Circles of Geek Hell: Spoilers

Hell Week is upon me again - is it me or has there been more than one of these this year? - and to celebrate it, I'll be offering short pithy content this week (in addition to my committed X-Files reviews, of course). And what's pithier than a short RANT? This week, you find out how I'll be serving my time in Hell. One of these daily options is sure to be my fate as a card-carrying hyper-geek.

The Circle of Spoilage
Location: 9th Circle - Treachery

A circle for mild sinners, it's nonetheless quite irritating. You see, this circle actually has leisure time where the sinful geek gets to keep watching/reading the genre shows, comics, books and movies he or she always had in life, and the backlog of stuff they never got to because of their untimely deaths. Except the Devil bombards you with unavoidable spoilers all day, so there are never any surprises. When you insensate to it and no longer care about anything, he lets you move on to the next Circle.

So you know that colleague at work who so wants to discuss Game of Thrones, he'll ask "Are you where Tyrion dies yet?" (not a real spoiler) because oh so mindful of not actively spoiling something so really really really wants to make sure he doesn't talk about those elements before you've gotten to them? That.

Sometimes you think you've avoided Satan all day (as you do) only to have him show up as a creepy little kid who sits behind you at the theater and recites the script he read on the Internet to his little brother literally SECONDS before it happens on screen. Wait. I don't think I have to die for either of those things to happen to me. BECAUSE THEY ALREADY HAVE!!! ARRGHHHHHH!!!

Like I said, it's Hell Week. It's not just about being busy at work. It's LITERALLY HELL.

Comments

Randal said…
Tyrion dies? Is that a book spoiler??
March 23, 2015 at 12:14 PM
Siskoid said…
Not a real spoiler.
March 23, 2015 at 1:15 PM
Brian said…
Nah, spoilers are in the Ninth Circle at least (if not digging a deeper midden hole beneath it). For nerds and geeks, knowledge in a currency. Spoilers, well, *spoil* that currency and thus despoil the entire nature of knowledge by making the entirety of what we know–or think we know– suspect. Nerdity is so tied into subject mastery that being suspect of one's own knowledge of the matter (at the level that one does, one will never know everything, but one knows what one knows; spoilers cast that into doubt) is the worst sort of betrayal of another's status as a nerd or geek. It's not merely an insult or a betrayal, but an entire forcible denerding of the individual using one's own nerdery – it's Ape choosing to fight Ape...
March 23, 2015 at 1:22 PM
Siskoid said…
Definitely. I didn't actually number the circles in parallel to Dante's, just as they come to me.
March 23, 2015 at 1:25 PM
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