The New York Times posted Final Fantasy VII Spoilers on the front page today

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

I'm sorry watching a game enthusiast forum get this riled up over our equivalent of Rosebud is hilarious.

 

[Fat4all]

this is like the 1 gaming thing thats mainstream knowledge for non gamers other than fortnite

 

[Pancracio17]

I think the very notion of FFVII-R and how it's playing with the notion of remakes makes this not a spoiler. You either played the original (or watched a YT) because you cared what happened the first time - or you didn't.

Otherwise you've had plenty of time.

It's like Vader being Luke's father. Everybody knows and it's not something you have to not talk about

Click to shrink...

Yeah. FFVII Rebirth itself is assuming the player already knows. How could this be a spoiler?

 

[SOLDIER]

Yeah. FFVII Rebirth itself is assuming the player already knows. How could this be a spoiler?

Click to shrink...

It's not exactly shoving it in your face.

For example,

Spoiler

when Cloud gets an image of him burying Aerith in the lake, she's conveniently blurred out

It's more of a "if you know, you know".

 

[Xterrian]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

A++ post. You wrote out very eloquently how I feel about this stuff.

 

[Deleted member 35618]

Also, the Star Wars Vader line maybe isn't as commonly known, or at least openly spouted out these days as some of you claim.

I've talked to slightly younger people who hardly engage with Star Wars at all, and the most common barebones knowledge they have is "Baby Yoda".

And it's not like Disney is advertising Vader's parentage in the front of their stores or streaming services.

Click to shrink...

"Maybe isn't as commonly known?" lol.

 

[Deleted member 35618]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, might as well shut the thread down with this post.

 

[chrominance]

Dumb question: are there any OTHER spoilers for OG FF7 in the article besides Aerith?

A friend sent me this article wanting my take on it (she doesn't know anything about Final Fantasy or really games in general but immediately thought of me lol) and as soon as I saw what it was about, I thought, no way, it's gonna spoil FF7 AND Rebirth, so I haven't read it yet. But from what my friend said, it sounds like it probably doesn't spoil rebirth, leaving just OG FF7 spoilers to worry about for me.

(I don't care that the NYT printed the Aerith thing on the front page, it really is like the one video game spoiler everyone knows)

 

[Grzi]

What an icon :')

 

[Socivol]

Don't know if anyone dropped one already but here is a gifted link so everyone can read the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/...e_code=1.XE0.2U0H.QmNFz8wCyV72&smid=url-share

 

[MidasTouch]

So let's say I'm around 12, and I decide my first FF game is the remake of FFIX or FFXVII.

"Hey, this was a lot of fun! I want to learn more of this series, what's everyone's favorite Final Fantasy?"

And then you get ass-blasted by FFVII spoilers left and right.

"Too bad, it's as common as Star Wars spoilers."

"But I haven't even seen Star Wars yet..."

There is very much a "fuck them kids" vibe going on here.

Click to shrink...

This will happen everywhere with Final Fantasy. Everywhere. You can't hide or be sheltered from literally THE video game spoiler of all spoilers.

It is entirely the same as Star Wars. You'll never be able to able to escape the Vader twist. "Luke, I am your father" is the most iconic line of the entire franchise.

 

[rottenpie]

Great article!

 

[TenderJoey]

This may be the dumbest topic I've ever seen. As an old head, I will accept the ban. 🫡

 

[Kain-Nosgoth]

whatever the age of the media, a spoiler is a spoiler, if someone goes into something blind, that they didnt knew before and was recommended to then, its normal to be annoyed if you're suddenly spoiled on it.

there's lot of things on my list of things to watch, play and read, some were decades ago, and i sure hope someone won't suddenly tell me a spoiler about them.

i wouldn't go crazy on them, or be mad at them, but i would certainly be annoyed, age doesn't determine spoiler validity to me

 

[HolyJonte]

Dumb question: are there any OTHER spoilers for OG FF7 in the article besides Aerith?

