Avoiding potential book spoilers (and failing)

[Nymeria_Snow]

**Obligatory note to admins - I understand as this post regards the shows too then it should be moved to that forum, but if you read below, you'll understand why I'd really, really appreciate if this stayed in the book section**

I haven't been here in a while so forgive me if this discussion has been raging for a long while, but I've decided to avoid show spoilers in the possibilities that some of the events in the TV show may spoil the books. I understand that the TV show is going on a different path but I think we all know that it won't be wholly different, and some of GRRM's carefully moulded plot points are just too convenient for the show to not continue forward. I'm also a massive book nerd, and as this is a fairly rare event of an adaptation overtaking the original text, I'd hate to lose some of the joy of reading through a TV show that is at best, inconsistent. 

Despite this, it's really bloody difficult to not see spoilers! I can avoid social media, yet I never thought I'd be so mad at news outlets (and I'm a trainee journalist). Spoilers are appearing in titles, unmarked, and it's even stretching to entire magazine covers. It's also leaving me with the problem of finding out spoilers through secondary means- perhaps it's better to just face up to watching the show than seeing potentially large book spoilers through the news? I really don't want to though!

Is anyone else having this issue? It's getting to the point where I could really do with a support group (if only to distract myself from other parts of the internet)

 

[joluoto2]

I stopped watching the show before last season begun. And I have not been able to avoid spoilers even though I have tried. Though every time I stumble upon a show spoiler I just Think: That's too silly to ever happen in the books.

[Heartofwinter]

If you avoid social media and the news its possible. Watching a lot of sports or other cable channels that don't have talk shows make it easy to avoid on tv. Either way the show is so much different than the books, the plotlines will be way different, unfortunately main points like TOJ and certain character locations will be enough to spoil things for some people. 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

I seriously gave up on avoiding spoilers. Generally, that's doable only short term. Say, you've just bought the book and shut the outside world out until you've finished reading. Something like that. But impossible to hold them off indefinitely (and "indefinitely" just happens to be the date of publication of TWOW - better just not to think about when Book 7 will be finished).

It's like keeping a secret, only the mechanism is seen from the outside. Ned Stark successfully guarded Jon Snow's parentage until his grave; the twincest ultimately got out, some twelve years after Joffrey's birth; and the Red Wedding treason and plot became public knowledge very soon after the fact, even if the Freys still try to play dumb ("yes, Robb Stark shapeshifted into a wolf and started eating us, yes sir, that's exactly what happened there").

Bottom line, you'll get spoiled, just make peace with that fact.

[aryagonnakill#2]

I personally figured there was no reason to avoid the show when everyone on tv and in real life would be talking about it.  There is no way to have not heard about how the last episode ended and that was 2 days ago.  Since we don't even know for sure that the books will get finished, I'm just going to enjoy the show for what it is and hopefully will get to enjoy the books as well.

[Ebrose]

3 hours ago, Nymeria_Snow said:

Is anyone else having this issue? It's getting to the point where I could really do with a support group (if only to distract myself from other parts of the internet)

I am, and I would be very glad to join your support group! 

So far I have managed to avoid spoilers quite decently. But this morning while reading a Spanish newspaper online... screenshot and A NAME just in front of my eyes. I am starting to be really worried, tbh.

I watched the previous seasons' episodes usually before reading the corresponding chapters in the books,. After I started digging into the forums, however, I realised how many details I had skipped and how biased my character judgements had been due to what I had seen in the screen. So I decided to force myself to wait until TWoW is released. A bad idea, probably.

[Dolorous22]

I completely understand where the OP is coming from. But for me, the show is something completely different.

I actually look forward to a new episode coming out so I can have a giggle at D&D trying to tackle a story that has even the author stumped. C'mon, it's ridiculous, but it's T.V so....  

Honestly, I wouldn't let it bother you. 

[Tianzi]

9 minutes ago, Dolorous22 said:

I actually look forward to a new episode coming out so I can have a giggle at D&D trying to tackle a story that has even the author stumped. C'mon, it's ridiculous, but it's T.V so....

This...

3 hours ago, joluoto2 said:

every time I stumble upon a show spoiler I just Think: That's too silly to ever happen in the books.

...and this.

I watch the show, and I try not to get spoiled of it, it's several hours once a week... and it's extremely difficult. No further than yesterday I got SMS with a spoiler because I have dumb acquaintances who just ASSUME I already saw the episode... So I'd say that getting to the book release date without getting spoiled is impossible. 
 

[Maxxine]

1 hour ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I personally figured there was no reason to avoid the show when everyone on tv and in real life would be talking about it.  There is no way to have not heard about how the last episode ended and that was 2 days ago.  Since we don't even know for sure that the books will get finished, I'm just going to enjoy the show for what it is and hopefully will get to enjoy the books as well.

