Stephen King Says to Stop Whining About Spoilers

Stephen King just used a Guardian piece to poke at spoiler culture while tipping his hat to Dame Daphne du Maurier, and he did not tiptoe around it.

King vs spoilers

In an essay for The Guardian, King pauses his praise of du Maurier to wade into the forever argument about spoilers. He says the term itself is a relatively recent internet-and-social-media creation, and he is over it. His take: if a story is actually good, you can’t really ruin it by knowing where it ends, because the fun is getting there.

'I find "You spoiled it!" to be, typically, the cry of spoilt people.'

That’s the tone throughout: blunt. He argues the best stories hold up even when you know the ending, because the ride matters more than the destination.

Why du Maurier is the exception

King is not just venting. He uses du Maurier to make a point about endings. Her horror tales, he says, land in this uneasy, deliberately unsettled place where she lets the reader finish the job in their head. Because of that, he believes talking about them in detail really does deflate their impact. He calls her a master storyteller — 'diabolical,' even — and you can hear the admiration in the way he warns people not to over-explain her work.

Why this is coming up now

The timing is not random. King’s piece arrives alongside the release of 'After Midnight: Thirteen Chilling Tales,' a new collection of du Maurier’s dark short fiction. The book comes with a fresh introduction by King himself, which makes his spoiler stance — and his du Maurier praise — feel like both a heartfelt tribute and a heads-up: go in as blind as you can, because that’s how her stories hurt best.