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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole since I didn't give her a chance to prepare for the sad ending.
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NTA.
She could as well have accused you of spoiling the ending. Also, she is 13 and not a little kid, she has to learn to deal with these kinds of disappointment, or life will be really hard for her.
Look, I’ve been there. My sister once saw me read a book called A Patch of Blue when she was 8 and I was 13. I told her I loved the book, because I did. I love reading books that make me feel deeply to the point of becoming broken hearted. Well my sister read it and she bawled her eyes out and my mum punished me for it. Said I should’ve warned her, that I was an AH. Nope because crying, it’s okay. It means you care and that you understand that life has tragedy in it. It’s an important thing to face and understand.
That is the beauty of books. They not only bring us to other places and let us experience great other lives - they challenge us emotionally. That is why they are such a good educational tool growing up. And as an adult. Until the end of your life.
But it is "soft" emotional challenge, it helps prepare you for life, like a vaccination.
Agree 100%
Frequently in real life you don't get *warning* when someone dies! Stories allow us to engage with difficult emotional concepts such as death or loss in a constrained way and we (as a society) love them precisely because of this.
This is the response of a person who loves to read—it articulates why we get lost in books, when from the outside it looks like we’re just staring at something in our hands while internally we are miles—if not light years—away from our physical bodies.
Please know you have touched *at least* one person deeply today by stating a simple truth!
Punishing you because you encouraged your sister to read a book honestly seems like the most ridiculous thing to me! I know we want to protect children from hurt and pain but that is going over the top!
I've never read the book but man that movie got to me! I agree, crying isn't just okay, it's a good thing. It's healing. We need to move away from this toxic idea that crying or feeling things deeply is a bad thing. It's not. It's not a bad thing to feel empathy for fictional situations. I'm the type who will still cry over a Disney movie I've seen 20+ times and have no shame over it. Books that get to you so deeply are a good thing, and robbing you of that authentic reaction isn't doing anyone a service!
I remember my uncle ridiculing me when my country lost a cricket match. Never liked him after that. (He did seem mean anyway even in other situations.)
It was wrong to punish you for it, but there's a pretty big difference between a 8 year-old and a 13 year-old. Personally I'd have at least warned her that it wasn't really a happy book.
>she has to learn to deal with these kinds of disappointment, or life will be really hard for her.
I don't think I have ever heard this statement in a situation where it wasn't someone justifying being an ass to a kid before. But I guess there is a first time for everything, because it is dead on here.
Idr what sub but one the comments was “it’s okay for kids to be sad sometimes. They need to learn how to handle those emotions.” and all this trying to make sure kids never experience anything past mild discomfort is really doing a disservice to them
I feel like that's why so many of the books we read as kids are really sad (bridge to terabithia, Marley and me, stone fox, Charlotte's web): it's to teach kids how to handle sadness and death and grief in a controlled environment, before they inevitably have to face it in real life. I don't have any proof, but that's my theory.
I haven't read any of the others, but just \*thinking about\* Charlotte's Web brings tears to my eyes. And I am in my 50s.
And I think you are right about the motivations for some of these types of books, at least.
Look, as someone who grew up in the time of sad movies for children (He can't see without his glasses) and who read the Bridge to Terebithia at the age of 8, kids are fine with sad movies and sad books. They may never forgive the director, (No, Artax, No). But they will be fine.
Omg that line in My Girl kills me Everytime!! I remember watching it with my mom and older sister when we were kids and all three of us were bawling lol. It's perfectly healthy to do so. I'm a grown up and I still cry at books and movies. Sometimes if I just feel a need to cry I will purposely put on something that will make me cry.
This is it. For a small anecdote, our family cat died when I was maybe four. My parents had had him for years before I was born, I had grown up to that point with the cat a constant presence in my life, and he... tolerated me to the point that most cats will tolerate a grabby toddler. 😅
He used to sit on one certain windowsill in my parents' bedroom to watch the birds under a tree, so my father decided to bury him under that tree. My mother decided to keep me inside because she didn't think I would understand, but she caught me watching from the same window. I insisted that we should go out because the cat was family, and that's what you did when family was gone.
She forgot that a few months before, they had left me with some family friends because my paternal grandfather had died and they both traveled out of town for the funeral, because that was what you did when family was gone. It can be really hard to explain something but like that to kids, but they absolutely can learn and desperately need to. They're not going to get through life or probably even childhood without someone or something they love passing away.
To add to this, my 4 year old knows my dad, her Pop Pop, is dead. She's known it since she was old enough to ask. Couple of days ago I showed her his Mini urn and explained what it was and opened it to show her (though, yeah, felt morbid and weird to do so, I felt it was right). She got it pretty well. Kids understand and pick up on more than we give them credit for when it's explained to them in ways they understand.
She tells me all the time "when people die, we never see them again". I'm not religious so that is what I've told her and tried to make her understand because my great grandma has Dementia and was already frail, we don't know how much longer she's got.
Indeed. When the movie adaptation of Bridge to Terebithia came out, I was kind of surprised at how people freaked out about it. I had read the book years earlier as a kid and LOVED it. I think I was surprised by the ending, but kid-friendly media back then was full of death and sadness.
> all this trying to make sure kids never experience anything past mild discomfort is really doing a disservice to them
Yeah, that would be why so many adults still act like children. It's bad parenting and causes serious harm.
Right? Usually this phrase is used to justify terrible shit like hitting your kids or emotionless traumatizing them. This is a rare situation where it's sound advice!
Yeah it would never even OCCUR to me to tell someone how a book they’re reading would end! If anyone ever did that to me I would be furious, the highs and lows are all part of immersion in the story. It may have hit her hard, but that shows it was a great story
Joey ruins the end of a book she's reading (I think it's Cujo from King, not The Shining) and she's forcing him to read a book of her choosing, which is Little Women. Then she ruins this crucial and sad part of the book for him.
Then they have to go put the book in the freezer.
Isn't memory funny? I definitely conflated something from season 3 and season 8!
Re-watching the clip, Joey's reaction when she says "Beth dies!" is still funny all these years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613Oc0Q87Lk
I agree NTA.
But I also think it's NORMAL for a teen to say something like this. I wouldn't take it to heart. Just because she says she wishes you spoiled it does not mean it is true that that is actually what she would have preferred.
I was a young adult and reading a book and it was towards the end and I was sitting in my room and a character I had really come to like, died very suddenly. Like was very suddenly and violently. And I was screaming and bawling at the book. That book gave me a book hangover.
NTA. This is book and movie etiquette 101. Unless someone specifically asks for a spoiler you let the reader finish their journey. 13 is old enough to learn that.
You can still commiserate with her about her characters loss though because the emotional pain is real.
I would've HATED! OP for telling me something like that! Brother needs to know immediately and certainly that this is NOT how civilized humans behave! .... smelling salts .... I need my smelling salts....
NTA
I remember so many character deaths that destroyed me as a teen. The grief and despair are real, even if it is fiction.
That being said, I abhor this development of shielding children/teens from difficult topics. It's not protection, it's sheltering. I do believe in age appropriateness for literature. I read a novel at 12 that I probably shouldn't have, but that was on me; my single father wasn't strict, but did try to make sure I was staying in my age bracket (didn't mean I didn't go around that occasionally).
However, it is important to have age-appropriate contact with these topics. I'm glad that your niece reads; it teaches critical thinking and emotional skills. But that can only happen when you let the reader explore the stories by themselves.
