Spoilers! Or, directly, as the RAE's observatory of words recommends, gutting: "anticipate the outcome of a story to those who do not know it." This is what some readers occasionally feel after consulting a literary, film or series review or criticism of the newspaper. Among them, Marc Guiñon, who has written to me twice for this reason. A few weeks ago, due to the review of a film (“a very clear spoiler is made: death of the protagonist”) and some time ago due to an article about the novel Anna Karenina (“although it is a classic, I was going to start it in the next few days with many you win, but knowing the outcome already my motivation has been affected").
Another reader recently complained that a writer revealed in La Contra the enigmatic closing sentence of her latest book: "Interesting, although it has spoiled the end of the novel."
Xavi Ayén, editor-in-chief of Culture who has been writing about books for more than 30 years, points out that in a review "surprising elements of the plot should not be revealed, or those that would break the game to which the author has decided to subject the reader, but Yes, those that situate in the context: theme, setting, characters…”.
Jordi Batlle Caminal, a veteran film critic for the newspaper, agrees with Ayén and claims the right to explain "aspects or moments" of the plot. For Batlle, "now there is a lot of susceptibility" and the concept of spoiler should be limited to when "what is unpredictable or an unexpected twist explodes."
Series criticism, in which an analysis is often published for each episode, has become a genre with its own codes. "In the initial review you have to be respectful and not advance any element of the plot that could spoil the experience," says Pere Solà Gimferrer, a specialist in this field. But as the story progresses, he continues, it is inevitable to introduce references to events from past chapters, which is why Solà sometimes indicates that from a certain point in the article there are spoilers: whoever continues advancing does so on their own and risk. And it is that, as Ayén points out, “there is a subgroup of readers and spectators who, when leaving the cinema or finishing a book, look for the reviews that have been written” to compare their own impressions with those of the critics.
Readers entrust themselves to professionals in this journalistic genre to guide them, recommend them and to enrich their own opinions with new points of view, analysis and context. And for this, Ayén emphasizes, the critics have to be "sufficiently responsible so as not to crush the decisive element of the work."
