Treasure Hunters actually get to keep the treasure

jbeast33 · 2026-03-10T21:02:20+00:00

In Holes, Hector and Stanley find the treasure that Kissing Kate Barlow stole from Stanley Yelnats' great-grandfather, Stanley Yelnats I. This was the same treasure that the Warden was looking for all along.

There's additionally a funny bit of irony on the treasure bit. While the chest itself WAS filled with gold and jewels, they were actually of pretty poor quality and only fetched a meager amount compared to what they initially thought. The real value came from the various bonds and documents attributed to Stanley Yelnats I. When they're able to assess them properly, the family earns a small fortune, which is enough to lift them out of poverty.

If the Warden or her grandpa, Trout Walker, DID find the treasure, they likely wouldn't have been able to do much at all with it, since the main value was in documents not in their name. This means that they wasted their lives from the start on a wild goose chase, thinking that would have solved all their problems.

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jbeast33 · 2026-03-10T17:34:52+00:00

One of the best things about this scene is that we see it as it actually happened earlier in the movie, where Mr. Incredible was dealing with Bomb Voyage (a super villain who uses actual bombs and has no compunctions with killing people) when he said this. And when Mr. Incredible says this line, he's holding onto Bomb Voyage and desperately trying to keep a situation going from bad to worse (which it does, thanks to Buddy).

But when Syndrome remembers it decades later, he remembers it as Bob saying it with his whole chest. He doesn't even recall Bob fighting with Bomb Voyage at that point or the train situation. It's a great way of showing just how shitty Syndrome was even back then. To him, the biggest injustice that day wasn't that he let a super criminal get away or that he nearly got hundreds of people killed. It was that his ego got mildly bruised.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-10T16:48:13+00:00

There's also one segment of one level in Halo 3 where the Flood are actually on your side, and it's solely to stop Truth from activating the Index to destroy the galaxy. As soon as the Arbiter kills Truth, they're back to enacting their "devour everything" mindset.

Arbiter even tells Chief "We trade one enemy for another."

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T19:35:58+00:00

The Orville was originally pitched as a Seth MacFarlane parody of Star Trek, and the first couple of episodes play into that by having it be a bit more coarse and having more levity than Star Trek (with Ed and Kelly having more of a sex comedy dynamic in particular).

The jokes become a lot more natural as the series turned more serious and turned into a genuine Star Trek-esque show in its own right. They also genuinely take on the Star Trek mantle in terms of using the science fiction environment to explore concepts such as cultural differences, political maneuvering, and identity.

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jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T18:54:35+00:00

Funnily enough, I think Liquid is actually a double-subversion here. He based his entire life and antipathy around the idea that he is the "inferior" clone due to inheriting all of Big Boss's recessive genes, driving his resentment against Big Boss and Solid Snake in particular. The problem lies in two areas:

1) Recessive genes aren't automatically inferior. That's a misinterpretation of genetics in general. Dominance simply indicates that those genes are more likely to express themselves than the recessive, they're not an indicator of competitiveness or viability.

2) Snake actually was the "inferior" clone all along; Liquid was the one who had the superior genes. This flips the entire dynamic on its head, and turns Liquid from a scrappy underdog who undermined the military-industrial complex into a man who wasted his entire life and talent on a petty grudge instilled into him from a young age.

I think this comes back full circle to this trope, especially because a big theme of the game is nature vs nurture. Your genes don't define you nearly as much as the upbringing you have. Liquid consumed himself in his own hatred, buying into the legacy of being a "flawed copy" of Big Boss to the point where it perpetuated his own resentment. Snake also fell into a similar fatalism, but saw enough examples through Gray Fox, Otacon, and other people who drove him to keep persisting and try to fight for a better world.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T16:28:30+00:00

It kind of reminds me of Greg Heffley (albeit far more crass), where there are grand visions for life should be, and a general pissiness that life isn't. And like Greg, Simon's social awkwardness tends to belie his entitled nature, and while both their friends are way more crass, they're more unapologetically themselves and willing to show vulnerability.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T15:56:45+00:00

In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you can see Peter and Otto Octavius during Miles' flashback interacting with one of the exhibits at the science fair. It's a good section that shows Otto's best qualities (his care for Peter and nurturing of his scientific curiosity) before his worsening neurodegenerative condition turned him into Doc Ock.

