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You Should Know This Already
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Congratulations! After plenty of Hype Aversion and general laziness, you finally decided to check out that series everyone's talking about. You go to the DVD store, buy the first season, set up your DVD player, turn on the TV, crack open the DVD case and...
... wait a minute. Isn't that a commercial for the latest season? Why is the first season's ruthless and merciless Big Bad being all chummy-chummy with the main protagonists? You mean he's going to turn good?!
Feeling annoyed that a major event has just been spoiled for you? Irritated? Enraged? Well, too bad! You Should Know This Already.
The spoilers under this trope are big ones that stop being spoilers for fans due to the franchise treating them as common knowledge by then. Commercials and trailers of the franchise will blare them without comment! Previews and reviews of the latest installment will mention them as an aside! Covers and synopses will display them as minor details! Dutiful posters of forums with anti-spoilers policies will type these out as part of their topic title, while their avatars and signatures hint details you really didn't want to know yet! These are usually justified since it's a little hard to hide the fact that say... The Dragon turned good if they're The Lancer of the next Season, or worse still, The Hero. Besides, why hide things that practically every fan of your franchise already knows?
Well, because "practically every fan" is never as large a category as they seem to think. There's always the possibility that someone could find something a bit later than others, or could simply not have gotten around to reading/watching/playing it until later, which is the entire reason spoiler warnings exist.
There's also the fact that due to differences in TV technology, DVDs are usually released in Japan and North America first, and the rest of the world some time later. This problem also applies to video games, with the result that American fans casually discuss major, surprising plot twists before the game is even released in Europe or Australia.
Sometimes hard to avoid in shows that feature major changes in setting and cast line-up that hinge on major plot twists in previous seasons. The Season 1 Big Bad is a major player on the good guys' side in Season 4 — how exactly are you going to hide that in promos just for the sake of not spoiling the people who haven't watched Season 3 yet?
Related to It Was His Sled, only it's possible that Average Joe has not heard of these spoilers if his interests don't coincide with the franchise. Compare and contrast Trailers Always Spoil, which spoils things before the fans even get their hands on the product, as well as Spoiler Opening. Arguably a subset of All There Is To Know About The Crying Game. Not to be confused with As You Know.
Obviously, SPOILERS AHOY, but... ya know, You Should Know This Already
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- School Days: Nowadays, people only start watching it knowing that Sekai ends up killing the male lead and Kotonoha ends up killing Sekai and carrying the male lead's dead, rotting head onto a yacht in a Downer Ending.
- Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Different spoilers for different series, most of these are spoiled if you bother to read the series that come after them.
- Part 1: Jonathan Joestar dies and takes Dio's head with him, and Will Zeppelli dies to save Jonathan early on.
- Part 2: Joseph survives his fight with Cars, but Caeser dies fighting Wham.
- Part 3: Dio survived the events of Part 1 by taking Jonathan's body (which retroactively spoils the end of Part 1) and gains a stand that can stop time. Anybody familiar with the Memetic Mutation surrounding Dio knows about his stand stopping time, but in the series proper, none of the heroes knew until they actually fought him, with Kakyoin sacrificing himself to give the rest of them a clue.
- In Afro Samurai, Kuma being Afro's childhood friend, Jinno is treated as this, not only in the second movie, Resurrection, but even on the season one website. Then again, It's not a particularly big spoiler, since even when broadcast in episode rather than movie format, it's revealed the same episode Kuma is.
- Not many people may remember that Chibi-Usa being the daughter of Sailor Moon was once a late second-season revelation. Once she became Sailor Chibi-Moon, it was everywhere.
- Same with Usagi being the Moon Princess in the first season. The manga and live action version play Sailor Venus up as the real princess until the reveal by having her pretend to be her to keep Usagi safe until she regains her memories of her past life. The anime goes through several candidates (Princess Dia, Rei and Minako) before the reveal. Immediately after said reveal, the spoiler went public on covers and merchandise.
- Considering her current role as The Lancer, not to mention the insane amount of official and fanmade art depicting both her and The Hero attached by the hip, it will be very surprising indeed if anyone who has even heard of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha doesn't know that Fate pulls a Heel Face Turn. Hayate and the Wolkenritter get this, too, to a lesser extent — see the Megami cover at the top of the page.
- Given their prominent placement in art for StrikerS Sound Stage X and ViVid, Cinque, Nove, Dieci and Wendi's Heel Face Turn, as well as Vivio's true nature, are headed toward this.
- Though Fuuma's Face Heel Turn in X1999 is treated as a surprise when it happens, official art and the opening of the anime series explicitly show him locked in combat with the main character, so whether any viewers of the anime were actually shocked by this revelation is debatable. The suspicious absence of Kotori in other art also foreshadows the Wham Episode pretty heavily to the point that it's fairly easy to guess what's going to happen to her (the Waif Prophet even all but says it at several points).
- This editor knew nothing of X before viewing it and wasn't paying particularly close attention to the montage of future events in episode zero (which was one giant spoiler), and was quite surprised that Kamui was the hero and Fuuma the villain rather than vice versa.
- This editor got a lot of Japanese practice reading the manga while it was coming out (Leading to a tendency, to this day, to mutter things like "the future... is not yet decided.") I assure you, it was a surprise at the time.
- Saori being the avatar of Athena in Saint Seiya is revealed about mid way through the first season, and after that it's treated this way in official art and other media.
- In the Spanish opening, they reveal the existence of the other Gold Cloths and the redesigned Sagittarius gold cloth, all of which is supposed to be a secret (even from most of the characters) till episode 30.
- This editor was spoiled about the death of Maes Hughes in Fullmetal Alchemist by an ad for the Collectible Card Game.
- This editor thankfully already knew about that event, but was still appalled to see the packaging for the "Death of a Hero" set with the character's grave front and center, the name easily readable.
- Any attempt to summarize the plot of The Movie will spoil the ending of the first anime series; Ed gets transported to our world while saving Al, and Al is trying to reunite with him.
- Depending on how far you’ve gotten in the series, which incarnation it is, and how suspicious/trusting you have been, you may or may not be surprised that the Führer is BAD and Mustang and his entourage are basically good people, but these get to be a given pretty much ever after they are revealed.
- Sasuke leaves Konoha in Naruto. Even my kid nephew who's only seen up to episode 20 knows that. He actually said, "But that sad one leaves... You do know that, right?" when I said he'd make an okay Chunin during the Zabuza arc.
- Also, the Third Hokage dies, Gaara and Naruto become friends, and Asuma and Kurenai were really on a date.
- Speaking of Asuma, does his death qualify yet? It should be, considering it's now mentioned several times up on the naruto.com website on the episode summaries.
- In many cases, even though Jiraiya hasn't died in the anime yet (yes he has), his death is frequently mentioned on this site without spoiler tags.
- Tsunade's becoming Hokage is another one, as she is Hokage in nearly all the works that do not follow the series plotline. Naruto being the Fourth Hokage's son is another one that most people have heard of, although this is partly due to it being heavily speculated prior to being revealed.
- Go onto any site that features Naruto fan work (You Tube, Deviant Art, etc.), and click any work about Hinata or the Naruto/Hinata pairing. The comments are almost certain to mention Hinata confessing her love to Naruto and/or her
dying nearly being killed by Pain.
- Kabuto being a spy for the Sound Village and Orochimaru's Battle Butler is another major twist that is frequently spoiled, even by sources that do something as innocent as showing him with a Sound headband instead of a Leaf one.
- Tobi/Madara Uchiha is one so hard to discuss without spoiling that his page on the related wiki
 has a spoiler mark at the very top, which definitely won't keep you from seeing the image. It doesn't help that said wiki is utterly anal about listing everything under its proper name, even if it's a huge spoiler (for instance's the page on Yamato is titled "Tenzo", because even though he's always referred to as Yamato that's technically a codename so he's listed under his real name which is used a small number of times).
- In an interview about the dub of Naruto Shippuden (which as of this writing hasn't even premiered yet) Tara Platt (the voice of Temari in the dub) nonchalantly mentioned the death of one of her character's brothers which happens in Part 2/Shippuden, when talking about things fans have told her about. To make matters worse, the writer of the article felt the need to remove any doubt :which brother she was talking about adding the character's name in brackets.
- Sasori's true form has recently been shown fairly prominently in advertisements for Naruto video games, including the evidence that he is actually a human puppet.
- What about who Naruto's father is? (*cough*4th Hokage*cough*) That's even listed under The Untwist!
- Try to find a piece of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch merchandise with evil, black-haired, end-the-world-and-kill-my-ex Sara on it. Even though she spends most of the series this way, you won't succeed. Anything with her on it proudly displays the orange-haired, reformed Sara of the end of the first season. I suppose a good princess is more marketable than a villain, but seriously, she's on the team for an episode and a half before she dies anyway, so what's the point?
- The cover for the Mai-HiME Vol. 6 DVD shows Shizuru and Natsuki standing back-to-back, facing away from each other with sad expressions on their faces. A few episodes into the disc, Shizuru reveals herself as the last HiME and turns evil, and Natsuki is eventually forced to fight her.
- In Germany this cover was used for Vol. 5 already, where there were practically no episodes focusing on these two.
- Death Note. You can't even talk about Near and Mello without accidentally spoiling the fact that Ryuzaki dies. (It's not completely impossible, but it requires rhetorical acrobatics that also require you to conveniently neglect to mention that they were raised to be L's successors.)
- Granted, anyone Genre Savvy could've guessed that Ryuzaki dies. Especially if you're reading the manga, since he's on every volume cover up to the one where he dies, where he's depicted upside-down.
- Then again, the manga volumes and DV Ds containing the part where he dies are conveinently able to allude to the event without explicitly describing it, even when Near and Mello make their debut before the end. Then again, most will notice that subsequent volumes tend to assume that the reader knows about L's death and his successors.
- Space Runaway Ideon ends with a Kill Em All. If you know about this series at all, you are either a Gundam geek, or were attracted to it by its director Yoshiyuki Tomino's Fan Nickname (which is, incidentally, "Kill Em All Tomino"). Or for its influence on Neon Genesis Evangelion, in which case you still would have reason to know about the ending....
- People in general, and This Wiki in particular, are so fond of using Suzumiya Haruhi's big Reveal about the title character's nature for fandom jokes that it's practically no longer a reveal. Check out, for example, the image captions on Suspiciously Apropos Music and Genki Girl (spoilers if you've managed to avoid it). Many people don't even consider it a spoiler.
