Basic Trope: Making a Shout-Out by way of spoiling the events of the work.
- Straight: Alice mentions in a conversation with Bob that Citizen Kane ends in the reveal that Rosebud was the name of Charles Foster Kane's sled.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice recaps the entire events of Citizen Kane.
- A Running Gag consists of Alice spoiling a major plot point of another work.
- Downplayed:
- Instead of revealing a movie's twist ending, Alice instead talks about something that happened roughly halfway through the movie.
- Alice doesn't say outright what the plot twist is, but heavily hints at it.
- Justified: Alice has seen the movie, and is intentionally spoiling it for Bob.
- Inverted: Alice says what happens at the beginning of the movie.
- Subverted:
- Alice is about to reveal the ending... but Bob stops her, because he wants to see the movie.
- Alice tells Bob the ending of the movie, but her explanation is full of Blatant Lies.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice tells him the ending anyway.
- Alice was spoiling the events of a different movie.
- Parodied: Alice references a movie by recounting its entire plot… backwards.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- The work makes a Shout-Out without bringing up any major spoilers.
- Alice spoils the events of a Show Within a Show instead of any real-life works.
- Enforced:
- The writers know that the work they're referencing is well-known for a major spoiler, and it'd be hard to make a Shout-Out without it.
- "We should add a joke about how annoying it is when people spoil the endings!note "
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Charlie knows that Bob has been looking forward to watching Citizen Kane, so he doesn't let Alice tell Bob the ending.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Spoiling Shout-Out was the killer all along!
