Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info 05/15/06 10:13 PM To "'Dragaera List'" <dragaera at dragaera.info> cc Subject Re: Agyar (Agyar?/Sixth Sense Spoilers) (Was Re: Brokedown Palace) On Mon, 15 May 2006, Jon Lincicum wrote: >> 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. Well, if you won't even agree on terms, I don't see how we can have any meaningful discussion about anything. I'm willing to listen to whatever your so-called "common definition" is, if you have one to offer. >> 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. And the picture of the rather goth-looking figure with giant teeth on the front cover of /Agyar/ doesn't do the same? As a further example, here is the verbatim text from the reverse cover of /Agyar/: "Born over a century ago, Agyar was once a frivolous young man, before he found unwanted immortality in a woman's blood-red lips. Now he goes from woman to woman, and decade to decade, finding himself at last in a Midwestern college town, where he must choose between the seductions of salvation--and of destruction." "...unwanted immortality in a woman's blood-red lips..." and there is some mystery here about what's going on? Maybe if you've lived your life in a box. >> [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. My point being that they wouldn't be here if they didn't expect to talk (and hear) about at least extremely obvious topics from SKZBs books. If someone really needs that level of "spoilage" protection, they probably shouldn't be here. >> [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. Well, I've only been reading the list for a year or so, so I suppose I'll have to take your word on that. As stated, I do intend to spoiler said info in future... But if you want to be consistent with this, you really ought to consider placing the following tag on any of your messages that involve words such as "Vlad", "Loiosh", "Cawti", "Kragar", "Noish-Pa", "Sethra", "Lavode" (et al.): WARNING! SPOILERS FOR Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla, Taltos, Phoenix, Athyra, Orca, Issola, Dragon, Dzur, and possibly others! <Spoiler Space> Begin text... Majikjon -After all, we wouldn't want to reveal anything that someone might not already know about.