Spoilers before a re-read

[Basel Gill]

Okay, this is kind of weird. I'd been holding off for more than a year on listening to the WoT podcasts, and reading the Leigh Butler re-read blog on Tor.com while I got through my first read of the books. I started the podcasts a few weeks ago and I've listened to the first seven. Yesterday I read the first post on the re-read blog, and today I began the second post. I haven't finished ToM yet, but the stuff I'm going through was done before the last couple of books even came out.

 

About a quarter of the way into the second blog post, I ran into something that just made me stop reading and close out the tab. I'd assumed that I'd be safe reading posts that only cover stuff I read, and aren't written with any knowledge of stuff that I haven't. Right? Except I'd been hoping to do a re-read of the series at some point in the future, and the blog posts and the podcasts are being done by people that have read the books many times over. I got hit with Butler noticing something early in Book 1 that turns out important later on... something I might have liked to have caught on my own when I read the book for the second time myself.

 

So am I being totally crazy by worrying about spoilers to material that I've already read? I've seen a lot of people saying that re-reads are enlightening cause knowing what comes later on enables you to catch all sorts of things in the early books that you don't see the first time around. But seeing someone else notice it first kind of ruins things. At the same time, I've been wanting to catch up on these discussions ever since I joined DM. (For that matter, there is one DM theory blog that I've been holding off on reading for about a year now.) The thought of holding off even longer isn't a happy one for me. Is it really worth it for me to just bag it until I make significant progress into my second read, when I'm not even currently done with my first?

[Moon Sedai]

Heh.

hey good portion of the early books were rude through me by non-marked spoilers on wotmania.

Because who seems to be some sort of I'm official rules for any book out over a year is fair game.

It ticks me off.

I was on book 3 and they were spoilibg book 6.

Irritating as all get out.

[michellem]

Well, Leigh's reread was started before ToM got out, so the first half or so should contain no spoilers. She clearly stated in the ingress when ToM comes out, and for the first few posts after that there is a strict no-spoiler policy, and she also states clearly when that is over. So with Leigh, you should be safe. I loooove her re-read. Made me see so many things and connections I had never picked up on my own, even with 3 read-troughs.

 

What I did though, was read the re-read at the same time that I read trough the books. So I read chapters 1-8 i.e. in EotW, and then the reread for that part. Yeah, I got some "spoilers" for things in later books that I'd already read, but it's things I know I wouldn't have picked up on my own.

[Basel Gill]

Well, Leigh's reread was started before ToM got out, so the first half or so should contain no spoilers. She clearly stated in the ingress when ToM comes out, and for the first few posts after that there is a strict no-spoiler policy, and she also states clearly when that is over. So with Leigh, you should be safe. I loooove her re-read. Made me see so many things and connections I had never picked up on my own, even with 3 read-troughs.

 

What I did though, was read the re-read at the same time that I read trough the books. So I read chapters 1-8 i.e. in EotW, and then the reread for that part. Yeah, I got some "spoilers" for things in later books that I'd already read, but it's things I know I wouldn't have picked up on my own.

 

Well, Mish, in Leigh's second TEotW post, she mentions Rand willing Bela not to get tired out, and then Moiraine saying that Bela seems less tired than all the horses, and she mentions that this is Rand's first channeling even if he doesn't know he did it. I felt spoiled there. I've read the book, but I really would have liked to notice that for myself when I re-read. So I don't see how it's all that safe.

[michellem]

Well, if you've only ever read it once, then I understand. It was my third read-trough when I read Leigh's reread, so to me it was more a matter of picking up little details I never noticed on my own. I still had a ton of "aha"-moments :P

[Basel Gill]

I'll likely do like you mentioned, and wait till I actually begin a re-read and then read along with that. Although I wasn't planning on doing a WoT re-read till late next year at least. After I get done with AMoL, I think I will have had my fill of giant long books for a while.

[michellem]

Lol, I could actually do a continous re-read if it wasn't for the fact that there's so many other books waiting out there to be read XD