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.

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.

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.

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.