“Spoilers” reveal plot twists prematurely, and for many books or films, they can undermine a reader’s or audience member’s enjoyment of the book or film.
But it’s reassuring to know that some art works are spoiler-proof. If you’ve ever chosen to reread a book or gone to see a film a second or third time, even though you haven’t completely forgotten the ending or plot twists from the first time, you have enjoyed one of them.
Romeo and Juliet is a spoiler-proof play. Shakespeare even went so far as to write spoilers into the opening of the play (“A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”), knowing the play would still work!
If a work falls apart when subjected to spoilers, it may mean that what was holding the work together in the first place was some device or trick or “cleverness.” If, on the other hand, a work is spoiler-proof, it may mean that there is a deeper kind of quality present, one that comes across less as constructed or clever and more as “real” or “true.”