TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Misused: First Episode Spoiler

Go To

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#26: Jan 29th 2019 at 2:51:57 AM

^ With the difference being that First-Episode Spoiler is intentional on the creator's part. Spoiler Title perhaps also. The other tropes you mention are usually beyond the creator's control.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#27: Jan 29th 2019 at 11:03:02 AM

I can't help but wonder if it's the title that's really my issue. See, I'm understanding now what makes it a trope, but what makes it a trope isn't that it's a spoiler but that it's a "twist" early on that changes the game so to speak. I don't know if a title change is at all viable and if not I'll live with it, but First-Episode Twist might be a little more on the money.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
Short-Term Projects herald
#28: Jan 29th 2019 at 12:37:17 PM

I also wonder if this accounts for things that can only be considered spoilers if you go into a work without prior knowledge of what it is, ignoring trailers, plot descriptions, and/or even the premise. For example, Citrus has our main character Yuzu find out that she's in an all-girls high school whose Student Council President is her new step-sister at the same time we do assuming we do not read the plot summary. The manga has it a bit differently, though, since readers of Yuri Hime may not have seen this coming... except that you'd have to suspect that these two characters fall in love by virtue of being in a yuri magazine.

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#29: Jan 29th 2019 at 6:02:54 PM

[up] It apparently does, if Greek Gods existing in Percy Jackson and the Olympians counts as a "twist".

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
Short-Term Projects herald
#30: Jan 30th 2019 at 11:21:55 AM

Then it's not a spoiler, but rather a Foregone Conclusion. I'm up for renaming the page to something like "Early Twist" or "First Episode Twist" for stuff like this.

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#31: Jan 30th 2019 at 11:24:11 AM

[up] I would agree, but someone in this thread claimed that it was still a twist, just spoiled by the inside cover... and the title... but a twist for those going in completely blind.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
Short-Term Projects herald
#32: Jan 30th 2019 at 11:29:38 AM

Then it's practically impossible to go in blind without having the title spoil the "twist" unless someone is just cartoonishly stupid.

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#33: Jan 30th 2019 at 12:29:56 PM

I am down with renaming the trope to First Episode Twist.

A_Really_Big_Cat Since: Mar, 2018
#34: Jan 30th 2019 at 7:52:11 PM

I feel like the intended usage is for things like Assassin's Creed III, where it's revealed early on that the character you were playing as for about an hour of gameplay is in fact a Templar. That wasn't in any promotional material for the game, but it is very important to the story and probably comes as a big surprise to those who are playing for the first time. But I agree that this trope should be about twists instead of spoilers.

Jeduthun Doctor Professor (Old Master) Relationship Status: Married to the music
Doctor Professor
#35: Jan 31st 2019 at 9:56:03 AM

This circles back to my original issue, which is that a whole lot of the examples lack sufficient context to tell what kind of twist/spoiler exactly they're describing.

Help I’m trapped in a bad pun factory
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#36: Jan 31st 2019 at 10:43:56 AM

I guess I say we cut out the examples without enough context and go from there, or at least collect all the ones that do have context and see what we're dealing with.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Jeduthun Doctor Professor (Old Master) Relationship Status: Married to the music
Doctor Professor
#37: Feb 8th 2019 at 10:46:10 AM

I went ahead and commented out the ZC Es (and boy were there a lot of them)! I may have missed some.

I also made a Sandbox page here with a rewritten and expanded trope description that should improve the clarity. I think this definition matches the majority of examples currently on the main page. Thoughts?

Help I’m trapped in a bad pun factory
Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
Short-Term Projects herald
#38: Feb 8th 2019 at 11:44:18 AM

I'm still a bit on the fence about this because the parameters set up by the sandbox make it clear that within the Toy Story franchise, Buzz Lightyear's existence can be considered a spoiler.

There are examples of All There Is To Know About The Crying Game that don't involve the premise (Citizen Kane, The Empire Strikes Back).

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!
Jeduthun Doctor Professor (Old Master) Relationship Status: Married to the music
Doctor Professor
#39: Feb 8th 2019 at 2:33:17 PM

^ Good point re Buzz Lightyear; I revised the third paragraph a bit to try and make that clearer.