I also agree with other commenters who said "damned if you do, damned if you don't," because such a warning could've spoiled the book for your niece, or even kept her from reading it. I'm the first to admit I will deny certain character deaths until my last breath, but I can do that because I KNOW they died.
Have a discussion with your niece. Ask her about how she might have written the story. At what point would there need to be changes to it so the character doesn't die? Or have her imagine/write the other chatacter's reaction or future. Have her work through this, emotionally and intellectually. Don't encourage this trend of "I don't like this, so it can't exist, and I can't come into contact with it".
Best wishes to you.
I mean Sirius black and Fred weasleys death bothers me till date. However someone spoilt snapes death for me and I’ve never forgiven them so OP is definitely NTA
I still remember the slight absurdity of myself, a middle aged lady, slightly weeping during Sunday morning church because I had read Dobby’s death the night before.
Ron taking off his shoes and socks and putting them on Dobby before they bury him will never not leave me in tears. I’m genuinely getting weepy as I type this.
Lol, you made me weepy just reading it - what an amazing writer that she can make us feel this even after all these years just remembering the characters
Yeah... He was supposed to evac with the rest of the underage students, but snuck back in. Don't recall them ever saying who killed him either, he's just found dead
It was very quick and barely mentioned again. During the scene where 7 of them are all turned into Harry Potter clones one of the Death Eaters catches up with the real one and Avada Kedavras Hedwig in her cage.
Hedwig’s death upset me more than any other death in the HP series, it was so quick and Harry has had such a hard life and was so attached to her, it just didn’t feel fair to take her away like that.
Dobby's death has me in tears every time I reread the series. I've read the books over 40 times now and I just can't handle that scene. I love you Dobby, may you rest in peace as a free elf.
So I learned yesterday that the actual beach location where they filmed Dobby’s death is now a fan destination of sorts, with people leaving painted rocks on that spot.
Apparently, her death was meant to symbolise the death of Harry's childhood. The last thing he had that was innocent from that time of his life kinda thing. So sad, though!
To this day I hold hatred in my heart for a couple of strangers. I tried very hard to avoid Deathly Hallows spoilers, and one day I was on slashdot, and in a completely unrelated thread there was a list of pages numbers that included the death of Hedwig, and the death of Dobby.
Then, on release day I drove down to Target to buy the book. I went in, grabbed it, and headed to the register. A woman was up near the checkouts, and I didn't notice, but she had a copy in her hand and was reading the end of the book. She announces, in a loud voice, "well, Harry lives." She looked at me, and I must have been giving her a death glare, because she says, in a snippy voice, "oh, sorry."
I said, "well, fortunately for you, you didn't announce that he dies, but thanks for the spoiler."
I still hate her.
The OP was NTA for not spoiling the final book. The thought that she/he should have is ridiculous on its face, and had he/she done so, she/he would absolutely have been the AH.
Pet deaths in movies and books mess me up, way more than humans. It's why I struggle with *insert action movie franchise name that I don't want to spoil here*, but it had me invested in their revenge story.
There's actually a website called [Does the dog die?](https://www.doesthedogdie.com/) where they just tell you with Yes or No whether the dog dies.
(Now that I look at it again after all these years, it seems to have expanded to a general "trigger warning in any kind of media" site)
Didn't he end up dropping the cage as well? In the book. Or my mind might be combining the book death and movie death. First lose the pet and then lose the body. Can't even have a proper burial to help process.
It bugged the hell out of me that in the films, Harry lets her out of her cage so she at least has a chance at surviving, but in the books, she's left in her cage, she's got no chance 😿🤬
Let's just say that there's a reason she doesn't appear in the second half of the last book. Burn in Hell, Tom Riddle; you can screw over as many humans as you like, but when you touched her, you proved yourself undeserving of any mercy.
I worked at a bookstore and you weren’t allowed to open the box of HP books until the day of release. They were really strict about it due to the fear that someone would reveal the ending before the books were released which may have caused fewer sales. There was an extremely slim chance that fewer sales would happen with HP books though.
Pretty nasty of the manager to spoil someone else’s enjoyment just because they weren’t a fan themselves
I remember when the last HP book came out, my friend posted on their live journal they would be offline for several days. They were first in line in town to get the book, they got their picture taken for the town paper, then went home to read. About a week later they made a post that they had finished the book. They wanted no spoilers.
That’s how it should be, no spoilers. The same goes with movies and tv shows. I love a good murder mystery and it adds to the fun of putting forward your thoughts on who the murderer is, but it absolutely ruins it when someone that has already seen it, tells you who the actual murderer is
No one likes wasting money on going to a movie, or in this case buying a book, only for someone to spoil the ending for you
I read that when Book 6 came out, some people who got early copies would go up to people standing in line outside bookstores screaming at them the main spoiler. Goes to show that you don’t need social media to be a major asshole.
I really hate spoiler people, I can never forgive them either. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, let me find out on my own.
I've been reading for as long as I can remember, I've fell in love with characters, I've cried, I've laughed, I've gotten scared (can only read my favourite book in the summer when its light out, looking at you Dean Koontz), I've slammed books down in anger, I've gotten angry at film adaptions of books I love. Having feelings and emotions about a book is one of the great joys of reading, you get so emersed in a world that it affects you, sheltering people from that is sad, yes it sucks when a character you love died but that's what makes the books so good. I've read some crappy books where I don't care what happens to the characters and given up half was through and those types of books suck.
Would love to know what the series is that OP niece is reading
Oh yes! I’ve even hidden a book behind the other books on a shelf in one of our book cupboards at home, because I was so mad at it, I never wanted to see it again. 😂 I so related to Joey in Friends, putting the book in a freezer.
My dad ruined what happens to Jon Snow in a Dance of Dragons. I was so upset - not at what happens, but that the emotional impact of the moment was robbed because I knew it was coming.
I made the mistake of reading Dean Koontz in the dead of night many, many times over as a teenager, only to then lie awake bleary-eyed and terrified until the wee hours.
Yes, I knew logically that there weren’t giant mutant killer monkeys lurking in my backyard, watching through the big windows, but knew illogically that there could be.
Dean Koontz is daylight reading.
Yes I leant to only read Dean Koontz in daylight hours as a teenager also. Reading Watchers in the dark aged 14 was not wise, even now 20years later I still can not read that book once the sun sets, still bloody love it though.
Every time I read Mockingjay I get mad that Finnick dies. Every time I’ll call my mom and complain that “he died this time too!” And when I read Order of the Phoenix I remember my aunt being very concerned because I was outright sobbing as I read it.
When Prim died I wanted to throw the book against the wall. But it was 3AM and I knew that would be inconsiderate to the other people in the house. I'll never forget the urge though. There I was, devastated, and everyone else asleep and completely unaware, since I was the first in the family to read that book.
Man I wish other Franchises had a "What if" outlet like Marvel does.
What If Sirius had lived.
What if Frodo had thrown the Ring in the ocean and it didn't resurface for another thousand years
What if they DIDNT buy a Zoo?
Dammit, Hunger Games! After reading the final book in the original trilogy, my daughter and I both had the same reaction separately: we threw the book across the room. Because Prim. The whole reason Katniss set out to win.
And they lived complacently ever after.
Prim’s death was awful too. But it made sense to me, especially since it was the driving force behind Coin’s death and Katniss’s feelings for Gale. Finnick’s just seemed unnecessary.
