A few weeks ago I was patiently (at first, then impatiently) waiting for Avengers Endgame to be released at the cinema. Tickets booked, clock ticking down in my brain to when I could go and find out what happened. I expected that the heroes would win, but was desperate to know how…
…but not so desperate to read any reviews or leaks or spoilers. That would be heresy. I wanted to be as spoiler-free as possible. The trailer might have shown me some odd sequences, made me wonder, “Well, how did they get to there? And who are they talking to? And…” but that was just to whet my appetite.
There are no spoilers for the viva, of course. Unlike a movie it can’t be spoiled by someone telling you what happens in advance because it’s not happened. It’s not a spoiler to know you’re very, very likely to pass.
A spoiler would be knowing what questions were going to be asked, or what your examiners exactly thought in advance. And I think those would be spoilers: they would spoil the conversation, the viva would be less of a test of your talent and more a test of your memory. A viva spoiled like this would be a sad conclusion to a PhD journey.
Thankfully, there are no spoilers at all for the viva. The hero of the story will win. We might not know exactly how, but there are some pretty good reasons why…