- An ad for the books in Shonen Jump mentions the twist while explaining the premise of the series.
- In fact, watching the episodes in in-story chronological order (the order in which the episodes were released in America, naturally) turns half the anime series into You Should Know This Already.
- As for things that anyone would consider a spoiler, any merchandise with Asakura Ryouko on it tends to advertise her as an alien computer as well as a Yandere Knife Nut, and sometimes even Yuki's first Evil Counterpart.
- It's worth mentioning that both of these so-called "spoilers" are revealed in the FIRST volume of the manga adaptation. Second chapter, to boot.
- And good luck getting anyone who's not a fan of "Slice of Life" works to read a book about 5 kids in a school in Japan. Haruhi's nature is the serie's hook, and because of that much of the first novel is ruined, but most people wouldn't even start reading if they didn't already know. The trouble is trying to ignore spoilers for further books. I know there's 8 now, but even if you watch the Anime you only know most of 1-3 and the premise for 4, which people seem to LOVE to spoil.
- Recently, on this Wiki, and even on Fanfiction.net, the fact that Yuki Nagato was behind the plot of Disappearance is thrown left and right. It was totally her sled.
- Many of the Straw Hats' joining the crew in One Piece; the anime often assumes that the viewers have read the manga already and will not be surprised to see them as part of the crew in openings, endings or commercials. The first five Straw Hats are shown in the crew in the first opening and the first three are shown in the first manga volume (which ends when Luffy first meets Nami). Robin was shown in the crew in the third opening, despite it being twenty episodes before her Heel Face Turn. Brook was shown in ads for One Piece: Unlimited Cruise late in the Thriller Bark arc. The only true exceptions seem to be Franky and Chopper.
- Many of the villains' or the Straw Hats' other enemies being as such are surprises in the manga when they initially seem to be harmless characters, but are known by the time of the anime adaptation, especially Kuro, Tashigi, the Number Agents in Whiskey Peak (including Vivi, whose being revealed as The Mole puts her in a double You Should Know This Already), the four CP9 agents infiltrating the Galley-La company and Dr. Hogback, such as when they are shown in openings as villains.
- The Going Merry "dies" and is replaced by the Thousand Sunny.
- The 6th opening had nearly all of the Enies Lobby arc spoiled, and the music was so disliked by a majority of the fanbase (though one of my favorites) that it was replaced after 16 episodes. Most of the events it spoiled hadn't even happened when it was replaced.
- Code Geass: Lelouch become Emperor just to absorb all the hatred of the world. And then we have Zero Requiem.
- Shonen Jump fan art, as well as the fan art that some people draw for Viz's One Piece manga volumes is often based on parts of the story that had not been officially adapted into English at the time. One example is a piece of Bleach fan art showing Ulquiorra's Espada rank, something that is only revealed at the end of Ichigo's first fight with him in the Hueco Mundo arc.
- Vegeta and Trunks are shown as Super Saiyans in the third opening to Dragon Ball Z, which debuted one episode before Trunks had even appeared in the series. Likewise, Chichi and Goku as newlyweds appear in the fourth Dragon Ball ending, which debuted the same episode as the all-grown-up versions of the characters, but a good number of episodes before Chichi had been reintroduced.
- Not to mention the fact that Trunks is the son of Vegeta and Bulma.
- Don't forget, Goku dies, and he is brought back to life. Twice.
- In Bleach, Aizen is the Big Bad, and kidnaps Orihime in the Arrancar arc.
- Also: Yoruichi is a woman, Urahara used to be a Captain, Nel is the former 3rd Espada, and has an adult form.
- Okay, enough is enough. this troper has seen some bad examples before, such as spoiler-tagging Aizen followed by not using spoilers on Aizen's arrancar army, but seriously. I shouldn't have to remove spoilers on the You Should Know This Already page.
- Setsuna's Wing Pull in Mahou Sensei Negima was a surprising twist the first time it was revealed. Nowadays however, you'd likely be more surprised to learn that it was meant to be a surprise. As Asuna herself said, the wings are cool, thus, several pictures featuring Setsuna, like, say... the covers for some of the Video Game adaptations, depict her in all her spoilery winged glory.
- Heck, when Setsuna was first introduced, everybody suspected her of being a spy for the Kansai mages, until The Reveal that she was one of the good guys. Of course, that was in volume 4 of over 20 existing ones, so everybody knows now.
- Negima has a lot of this: Evangeline is an uberpowerful vampire, Takamichi is a famous mage, Chao is Negi's descendant, Asuna has Anti Magic and is a princess, etc. Just about anyone who sees these on this wiki (except maybe the 2nd half of the last one) then reads the manga will be surprised that these were supposed to be plot twists.
- Also, Kotarō does a Heel Face Turn.
- The biggest one is probably that Fate Averruncus is the Big Bad. Reading around this site one would think that this is common knowledge, despite the fact that he doesn't appear to be a major character until the 20th volume, his last previous appearance being in volume 6 as a henchman for that arc's antagonist.
- In a similar vein, it is not physically possible to mention Negima on this site without someone bringing up that it's a shōnen manga disguised as a harem comedy. One wonders what new readers to Negima who happen to be avid tropers will think about how long it takes to actually get to the shōnen.
- For clarification: it's mostly Love Hina-ish in the first two volumes. Volume 3 sees the first real fights starting up, with the first real shōnen arc going from volumes 4-6. It gets more action oriented from thereon finally cementing itself as a shōnen series with a Tournament Arc several volumes later, although it still retains plenty of evidence of it's Unwanted Harem roots, comedy, and Fanservice.
- We have, however, at least tried to restrict the identity of the School Festival arc's Big Bad to Spoiler territory.
- Heaven help you if you so much as Google Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann without having finished watching the series. This troper was trying to look up the episode schedule after seeing episode twelve, and promptly found out that there's a city named after Kamina later on in the series. Because of TV Tropes itself, he now knows that the robots get big enough to use galaxies as stepping stones and the existence of something called "Spiral Power". A lot of them aren't major plot events, but their impact is still somewhat buffered by knowing they would happen. Also, Kamina dies.
- It's almost impossible to mention Claire Stanfield of Baccano! without spoiling his extremely important role in the plot, as he spends much of the show pretending to be a nameless Red Shirt. But he's such a popular character that this site frequently lists his exploits without spoiler tags. It doesn't help that even his physical description is a massive spoiler, as newcomers will probably start immediately wondering why the series's resident Heroic Sociopath looks exactly like the Sacrificial Lamb...
- Axis Powers Hetalia is based on rather basic history, so it obviously will invoke this trope. The Axis Powers lose. But on the more personal levels for the characters, it's assumed that every fan has at least read the strip "America Cleans Out the Storage", which is a Tear Jerker in a comedy series.
- Lots of fans still treat the fact that there are two (actually, three) Syaorans in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle as a spoiler (or, alternatively, the fact that Watanuki from xxxHolic is a clone of Syaoran), even though both of them appeared on the cover together for a recent manga volume.
- The DVD case of Desert Punk shows what the main character looks like without his mask and the dub credits (though oddly not the credits for the Japanese cast) also spoil what his real name is by billing him as such, when we don't find out either until episode 3.
- The second season's trailers for Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni,spoiled a lot of the premise. Then again, you should know this already if you have played the sound novels or been around Higurashi fans.
- You should also know who Hanyuu is, most info about the characters, who the villain is, and Hinamizawa Syndrome.
- The manga is a better example. They show Hanyuu and Shion in omake before they appear, leading people who have never played the sound novels or watched the anime to wonder why Mion's hair is down (you could just think it's a fanservice omake thing, though) and who that girl with the horns is.
- Hey, at least all of the above waited until the spoiler had actually happened in the show. Not Fresh Pretty Cure. Setsuna Higashi/Eas defects from the evil Labyrinth organization, undergoes a Heel Face Turn and gains a new identity as the fourth Fresh Cure, Cure Passion. This development might have been a bit more more surprising if the merchandising department hadn't insisted on spoiling this twist left and right at least a month beforehand.
- Planetes: Due to the Evolving Credits, anyone who sees a late season version of the intro will be horrifically spoiled on 2 major characters who Face Heel Turn.
- Back in 1996, Van's wings in Vision Of Escaflowne were major spoilers. Nowadays, nearly half◊ of◊ the◊ official◊ art◊ show them, including the box set◊. That's right, you get spoiled just trying to buy the damn show.
- Manga Entertainment's website announcing Monster's broadcast in Sy Fy nonchalantly spoils in the very first sentence that Jonah, the kid Tenma saves in the second episode, is evil.
Comics
- A popular arc of Superman featured a warped and bizarre Metropolis in which the villainous Superman every night busted out and had to be brought back to jail by the resident superhero, Bizarro. The reason behind this sudden change and the entity responsible? The mystery was tightly kept during the original release, but the fact that the paperback collection was titled Emperor Joker ruined the big surprise.
- The second issue of Marvel's Thunderbolts comic had an retailer's incentive alternate cover that showed the team in their original Masters of Evil guises. This cover was also used as the cover of the first collected edition.
- Similar to the first example, the trade paperback for one Transformers story was called Transformers: Legacy of Unicron. This was a big deal when the comic was first published: the title was blanked in the table of contents.
- When Mary Jane first appeared in Spider-man, she was initially The Faceless, and the fact that she was a complete fox instead of just plain was a huge surprise to Peter Parker as well as his friends ("Face it, tiger; You just hit the jackpot"). Of course, now that the cat's out of the bag, it's virtually impossible to view this as a surprise thanks to her immense popularity as well as her countless depictions in the media.
- The trade paperback for Marvel 1602 has a foreword by a critic... I really should have known better than to read it. Although it doesn't quite spoil the ending it does a large part of the middle; namely, the death of Queen Elizabeth, and that the heroes end up in America.
- There's something about Neil Gaiman and spoileriffic forewords. Frank McConnell's foreword to the Sandman trade paperback "The Kindly Ones" actually features the line, "Dream dies at the end." Not only that, but McConnell is utterly unapologetic about spoiling it for people who haven't read the comic yet: "Sorry to bust your bubble, but this is a tragedy, or at least, as classically tragedy has been written in a long time, so you should know at the outset how it's going to end." Thanks, Frank, but if Neil Gaiman felt that way, he probably would have started with that scene and flashed back, or had a Greek chorus tell us how the arc would end, or DO ANYTHING BUT TELL THE STORY IN A LINEAR CHRONOLOGICAL FASHION.