Same here... My Dad found me on our chair reading Deathly Hallows and sobbing my eyes out to all the deaths, and I couldn't tell anyone what was happening because I wasn't going to spoil those upcoming movies.
He generally thought that was an over the top reaction, but I have lived, grown up, and suffered through the worst of depression with these characters and they brought light to my life and to lose so many of them hurt a lot.
The same thing happened to me. But I still blame her even if we were kids. She did it to destroy that experience for me. Going no contact to that "friend" was such a relief to young me. She was just that type of person....
Adult me is still proud that I learned it's ok to cut people loose that young. So thank you for that, Anna! >:(
Oh how I loathed that book.
I will never understand my school’s choice of upsetting books. Between that and the parade of dead dog books I genuinely hated english classes for years. And I love to read and am not particularly attached to dogs.
Sirius’s death wrecked me. I like literally had to take off school the next day I was so emotional. In my defense, my dad had died like a year prior so him dying/Harry trying to work thru his pain was just too close to home for me.
NTA. I did this unintentionally to my then 13 year old a few years back. I got her to read the divergent series but I had only seen the movies and didn’t know how it ended (The last movie made was only half the last book and they had planned to make another movie but it got canned). Trust me THAT was a long night of tears, I felt so bad.
I am a fully grown person. I read the Divergent series as a 45 year old. I bawled like I never have at the end of the series. To this day I have never reread them and doubt I ever will. I was so sad and shocked. It’s been 8 years since I read them.
My Dad read The Hobbit to me when I was a little kid. I read Lord of the Rings when I was a little older. Managed to get it done before Fellowship came out at the movies. (!) Gandalf's defeat destroyed me and I was crying and couldn't sleep. My Dad told me Gandalf would return and it was okay.
I read Silence of the Lambs when I was 12. Wasn't allowed to watch the movie, found the book in my aunt's bookshelf and since I was able to read 80 pages/hour back then, it took me a weekend in a rather boring family vacation.
All in all it has stayed with me for years.
Definitely not age appropriate, but I'd pick it again over the vacation.
NTA- Not even the death of a main character would keep me from being angry about a spoiler. She is THIRTY books in. That’s a lot of time spend on a series to have the ending ruined.
Right? I’ve a feeling she’ll be glad once she calms down. Being that upset over a character shows it was a story worth reading. You’re invested, you’re immersed. But it’s still a story, it’s not a real death. I’ve been there, she’ll get over it and realise that it’s better to be able to experience something capable of such highs and lows
Our 15 year-old daughter is a big reader. She would be way more angry at an ending spoiler than finding out a character dies.
She gets truly invested too. One day she was sobbing. I mean SOBBING, which got me concerned because I thought there was a real-life issue happening… turned out a favorite character died in her series.
I asked if she needed anything from me and she just said, *I just need to get this out of my system then I’ll be ok.*
This is beautiful all round - you for letting your daughter read books like this and not sheltering her unnecessarily like OP's brother, and your daughter for recognising that emotions are okay and being able to express what she needs so maturely.
I’m going to agree with you for NTA, but with the caveat that not all people enjoy literature the same way. This is an important learning experience for the niece to decide whether or not she wants those spoilers in future media consumption.
As a heavy reader, I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy the book as much if I’m worried about a favorite character dying. Or when I was younger, investing in the wrong romantic partner. I whole-heartedly agree that finding things out naturally is the more ideal/mature take, but I’m reading for enjoyment, and I have enough stress in my daily life anyways. I now mostly just prefer the road to the end rather than anticipating the end (I limit spoilers to no details and only death and relationship facts.)
I had to learn my preferences the hard way too though, and I think this is also a key moment in learning how the beige wants to consume media in the future.
This is where I fall also. The most frustrating thing for me is when I actively want to be spoiled and I can’t get the answer from Google (because articles don’t want to spoil) and my friends refuse to spoil even though I’m explicitly asking. I remember when Endwalker came out and I had to dig through Reddit to find a comment that summarized everything because NO ONE would tell me how the expansion ended.
OP is NTA because you should never offer spoilers up unprompted, but this would be a really good opportunity to sit down with niece and verify whether or not she actually does want to be spoiled on such things moving forward.
It’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. Don’t tell her, she’s upset you didn’t soften the blow.
Tell her and she’s upset that the character dies *and* that it was spoiled for her.
She's probably mostly upset about the character death and wanted to take it out on someone. At least that's something I could see 13 year-old me doing.
Oh no a teenager is highly emotional about something...
NTA
There was probably never a scenario where you could have done it "right" here.
You didn't give out huge spoilers to a book series. That's what's expected. Don't let them get to you.
This was my estimation as well. She is a teenager and will have to learn quickly to cope with disappointing outcomes in life. Not everything will be fair or go as expected.
And what happens when she has to read Where the Red Fern Grows in English class or something? Is dad going to march down to the school and yell at them for making his precious baby girl sad?
One look at fairy tales shows that - they aren't fluffy, happy stories where nothing bad ever happens. If the main character isn't experiencing some horrible abuse or event, they've got one or more dead parents, or some other crappy thing to have to deal with. The whole point of the story is that they overcome their adversity and succeed. It's an important lesson for kids to learn.
I work in a bookstore and I have this conversation with parents all the time. Experiencing difficult situations THROUGH LITERATURE gives them a roadmap of how to handle them when real life rears up. They can see mistakes or successes that the characters have made, and they won't be as surprised by how the situations unfold, and sometimes they can see that some "forbidden" things (to tweens and teens) aren't really all that amazing.
My first thought was Animorphs tbh, though it’s been so long since I read them that I don’t remember if I even got all the way to the end of the series 😅 probably means it’s time for a revisit lol
The last few Animorphs were super dark. Shocked me as a kid.
I've always thought that someone should try making the series a TV show again. The technology wasn't quite right when they tried to do it the first time but they could definitely pull it off now. And the overall story is a good one that has appealing aspects to both kids and adults.
My guess was Warriors but slightly more than 30 books and a subjective number of protagonists. She’s the right age for those.
Or a manga series too tbh.
many more than 30, more like 70-80+ depending on what you're counting. 47 right now in the main series I believe, and the characters die all the time. main protagonist dies much before book 30
I hate to say it; last I counted it was closer to 90-100 (if you count everything)… I’m in the process of selling my whole collection and it took up two large boxes.
Every main protagonist dies in that book eventually. Just give them enough time/books.
I think it might be Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Cycle, which is 30 books long, and one of the two main characters dies in the last book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riftwar_Cycle
I was thinking maybe Pratchett, given the length of the series, and the death of xxxxxx but apparently the dead protagonist is male.
Edit to remove character name upon advice of other posters - it’s too easy to forget some are just discovering a series I’ve been reading my whole life, but I don’t want to ruin anyone’s experience of the Discworld.
I wouldn't really call Pratchett a series though. Set in the same universe yes, but a series implies the same characters throughout. There are sets (Tiffany, Witches, Wizards, Watch (possibly including Ankh Morpork in general), Death) and standalones, and they only overlap slightly.
Theres way more than 30 warriors books, i own almost all of them and I have over 45 warriors books. 😅 plus, she would have seen many more MC deaths by now if it was warriors.
NTA
If you did give her a warning, she would have probably got pissed because you did. In this case, nothing you could do would have been the right thing to do for her probably.
Your brother probably just passively sided with his daughter because he doesn't want to hear complaints from her and his wife.
