Coming to a bad end(ing)

Aaron Staton as Cole Phelps in L.A. Noire “Ken. Cosgrove… Accounts. No, I mean LAPD. So, yeah, Don keeps saying when I tell a story I need a proper ending, and- hey, is that lunch?” (Seriously, 3/4 of the cast of Mad Men are in this thing, even Hildy. It’s slightly disconcerting.)

[I’m discussing the narratives of video games here, in particular their third acts and conclusions: obviously this involves the dreaded “spoilers”. Read this for my full exegesis on the narcissistic stupidity of people who are obsessed with not being “spoiled”; but for now it suffices to say that you’ll want to jog on if knowing how a story ends is likely to make you scream, clutch your pearls and faint.]

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers (Warning: Spoilers)

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Americans dominate the Anglophone internet, and Americans hate spoilers. “WHERE’S THE SPOILER WARNING, ASSHOLE?” is a relatively mild and restrained example of the incandescent rage Americans unleash when they deem themselves “spoiled” by innocuous scraps of advance narrative information about TV shows, films and other popular entertainment. The aforesaid information can usually be gleaned from a cursory or even an accidental viewing of a trailer, a general article, a synopsis or a publicity picture, like for example “in Avatar that Australian actor who isn’t Russell Crowe or Hugh Jackman nobs a blue space cat lady, flies dragons and fights a battle against baddies.”