- There is a clue in one of the earlier comics: Destiny looks in his book and sees an image of "Dream, clothed all in white and with white hair.".
- Watchmen Ozymandias is the Big Bad, and he implemented his evil plan Thirty Five Minutes Ago.
- The title of the first post-Civil War Captain America TPB? Captain America: The Death of Captain America. While yes, there was a huge media blitz about it when it happened, it kind of sucks for new readers, or people in other countries who didn't get that hype.
Fan Works
Films — Animation
- Trailers and merchandise for Shrek 2 and 3 both obviously and inevitably spoil what was a huge surprise in the first movie: Fiona turns into an ogre.
- The 2-disc DVD edition of Disney's Aladdin starts with several movie trailers before you reach the main DVD menu. Including the trailer for Aladdin: The Return of Jafar. Where he, you know, returns. As a genie.
- And Heaven forbid anyone watch the Aladdin TV show before seeing that Iago did a Heel Face Turn in The Return of Jafar. This troper remembers that the Disney Channel aired several episodes in April 1994 before the company's video department released that sequel in May, and thus he was somewhat perturbed for weeks about Iago "being all chummy-chummy" with the crew, perching harmlessly on Jasmine's shoulder, etc.
Films — Live Action
- Let's not forget Star Wars: it's hard to find anyone that doesn't know that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, even if they've never watched any of the movies.
- The VHS release of Star Wars opened with a trailer for the full trilogy on video, including the line "Is Darth Vader my father?" from Jedi, ensuring that even the most ignorant first-time viewers weren't surprised.
- Most people saw the original trilogy before the prequels, so a few key plot points were already ruined for them. The biggest ones were Anakin Skywalker turning to evil, Palpatine's secret identity as a Sith Lord, and, of course, knowing which characters survive long enough to be in the sequels.
- Palpatine wasn't actually named on film in the original trilogy, being referred to only as "Emperor". So, theoretically, if you never saw any of the action figures, comics, books or other non-movie material, or paid attention to the credits and realized it was the same actor in the prequels as in Return of the Jedi, you might not know. Until the last film came out, there was some discussion among Star Wars fans (who obviously would know) that Lucas might pull one out of the hat and reveal Sidious wasn't really Palpatine. He was.
- Not so theoretical. I did NOT catch that ahead of time, and did catch that as a surprise. A quick count did show one too many bad guys left alive for the start of III, but that extra one goes quickly at the start of III.
- Trailers for Episode III naturally gave away the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader as the main selling point for seeing the movie in the first place, and attempted to subvert the trope by teasing the audience into exactly how this transformation comes about. People who had been reading supplemental materials, however, knew it would happen in a Battle Amongst The Flames between Anakin and Obi-Wan.
- Since Anakin becoming Vader had been known since Episode 5, how could that possibly be considered a spoiler?
- The soundtrack CD for The Phantom Menace was released before the film. Two tracks were called Qui-Gon's Noble End and The High Council Meeting and Qui-Gon's Funeral.
- Lampshaded mercilessly by Ansem Retort Darth Maul, who was shown as being oblivious that Qui-Gon died, complaining to Marluxia that "some people haven't seen this movie yet." This is made more absurd when one considers that his introduction into the comic included whining about his fate in the end of the movie.
- The prequel movies all assume we know what a Sith is, despite the term never being explained at any point.
- Gandalf comes back in the second Lord of the Rings movie as shown by the trailers. Spoilers for some, but anyone who read the book would have known this.
- This was actually a strip in Real Life Comics. Greg talked about Gandalf coming back, and Dave, ever the Dork Boy, replied with "He comes back? Why'd you spoil it for me?!"
Greg: Geez, Dave, these books have been around for fifty years. Me telling you about it is like telling you Hamlet dies at the end of the story.
Dave: Hamlet dies?!
Greg: I take it back. You can't go with us until you spend some time at the library.
- This troper saw a trailer for the Return of the King video game in the cinema, and its release date was about a month before the film's. Two guys sitting in the next row lamented that it would give away the ending before they saw the movie. The ideas that a) they could wait to play the game or b) read the damn book first did not appear to cross their minds.
- Planet of the Apes ends with a Planet Of The Apes Ending. For those who still don't know this, the fact that the DVD covers have a massive Statue of Liberty in the background, should give you a pretty big hint.
- The Movie of Speed Racer hangs a lampshade that Racer X is Rex Racer, with the twist that he isn't Speed's brother except he still is, just he has had plastic surgery.
- In Titanic, the ship sinks at the end.
- This was hilariously addressed in a sketch of the Australian TV series Comedy Inc., where a guy was trying to pick a video to rent and was mad at his friend spoiling him that the Titanic sinks and that the Germans lost the Second World War.
- The movie La Bamba ends the same way that The Buddy Holly Story ends.
- I know that's a joke, but it's how they present the endings that are different. In The Buddy Holly Story Buddy and Co. fly off into the night, while a chroma-keyed titled says something like "They all died." But in La Bamba we're shown the scene of the crash, with the crushed plane (but not the crash itself), and Ritchie Valens' family's reaction to the news (which they hear over the radio).
- The final shot of Being There is often spoiled by reviewers, biographies and documentaries of Peter Sellers (as well as the 2004 biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers), and even TV promos (and the trailers for that biopic). What's really sad is that it's an unusually powerful Twist Ending in that it forces the viewer to rethink what they know about Chance The Gardener — as said at the Misaimed Fandom entry, perhaps the viewer WASN'T as privy to his actual nature as they thought... or was she? Plus, it's a sudden injection of sheer fantasy into what was a fairly realistic satire up to that moment. This troper adores the movie, but wishes she hadn't known about the shot before she first saw it. That said though, given the reasons it tends to be spoiled — it's the Crowning Moment Of Awesome for both the character and perhaps the actor (it was conceived as a response to how well the movie and his performance were working), as well as a starting point for discussions about the film — it's perhaps more justifiable than other examples of this trope.
- Heck, the shot is often used on the cover.
- This troper had just finished watching the original Japanese Ring and decided to check out the trailer on the DVD to see what it was like. The trailer essentially sums up the entire plot of the film while spoiling two or three shocker moments including the infamous TV-crawling scene. It doesn't help that the DVD trilogy boxset cover is a bad recreation of the aforementioned TV crawl.
- Because it's been in so many other Batman media anyway, it's impossible not to know that Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face. The only question in any of the series is how, and when. Still, there was an interview with Aaron Eckhart in the July/August 08 Men's Health. It lists his movie roles, including his turn in The Dark Knight as "Harvey Dent, a.k.a. Harvey Two-Face". Which kind of blew the surprise considering that nobody knew if he actually would become Two-Face during that film or not. Of course he did!
- Also something that might have thrown people by the Burton/Schumacher films: Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams in the first movie, and Tommy Lee Jones (as Two-Face) in the third. Lest you think that changing actors can be done subtly, Williams is Black and Jones is White.
- There are plenty of people who are going to be upset, but shouldn't be, about The Express's built-in Downer Ending: Ernie Davis died of leukemia two years after the film's signature Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Some of the current commercials Lampshade this (probably hoping to stave off such a reaction), but still...
- This troper saw a poster for Fight Club, that named the actors "Brad Norton" and "Edward Pitt", which highlights the identity confusion of the characters.
- Thanks to pretty much every movie and television show at the time and since parodying it, it's pretty hard not to know that Thelma and Louise has a Bolivian Army Ending with the titular ladies driving their car off a cliff.
- Yes, the movie Apollo 13 is based on a historical event, but no-one born after, say, 1975 had ever really heard of it before the film came out in 1995. But no-one thought to mention that to all the reviewers, reporters and newscasters (born before 1975, of course) who glibly gave away the "ending" before the movie even opened.
- Just because you didn't like reading about space exploration as a child doesn't mean no one else knew about it.
- This Troper remembers that roughly 100% of her friends and family born after 1975 had heard of Apollo 13. There's a difference between avoiding spoilers and catering to willful ignorance.
- You were probably shocked when people spoiled you for In the Shadow of the Moon by revealing that Apollo 17 was the last mission there to date, too.
- Psycho: While Hitchcock urged people not to give away the ending, this Troper doubts that there's a man, woman, or child left in the English-speaking world who doesn't know that "Mother" is actually Norman.
- Wrong. Probably because the movie's so damn old that the current generation (mine) has only vaguely heard of the movie's existence and knows almost nothing about it except for the iconic Shower Scene.
- Parodied in a Happy Days episode where Ralph tells the ending to Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham just as they're about to go see the film.
- This troper can confirm this. When we watched the movie in our (high school) film studies class last year, most people didn't know anything about the movie except for the shower scene, and the reveal of the mother's identity was a good surprise.
- This troper spent a VERY long time assuming that the Shower Scene was the LAST scene in the movie, and therefore thought that the plot was a heck of a lot simpler than it is. At the same time, I knew, and thought Everyone Should Know Already, that the killer was the guy who owned the hotel. I found out that the killer was "supposed to be" the guy's mother at the same time as I found out that most of the plot concerns the police investigation AFTER the Shower Scene.
- Interestingly, that was the exact point Hitchcock tried to make with his anti-spoiler precautions.
- Most of the marketing for the Watchmen movie falls under Trailers Always Spoil in that it's not very subtle about Veidt being the real villain. However, the bio for Rorschach on Facebook includes an audio clip of his journal, one of which has him flat out stating this fact. Commercials also reveal Rorschach's face, spoiling his identity for anyone who hadn't already read the graphic novel, or knew the character's actor.
- This Troper admits that he didn't see how a third X-Men movie could be made since Jean Grey died in the second. He was soon told what anyone who actually read the comics would know — that she would return as Phoenix.
- At this very moment, all throughout the world, there are people trying not to learn how Harry Potter, Twilight, and who knows what else ends, even though the books have been out for years. May the fandom gods bless your earplugs, eyepatches, and complete and utter ignorance of the very fandoms to which you belong.
- The trailers for the latter Harry Potter films obviously spoil the fact that Voldemort returned to power at some point. And the fifth film's trailer spoils the third film by portraying Sirius as a good guy. The soundtrack for the fifth film also spoils the fact that Sirius dies with a song titled Sirius Dies.