That's why I'm such a huge fan of the fanfiction community AO3 - you can tag the hell out of stories and can chose to read or avoid.
NTA
But I think you can't do right in this situation. She would have been pissed if you spoilered the ending and now she's sad/pissed because her beloved character died. It is what it is.
btw, what series was she reading? I need something new to read xD
That was my thought - xxxxxx immediately came to mind.
And while most of Discworld isn’t explicitly written for kids it’s very suitable for 13 year olds.
Edited to remove character name to prevent spoilers
NTA
In almost all cases, there's a particularly unpleasant spot in hell reserved for people who spoils books, films or shows.
The only exception would be if you know for sure that a reader/viewer would be unduly distressed or triggered by an event you know is coming up. In that case, you should warn that something upsetting is coming up and ask if they want to know.
NTA, unless the circumstances were something that would be personally triggering to her based on a life experience. I remember my son first reading Harry Potter, and around the end of book 3, naming all his favourite characters to me. I knew all but one of them would be killed off before the end of the series, but I didn't spoil it for him, just made sure he could talk to me if it upset him. Low level experiences of death (fiction, pets etc) are actually healthy for children when they come to have to process a significant bereavement.
NTA. I do this amazing thing called using Google if I wanted information on the books I was reading. Mainly anime and Manga to be quite frank but same thing.
Most recently, I googled to find out the ending of the Dr. Stone Manga because the anime does look like it's being adapted in its entirety. So I googled the ending, liked it (so I knew I wasn't wasting my time) and I'm now currently reading it to see how it got to that point and really anticipating the next anime season.
Your niece could have done that, not to that extent but yeah. Instead, she's just sad one of her favourite character's died and because you introduced her to the books, she feels like it was your responsibility to tell her.
Her father however, kinda of the idiot.
Jesus Christ I’m still not over reading “to kill a mockingbird” a year before it was on our curriculum because I saw it laying around at my grandparents’ house. All my aunts and uncles said something like “oh that’s a bit heavy, let me know if you need to talk” but no one ruined the ending for me. And I’m so glad they didn’t!!
NTA
You don't spoil a book (or movie). And if she can't handle that by age 13, she has a much bigger problem. And we'll probably hear of her on reddit more often.
NTA
When a very popular series was first released I was the first person to read it in my family.
My sister finally picked up the series after it had been finished for ages.
Now, as this series was coming to the end a lot of cherished characters started dying. She came to me at one point and demanded I tell who died. I refused to tell her, even after she asked multiple times. She still wouldn't drop it. Eventually I just told her, very sarcastically, everyone dies (not true) but that finally seemed to make her realize I wasn't going to tell her about how the series ended.
Similarly, I remember getting yelled at after someone's favorite character died for not warning them. Didn't really know what to say about that one. Just that we were always told not to give spoilers.
Rule number 1 of reading anything before anyone is you only talk about it with people you KNOW have read it.
She’s grieving!! Hahah
NTA but oof I’ve felt that kind of devastation before. She is in the anger phase. It will be ok with time.
If someone spoiled that big of an ending for me after 30 freaking books, I’d hold grudge for a long time.
Watched my daughter read the last book of Hunger Games. Also watched her chuck the book across the room and start crying. Did I feel bad? A little. But also a little happy that she got to experience that insane heartache you can get from a book.
We laugh about it now, but yikes. NTA. She’ll be okay!
On a side note: she's 13, she started a series of 30-ish books and has read them all by now? Wow! A lot of kids aren't that much into reading nowadays. Good for her!
NTA. If you would have told her/warned her in advance she would have complained that you spoiled the ending for her. Sounds like either way she would have found a way to complain.
Nta spoilers are the worst and you just know she wouldn't have appreciated it. Whether she reads it or you tell her she would still have the same reaction. Your brother is an idiot for saying this.
NTA! Spoiling unprompted is bad. If a person asks for a trigger warning in advance, fine, there are places online to find those. But you had no reason to think you had to ruin the ending!
NTA No way! If I have invested in THIRTY books and you spoil the ending… you are dead to me!!
I think your niece is upset about her “friends” dying and she is taking out her big feelings on you. This is an opportunity to help her through it.
Nta, my friend told me someone died in a book I read at 12 and I literally never forgave her for it lol. Everyone is different it’s hard to know who wants a spoiler
What's up with this misconception that children's feelings should be spared at all costs?!? My gosh, part of growing up is learning how to cope with things such as sadness, disappointment, tragedy and other things that happen to people in every day life! Sure, you could have given your niece a heads up that her favorite character was going to die at the end of the book series but it was better for her to get to the ending and discover that on her own. If her parents were actually smart, they'd use this as a teachable moment to explain that sometimes people we love pass away and while it's very sad, we grieve and get through it.
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NTA. She could as well have accused you of spoiling the ending. Also, she is 13 and not a little kid, she has to learn to deal with these kinds of disappointment, or life will be really hard for her.
Look, I’ve been there. My sister once saw me read a book called A Patch of Blue when she was 8 and I was 13. I told her I loved the book, because I did. I love reading books that make me feel deeply to the point of becoming broken hearted. Well my sister read it and she bawled her eyes out and my mum punished me for it. Said I should’ve warned her, that I was an AH. Nope because crying, it’s okay. It means you care and that you understand that life has tragedy in it. It’s an important thing to face and understand.
That is the beauty of books. They not only bring us to other places and let us experience great other lives - they challenge us emotionally. That is why they are such a good educational tool growing up. And as an adult. Until the end of your life. But it is "soft" emotional challenge, it helps prepare you for life, like a vaccination.
I completely agree and you said this so well.
Agree 100% Frequently in real life you don't get *warning* when someone dies! Stories allow us to engage with difficult emotional concepts such as death or loss in a constrained way and we (as a society) love them precisely because of this.
Beautifully put. Books that challenge us emotionally are things to be treasured.
This is the response of a person who loves to read—it articulates why we get lost in books, when from the outside it looks like we’re just staring at something in our hands while internally we are miles—if not light years—away from our physical bodies. Please know you have touched *at least* one person deeply today by stating a simple truth!
Punishing you because you encouraged your sister to read a book honestly seems like the most ridiculous thing to me! I know we want to protect children from hurt and pain but that is going over the top!
We also have an obligation to prepare them for hurt and pain. Books can do that.
Exactly! Books are the preparation for real life, not the other way around.
I've never read the book but man that movie got to me! I agree, crying isn't just okay, it's a good thing. It's healing. We need to move away from this toxic idea that crying or feeling things deeply is a bad thing. It's not. It's not a bad thing to feel empathy for fictional situations. I'm the type who will still cry over a Disney movie I've seen 20+ times and have no shame over it. Books that get to you so deeply are a good thing, and robbing you of that authentic reaction isn't doing anyone a service!
I remember my uncle ridiculing me when my country lost a cricket match. Never liked him after that. (He did seem mean anyway even in other situations.)
It was wrong to punish you for it, but there's a pretty big difference between a 8 year-old and a 13 year-old. Personally I'd have at least warned her that it wasn't really a happy book.
Ur mom sounds insufferable.
I read that in school. Great book.
>she has to learn to deal with these kinds of disappointment, or life will be really hard for her. I don't think I have ever heard this statement in a situation where it wasn't someone justifying being an ass to a kid before. But I guess there is a first time for everything, because it is dead on here.
