he vindictively spoils the ending of the movie, eliciting annoyed groans from the theater audience.
Anime and Manga
- Weaponized in Naruto. After the Time Skip, Naruto and Sakura have a sparring match with their teacher Kakashi, where the victory condition is managing to steal a pair of bells off his belt. At first, Kakashi is winning thanks to his Sharingan, which lets him perfectly read their movements. However, Naruto gets the idea of exploiting Kakashi's weakness: his love of the Make-Out series of books. Due to training under Jiraiya, the author of these novels, he knows the plot of the still-unreleased Make-Out Tactics, so he distracts Kakashi by threatening to spoil the book's ending. Unfortunately for Kakashi, covering his ears isn't enough, since his Sharingan's perfect vision also means he can still read his lips, forcing him to close his eyes to avoid having the book spoiled, which allows Naruto and Sakura to grab the bells and win the fight.
Asian Animation
- Banzi's Secret Diary: In episode 45, Eungsim spoils a plot twist in a mystery book series for Namnam and Banzi, stating that the killer was the actor wearing glasses. Namnam takes this very poorly, and she and Eungsim renounce their friendship afterwards.
Comic Books
- Deadpool: In one issue, Deadpool recalls how he went to buy a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after avoiding newspapers and the internet to keep away from spoilers. Unfortunately, a car drives by where the man inside shouts "Snape kills Dumbledore" to everyone at the bookstore. In the present day, Deadpool breaks the nose of the man who spoiled the book for him.
- Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen (2019): Part of the story involves Jimmy Faking the Dead after an assassination attempt and going undercover as mean internet prankster "Timmy Olsen". One of these pranks is driving by a theater and yelling to the patrons that Manhunter is the traitor of Event Leviathan or, in the collected version, that Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton.
Comic Strips
- One FoxTrot strip has Jason cover himself in pages containing spoilers from popular books all for the purpose of trolling people who haven't finished those books as a Halloween costume.
- In one Peanuts strip, Linus watches Citizen Kane for the first time. When he tells Lucy how interested he is in the film, she bluntly tells him what "Rosebud" is and walks away. Linus freaks out.
Films
- Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins. During an argument with Daphne, Fred decides to get back at her by telling her the ending of the mystery novel she was reading. This not only upsets Daphne, but Velma as well as she wanted to read the book when Daphne was done with it.
Live Action TV
- The Big Bang Theory: Leonard is reading the Harry Potter books for the first time, and has somehow managed to dodge all spoilers... until, upon finding out he's started Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Sheldon thoughtlessly blurts out that Dumbledore dies in that one. Leonard is furious, and the ensuing argument ends with Sheldon throwing salt on the wound by revealing that Dobby dies in the last book.
- Cheers: In "A Tale of Two Cuties", Frasier is fed up with the guys spoiling the endings to books he's been reading, so he spoils the endings of Citizen Kane, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Empire Strikes Back.
- Community: In "Analysis of Cork-Based Networking", Abed deliberately spoils a major event of a Game of Thrones-esque TV series for Britta due to an argument they were having over it. Fueled by vengeance, Britta buys and reads every novel that the series is based on in order to spoil Abed. Abed dodges every attempt Britta makes to spoil him until Britta hires a deaf girl to bond with Abed, who promptly spoils a major event of the latest book to Abed through sign language. Abed cuts Britta's gloating quite short by telling her that her method was too cruel and walks away from the girl that he had come to see as an actual friend until Britta sprung her trick.
Abed: (to Britta) I'm devastated. (walks away dejected)
- Dead Ringers had its version of Greg Dyke (director-general of the BBC) respond to losing his bid to adapt Agatha Christie's novels, and ITV getting the deal instead, by reading out the ending of every one of them on TV.
- Friends: In "The One Where Monica and Richard Are Just Friends", when Joey accidentally spoils a major part of The Shining for Rachel, she retaliates by deliberately spoiling a plot twist in Little Women. Joey tries to one up her by revealing what happens to Jack, only for Rachel to completely devastate him by saying Beth dies. Chandler and Ross encourage Rachel to say that's not true, so as not to ruin the book for Joey (at least until he finally gets to that part of the book).
