Bookish Musings - Searching Out Spoilers

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about the dreded bane of readers lives.. spoilers. You may need preparing, you may need to gather yourself, because this post and it's content may shock even the most indelicate of readers.

I think in comparison to many other readers in the blogging community, I'm a little bit abnormal. If having patience in waiting for sequels or treating my connection to books as a relationship wasn't weird enough, I actually quite like knowing what happens in books before I read them, and I don't mean getting a good look at the premise or a look into the characters, I mean I enjoy looking up information about plot devices, character developments, plot twists and even spoilers.

Just take a moment to let that sink in. I like looking for and reading spoilers. It's shocking, almost worthy of being kicked out of the community, I know, but personally, spoilers don't bother me much. In fact, what even equates to being a spoiler? A relationship dynamic being changed, is that really something worthy of keeping quiet, especially if it plays an unimportant part of the plot? A piece of a character's past, is that really a spoiler or is a reveal of information that people might appreciate knowing while reading the review? The whole idea surrounding spoilers confuses me to no end, but personally, I like knowing specific pieces of information in specific series before I continue them, and in order to actually go into detail about why I continue to indulge these little weird quirks, I'm going to need to include what could be interpreted as 'spoilers' for Skulduggery Pleasant, Vampire Academy, Throne of Glass and Clockwork Princess, so if you haven't read these books and want to avoid some facts, then this post might not be for you, if not, take a seat, get yourself some popcorn and prepare.



I will first start with Vampire Academy. I started the series because it was heavily recommended to me by Stacie from Books Galore and in doing so, I fell instantly in love with the world, the characters and found some scenes heartbreaking. When I told Stacie about those 'heartbreaking scenes' she proceeded to tell me that the ending of Shadow Kiss would tear me apart. Did I therefore I decide that stewing for the weeks between reading Vampire Academy and Shadow Kiss in fear of what was coming would be my course of action? No, of course not. I researched the series, found the cliff-hanging, heartbreaking moment was in fact Dimitri going from mysterious, alluring and a little off-kilter to 'I want to eat your soul, lol.' Has this ruined the series for me? No. In fact, it actually made me more excited to continue the series because I knew what was coming. It's almost my own re-enactment of Romeo and Juliet - I know things are going to end badly, but I want to see the story play out in front of me, I want to get attached to these characters and relate to the feelings they have, and I want maximum heart-break when the scene does come along and ruin my feels. Did searching out those spoilers affect my experience, yes, a little, but overall, searching them didn't change how I probably would have felt had I not.

Skulduggery Pleasant next. So there's this person, Darquese, she's going to come along and ruin everybody's wonderful plans for the world because she wants to burn the thing to dust, including herself. She's a little weird, sometimes psychotic, but we can deal with that. Book #3 of #9, the big ending reveal. Valkyrie, (also Stephanie, who needs that many names really?) has just woken up, she goes to her dream-catcher and recalls what it was she was just dreaming of. The evil sorceress Darquese was in her dream and she looked like Valkyrie - no, she was Valkyrie - DUN DUN DUH. No. See, because of my little weird habit of researching characters and plot devices before I'd read the book, I already knew this fact. You could say it was one of the biggest reveals in the entire series. Did it affect my enjoyment of that installment at all? Actually, yes, but not because I knew what was coming, more because I wasn't impressed by how it was revealed.

Moving onto Throne of Glass. I had read Throne of Glass and I had my own theories on the series, on Celaena, on Chaol and on most everything about the series so far. Did I want to wait and see whether those theories were right? Did I heck as like, it's a 6 book series, I wanted to know as soon as possible, (it's a pride thing, if you're right, you want to know asap. It's also a British thing..) so I found the Throne of Glass Wiki page, and I searched my way through Celaena's character profile and found the answers I needed. Yes, I was right about her heritage, (lets be honest here guys, it was near enough spelt out to you in Book #1, but still-) I was right about her having a different name and I was right about her inherited talents, but there were still questions that I had left unanswered and this is where I get frustrated with my habit. When I have theories or when I know facts, I kind of want all the answers right there and then, and I mean, all of them. I want to know exactly where a big series like Throne of Glass is headed, I want to know whether my certainty at Celaena being with Chaol in the end, despite all the obstacles that are bound to appear along the way, I want to know what badass magic skills she secretly has, I want answers, yet I don't always get them when I go searching, which sucks.

Clockwork Princess next, the big baddy of the list. Clockwork Angel is the book that really got me back into reading and introduced me to a whole world of young adult books and authors and I marathoned Clockwork Prince straight afterwards, however, this was over 2 years ago and even though I've owned Clockwork Princess since last Christmas, I still haven't finished the series. Why? Because I know how it ends - I found out via the internet, and this time, through no fault of my own. I know Tessa chooses Will and when he eventually dies (yano, since she canny die) she then chooses to travel with Jem, (which to me is terribly convenient and really a cheats option out of a situation you created). Of course, this means that they defeat the bad person they're fighting against, (I've forgotten his name, it's been so long) and of course, many of the characters from that series decided to have broads who then had broads who then had broads who then had the characters from The Mortal Instruments series. (which is essentially a walking spoiler in itself!) There literally feels like there's no point to reading Clockwork Princess anymore now that I know how it ends and this is a perfect example of why I choose what I want to know carefully. I didn't want to know the ending to this series, one, because it was THE END, seriously, who spoils the END OF A SERIES?! - two, because the series meant a lot to me and I was truly invested in that love triangle, and three, because for some unknown reason, I just didn't want to know yet. You may have though that my weird indulging in spoilers was my way of saying I enjoy ruining things for people, but I don't. I've been ruined, ruined for one my my precious series on my shelves, so I know it feels, which is why I avoid spilling any secrets without a fair amount of warning.

Why do I enjoy searching for information that could be portrayed as being a spoiler? Sometimes I want to be prepared, sometimes I want to be proven right or wrong, sometimes I just want more background on the series, the world or the items and characters involved in the story and sometimes, I just want to know because I won't ever finish the series. I think people get to bothered by spoilers sometimes. I have a super memory, (yes, I'm being over-confident, deal with it) and that means that the likeliness of me forgetting something vital to a book is slim, but many people have a memory worse than mine, so reading about that one guy being a tool and ruining your ship, or finding out that one character dies that you really didn't give a toss about them anyway, it doesn't have to change everything so dramatically. Yes, people are more bothered by them than others. I know bloggers who systematically power their way through Twitter and other blogs, avoiding spoilers and information like it will burn them alive, but I know other bloggers who genuinely lap up information and like to be more in the know about certain plot points and I think, in truth, I'm on the latter side of the community. I appreciate that you can spoil something for someone very easily, that's why I go to the effort of making people aware that they're coming, why I do my utmost best to avoid giving away too much in reviews, but I love being showered with facts and information about subjects I love, and most of all, books I love. It's a strange little habit, it's not going to be understood by everyone in the slightest, but it's what I do, and I love it.

How do you feel about spoilers or my weird habit? Do you like going in blind, or do you enjoy knowing a bit about it beforehand? Let me know yours thoughts down below and don't be afraid to hold back, I'm really interested.