To revisit a much earlier comment you made: "The writer should be able to present her narrative as she sees fit." - and she has, by producing her book. That is her presentation.

I feel like we have talked on Hubski before about how, once the book goes out into the world, it's up to the audience to interpret and react to it as they see fit. Here The author doesn't get to say, "No, you're reading it WRONG! That's not what I meant! That's not what it means!" The author does not get to dictate how the audience responds or interprets or engages with the book. The author cannot say literary interpretations or analysis are invalid simply because she does not like them or agree with them. She doesn't get to say, "No you can't love this character," or so on. I feel like the use of spoilers, or not, fits into this concept absolutely.

______________________

Wikipedia. Just the facts, ma'am, as some cowboy would say.

(Fig 1) - Say I'm watching Grey's and there's this new character introduced mid-way through Season 5 and I just hate her. She annoys me. It pisses me off that she's on the show. I also know, due to prior reading, that during Season 4 and 5, ratings took a slump for the show, which is attributed to poorer overall quality as a result of the writer's slump. So...I know I'm not getting the Grey's I exactly love at the moment. And this character makes me nuts. Every time she comes on screen, I make a noise of disgust.

I'm faced with a (first world style) dilemma. If I really loathe this character it's going to put me off of Grey's. The longer she's on, the more I'm going to stop enjoying the show. So, I think to myself...Hmm, maybe the character is going to die! Maybe this episode! (Then she doesn't die.) I'm still frustrated. I want the character gone. A horrible thought strikes me. What if the character is going to become permanent cast? That would suck. I don't know if I could stand to keep watching Grey's to the end if she's going to be there, at least in this iteration.

So I go to Wikipedia. I don't ask my friends, they don't remember. I don't check Reddit because, what, is there like a grey's anatomy subreddit? They're not going to tell me what I want to know unless I post a self-post and that's just stupid. I guess I could google blogs and check them, but that's not going to tell me what I really want to know, which is just, "Is this character going to stay or go or what?"

Voila! I find out the character leaves in S5E15! That's only...cripes, that's only 6 episodes from where I am. I can bear it. I also find out that she leaves because it turns out she cheated her way into the program. I am mollified. My dislike of her is justified. She is a terrible person, only we don't truly know that yet. Because of both these factors I am pleased and choose to continue the show instead of at least walking away for the time.

If anything, my enjoyment of the storyline has increased because I checked the future plotline.

(Fig 2) I read A Song of Fire and Ice. If you haven't caught it yet, rest of Hubski, Ned Stark dies at the end. I can't take the suspense leading up to his execution, though. I'm plagued with "Will he or won't he," so much so that it's distracting me from the actual details in the book and I find myself just wanting to skip to the end to find out what happens. I'm ruining the story for myself because of my anticipation. So, I look it up online. Knowing that he dies, I can continue to read the story in peace and actually absorb the details instead of anxiously skimming until the execution scene and then having to re-read the prior 50 pages.

(Fig 3) I'm watching some movie I found on Netflix. From what I'm picking up in clues and foreshadowing, it seems like {some thing} is going to happen. But in my opinion, if that thing happens, I feel the movie will be cheapened, its overall quality will lessen, and I will find the story disappointing, predictable, and/or just icky. Not to my taste. I want to know if this thing is going to happen because if it is, fuck this movie, it's not worth my time. So I look it up on Wikipedia, find out what happens, and am able to decide.

There are times I have no urge to spoil books or movies. They are not frequent but they happen; usually it is a sign that I am enjoying the media, or that it simply doesn't matter to me much what the plot actually does. I'm reading Don Quixote. I don't know what happens next nor would I be motivated enough to look. I watched The House of Yes and found the storytelling so skilled, subtle, and different from most movies that, while I was able to pick up on undertones in the script and movie and guess some of what would happen, I enjoyed the artistry behind those undertones, enjoyed not being totally sure (but being pretty sure), and I enjoyed watching it all play out.

It's like novelty accounts on Reddit. If I check a username before I read a comment and see it's a novelty account, I know not to even bother. There's no spoiler that would have made me not go see the new Star Wars. But there's no spoiler that would have ruined the film for me either. I just don't experience that side of spoilers, I'd say 90% of the time. It doesn't matter to me if I know the plot ahead of time and in fact it might help sway me one way or another when it comes to consuming the media.

___

Steve and the Bachelor tie in here because Steve is the person who collects Bachelor spoilers. You couldn't pull up Wikipedia and check; the producers are going to edit that shit. But what I'm saying is that my feelings about spoilers have nothing to do with getting them from a commentator like Steve or other blogs or my friends or Facebook at all. If spoilers come to me via those methods, hey, sure, that's fine. I realize I used the Star Wars example and talked about asking my friends to spoil it. I didn't ask them because I wanted their lens. I would have inadvertently gotten it, sure, but it would have been collateral to the point, which was to gather facts. And in that way, I would think that this is more about distrusting the narrator or author than trusting someone else more. And I have been thinking about it tonight and I cannot think why distrusting the author/narrator/whatever is really that bad of a thing. After all, we all saw Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. Could you really trust George Lucas to put out a good movie after that? Could you blame me if I didn't?

No matter how many times I read LOTR my heart is still in my throat when I read, "The Eagles are coming!" No matter how many times I watch Silent Hill, Triangle-Head is still terrifying and the ending is still - silencing. Any movie where it turns out at the end, the sickly sweet wholesome teen queen dies of cancer? Nope, not interested, let me know she dies and count me the fuck out.