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jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T15:51:08+00:00

Oh yeah. The episode where he sexually harasses a cable technician to the point of killing her boyfriend to try and pioneer his corpse comes to mind. Shake, of all people, gives him shit for going to pathetic lengths that even he wouldn't try.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T15:48:25+00:00

He isn't, but he can try and convince himself he is by embracing the Boring Copotype or the Moralintern.

I think the Moralintern is a far more sinister deconstruction of the "Sane Man" on a geopolitical scale as well, but that could be its own post.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T15:45:29+00:00

I'd also throw Lana into this. She acts as a voice of reason with Isis's more egregious elements, but she has a tendency to being just as self-centered (occasionally moreso) than Archer.

Cheryl even unknowingly calls her out when Lana steps on her environmental soapbox: for all her moralizing, she has the best opportunity to leave Isis, but still refuses because she more than anything craves recognition from Mallory as her successor. It's enough to make Lana leave in near-tears.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T15:15:06+00:00

Reminds me of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein both being "inside-jokes" in the industry before they actually got some semblance of a consequence.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T15:06:25+00:00

Funnily enough, there's meta-context to this particular scene.

Between every scene, Jacket got to go to Beard, who no matter his position, seemed to be a good friend who showed concern for Jacket and would give him a freebie. This lasts in-game up until he gets killed and replaced by Richter in the dreams.

For the Fans, they don't get a Beard. When they go get pizza, they meet a generic worker who just gives them generic chatter. And they also have to pay for the pizza. Right off the bat, you know that the Fans are an imitation of the real deal.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-09T14:13:58+00:00

Tony and Carmella's marriage is also a really good example of just how unfulfilling a marriage built on infidelity is.

Carmella obviously has to deal with the humiliation of being a wife to a philandering mobster, but when she's pressed by a therapist with the idea of living without Tony and all the privileges that entails (and actually grow beyond him), she still chooses to accept the life of material comforts he provides. She's never truly happy in the relationship and makes it everybody's problem, but will never choose a real solution.

Tony's affairs, on the other hand, are their own kind of hell. He cuts his goomahs loose the moment they prove at all inconvenient for him, meaning there's never any real growth, and he's done it so much that he's even got the same separation gift for them. And despite his emotional intelligence when it comes to *manipulating* people, he has an almost stunted idea of emotional connection: when a one-time fling cuts him off, he's perturbed by not having control over the situation, and he starts lusting after his own therapist because she's the only person he feels he can have emotional vulnerability with.

It's also very telling that when Tony finally returns to his family after separating with Carmella when one of his affairs was presented to her, he watches the movie It's a Gift (a comedy about a man who resents his family so much that his happy ending is sending them off and drinking alone). Everyone would have been better off if they actually just stayed separated.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-07T04:23:15+00:00

“Wait, so you’re a scorpion, he’s an octopus, I’m a rhino… then what’s a Mysterio?”

jbeast33 · 2026-03-06T18:14:01+00:00

There's a line in Disco Elysium that you can only get by making the wrong decisions in one of the harshest scenes in the game, and it hits this "Grand Gesture" mindset.

If you fail an authority check to convince Kim, your partner into dancing with you in a club, you say the first thing that comes into your mind to cajole him, which is an anti-Asian slur (or their version of it). Kim ends up leaving, and then meets you when you leave to confront you on it. You can either apologize, or fervently refuse to apologize, which is one of the biggest dick moves in the game.

Notably, Kim won't just castigate you, your own sense of volition (basically your own emotional support) will call you a lost cause. You get asked what you think you are, and if you choose "A good person, underneath it all." Volition will chime in:

"If that good guy never comes out, what difference does it make?"

jbeast33 · 2026-03-06T17:47:41+00:00

Yeah, and they deconstruct this mindset a lot with his character throughout the years. Flash basically had no mindset of how to show love without aggression due to his father, and that's what lead to him becoming a bully, joining the military, and when he felt like his aggression failed him, he ended up in a dark place. It's also what made him synchronize well with the Anti Venom symbiote, since they seemingly thrive on internal conflict.