A friend sent me this article wanting my take on it (she doesn't know anything about Final Fantasy or really games in general but immediately thought of me lol) and as soon as I saw what it was about, I thought, no way, it's gonna spoil FF7 AND Rebirth, so I haven't read it yet. But from what my friend said, it sounds like it probably doesn't spoil rebirth, leaving just OG FF7 spoilers to worry about for me.

(I don't care that the NYT printed the Aerith thing on the front page, it really is like the one video game spoiler everyone knows)

Click to shrink...

No all the other even bigger twists and turns in the game is not mentioned.

 

[Kain]

Spoiler culture at its best. Love it

 

[Fat4all]

This may be the dumbest topic I've ever seen.

Click to shrink...

nah the dumbest topic on era was that 'yellow paint in re4' thread, mostly for how long it lasted

 

[chrominance]

No all the other even bigger twists and turns in the game is not mentioned.

Click to shrink...

Thanks!

 

[SOLDIER]

"Maybe isn't as commonly known?" lol.

Click to shrink...

"As commonly known nowadays".

There was a period where every TV show, cartoon and commercial was spouting the Vader line.

I don't see it so widely memed around anymore, and again, the big current Star Wars stuff doesn't even have Vader or Luke in it.

So maybe, just maybe, between that and this concept of new people being born in the last two decades, it's not so insane to run into someone who doesn't know the big Star Wars twist, much less FFVII.

 

[entrydenied]

No all the other even bigger twists and turns in the game is not mentioned.

Click to shrink...

Actually the article opens with one that people who didn't play the original won't know about.

Spoiler

"An identity borrowed from an old war buddy."

 

[SOLDIER]

nah the dumbest topic on era was that 'yellow paint in re4' thread, mostly for how long it lasted

Click to shrink...

It's still going.

 

[Fat4all]

It's still going.

Click to shrink...

😩

 

[RagnarokX]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

This is a good post. I would like to add that I feel that modern spoiler culture has been fostered by corporations as creating consumers that want to be as uninformed as possible about what they spend money on is very benefitial to them.

 

[ara]

What a fucking annoying ass thread lmao. My distaste of "spoiler culture" grows every year.

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

I give this post one like.

 

[Uzzy]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

Brilliant post.

On the 'all creative works are a dialogue with previous works' point, I note that now is exactly the sort of time when I'd expect to see more and more works comment/riff on games from the 90s like FF7, just cause the people who played those games in their formative years are old enough now to make their own games and lead production on them. And that's a good thing, I'm excited to see those creative works.

 

[madbuk]

What is the expectation here? When are people allowed to freely and openly discuss stories?

Click to shrink...

When they're talking exclusively to people who have already read/seen/played it? This isn't hard.

 

[Tomasdk]

How is this spoilers, jesus christ.

 

[SomePlayer]

What a fucking annoying ass thread lmao. My distaste of "spoiler culture" grows every year.



I give this post one like.

Click to shrink...

Two likes

 

[Aiqops]

When they're talking exclusively to people who have already read/seen/played it? This isn't hard.

Click to shrink...

That's a fantasy world.

 

[Alex840]

This isn't a spoiler for Remake/Rebirth though, these games are sequels to the original, not a reimagining. You should know Aerith's fate going in.

 

[TenderJoey]

nah the dumbest topic on era was that 'yellow paint in re4' thread, mostly for how long it lasted

Click to shrink...

I hadn't heard, but searched and caught up on that one. Trueeeeeeeee. Smdh

 

[Eidan]

When they're talking exclusively to people who have already read/seen/played it? This isn't hard.

Click to shrink...

This isn't how the real world operates, and I think you know that. Case in point, the New York Times just posted spoilers for a game that is over a quarter century old on their front page.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

Cool statement. It sounds impressive.

Mind expanding on how hiding the actual spoiler behind a courtesy warning before expanding upon this prevents art and culture from existing in public?

Click to shrink...

You're demanding a newspaper turn its headlines into spoiler warnings.