Help I’m trapped in a bad pun factory
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#40: Feb 9th 2019 at 8:19:52 AM

First Episode Spoiler: Harry Potter has magic powers. As it turns out, the Harry Potter series is not about two horrible people abusing their nephew.

Tropes like these grow out of the mindset that every step in the development of a story, every unfolding of plot, is a "spoiler".

naturalironist from The Information Superhighway Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#41: Feb 9th 2019 at 9:10:43 AM

[up] That wouldn't be an example. The very first chapter makes it clear that the book is about magic and wizards, and that Harry is obviously special.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"
jamespolk Since: Aug, 2012
#42: Feb 9th 2019 at 9:30:44 AM

[up]The Laconic, as quoted in the initial post:

Plot twist revealed very early in the story. It later becomes crucial to the series's overall plot

That fits Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone exactly.

naturalironist from The Information Superhighway Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#43: Feb 9th 2019 at 9:56:21 AM

[up] Plot twist implies no (or very opaque) foreshadowing. There is plenty of obvious foreshadowing for Harry being a wizard before he finds out.

The third paragraph of the sandbox description explicitly exludes ordinary scenarios like the protagonist finding out he’s the chosen one or having special powers. I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse here.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#44: Feb 9th 2019 at 10:21:01 AM

...Sigh, so I guess Percy Jackson having Greek Gods is still apparently a "spoiler" then by the standards of this page, and I wouldn't be as annoyed if we weren't still calling it a "spoiler" instead of what the page is actually troping- the twist.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#45: Feb 11th 2019 at 9:42:23 PM

I'm not sure there's a trope here after all. Or, if there is a trope, it's so broad that it's hard to give it real examples. Maybe an example-less definition page?

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Jeduthun Doctor Professor (Old Master) Relationship Status: Married to the music
Doctor Professor
#46: Feb 12th 2019 at 2:20:07 PM

There's enough non-ZCE examples on the cleaned-up page that it still seems to me this is tropable. Though from this discussion the precise definition could stand to be pinned down better.

In paragraph three of the Sandbox (please do read the whole draft!) I try to address the question of what counts as a spoiler. Should this be clearer?

A First Episode Spoiler also has to be treated as an actual twist by the episode. It's not a spoiler if we meet a mysterious new character and then it turns out he's The Protagonist, or the seemingly ordinary kid turns out to be The Chosen One, or the protagonist starts out Too Happy to Live and suddenly things go bad. That's just standard plot setup, as all first chapters have. On the other hand, if the first episode makes us believe that new character is The Hero, but then it turns out he's The Villain, now we have a reveal that could be spoiled... and probably is, on the cover.

Help I’m trapped in a bad pun factory
SeptimusHeap MOD from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#47: Mar 11th 2019 at 11:18:08 PM

Clock is set.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#48: Mar 12th 2019 at 11:12:45 AM

I guess what my issue is here is that we're just assuming specific parts of these stories were even meant to be spoilers, again like with Percy Jackson, where we have to just assume Riordan was trying to make the Greek God thing a spoiler that got spoiled by the cover, title, and blurb. It's kind of like we're just deciding these specific things were intended to be kept secret from the audience.

This is why I still prefer retooling this into First-Episode Twist or something, because all you need to do for a twist is to have the plot build in one direction and then do something that surprises the readers and changes the story. Twists are still often spoilers, but don't have to be. Spoilers, however, are almost always about twists.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 12th 2019 at 2:13:40 PM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
rjd1922 Best robot boy | he/him | Image Pickin' regular, from the United States Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: Love is for the living, Sal
Best robot boy | he/him | Image Pickin' regular,
#49: Mar 13th 2019 at 5:32:04 AM

I'm down for renaming it "First-Episode Twist".

Keet cleanup
naturalironist from The Information Superhighway Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#50: Mar 17th 2019 at 1:33:55 PM

I'm fine with renaming to First-Episode Twist thought I'm not sure it will do enough to be worth the work.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

SingleProposition: FirstEpisodeSpoiler
19th Mar '19 2:40:13 PM

Crown Description:

Whether certain examples are "spoilers" is too debatable, especially when compared to "twist".

Total posts: 122
Top