Recently, I've started playing videogames for real, and my experiences with them got me thinking about a lot of things. One of them is how spoilers may or may not ruin your experience with a piece of fiction.
I remember when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released on the English-speaking countries: at the time, I wasn't fluent in this language, so I had to wait for the translation. To make myself less anxious during this time, I bought some magazines that had articles about the book to know more about it. Some of them had explicit description of the major spoilers, and I read EVERY SINGLE ONE. Even took the time to compare them to make sure there wasn't too much deviation between each, so that I'd know I was getting to know everything right. When I finally got the book in my hands, it was a great reading. I knew all that was going to happen, but the reading experience was great anyway, because I could enjoy every page nice and calmly.
Nowadays, however, I am a bit paranoid about getting this kind of information; I remember how it was an unique experience to read the Red Wedding chapters in A Storm of Swords without knowing ANYTHING about it. Last year, I read Macbeth, a many-centuries-old play which I knew nothing about, and I was completely absorbed by the plot. I want all my readings, watchings and, now, "playings", to be unique, I want to discover everything by myself, make up my own opinions about every detail, to be able to make up my own, particular involvement with the story. It's hard to do it when you get to know too many plot details.