- As Ghostface put it: "You should know that the killer was Mrs. Voorhees, Jason never appeared until the sequel!"
- The Academy Awards themselves actually manage to spoil the big surprise of The Crying Game by nominating a certain member of the cast for Best Supporting Actor.
- "It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people." Parodied to death and so unavoidable this troper isn't sure why he even bothered with the spoiler tags. Heck, if you type Soylent Green in Google's search bar it suggests the spoiler to you, before you even hit Enter.
- This troper works at a small video store and had two people in the same week that had never heard the famous line. I then instructed them to rent the movie, immediately go home while avoiding television and radio and watch it.
- This troper once had a friend get mad at him for allegedly "spoiling" the influential 1942 horror film Cat People. If you couldn't already tell from the title, the woman turns into a cat. Even the trailer gives away everything.
- The trailers to Hannibal obviously reveal that Hannibal escaped in Silence of the Lambs.
- Also, ask anyone about the characters in Silence of the Lambs and you're bound to get "A crazy guy who makes clothes out of women's skin.", a fact that isn't revealed in the movie until the 3rd Act, where it's a big reveal, and one of the changes from the book that is for the better (in the book Hannibal reveals that Bill is making a woman suit, and the revelation is relegated to "He knows how to sew".
- A Shot in the Dark was the second film in Peter Sellers' Pink Panther film series and it's the one where all the elements of the later films in the series are introduced. But because it doesn't have "Pink Panther" in the title, it's likely to be one of the last films of the series you're going to watch. There are two elements in this film that were played as plot twists that became unsurprising Running Gags in the later films:
- Early in the film, a sinister looking Asian man attacks Clouseau in his own bedroom! It's Clouseau's own manservant Cato, whom Clouseau has actually orderd to constantly attack him so Clousau will always be Crazy Prepared for an attack.
- Later in the film, a shadowy figure stalks Clouseau and makes several attempts on his life! Is it the killer? No, it's Clouseau's own boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus, who's been driven Axe Crazy by Clouseau's shenanigans. This "twist" not only became a Running Gag, but became the main plot of The Pink Panther Strikes Again.
Close Films — Live Action
Literature
- Romeo & Juliet: They die in the end! I know what you're thinking, "Well duh, everyone knows that." This troper was shocked to shock someone with this, but, well, they should have known that already.
- Edward is a vampire. You can glean that the back of the book. This despite the fact that Stephenie Meyer tries to keep the reader guessing what Edward's deal is for about the first half of the book. I say "tries" because she isn't at all successful.
- Certain editions of the Discworld book Guards! Guards! contains character summaries of the "Duke of Ankh, Commander" Vimes, and "Captain" Carrot. For those who don't know, this is the first book of the Watch series, and it ends with a still-drunken Captain Vimes, and a still-naive Lance-Corporal Carrot.
- By the way, the character summaries of these editions are found all the way back in the first book of Discworld, which doesn't even have the City Watch. In fact only four of the seventeen characters in the summaries are even in the book and only two of those played a major part.
- The Harper Torch printings of the older Discworld books tend to assume you've read them already, so they tend to have fairly spoileriffic images on the cover. To their credit, the spoiler usually doesn't make sense until you have read the book, but it's still not cool to put the gonne on the cover of Men at Arms.
- The story endings of many classics turn into this, especially so with Shakespeare's works. Everyone knows the ending to Romeo and Juliet (pictured), and to Hamlet, and to Julius Caesar, and to Macbeth. The lesser known works such as Othello are still at risk but way better than the Big Five. This happens with a few Dickens novels, especially A Christmas Carol, but Tale of Two Cities, despite always getting talked about in popular media, is an odd aversion of this. Everyone know it's starting line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" but very few people know more than that. Especially the quasi-Hero Quest of Sydney Carton as he tries to redeem himself.
- My copy (published 2009) manages to say that Carton dies on the back of the book.
- The Reveal at the ending of The Wheel of Time's first book? Rand is the Dragon Reborn. The cover of the third book? A triumphant Rand, with the words "The Dragon Reborn" written in big, bold letters. Although in all fairness, it was pretty obvious from about halfway into
the first book the third chapter.
- The Left Behind series deals with a (very) loosely interpreted version of the Rapture and the Armageddon, culminating with a battle between Christ and the Antichrist. Merely knowing what the books are about is enough to figure out the ending.
- The front cover art of Alan Dean Foster's The Moment of the Magician spoils what is clearly written to be a surprise, that the new evil magician in town is a kid's party magician who stumbled in from our own world, and now his lame magic works.
- Haven't read the first three books in Chris D'Lacy's Dragons series? The blurb on the fourth book doesn't seem to care, since it reveals right on the inside that David, the protagonist of the first three books, dies at the end of the third book.
- Likewise, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as originally conceived, was a mystery. You weren't supposed to know Hyde was Jekyll all potioned up. Thanks to numerous film adaptations, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the phrase being constantly (mis)used in popular culture, it's not a mystery any more!
- The murderer and his MO in The Hound of the Baskervilles. And what really happens in The Final Problem.
- Does Murder on the Rue Morgue count yet?
- One of the reviews on the back of The City of Ember says "The cliffhanger ending will leave readers clamoring for the next installment."
- Little Women: Beth dies. Laurie marries Amy.
- Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None: The Judge did it, Murder On The Orient Express: everyone did it, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: the Unreliable Narrator did it.
- In the ending of The Matrix Revolutions, Neo dies in a Heroic Sacrifice against Smith. This plot twist is spoiled in an ad for The Matrix Online, which mentions the factions fighting over "the legacy of Neo's sacrifice."
- In some parts of the Warrior Cats fandom, something only counts as a spoiler if it happened in a book that came out less than a month ago. If the book is more than a month old, well... You Should Have Read It Already...
- The author seems to act like everyone should know what happens in the first series, too, considering how much of it she spoils in the spin-offs. Also no one, literally no one, calls Firestar "Fireheart", because everyone should know that Bluestar dies and he becomes leader in Book 6. Most Official Couples are also treated as common knowledge.
- And there's the blurb for Sunrise, which spoils the climax of the previous book. Yay!
- The award goes to the Tigerstar and Sasha manga, since the title itself is a spoiler for Moonrise.
- Subverted in some Harry Potter books: in particular, Book 2, 3 and 4 carefully avoid revealing some plot twists from the previous books. Examples:
- At the end of Book 1 it's revealed that Quirrel is evil. That's not mentioned in Book 2, 3 and 4 (Harry says it during a DADA class in Book 5).
- At the end of Book 3 it's revealed that Wormtail is actually Pettigrew, and Pettigrew is actually Scabbers the rat. In Book 4, Wormtail is never called Pettigrew and his special ability (turning himself into a rat) is never explicitly mentioned.
- Are we forgetting that Snape kills Dumbledore? It's one of the most prominent spoilers, and definitely the most often spoiled!
- Do note that fans had enough time to read the books during the Three Year Summer.
- First words on the back of the second Tawny Man book by Robin Hobb? Nighteyes is dead. Thanks a lot.
- If you're going to read the blurb of a sequel before reading the first book, then you probably deserve everything you get.
- In the Blue is for Nightmares series, Jacob dies at the end of Silver is for Secrets. This is helpfully revealed on the back of the sequel Red is for Remembrance. Of course, this troper didn't learn her lesson and read the back of Black is for Beginnings, only to find out that he actually was Not Dead Yet.
Live Action TV
- The big twist in the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that Angel is a vampire, is pretty lame if you've seen any other season, or any preview for his own show.
- In the DVD Commentary, Joss Whedon mentions that he was surprised that so few people figured this out before The Reveal, and he'd assumed everybody would.
- Yes, because that scene in the second episode (or part 2 of the first episode, depending on how you look at it) where he's half shown in sunlight is really a dead giveaway to his vampirism. In his defense, I suppose, half of the named vampires in the show are shown being exposed to sunlight without burning at some time or another, but still, that's not exactly the best evidence, since we don't get to see that happen until much much later.
- Likewise, Angel's fate is spoiled from the beginning. You know any deaths or Face Heel Turns he undergoes in Buffy will have to be temporary.
- Same can be said for Spike's Heel Face Turns.
- How about any episode of either show where characters mention events on conversations that took place during their guest spot on the other show, usually making vague enough references that you can usually get the gist of what happened, but sometimes being so damn vague that the only way to fully understand everything is to have watched the other show in the first place.
- The ending to season 2 isn't as interesting knowing Angel gets his own spin-off series in a couple of seasons. It was still very dramatic and emotional, though. Actually, it ruined season 3 more, since much of the first half of season 3 had Angel's return and recovery as a subplot.
- Also in Buffy, UK channel Sky One ran previews for the season five finale which showed Buffy's gravestone, running it constantly so that everyone watching TV would know how the episode ended.
- DVD menus are a great place to spoil huge twists (even though they're usually twists that are already known by anyone with basic familiarity with the movie or show). For example, to watch the X-Files episode "End Game" you have to click on a still from the episode showing Samantha Mulder's face bleeding green blood, revealing not only that the Samantha featured in this and the previous episode was fake, but also that she dies.
- Every single episode (and nearly as many episode previews) of Babylon 5 after the first season spoils Delenn's transformation. Even sillier is the intro to Season 5: in less than a minute, it manages to spoil every major plot point of the previous four seasons.
- This troper (who saw the season five intro before he started watching B5) isn't so sure — yes, the intro hits most of the high points from the previous four seasons; but, apart from "We are here to place President Clark under arrest" most of the lines are pretty meaningless until after you know what they're talking about. As the tropes B5 page says, "the quotes over the fifth-season opening sequence may not be very meaningful to people unfamiliar with the series."
- This was pretty much unavoidable for Prison Break. People still watching Season 1 when Season 2 began airing were treated not only to the fact that they break out and are on the run from the law, but also who survived/escaped and who didn't by showing the entire team of escapees. Then people watching Season 1 or 2 when Season 3 comes out were greeted with the fact the team are re-captured and put into a new prison.
- 24 Season 2 relies on your knowledge that Nina was the mole and killed Teri Bauer. This troper knew that — he just didn't know what Nina looked like having entered at Season 2, so the shock of the ending of fourth episode was largely lost on him.
- David Palmer dying at the start of Season 5 is spoiled on the back of the DVD collection, as is Jack faking his death at the end of the previous season.
