On Mon, 15 May 2006, Jon Lincicum wrote: > Philip Hart wrote: > > On Mon, 15 May 2006, Jon Lincicum wrote: > > > >> Did Steve really intend for the reader not to catch on to what he was > >> doing until the very end? > >> > > > > Part of your problem here is not quite understanding what a spoiler is - > > "info about a final twist" is overspecific. If I were to travel back in > > time from this fall and force you to hear the entire plot of _Dzur_ this > > evening - for example that beloved character Z is permanently killed at > > the end of chapter 3 - would you not be unhappy? > > > This is not at all what was happening here. > > I suppose this really gets into how you choose to define "spoiler". I don't choose how to define things - that's done by people who use the language and by dictionary writers. You can choose to ignore part of the common definition if you like. > Saying "Master and Commander" is about sailing ships in the early 19th > century I would not consider a spoiler. Well, the picture of a 19th C sailing ship or two on the cover, and the diagram of such a ship in the front matter, and the description on the back, rather give the issue away. A rather fairer analogy would be to say the book is about X, who has characteristics C on land but turns out to have traits T at sea, and Y, who is an M and an N and also as it turns out an O. And that would only be a somewhat reasonable comparison if O'Brian had studiously avoided any character mentioning N and made this avoidance something of a organizational principle. > [question-begging snipped] I have trouble believing anyone who's read > very much of this list would be surprised by it. Even if true, which I quite doubt, that's no reason to make it a policy that every new reader should get spoiled whether they like it or not. > [more question-begging snipped] > At some point you just have to draw the line. Yes, the line has been drawn, in much the same place, a number of times. I don't know why it's not in a faq, but as I recall there is a clear consensus that this particular bit of info should get a spoiler warning, along with the two important bits of info at the end of _O_, and all discussion of new Works until a few weeks after the ppb edition.