 

[Mikch85]

Might be a hot take but I don't think Aerith's fate is the main event/plot twist newcomers shouldn't know about. In my opinion it's more related to Cloud and his journey to discover/rediscover himself, that's why I always tell newcomers to NOT play Crisis Core before the OG or Rebirth at least.

Besides, it's painfuly obvious Hamaguchi, Kitase and Nomura fully expect players, including newcomers, to know what's supposed to happen.

 

[Bengraven]

Boy there's nothing more grating than Gamers deciding to be the self-appointed arbiters of fun preservation.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I honestly don't care but it does feel like there's a 50-50 when it comes to this. 50% thinking that we should walk back on spoilers temporarily and another 50% who don't give a shit. The fact that we do not even list the spoiler in thread titles, despite openly talking about it any chance we get in any thread, even tangibly related to the game is kind of goofy.

I honestly kind of pissed at myself that I posted in this thread because I don't give two shits one way or the other.

 

[Psamtik]

This is a good post. I would like to add that I feel that modern spoiler culture has been fostered by corporations as creating consumers that want to be as uninformed as possible about what they spend money on is very benefitial to them.

Click to shrink...

It's very much part of the modern marketing toolkit, a threat to dangle over consumers so they feel compelled to prepurchase opening weekend movie tickets, or pick up that new game on day one at full price, or stream the entire series the moment it drops. Studios and publishers have weaponized spoiler culture to make their audiences feel that they cannot afford to wait.

 

[Asklepios]

It's not front page news material at all and what makes it even more stupidly inconsequential is putting it next to an actual WTF article that might suggest Ukraine may be losing the war.

For people like me who have never played FF7, her death is pop culture history. I plan on playing the remake at some point and wouldn't even blink if it started out with her death and the game was a flash back narrative.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

I feel like that scene was even in a tv commercial at one point

 

[Windu]

It's been 26 years. Who cares.

 

[Eidan]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

This post should be stickied at the top of every spoilerphobia thread. Bravo. No notes.

 

[Argentil]

I think anyone complaining about OG Aerith death spoilers almost 30 years later has to be memeing. It is wild to see FFVII on the front page of the NY times though.

 

[krazen]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

Fantastic post. It's always been weird to me how suddenly -spoilers- became a thing to war about as geek culture pervades as opposed to generally people not ruining a new piece of and organically as it either folds into the pop zeitgeist or fades away into the background no one really cares.

While not public domain in the copyright sense, eventually these stories and discussions stop being about arguing about plot points the next day. Irony is that videogames enthusiasts here want videogames to be treated like the artforms they are, but also oddly want to apply insular gatekeeping ("u can only discuss with spoiler tags!") that's just not how we relate to art in general. Like yeah, M. Night makes his bones on that totally rando twist!!! but his movies live and die by other things since we all know it's coming even if walking in blind. Its got little to do with the quality of the film.

Its like you watch any of the 6,251 movie remakes of Macbeth in the fucking trailer there's a scene of him crying about how he fucked his life along with the movie bragging its them doing Macbeth even if its like, taking place in a Mcdonald's, lol.

 

[StraySheep]

I'm not too bent out of shape about this, but they could have easily swapped the image and subhead to not name the character and it would serve its same purpose. Isn't that even the more clickbaity move?

 

[makonero]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

View: https://media3.giphy.com/media/1236TCtX5dsGEo/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b9526bjsqb93gle9gttzad1c5wfdjl2ema4npv3vf5nw&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

 

[Capra]

Spoiler culture is a relatively new phenomenon that, I believe, is the direct outgrowth of a generation that has been raised on art and media as a thing primarily for consumption, in a capitalistic sense, to the exclusion of all else. There are very few works where a twist in the plotting is so critical to the experience of the piece that knowing that twist in advance fatally compromises the experience. Such art does exist, but the vast majority of works (the one specific work that this thread is about included) do not fall into this category.