- Jessie: In "Trouble with Tessie", Luke and Ravi recorded an MMA fight that they want to view in the screening room, and have painstakingly avoided spoilers all day. Emma wanted to watch a show of her own with Bertram in there but were forced by the two boys to interrupt their viewing so they can view the match. She retaliated by looking up online the outcome of the match and read it aloud to them before they could watch it. Ravi does a Big "NO!" and Luke tried to pounce on her, but Bertram held him back.
- Hangin' with Mr. Cooper: In "Piano Lesson", Robin starts feeling left out when Mark and Vanessa, who are normally at each other's throats, start hanging out more. When Mark and Vanessa plan to see Psycho, Robin spitefully reveals the twist that Norman's mother is actually his alter ego.
- In Henry Danger, there's a villain fittingly called The Spoiler who spoils events from shows and movies before they are even released.
- In an episode of Hill Street Blues, Renko had his VCR record a game while he was on duty, then spent the entire episode deliberately avoiding any news broadcast that might tell him the outcome, and warning all his friends not to tell him. He was in court with a man he'd arrested, and at the end of the scene the suspect spitefully asked the judge what the outcome of the game was. Renko gave a Big "NO!", the judge responded with a Big "YES!" and revealed the outcome of the game. The suspect smirked as Renko groaned in dismay.
- How I Met Your Mother: In "The Fortress," Marshall keeps trying to watch his new favorite British drama, Woodworthy Manor, with Lily, but she spends so much time at work, he ends up caving and watching the new episodes with Ted (which is framed as akin to infidelity). When Marshall pretends Ted is his husband at an open house to call Lily's attention to how little she's been home, Marshall spoils a plot point from the new episode just to spite her. After Ted abandons Marshall to make out with a girl at the open house, Marshall spoils a plot point from the new episode to both Lily and Ted, revealing he watched the new episode without either of them.
- iCarly: In "iGive Away a Car", two furniture movers Spencer hired triple the usual price because Spencer made them miss a meeting of their book club. When Spencer reveals that he doesn't have enough money, they take the couch back to the storage. As they're leaving, Spencer yells out the ending of the book for them, before locking the door so they can't attack him.
- Done unwillingly in Kenny vs. Spenny. As punishment for losing the show's first competition, Spenny is forced to stand in front of a cinema and reveal the ending of Unbreakable to people who had just bought the tickets. At least one understandably enraged moviegoer responds by angrily shoving Spenny.
- Scrubs:
- In "My Hypocritical Oath", after Dr. Cox misses a basketball game between the Lakers and Heat, Kelso allows Cox to watch a recording of it on Kelso's VCR. After spending a whole day avoiding any possible details of the game, when Cox finally sits down and watches it, Kelso reveals to have taped himself over the beginning of the tape, telling Cox the winning team and the score, getting back at Cox for messing with his treadmill earlier in the episode.
- Earlier in the same episode, Cox spoils The Sixth Sense for The Janitor as he was watching it due to The Janitor leaving his mop bucket around and Cox tripping over it. In turn, Janitor threatens to spoil the basketball game for Cox, so Cox bribes him out of it.
- Weaponized by Carla in "My Number One Doctor". In order to get Kelso to actually listen to her gossip about The Janitor having a girlfriend, she subtly threatens to let Kelso know whether or not Harry lives or dies in the end of Deathly Hallows.
- In "My Hypocritical Oath", after Dr. Cox misses a basketball game between the Lakers and Heat, Kelso allows Cox to watch a recording of it on Kelso's VCR. After spending a whole day avoiding any possible details of the game, when Cox finally sits down and watches it, Kelso reveals to have taped himself over the beginning of the tape, telling Cox the winning team and the score, getting back at Cox for messing with his treadmill earlier in the episode.
- Victorious: In one episode, Tori tells the entire class not to tell her any details of the results of who won the season finale of a reality show she likes since she missed the finale. Because of how big a deal she made about it, Jade tells Tori the winner for fun.