- Tony's return in season four was meant to be a surprise. Which would have worked better in Scandinavia, had the DVD box set not featured him on the actual disc covering episodes set before he actually shows up.
- Also, Tony being not quite dead in season seven must have been one of the worst kept secrets of all time.
- Numerous Doctor Who episodes feature surprise reappearances by The Daleks. Of course this is given away by the fact that almost every single one of those episodes, including the one in the Christopher Eccleston series, includes the word "Dalek" in the on-screen episode title. It also happened quite frequently with the Cybermen.
- Many of these Dalek episodes in fact contain a curious inversion of this trope; in several case, the actual appearance of the Daleks or Cybermen will be treated as a sudden shocking, dramatic moment, or even an "oh my God what a shocker!" episode cliffhanger, as if the producers actually thought that You Shouldn't Know This Already even though their eventual appearance would be known and expected by anyone who, oh, looked at the title.
- Apparently the writers managed to catch onto this with the Cybermen on at least one occasion, as their reintroductory episode in Peter Davison's tenure (after a six year absence) was purposefully not titled "X of the Cybermen".
- Often the writers (and occasionally even the directors) created it so the revelation of the returning foe or foes was given great weight, only to have the script editor or producer change the title to showcase said foe. For instance, the serial scripted as "The Deadly Experiments" used the revelation that the Sontarans were behind the experiments as the only cliffhanger. Writer Robert Holmes was very unhappy to learn at a late stage that it had been retitled "The Sontaran Experiment" but the cliffhanger left intact.
- One aversion of the trope occurred in the story titled, "Invasion of the Dinosaurs". The first episode was run with the title "Invasion" to prevent spoiling the appearance of dinosaurs at the end of the episode. Subsequent episodes ran the full title.
- The new series is particularly nasty example of this trope since it's so damn popular, so the marketing material tends to assume everybody and their robot dog has already seen the latest episode and happily puts massive spoilers on the DVD covers. This troper, who missed almost all of the new Doctor Who Series 4 when it was televised in Australia, spent months carefully avoiding all information about the series while awaiting the boxed set, despite the omnipresent risk of internet spoilerage and the dozens of UK pop-culture magazines that began screaming finale revelations at him from every newsagent stand before the series had even started its run on local TV... and then he saw the cover of the newly released final DVD volume. (No, he's not bitter at all. Really.)
- And the BBC website just spoiled the upcoming Christmas special. In September. Apparently, the Master's back.
- When it comes to Lost, major twists of earlier seasons are often discussed without any bars. Things like Michael killing Ana Lucia and Libby to free his son, "Henry Gale" leading the Others, Charlie dying, and half the cast escaping and then returning to the island are common knowledge to anyone unlucky enough to look through a forum.
- In the UK the latest season of Lost is being advertised all over the place with the Spoileriffic slogan "We know Locke's dead. Right?"
- This troper has officially proposed that the identity of the creature in the jungle as a smoke monster be considered a non-spoiler. The monster has been shown onscreen for four of the five years the show has lasted, is regularly featured in promotional materials, and is a famous aspect of the show even to those who don't watch it. To someone just starting to watch the show, knowing the beast is a "smoke monster" will mean absolutely nothing without any context; it doesn't even make sense to people caught up on the show.
- The season 3 DV Ds contain a booklet that goes beyond giving brief descriptions of every episode into spoiling major twists (the description of the finale mentions casually what occurs in Jack's flashforward)...which is bad, since some people wait for the DV Ds to watch the show instead of watching it on air with constant breaks.
- The first half of Burn Notice Season 2 ended on September 18th, 2008 on a cliffhanger; the bad guys try to blow up Mike. His fate is unknown. The trailers for the second half of the season, airing January 22nd, 2009, clearly show the cliffhanger. Said trailers started airing in late October. Think about that for a second. Just... work it out.
- Said trailers were also airing during the catchup marathon before the episode.
- This troper came into Battlestar Galactica late by watching the massive marathon they had of the whole series for a week on Sci Fi before the airing of the fourth season. She knew next to nothing about the series, and thus was very disappointed by the commercials revealing that Galen, Tori, Sam Anders, and Saul Tigh were Cylons. I mean, if you want to draw new viewers in (as the marathon was meant to do), why the hell do you reveal one of the biggest twists in your entire show?
- A buddy of this troper got pretty pissed when he borrowed my season two copy of the series. The cover prominently featured Commander Adama, making it pretty clear he would survive his assassination attempt.
- The sci-fi blog io9 cheerfully revealed, in a headline, that Leonard Nimoy would be on Fringe.
- Yes, and so did all the ads, but they didn't tell you who his character was, or when he'd show up, or where he was going to be, and I won't either. Watch the show, spoiler readers- hopefully there's a DVD by now.
- On the Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode "The Wire", Garak tells several (conflicting) stories about his past as a spy with his friend Elim. The end of the episode reveals that Elim is simply Garak's first name. But you'd be hard pressed to find a reference to Garak, including the DS 9 page on This Very Wiki, that doesn't list him as "Elim Garak", which pretty much takes the sting out of the episode.
- Beautifully parodied and lampshaded in Stargate SG-1 episode 200. Every ad on Sci-Fi showed Richard Dean Anderson in the episode. When the episode aired, Samantha Carter's line after General O'Neill's appearance on screen was stated that this would have been spoiled in all the advertisements.
- Dollhouse watchers who didn't catch the ninth episode when it aired were probably pretty upset if they happened to visit the Television Without Pity website the next day - where the major plot twist of the episode, Dominic's reveal as the mole and an undercover NSA agent, was given away in the blurb for the recaplet on the front page.
- Alias has the big twist of the first season finale (that Sidney's mother not only is alive, but she is evidently the Big Bad of the show up to that point) ruined by the covers of the DVD's for the second season. And the twist for the second season's finale is also detailed in the back covers for the third season DVD's. And the covers for the fourth season DVD's prominently feature Nadia, Sidney's half-sister and whose existence was also a secret in the third season. It's almost a miracle that the fifth season DVD covers do not reveal anything about the show at that point.
- This troper's roommate was making her way through Dexter when she saw the promo for season 4 of him HOLDING A BABY on THE SIDE OF A BUS. Her reaction? "Spoiler!"
Video Games
- Every time someone uses the correct pronoun for Samus, they spoil the Tomato Surprise of the first Metroid. This was already spoiled in Super Metroid by the standard Game Over sequence. The trailer for Super Smash Bros Brawl blatantly displays Zero Suit Samus. A lot of people don't even realize it was ever supposed to be a secret that Samus Is A Girl.
- Numerous previews of Knights of the Old Republic 2 spoiled the big plot twist of the first game.
- As did many articles about the game beyond a few months after its release that refer to the main character as Revan.
- But really. While the plot twist in the first game is pretty damn surprising and well done, most people could have seen the "plot twist" in two coming a mile away. I mean, really. Creepy woman with glowing eyes and a hood following you around? Connect the dots already.
- The Untwist was the real twist because while Kreia's plans seemed sinister enough, nobody actually expected it was as straight forward as it appeared. Mind you, both Atton and Kreia mock you for not seeing it coming by pointing out Kreia's twisted teachings and the lack of big reveal/plot twist respectively.
- In other words — Kreia, known far and wide for her self-serving manipulations and twisted machinations, is being completely honest with you from the start. Who would have guessed?
- Throughout the development of Halo, the existence of the Flood was kept a secret. Afterwards, they were still considered spoiler material, and magazines avoided directly referring to them. Then the second Halo novel was called Halo: The Flood.
- It is revealed in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker that Tetra is actually the titular Princess Zelda. Phantom Hourglass being the direct sequel, this information is shown in the opening cinematic.
- Nintendo doesn't seem to consider Sheik's identity in Ocarina of Time as much of a spoiler, what with Zelda's ability to turn into Sheik in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
- Nintendo may have some justification in this. After all, Ocarina of Time was one of the more popular games for the N64, and it was released in 1998, giving most Nintendo fans 3 years to figure it out...
- For fans of the Earthbound series, if they wish not to be spoiled by its sequel Mother 3, they would have to avoid Brawl as well. Brawl includes one of the last areas of the game as a stage and the next-to-last boss of the game as boss in the Subspace Emissary mode. At best the fans hope Brawl spurs Nintendo into doing a localization of the game, like Melee got Nintendo localizing Fire Emblem titles.
- Not to mention, Lucas's trophy text mentions a somewhat big spoiler, specifically about how he would eventually have to fight his brother Claus in the end.
- Don't forget the trophies you collect! Aside from localization oversights (Brawl claiming King K. Rool being his own brother in the form of Kaptain K. Rool) and retardedness (Melee describes Dr. Wright as if you play as a mayor's adivser and not the actual mayor, and in Brawl the trophy for Baby Mario — who is clearly wearing overalls — says he doesn't wear overalls), some of them have spoilers for other games in them (In Melee, the trophy description for Custom Robo 2's Annie ends by saying, "At the climax of the story, Nanase fell prey to temptation and stained her hands with the illegal robot Majei. This act ultimately set the stage for her undeniably tragic end.").
- The Castlevania game Dawn of Sorrow had no problems mentioning the Big Reveal at the end of its prequel, Aria Of Sorrow' — that protagonist Soma Cruz is the Reincarnation of Dracula. Heck, it says it outright on the back of the box.
- They probably figured that if you're playing Dawn of Sorrow, you have already played Aria of Sorrow... a gross miscalculation on their part.
- To be fair, that twist is the very reason for Soma's involvement in this game.
- Casual screenshots of Disgaea 2 will spoil an event that happens to someone in D1.... Namely, that Laharl isn't a complete asshole, and airheaded Love Freak ultra-pure Angel trainee Flonne has fallen from grace and become an airheaded love free ultra-pure Devil trainee. And don't even try playing it if you mind spoilers, because the intro movie reveals the same thing. Also, Prinny Kurtis is part of the storyline.
- The opening of 3 spoils this too. So does merely shopping at the Rosenqueen store in real life. In fact, this troper wonders if its worth tagging the spoiler anymore.
- Bentley's surprise crippling at the Bittersweet Ending of Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves was used as a device to show that the gang's trials and travails affect them permanently, despite the Saturday-morning-cartoon art direction. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves showed him in a wheelchair (if a tricked-out one, since Bentley is the team's Gadgeteer Genius) on the front of the box.
