Juliana Long
Staff Writer
In every corner of the school, someone is talking about one of two things: the new Marvel Endgame movie or the final season of Game of Thrones.
Funnily enough, the thing people talk about the most is not talking about it.
From what I’ve observed, people at SLA have been taking Endgame spoilers much more seriously than GOT spoilers. Ever since Endgame was released on April 26th, fans who haven’t seen it yet have been working tirelessly to avoid spoilers on social media and in real life alike. Needless to say, people really didn’t want to find out what happens before the movie came out.
Junior Mo Kelly took an intrepid approach to the spoiler phenomenon. She’s not an avid Marvel fan, but she looked up the spoilers to use as blackmail against her brother.
“Marvel has been around for a really long time and a lot of people have been watching Marvel movies since they were kids. They mean a lot to people,” she said.
“It’s this big finale that people are so ready to see, and people know that big things are going to happen. Seeing spoilers really takes away from the experience that you get seeing the movie in theaters.”
SLA math teacher Brad Latimer, who prohibited discussion about GOT and Endgame in his classroom, has similar opinions.
“If you’re someone who really enjoys certain shows, you’ve dedicated a lot of time in your life to being very involved in these plotlines. A big component of that is not having anything spoiled for you,” he said.
“I want to see it play out how the creators wanted it to play out, not from someone saying something about it.”
Kelly and Mr. Latimer have both taken some wild measures in order to avoid spoilers.
“When Avengers and Game [of Thrones] came out, I personally put myself on internet quarantine,” Mr. Latimer explained. “The only website I went to was my email and the School District website to put in my attendance.” He also jokingly claimed that he would fail students and write the Seniors letters of “disrecommendation” if they spoke about spoilers in his classroom.
Kelly hasn’t gone as far as that to avoid spoilers, but she’s witnessed it all over social media. “I’ve seen people saying ‘If you spoil it for me, I will block you.’ And also on Twitter, people are blocking the words ‘avengers’ and ‘endgame’.”
Neither seem to judge or blame anyone for avoiding spoilers. Latimer spoke a bit about the importance of remaining respectful to those who haven’t seen the show or movie yet. “People who do spoil things, like, post on social media, ‘so and so died’ or ‘so and so killed so and so’, I don’t understand why they get out of that.”
According to the Russo brothers, the creators of the Marvel universe, the “spoiler ban” was lifted on May 6th, meaning it was now acceptable to talk freely about the movie’s contents without being scolded.
However, the creators of Game of Thrones have not yet confirmed that talk of spoilers is allowed, so I’d recommend keeping quiet around Mr. Latimer if you want him to write you a letter of rec for next year.
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