Professional Wrestling
- This trope backfired in a spectacular way for WCW during the Monday Night Wars. Its competition's own show was pre-taped, and aired a few weeks later. Meanwhile, WCW's own NITRO, also running on Mondays, was a live show, which meant they could spoil any outcome of any fight of their opponent so their audience would pick them instead. The first Nitro of 1999 ran live from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta a week after the tapings for WWE's first Raw of the year (December 29, 1998), in front of over 40.000 people. At the end of the first hour, the show's host, Tony Schiavone, was ordered to state to the camera that "(...) if you're even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, do not, because we understand that Mick Foley (...) is going to win their world title. Ha! That's gonna put some butts in the seats, heh.". What happened was that half a million watchers of NITRO instantly switched to Raw in order to see Foley, a beloved babyface, winning the big one. Meanwhile, what Nitro had to offer was... the Fingerpoke Of Doom. WCW would never recover from this series of events, and the rest is history.
Visual Novels
- Played for Drama in Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. When Shuichi has to lie in order to keep things moving in the fourth trial, Kokichi is enraged and promptly reveals the trial's culprit. As he puts it, if he can't win the game, then he's going to make it boring for everyone else. Unlike Kokichi's usual behavior, he isn't messing around.
- The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog: Knuckles mentions that once Espio speed-read through a book he was reading just to spoil the ending for him.
Webcomics
- Wondermark: In "321: The Failure of an Entrepreneur"
, a man walks up to a line of Harry Potter fans, apparently lined up to purchase Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and threatens to tell them all how the book ends unless each person pays him a dollar. His attempted blackmail fails because everyone else has already read the book. They aren't lined up to purchase Deathly Hallows; they're lined up to see a rock that J.K. Rowling touched, because they're that desperate for new Harry Potter content.
- In The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, one of Wonderella's foes is The Mad Spoiler, who just uses grandiose supervillain schemes to ruin the endings of books and movies.
Web Video
- danisnotonfire: In one of Dan's videos, he talks about his extreme aversion to spoilers in general, and suspects it's probably linked to an incident when he was in school. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had just come out and he and all his classmates were reading as quickly as they could. Until one kid, Ahmed, who had finished earlier than most, walked into class and shouted, "DUMBLEDORE DIES ON PAGE 556!" for a laugh. As Dan points out, this is quite possibly the single biggest spoiler in the entire franchise, so needless to say, people were not amused.
Dan: If the class was previously united by their love for this book, they were now united by a thirst for murderous revenge. There were compasses thrown, tables flipped, every name under the sun shouted, and our teacher... honestly didn't seem that compelled to stop it, and Ahmed ended up even less popular than me.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series: Yami defeats one of Marik's goons (a Jigsaw parody) by spoiling as many movies as he can.
Yami: I see. Then the only way to defeat you is to spoil every plot twist in existence, thereby ridding the general public of any desire to see your convoluted mess of a movie series!
Arkana: You wouldn't dare!
Yami: Wanna bet? SNAPE KILLS DU—
(many spoilers later)
Yami: ...Nicole Kidman is a ghost, and Rosebud is the sled!
Arkana: No! He's spoiling all the best plot twists!
Western Animation
- 6teen:
- In "Deck the Mall" after the group is forced to leave a movie a theater due to causing several noise complaints, Nikki briefly comes back to spoil the ending for the entire theater before avoiding being pelted by food from the angry movie watchers.
- In "Major Unfaithfulness", the video store where Jude and Wyatt work is bought by Taj Mahome Video; and the new, stricter policies soon start driving the duo up the wall. In a desperate attempt to make the company lose interest on their store, the boys deliberately misbehave around customers, which includes Wyatt blabbing about the movies' endings before the shoppers have the chance to make the purchase.
- An episode of Dragon Hunters crosses this with Interrogation by Vandalism: To get someone to talk, the villain grabs the mystery novel they were reading and starts reading the final chapter aloud.