- The back of the instruction manual for the Greatest Hits re-release of Sly 2: Band of Thieves has an ad for the then-upcoming Sly 3 featuring Bentley in his wheelchair and foreshadowing Murray's brief absence from the team.
- Virtually everyone in the Phoenix Wright fandom, having played the first game, knows that Manfred von Karma secretly killed Edgeworth's father and took the younger Edgeworth as an apprentice. Most Western fans also know the end of the bonus chapter: It was Gant. Everyone also knows that the fourth game has a different main character. The fact that it's a different name on the box kind of gives it away.
- Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All has a character from the first game supposedly die. Capcom of America put him on the box. Yay...
- In their defense, the original Japanese box used the same image. Of course, the Japanese did have the chance to play the GBA version of the game years before...
- The GameFAQs JFA (and even the Ace Attorney board!) board will assume you know the twist about your final client, and have no problem mentioning it in topics with minimal spoilers. It is recommended that you stay off the PW boards until you play through the appropriate games.
- Mia dying is arguably not a spoiler in the first place, as the first case is more or less a tutorial, and she dies at the start of the 2nd case. It's legal by Game FA Qs standards (20 mins being their rule of thumb), and Game FA Qs is known for its strict enforcement of its boards.
- Also by Game FA Qs standards, neither is Phoenix losing his badge (how he did still is) in the 4th game as the back of the box states quite clearly "Phoenix Wright has turned in his badge"
- Metal Gear Solid — Solid Snake and Liquid Snake are clones of Big Boss.
- Metal Gear Solid 2 — Snake isn't the main character; that's actually Raiden, and towards the end he goes a bit crazy. And, whatever they tell you, Snake isn't dead. This goes into All There Is To Know About The Crying Game territory, as the reason most people will be advised to pick the game up is for the fact that it's insane and incomprehensible (and therefore art).
- Also note that, despite all the promotional material and the game box hiding that first twist, the manual (pretty much by necessity) has to tell you about it.
- Is Snake not being dead really a spoiler? Within five minutes into the Raiden scenario, you clearly see Snake going up an elevator, and within ten minutes after that, you meet a character who sounds and looks exactly like Solid Snake, who is trying to take down the terrorists.
- Also, he's calling himself "Iriquois Plisskin." Hint.
- Similarly, the main selling point of Metal Gear Solid 3, that it details Big Boss's Start Of Darkness, was originally meant to be a reveal, but now doesn't even need to be spoiler-marked.
- And as far as Metal Gear Solid 4 goes, nanomachines.
- When Super Smash Bros Brawl used a model of Metal Gear Solid 2 Snake but gave him Naked Snake's head, that's kind of a clue as to what Snake really was.
- This troper played the first MGS a decade after its release. The fight against Psycho Mantis is (I imagine, anyway) much less cool if you know the "plug the controller into port 2" trick long before you even fight him.
- Super Robot Wars Original Generation — Ingram being the traitor was so well-known that people knew before the game was even released. And some people still were clueless.
- Of course, it was a legitimate spoiler back before Super Robot Wars Alpha was widely known, since in the previous game he was in, Ingram was one of the selectable main characters. Banpresto continuity is confusing.
- The ending of Final Fantasy XII left you hanging right up until the moment before the credits on whether or not Balthier and Fran die in a heroic act. Unfortunately, shortly before the game was actually released in North America, there was already a trailer for Revenant Wings (the Nintendo DS sequel) circling the web which revealed them to be alive and well. Any English fan who saw the trailer before reaching the end of the first game were therein stolen any and all suspense on the reveal that Balthier and Fran lived after all.
- Their survival was hinted by Penelo, who pointed out that their airship couldn't have been stolen if the original owners were retaking it. They also recieved a letter presumably from Balthier and Fran, as it included Ashe's wedding ring that Balthier 'looted' from her (which he said he'd return if he found something of greater value)
- The big spoiler for the first Megaman Battle Network game (Megaman is a Replacement Goldfish of sorts made from Lan's dead brother) is mentioned a few times in latter games, however because it is not explicitly explained either, it (and the occasional use of the plural "Sons") can get confusing if you didn't play the first game or read it on the internet.
- A bit less of an issue in the Japanese — indeed, one of the easy ways to tell that one of the heroes is about to do something extra dangerous or heroic (to levels beyond what the Theme Music Power Up can handle) is when Netto busts out the "Saito-niisan". Also, newbies get another chance in the second game, where a random NPC scientist helpfully reminds you that Mega Man is your resurrected brother.
- Speaking of Mega Man, the fact that Dr. Wily is a villain for all of the games in the original series technically spoils about half of those games (specifically, games 3-6 and 9). But the ending of Mega Man 9 references all of these endings anyways.
- Of course, MM9 plays around with the trope - even in the introductory story, Mega Man suspects Dr. Wily (he just doesn't have proof yet), and the achievement given by the game for beating it is called "Wily Masher".
- From Mega Man X, you should know that someone's going to die in the first game, since the plot of the second game revolves around resurrecting him.
- The cover of Yu-Gi-Oh GX: Spirit Caller (a video game based on the events of the first and part of the second seasons of the show) spoils the fact that Syrus is promoted to Ra Yellow, even though he even starts off in Red in the actual game.
- Almost all of the Devil May Cry 4 trailers spoil the fact that, very near the start of the game, Dante drops into a meeting of the Order of the Sword and gives their leader a headshot. He gets better.
- The spirit meter mechanic of Mask of the Betrayer is explicity stated by the manual to be a spoiler, this doesn't stop every review from detailing it.
- It didn't stop Atari's PR Department from making it a selling point either.
- If you have so much as even heard of Guilty Gear, you know that Bridget is male.
- In fact, Bridget being male may be the reason you HAVE heard of Guilty Gear
- In fairness, Bridget's gender was never intended to be a "reveal" of any sort to the player; it's stated immediately at the beginning of his story mode. Some of the other characters, however...
- Sure, you could play any of the .hack games out of order if you wanted to, but be prepared to be spoiled since 1.) The intros serve as a recap and 2.) Each game picks up immediately after the previous one. And let's not forget that the games themselves spoil the anime series since they serve as prequels to the games. For example, .hack//Roots hadn't even been translated when .hack//GU came out so everyone who played the game knew that Shino gets Pked and sent into a coma. It's insanely hard to avoid spoilers in this All There In The Manual series.
- The opening cinematic for Final Fantasy IV DS just assumes that you already know the whole plot, and it spoils, among other things, that Cecil has to fight Kain at one point, that Cecil becomes a paladin and fight against his own inner darkness, that Kain is intensely jealous that Rosa is with Cecil, that the Tower of Babil is actually the storage place for a giant mech that can destroy the world and the Red Wings and Dwarves are going to fight it, that Rydia eventually returns and can even summon the Leviathan that seems to kill her, they reveal the final team including Kain, and finally as the coup de grace they reveal the Lunar Whale that takes you to the moon. Of course, this is a grand tradition with the game; the original American release revealed in the instruction manual that FuSoYa would be joining your party, and was from the moon.
- Of course, the game is almost old enough to vote in the United States, so...
- You'll play through the game a little differently after you learn which character is going to betray your party right before a critical boss fight, possibly taking some of your better equipment with them if you didn't prepare accordingly. (This writer doesn't recall which character it is currently, just that there is such a moment and roughly where in the game it occurs.)
- Also, when you meet
Namingway Jammingway and he shows you the music player; the character playing (and adding lines of narration to) the music is Edward, who at that point in the game, is presumed dead. If you haven't played the game before and don't know that he's alive; this is kind of a giveaway, because using a dead character for the music player would be... kinda...
- Persona 4 amazingly spoils nothing from Persona 3 despite taking place in the same world two years later. It does use the front of the box to spoil who joins your party though.
- ... Though the fact that Persona 4 takes place in the same world as Persona 3, but later, could itself be a spoiler for Shin Megami Tensei fans, who are used to world-ending endings.
- Hardly anyone bothers to hide the fact that Naoto is female any more. The fact that there are boatloads of images that clearly depict her as female, and that she and the protagonist are the game's Fan Preferred Couple don't help either.
- This is, in fact, quite literally one of the first things This Troper ever learned about Persona4.
- The upcoming sequel to F.E.A.R., Project Origin, pretty much assumes that the player knows Alma is both Paxton Fettel and the F.E.A.R. Point Man's mother, and is the cause of the rampant psychic madness rolling through the city.
- Back before Infinity came out, the idea that the protagonist in Marathon might be the 10th Mk. IV cyborg was seen as a wild and hotly contested piece of Fanon by most players. Now, of course, many descriptions of the game refer to him simply as "the Marathon cyborg", even though this still hasn't been made entirely explicit by the game itself.
- Yuna's mere presence in Final Fantasy X-2 spoils the fact that she doesn't die at the end of Final Fantasy X.
- Tidus's conspicuous absence and Yuna's search for him gives some indication of what happens to him at the end of the previous game.
- And of course the only people who would be spoiled by that first one are the people who played to the ~ 3/4 point where it is revealed that the summoner dies during the final summon, but did not proceed to the end of the game itself.
- Notice that a certain legendary guardian isn't around in X-2, either... because he died before X. Also dead in Kingdom Hearts 2, which is how he gets summoned by Hades.
- In Final Fantasy VII, one of the main supporting characters, Aeris, dies. This little tidbit of information is spoiled on such a scale that gaming magazines frequently talk about it or make features about "the most moving experiences in a video game." The reveal is also parodied frequently on popular web comics (including VG Cats, whose female character is named Aeris), has its own Urban Dictionary entry, and its own website (albeit it's a hentai upload site). Frankly, if you've never played Final Fantasy VII, this is the one thing that you AT LEAST know about the game.
- Advance Wars 2 promotional work featured prominently the Black Hole army, whose existence is the major plot twist in Advance Wars.
- The game's full title is Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising.
- The Sam And Max: Season Two Collector's DVD cover◊ spoils what T-H-E-I-R spaceship really looks like.
- For some reason nobody seems to consider revealing that the player needs to make a moral choice in Bioshock would be a big spoiler, as this fact is thrown very easily and without much thought in reviews, gaming-related articles, etc. This troper already knew about this moral choice before buying the game, before knowing anything else about the game contents. This knowledge more or less spoiled the moment where the choice has to be made for the first time.