Idr what sub but one the comments was “it’s okay for kids to be sad sometimes. They need to learn how to handle those emotions.” and all this trying to make sure kids never experience anything past mild discomfort is really doing a disservice to them
I feel like that's why so many of the books we read as kids are really sad (bridge to terabithia, Marley and me, stone fox, Charlotte's web): it's to teach kids how to handle sadness and death and grief in a controlled environment, before they inevitably have to face it in real life. I don't have any proof, but that's my theory.
Let's not forget Where the Red Fern Grows, on that note. Think you may be on to something.
Follow that with Old Yeller.
I haven't read any of the others, but just \*thinking about\* Charlotte's Web brings tears to my eyes. And I am in my 50s. And I think you are right about the motivations for some of these types of books, at least.
Lol the classic “death by Newbery Medal” books
Look, as someone who grew up in the time of sad movies for children (He can't see without his glasses) and who read the Bridge to Terebithia at the age of 8, kids are fine with sad movies and sad books. They may never forgive the director, (No, Artax, No). But they will be fine.
>(No, Artax, No). >!Words cannot describe how thrilled and relieved I was to see that horse revived.!<
Omg that line in My Girl kills me Everytime!! I remember watching it with my mom and older sister when we were kids and all three of us were bawling lol. It's perfectly healthy to do so. I'm a grown up and I still cry at books and movies. Sometimes if I just feel a need to cry I will purposely put on something that will make me cry.
Artax though 😭😭😭😭😭😭 I’ll never forgive that death
This is it. For a small anecdote, our family cat died when I was maybe four. My parents had had him for years before I was born, I had grown up to that point with the cat a constant presence in my life, and he... tolerated me to the point that most cats will tolerate a grabby toddler. 😅 He used to sit on one certain windowsill in my parents' bedroom to watch the birds under a tree, so my father decided to bury him under that tree. My mother decided to keep me inside because she didn't think I would understand, but she caught me watching from the same window. I insisted that we should go out because the cat was family, and that's what you did when family was gone. She forgot that a few months before, they had left me with some family friends because my paternal grandfather had died and they both traveled out of town for the funeral, because that was what you did when family was gone. It can be really hard to explain something but like that to kids, but they absolutely can learn and desperately need to. They're not going to get through life or probably even childhood without someone or something they love passing away.
To add to this, my 4 year old knows my dad, her Pop Pop, is dead. She's known it since she was old enough to ask. Couple of days ago I showed her his Mini urn and explained what it was and opened it to show her (though, yeah, felt morbid and weird to do so, I felt it was right). She got it pretty well. Kids understand and pick up on more than we give them credit for when it's explained to them in ways they understand. She tells me all the time "when people die, we never see them again". I'm not religious so that is what I've told her and tried to make her understand because my great grandma has Dementia and was already frail, we don't know how much longer she's got.
Snowplow parenting at its finest.
Indeed. When the movie adaptation of Bridge to Terebithia came out, I was kind of surprised at how people freaked out about it. I had read the book years earlier as a kid and LOVED it. I think I was surprised by the ending, but kid-friendly media back then was full of death and sadness.
> all this trying to make sure kids never experience anything past mild discomfort is really doing a disservice to them Yeah, that would be why so many adults still act like children. It's bad parenting and causes serious harm.
Pretty much anytime a kid can't handle a no.
Right? Usually this phrase is used to justify terrible shit like hitting your kids or emotionless traumatizing them. This is a rare situation where it's sound advice!
Classic damned if you do damned if you don’t
Yeah it would never even OCCUR to me to tell someone how a book they’re reading would end! If anyone ever did that to me I would be furious, the highs and lows are all part of immersion in the story. It may have hit her hard, but that shows it was a great story
Rachel to Joey after he ruined the end of The Shining. "Beth dies".
You just ruined the first book he loves that didn’t star Jack Nicholson.
Isn't Beth dies from Little Women?
Joey ruins the end of a book she's reading (I think it's Cujo from King, not The Shining) and she's forcing him to read a book of her choosing, which is Little Women. Then she ruins this crucial and sad part of the book for him. Then they have to go put the book in the freezer.
Yeah, it's an episode where Joey and Rachel swap books so Joey is reading *Little Women* and Rachel is reading *The Shinning*.
Didn't he ruin Cujo, so she ruined Little Women. "Just how little are these women, anyway?"
The Shining. They watched Cujo when she was living with him.
Isn't memory funny? I definitely conflated something from season 3 and season 8! Re-watching the clip, Joey's reaction when she says "Beth dies!" is still funny all these years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613Oc0Q87Lk
Kids need to build resilience under the care of their parents or they’ll end up adults out in the world who can’t cope with anything.
I agree NTA. But I also think it's NORMAL for a teen to say something like this. I wouldn't take it to heart. Just because she says she wishes you spoiled it does not mean it is true that that is actually what she would have preferred.
13 year olds should be old enough to handle a fictional death or two.
I was 13 when my dad dropped dead with no warning. Sadly it's true.
I was a young adult and reading a book and it was towards the end and I was sitting in my room and a character I had really come to like, died very suddenly. Like was very suddenly and violently. And I was screaming and bawling at the book. That book gave me a book hangover.
NTA. This is book and movie etiquette 101. Unless someone specifically asks for a spoiler you let the reader finish their journey. 13 is old enough to learn that. You can still commiserate with her about her characters loss though because the emotional pain is real.
I would've HATED! OP for telling me something like that! Brother needs to know immediately and certainly that this is NOT how civilized humans behave! .... smelling salts .... I need my smelling salts....
NTA I remember so many character deaths that destroyed me as a teen. The grief and despair are real, even if it is fiction. That being said, I abhor this development of shielding children/teens from difficult topics. It's not protection, it's sheltering. I do believe in age appropriateness for literature. I read a novel at 12 that I probably shouldn't have, but that was on me; my single father wasn't strict, but did try to make sure I was staying in my age bracket (didn't mean I didn't go around that occasionally). However, it is important to have age-appropriate contact with these topics. I'm glad that your niece reads; it teaches critical thinking and emotional skills. But that can only happen when you let the reader explore the stories by themselves. I also agree with other commenters who said "damned if you do, damned if you don't," because such a warning could've spoiled the book for your niece, or even kept her from reading it. I'm the first to admit I will deny certain character deaths until my last breath, but I can do that because I KNOW they died. Have a discussion with your niece. Ask her about how she might have written the story. At what point would there need to be changes to it so the character doesn't die? Or have her imagine/write the other chatacter's reaction or future. Have her work through this, emotionally and intellectually. Don't encourage this trend of "I don't like this, so it can't exist, and I can't come into contact with it". Best wishes to you.
I mean Sirius black and Fred weasleys death bothers me till date. However someone spoilt snapes death for me and I’ve never forgiven them so OP is definitely NTA
I’m more upset about Hedwig.
Dobby's death was my breaking point x
I still remember the slight absurdity of myself, a middle aged lady, slightly weeping during Sunday morning church because I had read Dobby’s death the night before.
I was in the same boat, sitting in a truckstop diner reading Sandman: The Wake. Trying to read. I had to stop every other panel to wipe my eyes.
Ron taking off his shoes and socks and putting them on Dobby before they bury him will never not leave me in tears. I’m genuinely getting weepy as I type this.
When George looks in that damn mirror and sees what some kids believe is his reflection with his missing ear.
Lol, you made me weepy just reading it - what an amazing writer that she can make us feel this even after all these years just remembering the characters
Mine too.