- Family Guy: In the episode "Screwed the Pooch", one of the Cutaway Gag jokes involves Peter spoiling a couple watching Citizen Kane by taping over the movie and shouting the big twist of the movie. It got him banned from the video store, as Brian justified on court of why he bought movies with Pauly Shore.
Peter: "It's his sled. It was his sled from when he was a kid. There, I just saved you two long, boobless hours."
- League of Super Evil: The episode "At the Movies" has L.O.S.E. going to the theater to watch a new movie. Antics eventually lead to Voltar attempting to retrieve the movie before it starts and watch it himself so he can spoil the ending for everyone. The theatre manager catches Voltar before he has a chance to do so and ends up kicking him out of the building.
- In the Lilo & Stitch: The Series episode "Nosy", the titular experiment is first introduced standing outside a movie theater, waiting for someone to buy tickets and then telling them the ending of the movie they were going to watch.
- The Looney Tunes Show: Daffy is forced to leave a theater due to the crying from a baby he's looking after. Daffy, who's already seen the movie, yells out the Downer Ending of the movie for everyone else in the theater.
- In a flashback scene in the Martha Speaks episode, "The Martha Code", Alice reads a book about a pig, and just as she about to reach the end, her older brother Ronald spoils it by saying, "The spider dies."
- Regular Show: In "Operation: Hear No Evil", Benson forces Mordecai and Rigby to vacuum the floor of the house in their space dome on the day of the finale of Laser Hunters, a show they had gotten into and binged watched, is set to air. Eileen agrees to tape it for them and the duo are all set to do the chore. But Muscle Man nearly spoils the ending for them, forcing them to abandon the task and get back to their TV to see it for themselves. When Benson finds out, he has Muscle Man tell him the ending of the show, then tracks down the pair intending to tell them the ending of the series as punishment. However, Mordecai and Rigby have a tape of the last scene of the final episode of Benson's favorite show, and threaten to spoil that for him unless he relents.
- The Simpsons:
- In "The Bob Next Door", Sideshow Bob has Bart once again held captive in his latest plan to murder him. After explaining his plan to kill him on top the Five Corners landmark, Bob quotes the biggest spoiler that takes placenote in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, unaware that Bart hasn't reached that far into the series.
Sideshow Bob: I can stand in one state, fire a gun in the second state, the bullet will travel through the third, hitting you in the fourth, so you'll fall down dead in the fifth! No single act is against any law, but their sum total is the greatest murder since Snape killed Dumbledore!
Bart: Oh, I haven't gotten to that part yet!
Sideshow Bob: It's a four year old book.
Bart: I'm a slow reader.
Sideshow Bob: A fitting epitaph.
(Bart stares blankly and shrugs in confusion)
Sideshow Bob: Ugh. That means last words!
Bart: Are you here to teach me or to kill me? - In "Beware My Cheating Bart", Homer becomes entertained by a Lost-parody show he watched on the treadmill and keeps blowing an airhorn at anyone who tries to spoil it. When Marge can't stand Homer's addiction to the show anymore, she begrudgingly spoils the ending to several episodes of it, upsetting Homer.
- In "Bart The Bad Guy", Bart secretly watches online the upcoming sequel to an Avengers: Infinity War-parody movie before it airs. Since everyone in Springfield is looking forward to watching it, Bart takes advantage of his knowledge of what happens next to blackmail people to give him everything he wants, threatening to spoil the movie if they don't.
- In "The Bob Next Door", Sideshow Bob has Bart once again held captive in his latest plan to murder him. After explaining his plan to kill him on top the Five Corners landmark, Bob quotes the biggest spoiler that takes placenote in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, unaware that Bart hasn't reached that far into the series.
- WordGirl: In the episode "Princess Triana and the Ogre of Castlebum," Tobey steals the titular book on the night of its release and threatens to reveal the ending to WordGirl, a big fan of the series, if she tries to stop him.
- Yin Yang Yo! has an interesting example where it's done to show off rather than to upset anybody. Yang, who's been granted incredible intelligence from magical glasses, pieces together and reveals every twist of the mystery movie in a theater as the movie is still playing, ruining the experience for others.
