About that SPOILER! That Happened To SPOILER! On Last Night's SPOILER!

If you think what Walder Frey did over a broken oath was bad, imagine what he'd do to you if you spoiled his favourite television show.

Okay so here's your obligatory stop-reading-right-this-instant-if-you-are-not-up-to-date-with-your-favourite-television-show-because-in-this-article-I-will-be-discussing-the-shows-tagged-and-therefore-there-will-be-SPOILERS! But if you're anything like me you'll probably just ignore this warning and go right ahead anyway, unaware that seconds from now your bad decision will spoil a television show that you watch, which is exactly what happened to me with Game of Thrones last night.

As anyone with access to the Internet probably knows by now HBO's Game of Thrones went and killed off two major characters is a very unceremonious way. And it made for great television. It was the emotionally shocking stuff I love to watch. But I can't help but feel that what happened might have had an even stronger resonance with myself, and many others who have voiced their dismay at being spoiled, if we'd stayed away from our computers before watching the episode.

Personally, I have no one to blame but myself. I frequently visit television news sites based in the US (being fully aware that I usually won't get to see shows that air until a couple of hours later), and even non-descript article titles like 'Game of Thrones Shocker', at which point I should have closed my web browser, didn't deter me. And so it came to be that I found an article titled 'Game of Thrones showrunners interview: The Red Wedding -- EXCLUSIVE', which was accompanied with this picture and the caption below it:

 

Game of Thrones just depicted one of the most disturbing death scenes in TV history: The graphic massacre of noble young rebellion leader Robb Stark...

And of course, that's where, like Robb, I was completely blindsided, and also like Robb's death, I was partially responsible for what occurred. Although I'm glad I did remain partially unscathed... I didn't know Talisa, her unborn child, and Catelyn were doing to die, so that's something. Regardless, let's just say I got off easy. I've already heard of several accounts of people finding over through Facebook, and promptly deleting whoever spoiled them over the incident.

I think it's safe to say this won't be the first or last time viewers are spoiled of a major death on television. I, of course, have done this before. I found out about Jimmy Darmody's death on the season two final of Boardwalk Empire while still trying to catch up with the show. Likewise, by the time I started watching Dexter I already knew Trinity would kill Rita in the season four final, in fact, finding out might been the catalyst for me to start watching the show.

But it's not only the Internet culpable of spoiling such things, television is such a large industry that even those involved can't keep everything hidden from the press to stop the fans from being spoiled. Leading up to The O.C.'s third season final rumours were rife that a major character was being killed off. Creator and writer Josh Schwartz even circulated the red-herring that the show's family patriarch, Sandy Cohen, was dying, only to have actress Mischa Barton, who played Marissa Cooper, reveal several days before the show's final that she had left, and that her character was being killed off. Similarly, during a wrongful termination lawsuit actress Nicolette Sheridan served Marc Cherry in regards to her departure from the show Desperate Housewives, Cherry was asked to prove that other major characters, like Sheridan's Edie, had being killed off of the show before, and that her exit wasn't a personal attack on Sheridan. Cherry responded that they were killing off Mike Delfino, the husband of one of the housewives, several weeks before the episode aired, spoiling the shock for fans.

 

As you can see, there's no way to avoid spoilers, and Game of Thrones is even more hazardous for spoilers because it's based of George R.R. Martin book series A Song of Ice and Fire. In fact the brutal scenes depicted in The Rains of Castamere occurred in book three of the series, which was released late 2000. And unlike with the Harry Potter series, in which I was forever immune to discovering the death of Sirius or Dumblemore as I read the books within the first couple of days of their release, I don't as yet have the luxury of staying unspoiled with Game of Thrones. So the best I can do in this case is to in fact get started, or should I say, continue, reading the novels as to be certain that this doesn't occur again. Ironically I'm only three-quarters of the way through book one, I'm up to the chapter in which Robb and Catelyn first arrive at The Twins to meet with Walder Frey. I wonder what will come from that? Wait, wait... don't tell me, I don't want to be spoiled.