Warning: this story contains Game of Thrones spoilers, so if you’re not all the way up to date with what is happening in The Realm, go read something else on the site and don’t come back here until you know everything that has happened through Season 6, Episode 2, which you can get caught up on here.
Sunday night on Game of Thrones, the thing everyone expected to happen this season happened: Jon Snow was brought back to life.
This shouldn’t be news nor should it be something that gets people all fired up on the spoilers front because (a) anyone that read the books knew this was happening, (b) anyone that has been watching the show to this point should know how crucial Jon is to the story and (c) there has been a 24/7 Kit Harrington hair watch since last season wrapped and when he didn’t cut off his Jon Snow locks and gets spotted on set, you should be smart enough to infer where things are going.
It should be noted, however, that when Jon Snow came back to life was something that could be spoiled and there were certainly people out there breaking the news that it happened Sunday before West Coast viewers had the chance to witness his resurrection for themselves, which sucks, but this is the world we live in now.
We live in a world full of spoilers.
Whether you want to blame social media or the Internet or the people who feel compelled to put everything good and cool and interesting and surprising about all things entertainment in the streets, you also have to accept that spoilers aren’t going anywhere and develop a strategy for avoiding them.
The onus is on you, the viewer, to preserve your viewing experience because the media climate has shifted to where we’re analyzing everything on large, accessible platforms as soon as they happen and you can’t tell a million people that are desperate to talk about what they just saw to hush up because you live on the West Coast and those damn East Coast viewers need to respect the time zone shift and your desire to watch a show without spoilers.
Those people already saw it and want to discuss it, so you’re the one that has to keep the spoilers from entering your world. Here are some tips on how to make that happen.
Pro Tip #1: Stay off social media
If you haven’t figured this one out already, you deserve to have every episode of every show you love spoiled until the end of time. People live-tweet everything these days and so if you know there are a bunch of GOT fans that will be all up in your timeline on Sunday night, don’t go on Twitter. The same applies to Facebook or any other social platform you use.
Pro Tip #2: Keep away from spoiler sites
You know what you shouldn’t do between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday morning if you haven’t seen the latest episode of Game of Thrones? Go to sites like Entertainment Weekly or Nerdist or IGN or wherever because they’re going to be talking about the latest episode of Game of Thrones, just like those pesky people in your Twitter timeline. You can’t get mad about spoilers if you’re frequenting those sites. It’s like complaining about your computer getting all crudded up if you have a stream of YouPorn videos playing all day.
This isn’t as hard as you may think either; it just takes commitment. Don’t click the links. Don’t ask your friends about it. Get over that FOMO feeling in the pit of your stomach and you’ll be fine.
Pro Tip #3: Watch the show in a timely fashion
Spoiler embargoes only last so long and the most time you get to complain about “Ah, Spoilers!” is 24 hours. If you can’t watch Game of Thrones on Sunday night when everyone else is watching it, you have 24 hours to ingest the episode before all bets are off and you can no longer object to people talking about what happened in your presence. Just because you had something else going on and couldn’t get around to watching it doesn’t mean no one else should be allowed to talk about it around you in perpetuity.