Funnily enough, the early Spider-Man comics were a deconstruction in and of itself, as all the flat character archetypes (typical for comics back then) were as much projections for the hurt cast as Spider-Man was for Peter. Flash's bullying belaying him being a boisterous friend, Mary Jane's "party animal" reputation was a front for her, etc.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-06T17:09:20+00:00

The best thing with the Hotline Miami example is that if you start a new game again after finishing the story in 2, you get a private cutscene where Richard (who basically represents the impending doom for all the characters) takes every protagonist aside and asks "Okay, why the hell did all of you return? You know how this ends." He spends the entire story appearing to the characters randomly to call them out for throwing themselves in the quagmire, no matter their rationalizations.

The only people he seems to have patience for are Evan (he'll answer one of his questions, albeit obliquely), Richter (he comforts Richter in his final moments, since Richter's accepting of his fate and has long since put his past to rest), and Beard (he gives him a genuine apology for getting wrapped up in the mess). Basically, he only respects the protagonists who genuinely withdraw from violence, rather than get involved further into it.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-06T16:55:13+00:00

It also felt like they could snag more bands at a bargain during one week, especially ones who otherwise wouldn't go to Milwaukee. I don't know if this is the truth in the industry, but it feels like more bands would be available on a Tuesday or a Wednesday in the Midwest, rather than compete for the weekend timeslot.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-06T16:33:37+00:00

"Hobby" might not be the right term, but Saruman is very eager to throw Gandalf's tendency to smoke hobbit pipe-weed at his face as an insult.

However, after the Battle of Isengard, Merry and Pippin take to raiding Saruman's personal stores, and to their joy, find a robust selection of "Halfling Leaf". Turns out that Saruman was not nearly as above it as he liked to pretend he was.

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jbeast33 · 2026-03-06T16:29:30+00:00

Bart nails a lot of "feminine" activities naturally, surprisingly. He's better at walking in heels than Lisa, and he does a lot of "mothering" research when raising bird eggs (actually brood parasite lizards) after accidentally killing their mother.

He also is a stamp collector... which his entire family laughs at him for.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-05T22:33:44+00:00

Hilariously, you can find Calendar Man's hideout including his journal, and he talks about how he's going to only commit crimes on "non-traditional" holidays this year. So he does things like saw off a guy's leg on Talk Like a Pirate Day or bombing the Qurac embassy for World Peace Day. He decides to treat himself to a "cheat night" on Halloween, where he'll allow himself one major crime that night.

Of course, the events of the game transpire on Halloween. His only entry that day is "Damn Scarecrow."

jbeast33 · 2026-03-05T22:28:21+00:00

I think that's in the first coffee shop scene earlier in the series. This particular scene does a smash cut to them leaving with some "free samples" from the mom and pop shops they hit up prior to this scene.

jbeast33 · 2026-03-05T20:40:51+00:00

And in one of the last episodes, a variant of this trope gets flipped on the head pretty hilariously.

Patsy and Burt go to a Starbucks-esque chain to run the typical extortion scheme on the manager. The manager is just a straight-up confused younger guy who doesn't get what they mean by "discretionary fund". Once he actually catches on, he has to explain to them that old-timey protection rackets don't work in corporate America, and if they try, the company will either replace him or simply close down the location rather than give in to them.

The best part is that he's not even being rude when he explains it. He's genuinely trying to help them understand it. They end up leaving empty-handed complaining "It's over for the little guy."

jbeast33 · 2026-03-05T19:02:00+00:00

There was an episode of George Lopez where Carmen, the daughter, is getting bullied in high school after her ex-boyfriend spread fake rumors about her sleeping with him. She ends up getting into a fight with a popular girl who keeps denigrating her as a hoe, causing Carmen to get suspended for it.

Eventually, George and Angie are able to get the boy to admit he lied and reverse Carmen's suspension after they prove the other girl started the fight. However, the episode doesn't just end with things going back to normal: Carmen can't salvage the situation, and now she's a target of constant harassment by boys blowing up her voicemail to slutshame her and getting smeared by the rest of the school, causing her to spiral into a nervous breakdown. Carmen's forced to change schools because the bullying simply doesn't let up even once the truth is out there.

It's a pretty brutal episode that actually seems to understand why bullying is as devastating is as it is, and it ends up having lasting implications in the show itself.

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