- Would you kindly spoil a major plot twist for me?
- The Mortal Kombat series is replete with these, starting with the fact that anyone who plays the original MK after either MKII or MK 3 will be confusticated by the notion of Shang Tsung as a) the boss and b) old. Later games reveal that Reptile is an actual reptile and no longer wears a mask, Liu Kang is a zombie in Armageddon because he died at Shang Tsung's hands at the start of Deadly Alliance, Kitana is a heroic princess, Mileena is Kitana's evil monster-clone, Sindel is Kitana's mother, Noob Saibot was Sub-Zero in the first game and is the current Sub-Zero's older brother....it goes on and on. Many of these are spoiled in character backstories at the start of the later game; some are obvious just from seeing the character portrait!
- In Tales of Symphonia, the fact that there are actually two worlds is supposed to be a big reveal several hours into the game. Of course, it's pretty much impossible to read anything about this game without that fact being spoiled.
- Or you could just read the back of the game case where it says, "The line between good and evil blurs in this epic adventure where the fate of two interlocked worlds hangs in the balance." Please tell me you don't need a dictionary to figure out what "interlock" means.
- However, the game being a prequel to Tales Of Phantasia, despite not really affecting either game's plot, is supposed to be a closely guarded secret. Come on, Tales Of Symphonia Dawn Of The New World reuses the Phantasia map!
- Mithos being the Big Bad is frequently mentioned, although it's not always mentioned that he's Mithos the hero.
- The Playstation remake of Lunar: The Silver Star is horrible about this. You should have absolutely no doubts in your mind as to who the Goddess is and what the Magic Emperor does with her, since Dark Althena is right on the box. It kind of sucks the suspense out of the plot. It does not help that the game allows you to play Alex's Ocarina to hear the soundtrack...and one of the BG Ms blows the identity of the Magic Emperor by using the full name of the track, "Magic Emperor Ghaleon".
- Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core stars a protagonist who is a spoiler. His existence, appearance and role are almost entirely unknown until Cloud untangles his Tomato Surprise, very late in the game. Mails sent to this protagonist casually drop facts like SOLDIERs being implanted with Jenova cells (a major spoiler in the original, since it explains that Cloud's reason for wanting to hunt down Sephiroth isn't simply revenge), and - well, when Cloud shows up and he's a Shinra grunt rather than a SOLDIER First Class, that twist is ruined for you.
- Not to mention the biggest spoiler of all: Zack dies at the end, which is why he's not in the main game.
- If you watch Advent Children, you'll get some spoilers for the main game ( Rufus: Cloud, you'll help us, won't you? You used to be in SOLDIER. Cloud: In my head.), but god help you if you watch Advent Children Complete. Crisis Core and Before Crisis are both spoiled rather easily, and if you watch the Reminisence of FF 7 Compilation, well, you're screwed (though that's the point).
- Averted in Jeanne D Arc: you're playing a Magical Girl version of Joan of Arc. Naturally, the Maid of Orleans will be burned at the stake. What you can't know until it happens is that the victim is a Replacement Goldfish for the real Jeanne, who went missing earlier and returned too late to save her childhood friend.
- If you've seen some of the trailers for Resident Evil 5 then you probably can puzzle together that Wesker wasn't actually killed by the Tyrant in the original Resident Evil or, at least, he didn't stay dead and he wasn't as nice a guy as he first seemed.
- Someone hasn't played RE: Code Veronica.
- Or RE 4.
- Or Umbrella Chronicles
- Hell, nothing in Resident Evil 5 should have come as a surprise.
- Fate Stay Night: Archer is Emiya Shirou from the future. Also, the mastermind is Kotomine Kirei, who is doing things For The Evulz.
- And most iconically, Saber is King Arthur, who was a Sweet Polly Oliver. Also, here on TV Tropes, the identity of Caster's master is sometimes spoiled, sometimes not.
- In addition, Gilgamesh's presence (and less likely, his class) is usually not hidden at all by promotional materials or other sources, and Fate/Unlimited Codes has both him and Dark Sakura as playable characters from the get-go.
- Many works parodying or otherwise discussing Earthbound reveal the final boss's weakness. This troper tried it a few times before he was prompted, to minimal effect, on his first playthrough.
- Portal: Anyone who uses the Intarwebz with some regularity knows the cake is a lie.
- This troper is amazed that this particular piont was so far down on the list.
- Due to the soon to be released Gaiden Game Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, if you didn't know that Roxas and Namine are the respective Nobodies of Sora and Kairi, and that Roxas was a member of Organization XIII, then you're in for a bit of a shock.
- In the opening cinematic of God of War II, we learn that Kratos is the God of War, not Ares.
- The videogame conventions the player takes no notice of initially in Haze are supposed to be Painting The Fourth Wall, as it turns out they're actually being implemented on the Player Character. This Plot Twist would be more of a surprise if it hadn't been spoiled by every single preview of the game after a certain point. Those frathouse manchildren who are your comerades in arms? They're actually on drugs, and literally can't register the death and destruction they cause.
- Playing Final Fantasy VI? Don't become too attached to your planet.
- I think that the inclusion of a second map titled "World of Ruin" along with the game itself was kind of the big giveaway.
- Dissidia: Final Fantasy, while not requiring you to play the games to understand its own story, spoils major plot elements of the games it draws its characters from, such as casual mentions in the story mode that Golbez is really Cecil's brother.
- Quite a few plot elements of {'Blaz Blue}} are casually mentioned multiple times in the story, but are treated as spoilers regardless. These include Ragna and Jin's relationship and Kokonoe's species and relationship to Litchi and Tager.
- The Legacy of Kain series spoils itself in the openings. Especially the opening cinema of Soul Reaver 2.
- Nintendo seems to feel that anybody interested in buying the Sky edition of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon should already know the parts of the plot from Time/Darkness. This goes to the point that they include an animated special that spoils pretty much the entire game up to that point as a pre-order bonus. Add to this the clear hints in the commercials and the info on Sky's website and it's all over. WAY TO GO NINTENDO!
Web Comics
- A lot of the advertising, merchandise, and fan artwork surrounding Sluggy Freelance involves Oasis. Enough so that someone who starts reading the series from the beginning will probably guess something's up when she "dies" at the end of her introductory story eight years ago.
- El Goonish Shive: Ellen exists, and she doesn't stay a villain; Grace can shapeshift, and Tedd doesn't need glasses.
- Blah, Blah Miscarriage, Blah.
- If only because the author of Bigger Than Cheeses hated that scene so much he kept beating the horse long past the stage it was dead...
- Funny how beating a dead horse can be funnier than an entire webcomic series.
- Though Angel Moxie was good about this during its run, the website is not coy about such things now that the series is over and has rerun several times. The girls are shown in the powered-up forms they don't get until almost the end of the series, which also blows the revelation that all three girls are Legendary Heroes and not just the Magical Girl. The site synopsis is also just one giant spoiler of every plot point in the series.
- You do know Dan is a cubi, right?
- One especially egregious example is Family Man by Dylan Meconis. Every single person who ever talks about it says, "Oh, it's a werewolf story" ... despite the fact that the reveal hasn't even been drawn yet!
- Parodied in Ansem Retort. Someone yells at Marluxia for ruining the fact that Qui-Gon Jinn dies in The Phantom Menace. That someone? Darth Maul.
- Lindesfarne and Danielle are both genetically human.
Web Original
- At the end of lonelygirl15 season one, Bree Avery dies. This is spoiled 21 episodes into KateModern. Similarly, the Twist Ending of "The Unthinkable Happened" was a huge shock when it was first shown, but is completely spoiled for anyone who knows that the following episode's title is "Bree's Dad is Dead"; the phrase "deader than Bree's dad" has since become a fan idiom. Also, anyone who so much as visits the site is likely to discover that Patient #11 survived the Hart Study, a major plot twist for the second series. Even the fact that the Hymn of One is evil was a huge revelation in the original series, but is now treated as the entire premise of the show. As one may surmise, lonelygirl15 is fairly lax about keeping spoilers secret.
- The KateModern website contains a video which spoils all the main twists of season 2, which plays automatically when you visit the site.
- Survival of the Fittest examples rarely spoiler the fact that Adam Dodd won v1 and indeed it is commonly talked about on the boards as Members assume that everybody already knows about this. Even Adam's return is made flagrantly obvious by the fact the character has two pages on the SOTF wiki (one for each v1 and v3). There's also that, y'know, he's actively played on the board, and nobody isn't going to notice that a v3 character as the same name and ID number as a v1 character.
- Basically, people tend to assume that anything that happened before the current version is now (or should be) general knowledge.
Western Animation
- The true identity of Longarm is one of the most shocking reveals of Transformers Animated... so naturally, it was all over the internet in a pretty big hurry. Then the toy came out. At this point, it's probably not likely to surprise many people any more.
- It was over the internet before anyone who talked about it saw the episode. It aired in Dubai and this was about all the blurry screencaps could tell us.
- Considering that he's a major player in the third season, if you're still not aware you're either blind or not up to date yet.
- Also, Omega Supreme.
- Optimus Prime dies. The where, the when, and the how may all be in question, but if it's Transformers Optimus is going to bite it at some point. The other half, of course, is that it never sticks.
- In fact, Transformers Animated got it out of the way quickly by having him die and come back in the very first episode.
- Playing the trope straight, one of the commercials for the original theatrical release of Transformers The Movie showed Optimus Prime getting shot while the voiceover ominously intones, "Does Prime die? Then who will lead the Autobots?" Even the targeted audience of 8-year-olds could've figured out what would happen in the film.
- In Code Lyoko, Aelita is a human girl. And Franz Hopper is her dad, and the creator of Lyoko. If you don't want to be spoiled, it is absolutely imperative you watch season 2 first. (Season 1 is optional.)
- Despite the fact that any Spider-Man fan worth his salt would know this, the reveal in The Spectacular Spider-Man that Norman Osborn is the Green Goblin, even had THIS troper, said Spider-Man fan worth his salt, gasping and going "Holy CRAP!". His explanation only makes it better.
- The titular Phantasm in the Batman The Animated Series movie is Bruce's ex-fiancée Andrea Beaumont. A clever viewer could figure this out anyway, but the toy division screwed up by releasing the Phantasm action figure, with removable hood, unmasked.
