Spoiler alert: Spoilers don’t ruin stories, after all
Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad. Rosebud is a sled. Soylent Green is PEOPLE. Kristin shot J.R. Maggie shot Mr. Burns. And Bruce Willis, a.k.a. child therapist Malcome Crowe? You guys, he was dead the whole time.
We hate for the twist endings of movies, TV shows and books to be given away. But here’s a bit of relief for those of you who are just now learning that Snape, in fact, killed Dumbledore: Spoilers don’t really ruin stories for us. In fact, a new study suggests that we actually enjoy spoiled stories more than those left unspoiled.
“Writers use their artistry to make stories interesting, to engage readers, and tosurprise them. But giving away these surprises makes readers like stories better,” write study author Jonathan Leavitt, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego.
Read the whole story: msnbc
Comments
I believe the sample size to be too small for any meaningful results to occur. The people in the study may be predisposed to not liking suspense or mystery, and furthermore, the study was only performed with literary fiction, and may not translate to other media.
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