This is me. At first I was adamant I wasn't going to watch  the show because I didn't want to be spoiled. But then the more I thought about how that just wasn't going to work just because you can't remain unspoiled forever. Even if Winds came out this year, it would still be another three or four years before Spring came out. So trying to remain unspoiled for that long just didn't seem feasible. I figured there was so much divergence from book to show that it won't be spoiled too much. Hell the show is completely skipping the Vale, Quentyn/Arianne, and Lady Stoneheart. Yeah the major storylines like Dany and Jon will probably be the same but I think I can deal with that. Plus I watched three seasons of the show before I even knew there was a book and I was still able to enjoy the books so I figure there's no difference now. And I actually enjoy the show so I just enjoy it for what it is.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

I decided to just watch it, that way I see the potential book spoilers first hand, and can sort the wheat from the chaff, in terms of what I think looks likely and what looks like D&D's BS. 

Being in the UK I've found avoiding show spoilers for just one day is extremely difficult. There is no way to avoid them long term. 

[LokisRaider]

So far I am doing a good enough job avoiding spoilers. I am in the thought that they are two different stories at this point, but the plots that have remained the same I'd rather wait until I can read it in GRRM's words.

When on websites that would have articles about I I try to notice any thumbnail out of the corner or my eye and either keep it at the bottom of the page or scroll up real quick. It takes more effort than I really want to put into it, but hey that's the price right?

The only problem I really have is with my dickhead roommate that thinks its funny to try and spoil things for me. He just starts saying things and I have to cut him off. The other day it got to the point where I laid it out to him straight. I never spoiled Ned's fate, the red wedding, the purple wedding, the viper vs. the mountain, Tywins fate, Tyrions fate, the endless amount of spoilers I could have given my friends that watched the show and never read the books I kept silent about for the last I dunno decade, they can keep their mouths shut for 4 months, 6 months, a year or however long it takes for TWoW to come out.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

3 minutes ago, LokisRaider said:

So far I am doing a good enough job avoiding spoilers. I am in the thought that they are two different stories at this point, but the plots that have remained the same I'd rather wait until I can read it in GRRM's words.

When on websites that would have articles about I I try to notice any thumbnail out of the corner or my eye and either keep it at the bottom of the page or scroll up real quick. It takes more effort than I really want to put into it, but hey that's the price right?

The only problem I really have is with my dickhead roommate that thinks its funny to try and spoil things for me. He just starts saying things and I have to cut him off. The other day it got to the point where I laid it out to him straight. I never spoiled Ned's fate, the red wedding, the purple wedding, the viper vs. the mountain, Tywins fate, Tyrions fate, the endless amount of spoilers I could have given my friends that watched the show and never read the books I kept silent about for the last I dunno decade, they can keep their mouths shut for 4 months, 6 months, a year or however long it takes for TWoW to come out.

Good luck with that.

The "they" might also be some two random strangers discussing the show, overheard by you. A journalist, using a motive from the incredibly popular TV show as a rhetorical device. An Internet meme.

As I said, good luck.

[PCK]

You'll know who wins the throne years before the last book even comes out. 

[flying mosquito]

Well... It will be impossible, unless you avoid tv, papers, internet, radio and human beings. I wish it were possible but it isn't. 

[JonCon's Red Beard]

To be fair, the spoilers are nothing we haven't figured out by ourselves before. And those things that aren't are too far-fetched to even consider Martin would write them  

2 hours ago, LokisRaider said:

The only problem I really have is with my dickhead roommate that thinks its funny to try and spoil things for me. He just starts saying things and I have to cut him off. The other day it got to the point where I laid it out to him straight. I never spoiled Ned's fate, the red wedding, the purple wedding, the viper vs. the mountain, Tywins fate, Tyrions fate, the endless amount of spoilers I could have given my friends that watched the show and never read the books I kept silent about for the last I dunno decade, they can keep their mouths shut for 4 months, 6 months, a year or however long it takes for TWoW to come out.

I would spoil them everything so he can shut up for good.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

Those spoilers that you might see in headlines are spoilers for the show, though. There's no way anybody can spoil books that haven't been published yet.

I would advise you that, if by chance you see news of any show event, to just assume that it's not something that will happen in the next books. Even if the event is technically the same, it won't be the same. It's like if I show you an actual American flag and my sketch of an American flag; on the surface, they look like the same thing but really they are not the same at all.

In the books, the event (whatever it is) will make sense and have meaning.

 

[Kara99]

OP : I will join your support group.  I have been reading since these books since 2001 and I really want to finish the story in GRRM's words.

It is very hard though - I have had to warn friends, cancel HBO, look away from tv's in the gym, avoid certain websites...

I actually am very disappointed in GRRM for doing this to the loyal readers who have been fans from the start.  Sometimes I get so angry I tell myself, I don't care anymore, I won't even buy WoW when it comes out...but that's a lie...

[The Wull]

I decided I wasn't going to alter my entire life for the next six years to avoid "spoilers" that will not actually be book spoilers.  Just take heart in the fact that the show has diverged so wildly and illogically from the books at this point, anything you might have heard can be almost completely dismissed.  I don't expect many "true" spoilers, except maybe the broad strokes of the very ending of the series.

 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

Could you, gentle fellas, at least GT*O with the spoilers from the thread specifically devoted to avoiding spoilers? Like, seriously.

[Nevets]

At this point I don't really worry about spoilers because the show has diverged so much from the novels that even if an event in the show "confirms" a particular theory, there is no certainty that will even be the case in the books, or if it is, it will likely be quite different.  In any case, I'm not so much interested in what happens but in why it happens, and the show is unlikely to spoil the why.