- After announcing its pending cancellation, the third season of Danny Phantom was created in Nick studios in Florida — then sent to air in latin american countries six months before they were supposed to be aired in the US. Impatient fans wasted no time snatching up the episodes, translating them, and broadcasting them everywhere. And, if you didn't know via the internet that half of the ghosts had become more monster-like (Nocturne, Vortex, Undergrowth), Danny got ice powers, Danny was going to make an appearance in a ninja suit, and that Vlad became the mayor of Amity park, you were soon spoilered by said "surprises" through commercials and the episodes airing out of order.
- The true nature of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) version The Shredder became this, particularly after it became necessary to qualify him as such in order to distinguish him from the other versions of the character.
TV Tropes Wiki
- Let's be honest with each other here, we do this a lot. Some examples:
- Every fracking thing about Avatar: The Last Airbender. It says a lot about the popularity of the show when everyone who visits this wiki is assumed to have up-to-date knowledge of the series. Few people even bother putting spoiler marks around the characters who've been Killed Off For Real.
- Yes, let me point out that at least one troper here hasn't yet seen a single episode, yet due to spoilers — well, okay, probably due to the instinctive move to highlight spoilers — already knows that Prince Zuko refuses a Heel Face Turn and then goes all Ken-from-Digimon. And I haven't even met the guy yet.
- And there are a lot of things from the Grand Finale that people aren't even putting in spoiler marks, such as Azula's Villainous Breakdown, the final battles, and Ozai living. Though in the defense of the first one, it was spoiled by a trailer for the second half of the third season.
- This troper found it hilarious that she could extensively quote dialogue from Book 3 and she hadn't even seen all of Book 1 until yesterday.
- This troper frequents TV Tropes enough, and let's be honest here that pretty much every twist in seasons one, two, and three were already spoiled for him except the exact details of Zuko's exile and scarring.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This editor learned far more than she wanted to before she managed to actually read the book. It's easy to say "don't read the spoilers"; not so easy to actually do it.
- This editor tried an experiment: by the time that Deathly Hallows was released, he really wasn't bothered enough to actually get the book, so he tried to see how long he could last without the ending being spoiled without changing his normal routine (but avoiding things like Wiki pages for the book for obvious reasons). He lasted eight months. The rule seems to be that the more determined you are to avoid spoilers, the harder it is.
- This troper managed to avoid spoilers right up until the eighteen hours between the books release and him getting his hands on it. A dick coworker of his just couldn't hold it in.
- This Troper had reserved the book and then found out she'd be going out of town that weekend and wouldn't return til monday. Good thing was, she spent the weekend stuck in a cabin due to rain, with no Internet, so she read the two previous books and on monday morning went to get and avoided the Internet. She was perfectly unspoiled.
- Possibly the greatest and most memed to death incarnation is an infamous video and YTMND fad out there somewhere of someone driving past a crowd at a bookstore shouting the climax of Half-Blood Prince. To quote the most remembered reaction in the video: "NOOOOOOOOOOO, YOU BITCH! YOU BITCH!".
- This troper had a freshman year floormate who only saw the Harry Potter movies and never read the books (I don't know why, that's just what she did). She was therefore somewhat annoyed to have the ending of Half-Blood Prince spoilered for her repeatedly.
- We are somewhat inconsistent when it comes to Buffy The Vampire Slayer spoilers, meaning that in some places things such as Willow's Face Heel Turn, brought about by Tara's murder, will be spoiler marked while elsewhere it won't. Angel being a vampire is, as mentioned above, so out that we don't even bother.
- This editor is on season 6 of Buffy and has given up trying to avoid spoilers.
- This troper knew pretty much every plot point up to and including season 6, due to massive advertising on the radio pointing out things like Buffy dying long before he got interested in the series.
- This troper learned about Dawn through the RPG guides while trying to avoid spoilers by not reading the summary.
- Here's a fun game: apart from this entry, try to find a single page on this Wiki that hides the fact that Willow turns gay. Funny how much of an impact it makes when you haven't finished season 3 yet.
- In The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a majority of the jokes about this show (see also Suspiciously Apropos Music) involve the fact that (deep breath) HARUHI HAS GOD-LIKE POWERS. ONLY SHE DOESN'T KNOW THIS. ONLY MAYBE SHE DOESN'T. As the basic premise of the show, it's rather hard to describe the show to someone without mentioning all the secret identities.
- The great irony of this is that people act like it's unambiguous. From reading this site you'd never think that the "Haruhi is God" claim happens to come from one person whom we can never be certain isn't lying in one way or another.
- And even he presents it right off the bat as a theory of his higher-ups'.
- Practically everything about Firefly, except that Wash dies in Serenity.
- Thank you for mentioning this and for keeping it sane. I just edited out of an article a simply silly and unnecessarily detailed description of a relatively minor event, where a simple "this happens" with no giveaway details will perfectly suffice as an example of the trope. (Also, people do seem pretty prone to "slipping" a mention of your enclosed spoiler into almost any snippet vaguely related to the series, where they could full well keep the information to a more limited number of tropes that are actually relevant to it. Grrr...)
- Far too many instances for this troper's taste when it comes to Heroes (grrr)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion is particularly vulnerable... oh, wait, never mind...
- Try to spoil it. Try. Nobody will believe you.
- ROCK FALLS EVERYBODY DIES. FREUDIANISM ENSUES.
- Shinji masturbates over his abusive girlfriend's comatose body. Shinji becomes God after fusing with a Space Elevator-sized naked Rei. Naked Reis appear to hug everyone, causing them to explode into tang-colored placental fluid, forcing their souls into a hallucinatory purgatory where they live out their ideal lives for all eternity, unless they want to leave, in which case they can.
- I saw the bloody thing and wrote the above, and *I* don't believe me.
- A few bad spoilers for Ace Attorney have popped up, but I've tried to get rid of them. It's basically a detective series, people. Revealing who did it is not brilliant etiquette.
- This is also stupidly common on That Other Wiki — wherein every single page about ANY movie, book, story, or TV show has the entire plot summarized, crib-notes style. Often character bios have full spoilers as well.
- They used to have "Warning: Spoilers ahead" constantly throughout many of the description pages, but because they weren't being used everywhere consistently, a Wiki Policy discussion led to the agreement that, if you were looking up info on That Wiki, any spoilers you find are your own darn fault, and removed all of them.
- As an editor of The Other Wiki, I can say that it is meant to be encyclopedic, and that to achieve that it needs to cover everything, not just things that people who can't be bothered to have seen it (or admittedly physically can't see) don't know. The ending of a film is part of encyclopedic coverage after all!
- The problem here is that people make assumptions about what is and isn't a spoiler. Some people would consider shows/books/etc. that have been finished for, as an example, over 10 years to have no spoilers, but others would react poorly to being told that Obi-Wan dies!
- In my opinion, it boils down to what is a huge part of mainstream pop culture and what isn't. Fans have a bad habit of assuming because they know it, that everyone does. Definitely a bad mindset to have on this wiki; that goes double when it comes to niche media like Anime/Manga/Comic Books. Just imagine yourself experiencing whatever work for the first time, then ask if you'd be pissed if someone spoiled it.
- You thought we were bad with Avatar? How about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Some things are unavoidable (just mentioning very basic things about the last season spoils a lot of how the series unfolds), but almost any major alliance change or revelation is pretty unmarked. Oddly the spoilers marks are usually there but just marking details. What's really bad (and nigh-impossible to avoid) are the page images. Thanks the sheer number of pages that use Nanoha pics, more than a couple are spoilers... for example this one. Hell, two articles (maybe three) spoil scenes from the very last episode of the third season. Almost all of these were posted before the first season was legally available in any English-speaking country.
- Okay, fine, three I'll give you, but for this one there's almost no way to know that the person from the picture is from Nanoha in the first place, seeing as that character is usually wearing her jacket. two doesn't really tell you anything unless you know what it's spoiling, otherwise it seems like a regular picture. As for articles, two things. One, if it weren't for the caption I would have a really hard time figuring out that it, in fact, is covering a scene from Nanoha, and two, the Oh Crap face just makes the character almost unrecognizable.
- Touch the picture and look at the URL on the bottom of your screen.
- In a peculiar inversion of this trope, this wiki seems to go to great pains to hide the fact that Agatha Heterodyne of Girl Genius has the last name "Heterodyne", despite the fact that the front cover of the very first comic (which predates the webcomic) has the title "Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank" printed in bold letters immediately beneath the series title, making this supposed "spoiler" the very first fact this troper (and any new reader) knew (would know) about the series, before even discovering the setting or premise. Hiding makes about as much sense as hiding the fact that Clark Kent is really Superman. Or maybe even less, since it's fairly clear from reading that you're supposed to know the name, but only gradually discover what it means.
- Taken to the point of absurdity in the wiki's own page for it, where the the heroine is named as Agatha Clay in the page text when the page picture clearly shows her name as Agatha Heterodyne!
- Try to find an article which mentions Gaeta's recent mutiny on Battlestar Galactica and uses proper spoiler tags. Go on, we'll wait.
- We are utterly horrible when it comes to Berserk. At this point people will give little to no spoilers to what happens at the very end of the anime.
- This troper had the plot twists spoiled by playing Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage on Dreamcast.
- Naruto: Jiraiya's death in Chapter 384 was and still is a major plot point, and was one of the more tragic moments of the series, but a fair number of tropers think it's long enough ago to not be considered a spoiler, even though it'll still be another couple of weeks before this happens in the anime.
- Vaarsuvius using Familicide on the mother of the dead black dragon is often mentioned without spoiler tags.
- The many plot-driving twists in Planescape Torment makes it difficult to discuss the game without giving away at least one of them ... Which is why spoiler tags exist.
- This Troper had almost the entire plot of The Princess Bride spoiled thanks to this wiki. About the only surprise was discovering that the movie had a frame story. (What the heck is a video game doing in a movie about swordsmen and sudden death drinking contests?)
- TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life
- Julian Bashir of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine being genetically-enhanced is sometimes revealed on various pages and others spoiler-tagged, so it's hit or miss depending where you go.
- Code Geass ends with Lelouch making the world hate him, then having Suzaku-as-Zero kill him in order to end the Vicious Cycle. This gets mentioned all over the site, sometimes as spillover from the feud between those who consider Lelouch a Draco In Leather Pants and those who think the former group is Accentuating The Negative.
- Almost everything about Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. Then again, that is needed.
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