All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"

So you just heard about a new series or a film. You begin watching it, and tension is established, or the show tries to trick you, but you're not fooled. Why not? The thing that you aren't supposed to know (it may be a twist, or simply a spoiler) was the absolute first thing you learned about the show. If you hadn't been told, you wouldn't be watching it.

Contrast with It Was His Sled, where everybody knows what the spoiler is. This trope means that the only thing most people know about the work is the spoiler.

See also Late Arrival Spoiler, when the company that makes it gives away a spoiler in the sequel's ads. Often a cause of Watch It for the Meme. If it happens on the first chapter of a series, it's a First Episode Spoiler. See also Everybody Knows That.

The Trope Namer is the 1992 film The Crying Game. You likely already know that All There Is To Know About The Crying Game is that William Goldman noted that knowing the secret actually made the film a much better movie.

If you had no clue what this trope meant before, that is an example of Pop Cultural Osmosis Failure, or else Small Reference Pools.

Anime and Manga

 * Haruhi Suzumiya: Even without having ever watched/read/anything related with the franchise, thanks to this series' raving fandom, it's pretty well known in anime communities that Haruhi is an omnipotent god; ironically, this "fact" is actually Fanon.
 * The anime of School Days is known more for its notoriously bloody ending (and the related "nice boat" meme) than for anything that happens in that series (up to including what lead to said bloody ending). The visual novel, to an extent, is better known for its bad ends than for its plot or heroines, which may have weighted on the narrative choices they made for the anime's finale.
 * SHUFFLE! is (in)famous for the scene where Unlucky Childhood Friend Kaede Fuyou menaced her rival Asa Shigure with a boxcutter during a yandere fit. Said incident has become more well-known than the actual premise of the show.
 * Ashita no Joe: Joe dies at the end. His death is practically a meme on its own in Japan, to the point of Stock Parody.
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a deconstructive Magical Girl show where the mascot is the villain and the first magical girl friend the protagonist makes is decapitated in the third episode. That's it, that what most people knows about it.
 * Kannazuki no Miko: Himeko and Chikane become romantically involved, even after . The series actually downplays their relationship in the initial chapters, as they don't play by the usual Girls Love tropes.
 * Romeo X Juliet: if you know how the original play ended, you know how this one is going to end too.

Film

 * The trope namer would be The Crying Game, a very gripping and emotional political thriller famous for the hero's love interest turning out to be a pre-op transexual. It is the defining aspect of the movie, and overshadows just about everything else to the point to where its spoiler status is all but a thing of the past.
 * Would you believe that the Good Guy/Chucky doll being alive in the original Child's Play was supposed to be a plot twist? Given his status as one of the greats of the Slasher Film industry, right up there with the likes of Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, it's safe to say no one does nowadays, and it's for the better since it's the main hook of the movies.
 * "It's people! Soylent Green is people!" An effective plot twist, meme, and hook, all in equal measure.
 * Bruce Willis was Dead All Along in The Sixth Sense, right up there with "I see dead people" as the movie's most famous aspect.

Literature

 * In The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that the titular characters are actually a phlebotinum induced case of dual identity was originally supposed to be a twist ending. The fact that most adaptations treat it as a Foregone Conclusion, to the extreme that the basic beats of the story are a trope by themselves says everything.
 * The Death by Newbery Medal of the titular dog in Old Yeller is practically the only thing most people know about said book.
 * The Gift of the Magi: each member of the protagonist couple sold the thing they valued the most (her beautiful hair, his heirloom watch) to buy a Christmas gift that complimented their partner's (a chain for the clock, combs for the hair).
 * Some of Sherlock Holmes book cases have become this
 * The solution to "The Five Orange Pips" has become something like this thanks to a century of Eagleland Osmosis. Once the initials on the letter are revealed to be, readers can work out the rest by themselves.
 * "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" is a gift to zoologists:, and the injuries of the dead man plus the title leave no room for doubt.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

 * Jesus died for your sins.

Puppet Shows

 * Earl's carelessness causes the Ice Age... or in other words, everyone is doomed to die at the end of Dinosaurs. While a funny and well-written show in its own right, the sheer audacity of killing everyone in a sitcom is the real draw for non-viewers.

Theatre

 * Salome: Salome does an striptease and asks for the head of Jochanaan.
 * The Mousetrap is famous for having a convoluted, twisty ending. To know what happens in said ending, however, requires people to see the play or go to sources different than this wiki, because the other thing known about The Mousetrap is that said ending is traditionally asked to be kept in secret once the play ends, so future audiences aren't spoiled.
 * Averted with Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Everyone remembers it's a beautiful love story about a boy and a girl from families at war with each other.  Nobody seems to remember that they end up killing themselves at the end because of a stupid mistake.

Video Games

 * Giygas is one of Nintendo's most beloved villains thanks to his horrific appearance, surprisingly tragic backstory, and memorably hopeless boss fight. He's also the final boss of Earthbound, a very cute and silly game where you do not expect to be fighting an Eldritch Abomination that looks like a hellish, screaming void straight out of a Cosmic Horror Story. But while his appearance and nature are meant to be a secret that shocks and scares the player, it's safe to say that knowledge of his existence is what attracted the attention of new fans for a Cult Classic that desperately needed them.
 * In Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, John Marston and Arthur Morgan, the protagonists of each game respectively, die far into them. These are easily the best known aspects of each game, and have attracted to players curious about the emotional impact their deaths have on other people.