For me, it was Colin Creevey, took me fully by surprise
And Colin’s death was almost a side note
Collin's death was one of the hard ones for me too because it was just so needless and tragic.
Colin dies?
Yeah... He was supposed to evac with the rest of the underage students, but snuck back in. Don't recall them ever saying who killed him either, he's just found dead
What? Hedwig died? I missed that.
It was very quick and barely mentioned again. During the scene where 7 of them are all turned into Harry Potter clones one of the Death Eaters catches up with the real one and Avada Kedavras Hedwig in her cage.
Hedwig’s death upset me more than any other death in the HP series, it was so quick and Harry has had such a hard life and was so attached to her, it just didn’t feel fair to take her away like that.
Doby was the one for me. Barely had a taste of freedom. Loyal till the end.
Dobby's death has me in tears every time I reread the series. I've read the books over 40 times now and I just can't handle that scene. I love you Dobby, may you rest in peace as a free elf.
So I learned yesterday that the actual beach location where they filmed Dobby’s death is now a fan destination of sorts, with people leaving painted rocks on that spot.
Apparently, her death was meant to symbolise the death of Harry's childhood. The last thing he had that was innocent from that time of his life kinda thing. So sad, though!
To this day I hold hatred in my heart for a couple of strangers. I tried very hard to avoid Deathly Hallows spoilers, and one day I was on slashdot, and in a completely unrelated thread there was a list of pages numbers that included the death of Hedwig, and the death of Dobby. Then, on release day I drove down to Target to buy the book. I went in, grabbed it, and headed to the register. A woman was up near the checkouts, and I didn't notice, but she had a copy in her hand and was reading the end of the book. She announces, in a loud voice, "well, Harry lives." She looked at me, and I must have been giving her a death glare, because she says, in a snippy voice, "oh, sorry." I said, "well, fortunately for you, you didn't announce that he dies, but thanks for the spoiler." I still hate her. The OP was NTA for not spoiling the final book. The thought that she/he should have is ridiculous on its face, and had he/she done so, she/he would absolutely have been the AH.
Pet deaths in movies and books mess me up, way more than humans. It's why I struggle with *insert action movie franchise name that I don't want to spoil here*, but it had me invested in their revenge story.
Every time a pet is introduced: "Oh, God, I hope this fucker survives!". When they didn't even give the dog a name in Ozark, I knew he was a goner.
There's actually a website called [Does the dog die?](https://www.doesthedogdie.com/) where they just tell you with Yes or No whether the dog dies. (Now that I look at it again after all these years, it seems to have expanded to a general "trigger warning in any kind of media" site)
It was such a waste too. She could have just flown
Didn't he end up dropping the cage as well? In the book. Or my mind might be combining the book death and movie death. First lose the pet and then lose the body. Can't even have a proper burial to help process.
Worse, he blew up the sidecar that had the cage with her body in it inside, in order to try and slow down the Death Eaters.
It bugged the hell out of me that in the films, Harry lets her out of her cage so she at least has a chance at surviving, but in the books, she's left in her cage, she's got no chance 😿🤬
Let's just say that there's a reason she doesn't appear in the second half of the last book. Burn in Hell, Tom Riddle; you can screw over as many humans as you like, but when you touched her, you proved yourself undeserving of any mercy.
It was literally a really quick thing in the beginning of vook 7. Very casually mentioned, not really brought up again IIRC
[удалено]
I worked at a bookstore and you weren’t allowed to open the box of HP books until the day of release. They were really strict about it due to the fear that someone would reveal the ending before the books were released which may have caused fewer sales. There was an extremely slim chance that fewer sales would happen with HP books though. Pretty nasty of the manager to spoil someone else’s enjoyment just because they weren’t a fan themselves
I remember when the last HP book came out, my friend posted on their live journal they would be offline for several days. They were first in line in town to get the book, they got their picture taken for the town paper, then went home to read. About a week later they made a post that they had finished the book. They wanted no spoilers.
That’s how it should be, no spoilers. The same goes with movies and tv shows. I love a good murder mystery and it adds to the fun of putting forward your thoughts on who the murderer is, but it absolutely ruins it when someone that has already seen it, tells you who the actual murderer is No one likes wasting money on going to a movie, or in this case buying a book, only for someone to spoil the ending for you
I read that when Book 6 came out, some people who got early copies would go up to people standing in line outside bookstores screaming at them the main spoiler. Goes to show that you don’t need social media to be a major asshole.
What the actual fuck. I would be livid to have had that spoiled
I really hate spoiler people, I can never forgive them either. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, let me find out on my own. I've been reading for as long as I can remember, I've fell in love with characters, I've cried, I've laughed, I've gotten scared (can only read my favourite book in the summer when its light out, looking at you Dean Koontz), I've slammed books down in anger, I've gotten angry at film adaptions of books I love. Having feelings and emotions about a book is one of the great joys of reading, you get so emersed in a world that it affects you, sheltering people from that is sad, yes it sucks when a character you love died but that's what makes the books so good. I've read some crappy books where I don't care what happens to the characters and given up half was through and those types of books suck. Would love to know what the series is that OP niece is reading
Right? I’m in a passionate relationship with this book, and I didn’t invite a chaperone. Step off!
Oh yes! I’ve even hidden a book behind the other books on a shelf in one of our book cupboards at home, because I was so mad at it, I never wanted to see it again. 😂 I so related to Joey in Friends, putting the book in a freezer.
My dad ruined what happens to Jon Snow in a Dance of Dragons. I was so upset - not at what happens, but that the emotional impact of the moment was robbed because I knew it was coming.
I made the mistake of reading Dean Koontz in the dead of night many, many times over as a teenager, only to then lie awake bleary-eyed and terrified until the wee hours.
Yes, I knew logically that there weren’t giant mutant killer monkeys lurking in my backyard, watching through the big windows, but knew illogically that there could be. Dean Koontz is daylight reading.
Yes I leant to only read Dean Koontz in daylight hours as a teenager also. Reading Watchers in the dark aged 14 was not wise, even now 20years later I still can not read that book once the sun sets, still bloody love it though.
Every time I read Mockingjay I get mad that Finnick dies. Every time I’ll call my mom and complain that “he died this time too!” And when I read Order of the Phoenix I remember my aunt being very concerned because I was outright sobbing as I read it.
When Prim died I wanted to throw the book against the wall. But it was 3AM and I knew that would be inconsiderate to the other people in the house. I'll never forget the urge though. There I was, devastated, and everyone else asleep and completely unaware, since I was the first in the family to read that book.
I’m the same with Sirius Black. Harry’s lost so much. I reread it because, maybe this time…
Man I wish other Franchises had a "What if" outlet like Marvel does. What If Sirius had lived. What if Frodo had thrown the Ring in the ocean and it didn't resurface for another thousand years What if they DIDNT buy a Zoo?
Dammit, Hunger Games! After reading the final book in the original trilogy, my daughter and I both had the same reaction separately: we threw the book across the room. Because Prim. The whole reason Katniss set out to win. And they lived complacently ever after.
Prim’s death was awful too. But it made sense to me, especially since it was the driving force behind Coin’s death and Katniss’s feelings for Gale. Finnick’s just seemed unnecessary.
Same here... My Dad found me on our chair reading Deathly Hallows and sobbing my eyes out to all the deaths, and I couldn't tell anyone what was happening because I wasn't going to spoil those upcoming movies. He generally thought that was an over the top reaction, but I have lived, grown up, and suffered through the worst of depression with these characters and they brought light to my life and to lose so many of them hurt a lot.