Indeed, I think most people throughout history would find the idea of a "spoiler" alienating and short-sighted. Everybody attending the Dionysia in Athens knew that Oedipus was going to learn he'd married his mother at the end of the play - the point was how Sophocles got us to that place. When The Lord Chamberlain's Men staged their new play in 1597, they told you in the opening lines that in the show, "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/Whose misadventured piteous overthrows/Do with their death bury their parents' strife" and that this story "Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage." I could keep producing examples probably forever.

It is understandable, of course, when a work is freshly released, to want to go into the experience fresh, as those around you have just done. The experience of a new work in this context is communal - it is as of yet unremarked upon, has no historical weight of commentary, and that initial period of mutual evaluation on a cultural level is an interesting shared experience. However, we cannot lock ourselves into a perpetual state of freshness, because that's simply not the conditions under which creative works are produced, regardless of the motivation behind their production. When a work is decades old, this moment has passed. There will be new works about which we can share these first exposures. These works are in dialogue with those that came before, iterate upon them, comment on them, reform and reformulate them. This is true even when we're not discussing an explicit remake. All writing is rewriting; all design is redesigning. These works go on to inform the culture around us.

You, as an individual, may not know who Luke Skywalker's father is; what a Rosebud might be; the nature of Norman Bates' relationship with his mother; the identity of Tyler Durden; what happens to Dorian Gray, or any other number of common-knowledge classic twists from film, games or literature. This is ultimately immaterial. It is impossible for any specific person to consume every work of art, or even every classic, canonical work, and furthermore most people have no inclination to do so. However, these are all twists that have become ingrained in the culture where they are referenced constantly, as fundamental touchstones and points of reference around which discussions coalesce. They are our guidestones that serve as shorthand so we don't need to explain ourselves. You don't need to sit around all day reading literary journals to see this - allusion and reference occur constantly without ceasing. If you aren't seeing it, it's because you're not familiar with what's being referenced, and you've probably been "spoiled" thousands of times without knowing it. The culture cannot cater to any single person's having not experienced any given work.

It is for this reason that I find the pearl-clutching self-righteousness of the spoiler cops exhausting and misguided. Even moreso when the outrage is deployed in defense of a hypothetical reader/player/viewer who is having their experience ruined, because if these people exist, they comprise such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it is in no way acceptable to stifle basic discussion of art to accommodate them. I promise you, they will be fine. They have always been fine.

Please note, this does not give people free reign to gleefully and purposely stomp on the enjoyment of others. That's what we call a "dick move." It also means that when the newspaper of record wants to write an article about one of the most famous moments in one of the most influential works in a medium, any medium, they are under no moral obligation to not write about it openly. I urge those who are truly outraged about this article's choices to deeply consider to what end you pursue the experience of art, and whether it goes past facile consumption of the surface-level qualities of the work. The twist is nearly never the point of the project.

No further questions at this time, please.

Click to shrink...

Perfect.

 

[Gelf]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATcaQYh0wPU

Click to shrink...

Imagine if they cut this scene for fear of spoiling people.

Actually I'm pretty certain I learnt about Vader's identity thanks to this episode myself.

 

[Eidan]

Imagine if they cut this scene for fear of spoiling people.

Actually I'm pretty certain I learnt about Vader's identity thanks to this episode myself.

Click to shrink...

I keep thinking back on the Vader example. I first watched Star Wars as a kid when I got the special editions VHS set for Christmas. I already knew that Darth Vader was Luke's father before watching. This did not impact my enjoyment of the movies because MY reaction to the twist was, and ultimately isn't, important. Luke's reaction is what's important, and it's his reaction to the twist that always comes to mind when I think of the scene.

I think when you take yourself out of the picture, and truly recognize that the characters and their journey are what's most important, you stop being so consumed with concerns about being spoiled.

 

[sora87]

It's Aeris to me dammit

Click to shrink...

Hell yeah

 

[GrayMage]

This scene was even referenced in the Sephirot's Smash Bros trailer. That is how known/famous it is.

 

[sderttreds]

spoiler debate aside, that's pretty good article