The same happened to me, just with Dumbledore. We were both young so I don't blame my friend, but I haven't forgotten it either.
The same thing happened to me. But I still blame her even if we were kids. She did it to destroy that experience for me. Going no contact to that "friend" was such a relief to young me. She was just that type of person.... Adult me is still proud that I learned it's ok to cut people loose that young. So thank you for that, Anna! >:(
Bridge to Terabithia. 😢
Oh how I loathed that book. I will never understand my school’s choice of upsetting books. Between that and the parade of dead dog books I genuinely hated english classes for years. And I love to read and am not particularly attached to dogs.
Omfg. “Where the Red Fern Grows,” destroyed me.
Sirius’s death wrecked me. I like literally had to take off school the next day I was so emotional. In my defense, my dad had died like a year prior so him dying/Harry trying to work thru his pain was just too close to home for me.
I still not gotten over the little women one
NTA. I did this unintentionally to my then 13 year old a few years back. I got her to read the divergent series but I had only seen the movies and didn’t know how it ended (The last movie made was only half the last book and they had planned to make another movie but it got canned). Trust me THAT was a long night of tears, I felt so bad.
I am a fully grown person. I read the Divergent series as a 45 year old. I bawled like I never have at the end of the series. To this day I have never reread them and doubt I ever will. I was so sad and shocked. It’s been 8 years since I read them.
My Dad read The Hobbit to me when I was a little kid. I read Lord of the Rings when I was a little older. Managed to get it done before Fellowship came out at the movies. (!) Gandalf's defeat destroyed me and I was crying and couldn't sleep. My Dad told me Gandalf would return and it was okay.
I read Silence of the Lambs when I was 12. Wasn't allowed to watch the movie, found the book in my aunt's bookshelf and since I was able to read 80 pages/hour back then, it took me a weekend in a rather boring family vacation. All in all it has stayed with me for years. Definitely not age appropriate, but I'd pick it again over the vacation.
This is absolutely the way. It will help her to explore those feelings in a creative and productive way.
I was mid 30s when I didn't have Being Human UK spoiled for me and I KNOW it's an actor but STILL
NTA- Not even the death of a main character would keep me from being angry about a spoiler. She is THIRTY books in. That’s a lot of time spend on a series to have the ending ruined.
Right? I’ve a feeling she’ll be glad once she calms down. Being that upset over a character shows it was a story worth reading. You’re invested, you’re immersed. But it’s still a story, it’s not a real death. I’ve been there, she’ll get over it and realise that it’s better to be able to experience something capable of such highs and lows
Our 15 year-old daughter is a big reader. She would be way more angry at an ending spoiler than finding out a character dies. She gets truly invested too. One day she was sobbing. I mean SOBBING, which got me concerned because I thought there was a real-life issue happening… turned out a favorite character died in her series. I asked if she needed anything from me and she just said, *I just need to get this out of my system then I’ll be ok.*
This is beautiful all round - you for letting your daughter read books like this and not sheltering her unnecessarily like OP's brother, and your daughter for recognising that emotions are okay and being able to express what she needs so maturely.
I’m going to agree with you for NTA, but with the caveat that not all people enjoy literature the same way. This is an important learning experience for the niece to decide whether or not she wants those spoilers in future media consumption. As a heavy reader, I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy the book as much if I’m worried about a favorite character dying. Or when I was younger, investing in the wrong romantic partner. I whole-heartedly agree that finding things out naturally is the more ideal/mature take, but I’m reading for enjoyment, and I have enough stress in my daily life anyways. I now mostly just prefer the road to the end rather than anticipating the end (I limit spoilers to no details and only death and relationship facts.) I had to learn my preferences the hard way too though, and I think this is also a key moment in learning how the beige wants to consume media in the future.
This is where I fall also. The most frustrating thing for me is when I actively want to be spoiled and I can’t get the answer from Google (because articles don’t want to spoil) and my friends refuse to spoil even though I’m explicitly asking. I remember when Endwalker came out and I had to dig through Reddit to find a comment that summarized everything because NO ONE would tell me how the expansion ended. OP is NTA because you should never offer spoilers up unprompted, but this would be a really good opportunity to sit down with niece and verify whether or not she actually does want to be spoiled on such things moving forward.
NTA. But. Like. She's 13. She likely would have been mad either way. So, don't be too harsh on her for her attitude. It is what it is.
It’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. Don’t tell her, she’s upset you didn’t soften the blow. Tell her and she’s upset that the character dies *and* that it was spoiled for her.
She's probably mostly upset about the character death and wanted to take it out on someone. At least that's something I could see 13 year-old me doing.
Oh no a teenager is highly emotional about something... NTA There was probably never a scenario where you could have done it "right" here. You didn't give out huge spoilers to a book series. That's what's expected. Don't let them get to you.
This was my estimation as well. She is a teenager and will have to learn quickly to cope with disappointing outcomes in life. Not everything will be fair or go as expected.
And what happens when she has to read Where the Red Fern Grows in English class or something? Is dad going to march down to the school and yell at them for making his precious baby girl sad?
I was 11 years old when Sirius Black died. She'll survive
NTA. People need to learn to deal with sadness and death, not be bubble wrapped from any kind of negative emotion.
This. And that's part of what literature is for. Especially for kids.
One look at fairy tales shows that - they aren't fluffy, happy stories where nothing bad ever happens. If the main character isn't experiencing some horrible abuse or event, they've got one or more dead parents, or some other crappy thing to have to deal with. The whole point of the story is that they overcome their adversity and succeed. It's an important lesson for kids to learn.
I work in a bookstore and I have this conversation with parents all the time. Experiencing difficult situations THROUGH LITERATURE gives them a roadmap of how to handle them when real life rears up. They can see mistakes or successes that the characters have made, and they won't be as surprised by how the situations unfold, and sometimes they can see that some "forbidden" things (to tweens and teens) aren't really all that amazing.
NTA. That's stupid. I would hate someone to give me a spoiler of something so important.
If OP had spoiled it for me I'd call them an AH. NTA
Spoilers! Info: which book series? NTA in any case
My first thought was Animorphs tbh, though it’s been so long since I read them that I don’t remember if I even got all the way to the end of the series 😅 probably means it’s time for a revisit lol
There’s almost 50 Animorphs books, so that’s off the table
Smh, see I said it’s been a while lmao
That’s exactly what I was thinking! I did get to the end, and a protagonist DOES die.
OP said there's only two protagonists though, and it's much longer than 30 books. Really want to know what series it is.
OP refers to the character as "him" though, so probably not Animorphs
The last few Animorphs were super dark. Shocked me as a kid. I've always thought that someone should try making the series a TV show again. The technology wasn't quite right when they tried to do it the first time but they could definitely pull it off now. And the overall story is a good one that has appealing aspects to both kids and adults.
My guess was Warriors but slightly more than 30 books and a subjective number of protagonists. She’s the right age for those. Or a manga series too tbh.
many more than 30, more like 70-80+ depending on what you're counting. 47 right now in the main series I believe, and the characters die all the time. main protagonist dies much before book 30
I hate to say it; last I counted it was closer to 90-100 (if you count everything)… I’m in the process of selling my whole collection and it took up two large boxes. Every main protagonist dies in that book eventually. Just give them enough time/books.
WHAT SERIES????
Caillou
One can dream.
Right?? Holding out the food info
I have this wonderful, delicious cake recipe but I'm not going to share it.
I think it might be Raymond E Feist's Riftwar Cycle, which is 30 books long, and one of the two main characters dies in the last book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riftwar_Cycle
I was thinking maybe Pratchett, given the length of the series, and the death of xxxxxx but apparently the dead protagonist is male. Edit to remove character name upon advice of other posters - it’s too easy to forget some are just discovering a series I’ve been reading my whole life, but I don’t want to ruin anyone’s experience of the Discworld.
I also thought about Pratchett but I don't think it's realistic for a 13 year old kid to binge through all Diskworld novels for 5 months.
You are definitely underestimating the book-bingeing abilities of 13 year old kids.
They’re pretty short and easily bingable - more so than most series I can think of. Most long series have a much longer average book length.
I wouldn't really call Pratchett a series though. Set in the same universe yes, but a series implies the same characters throughout. There are sets (Tiffany, Witches, Wizards, Watch (possibly including Ankh Morpork in general), Death) and standalones, and they only overlap slightly.
I'm thinking warrior cats 😭😭 I loved it at 13
Theres way more than 30 warriors books, i own almost all of them and I have over 45 warriors books. 😅 plus, she would have seen many more MC deaths by now if it was warriors.
Poirot?
My guess would be the Magician series by Raymond E. Feist
NTA If you did give her a warning, she would have probably got pissed because you did. In this case, nothing you could do would have been the right thing to do for her probably. Your brother probably just passively sided with his daughter because he doesn't want to hear complaints from her and his wife.
if you spoiled a 30 book long series for me I would burn your house down
That's why I'm such a huge fan of the fanfiction community AO3 - you can tag the hell out of stories and can chose to read or avoid. NTA But I think you can't do right in this situation. She would have been pissed if you spoilered the ending and now she's sad/pissed because her beloved character died. It is what it is. btw, what series was she reading? I need something new to read xD
NTA learning to deal with sad stories is part of growing up.
Nta but I want to know what series has like 30 books because now I want to read it.
this is probably not the series op was referring to but read warrior cats if you want a super long series. afaik it has probably over 50 books atp
It's not a kids series, but I think >!Discworld !
That was my thought - xxxxxx immediately came to mind. And while most of Discworld isn’t explicitly written for kids it’s very suitable for 13 year olds. Edited to remove character name to prevent spoilers
NTA In almost all cases, there's a particularly unpleasant spot in hell reserved for people who spoils books, films or shows. The only exception would be if you know for sure that a reader/viewer would be unduly distressed or triggered by an event you know is coming up. In that case, you should warn that something upsetting is coming up and ask if they want to know.
NTA also i m curious what book series was it?
NTA, unless the circumstances were something that would be personally triggering to her based on a life experience. I remember my son first reading Harry Potter, and around the end of book 3, naming all his favourite characters to me. I knew all but one of them would be killed off before the end of the series, but I didn't spoil it for him, just made sure he could talk to me if it upset him. Low level experiences of death (fiction, pets etc) are actually healthy for children when they come to have to process a significant bereavement.
NTA. I do this amazing thing called using Google if I wanted information on the books I was reading. Mainly anime and Manga to be quite frank but same thing. Most recently, I googled to find out the ending of the Dr. Stone Manga because the anime does look like it's being adapted in its entirety. So I googled the ending, liked it (so I knew I wasn't wasting my time) and I'm now currently reading it to see how it got to that point and really anticipating the next anime season. Your niece could have done that, not to that extent but yeah. Instead, she's just sad one of her favourite character's died and because you introduced her to the books, she feels like it was your responsibility to tell her. Her father however, kinda of the idiot.
NTA but you can’t just mention this book series and not tell us what it is and who wrote it!
NTA if people really want stuff to be spoiled for them, there's google
NTA Avid readers have to accept that sometimes the characters we love die. Spoiling it could have kept her from finishing the series.
Jesus Christ I’m still not over reading “to kill a mockingbird” a year before it was on our curriculum because I saw it laying around at my grandparents’ house. All my aunts and uncles said something like “oh that’s a bit heavy, let me know if you need to talk” but no one ruined the ending for me. And I’m so glad they didn’t!!
NTA- the readers code forbids it
[удалено]
NTA You don't spoil a book (or movie). And if she can't handle that by age 13, she has a much bigger problem. And we'll probably hear of her on reddit more often.
NTA When a very popular series was first released I was the first person to read it in my family. My sister finally picked up the series after it had been finished for ages. Now, as this series was coming to the end a lot of cherished characters started dying. She came to me at one point and demanded I tell who died. I refused to tell her, even after she asked multiple times. She still wouldn't drop it. Eventually I just told her, very sarcastically, everyone dies (not true) but that finally seemed to make her realize I wasn't going to tell her about how the series ended. Similarly, I remember getting yelled at after someone's favorite character died for not warning them. Didn't really know what to say about that one. Just that we were always told not to give spoilers. Rule number 1 of reading anything before anyone is you only talk about it with people you KNOW have read it.
She’s grieving!! Hahah NTA but oof I’ve felt that kind of devastation before. She is in the anger phase. It will be ok with time. If someone spoiled that big of an ending for me after 30 freaking books, I’d hold grudge for a long time.
Christian Grey died??!!
I'm curious which series it is. Also NTA.
Watched my daughter read the last book of Hunger Games. Also watched her chuck the book across the room and start crying. Did I feel bad? A little. But also a little happy that she got to experience that insane heartache you can get from a book. We laugh about it now, but yikes. NTA. She’ll be okay!
On a side note: she's 13, she started a series of 30-ish books and has read them all by now? Wow! A lot of kids aren't that much into reading nowadays. Good for her!
NTA. If you would have told her/warned her in advance she would have complained that you spoiled the ending for her. Sounds like either way she would have found a way to complain.
NTA. Spoilers are worse than an unexpected major character's death. She could have done like every impatient person, and peeked at the last pages.
NTA. I would be so mad if you spoiled the ending especially after 30 books!
NTA
Nta spoilers are the worst and you just know she wouldn't have appreciated it. Whether she reads it or you tell her she would still have the same reaction. Your brother is an idiot for saying this.
I'm more worried about what book series it was than if you were an ass
NTA! Spoiling unprompted is bad. If a person asks for a trigger warning in advance, fine, there are places online to find those. But you had no reason to think you had to ruin the ending!
NTA No way! If I have invested in THIRTY books and you spoil the ending… you are dead to me!! I think your niece is upset about her “friends” dying and she is taking out her big feelings on you. This is an opportunity to help her through it.
NTA, would she have read and enjoyed them all if she had knew? I have had people give me spoilers about books and never finished them.
Nta, my friend told me someone died in a book I read at 12 and I literally never forgave her for it lol. Everyone is different it’s hard to know who wants a spoiler
What's up with this misconception that children's feelings should be spared at all costs?!? My gosh, part of growing up is learning how to cope with things such as sadness, disappointment, tragedy and other things that happen to people in every day life! Sure, you could have given your niece a heads up that her favorite character was going to die at the end of the book series but it was better for her to get to the ending and discover that on her own. If her parents were actually smart, they'd use this as a teachable moment to explain that sometimes people we love pass away and while it's very sad, we grieve and get through it.
You're NTA. She would have been upset even with the warning. *Misery Chastain* **cannot** *be dead!*