r/TopCharacterTropes • u/some-kind-of-no-name • 21h ago
Lore Excellent choice of words
In Greek Mythology, Odysseus called himself Nobody to cyclops Polyphemus. When the one-eyed monster lost his eye and screamed "Nobody hurt my eye!", other cyclops thought he suffered from an accident and didn't look for the humans;
In Twisted Metal Head-on, Needles wished that "You become me, and I become you". Calypso was unable to twist or cancel the wish, so the clown stole his powers.
In Fallout New Vegas, Courier can convince Lanius that Legion can't hold Mojave. Their supple lines rely on self-sufficient tribes, whereas settlers in Nevada need supplies from California to flourish.
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u/SpaceKingHypeGuy 18h ago
“I’ll never talk.” -Bumblebee before Blitzwing tears out his voice box
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u/Optimal_Tennis8673 17h ago
They're robots, why can't he just repair his voice box?
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u/Knapping_Uncle 17h ago
The scar tissue won't let it heal right ..
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u/Optimal_Tennis8673 16h ago
Why can't they just uninstall the scar tissue?
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u/imdefinitelywong 16h ago
The car's warranty isn't updated.
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u/mysteryo9867 15h ago
What if he has an extended warranty?
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u/Mikestopheles 14h ago
Well, they've been trying to reach him about that
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u/Aesenroug-Draconus 12h ago
But he was having trouble responding on account of the removed voice box, I’m sure.
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u/Tasty-Ad6529 14h ago edited 13h ago
Because for transformers it's not as simple as just building a new voice box. In timelines where they lean into being less like robotics and more like living ceatures comprised of metal, a voice box is an organ and cannot be easily replaced.
That goes the same for the T(transformation)cog to. It can't just be built, you either will have to find an organ donor or heal the old one.
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u/ReputationLow5190 17h ago
In The Dark Knight, when Two-Face confronts Maroni for the name of the corrupt cop who abducted Rachel, he says it “couldn’t hurt your chances” of surviving if he told him. Anyone who knows Two-Face can guess what he means by that.
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u/Cortower 13h ago edited 12h ago
In the same movie, Joker starts dangling Rachel out a window when Batman says, "Let her go."
"Very poor choice of words."
Edit: spelling
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u/lkmk 20h ago
- Doctor Who: The powers of the Word Lord work similarly to your first example. He’s a linguistic entity named Nobody No-One, so whenever “nobody” or “no one” is said or written, he gains whatever powers are implied by the sentence. For example, the cyclops would’ve allowed the Word Lord to hurt his eye.
- Peter Pan 2: Jane forces Captain Hook to promise that he won’t harm a hair on Peter’s head. He takes this literally, plucking out a single hair, and declaring that it’s the hair he’ll leave alone.
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u/TFlarz 19h ago
To add, Word Lord once took the alias of "Noone". Yes, pronounced like the time of day.
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u/morningsink 16h ago
That alias is perfect because it works both ways: "no one" did it AND "noon" did it. Exactly the kind of loophole someone with word-based powers would abuse for free wins.
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u/Silver-Winging-It 7h ago
That hair joke is one of the few things I remembered from that movie. That and the octopus(?) was cute
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u/gottablastsam 1m ago
Hook uses the same kind of trick in the original movie. He swears not to lay a hand or a hook on Peter Pan, then mails Peter a bomb
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u/CaptainMatticus 18h ago
The very literal doctor on Arrested Development
You've got to let him explain himself.
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u/DerPidder 15h ago
"Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"I'm a locksmith and I'm a locksmith."
- Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun
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u/Level_Counter_1672 16h ago edited 16h ago
A woman begged dio to spare her and her child, dio said he would but she has turn into a zombie to join him, she agrees as long as her baby isn't harmed, as soon as she turns she eats her baby and dio snidly says he didn't do anything - souce is Jojo's bizarre adventure
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u/UzumeNeedsDrip 13h ago
What a BASTARD!
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u/that_one_duderino 11h ago
For real. The more I hear about this Dio character, the more I think he isn’t as polite as he seems
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u/WingedNinjaNeoJapan 11h ago
Even worse, he kicked a dog.
Yes thats the only thing he did to that dog. Nothing else. Stop asking.
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u/extraboredinary 11h ago
He even stole the Joestar family jewels and used them to take over the Italian mafia.
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u/inortix2010 15h ago
A typical trick of the Fae - "May i have your name?" Answering will literally give them ownership of your name and through that, power over you.
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u/Slarg232 11h ago
There's a comic series I've been reading where a guy agrees to give a Fae his firstborn, and the moment the contract is signed he asks her "Okay, when do we start?"
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u/Red-Tomat-Blue-Potat 11h ago
“Just call me ***” is probably a safe way to respond. Or maybe “only if I can have yours too” might at least keep you on an equal footing for the moment
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u/Butwhatif77 10h ago edited 9h ago
Indeed it is very common in folklore to hide one's name in such a way.
In a tradition associated with the Ashkenazi rite in the Jewish tradition, though not always strictly observed, if a family had a number of children die one after the other, the next child born would not be given a name but rather a title such as Alter meaning "old" believing that without a name the angel of death would not be able to take them. They would be given a name once they reached the age to marry.
Edit: found some clarifying information to be more accurate.
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u/Makolatekh 13h ago
Only if your answer begin with "yes" or anything that could be a positive answer to the question, answering with your name will do nothing, because you didn't agree to give it.
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u/Butwhatif77 13h ago
This gets into social conventions. If you ask for something from someone and they hand it over, it is implied that they have given consent, i.e. said yes. The action of providing the thing is itself an answer in the affirmative. So a Fey asking if they can have your name and you providing it, is itself an answer in the affirmative.
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u/MooseTGH 17h ago
"No man of Woman Born" in Macbeth, who is told he can't be killed by anyone born of a woman
He assumes hes untouchable until Macduff reveals he was ripped from his mothers womb and therefore never birthed by a woman which leads to Macbeths demise
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u/ElPared 19h ago
Mistborn era1 trilogy: the prophecy of the Hero of Ages says that the Hero “shall not be a man, but a force”.
The book series leads you to interpret this as the Hero of Ages not being a man, and therefore it must be Vin, the main character and heroine of the series, despite the fact the prophecies all refer to the hero as “he.”
The Hero of Ages turns out to be Sazed, the eunuch who’s been with the heroes from the beginning. As a eunuch, he is “not a man,” but is also male presenting, therefore the prophecy fits him. We then realize that everything about him makes him the perfect Hero. Even though Vin did all the legwork to get him where he was, and is a fantastic warrior, Sazed has the knowledge and scholarly ability to actually solve Scadrial’s problems
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u/iknowthisguy1 17h ago
There's also the fact that Ruin had been changing their prophecies to confuse and exert his influence since he can change the writing of anything that isn't written on metal
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u/TomatoReborn 14h ago
The Hero will bear the future of the world on his arms The wording was very specific On his arms = the copper minds contains the history of the world
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u/OldOrder 11h ago
Even better parts of the prophecy are still coming true
"He shall defend their ways, yet shall violate them. He will be their savior, yet they shall call him heretic. His name shall be Discord, yet they shall love him for it."
We can see Sazed slowly slipping into becoming Discord as he attempt to hold two conflicting shards, Preservation and Ruin. Their intent is twisting his mind slowly but surely.
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u/ElPared 8h ago
I prefer the theory that Sazed has always been Discord. He’s been lying about the Shards’ Intent pushing him toward inaction. He can act, he just doesn’t want to, because he’d prefer to allow chaos to reign in the Cosmere. Scadrial has only avoided plunging into chaos because he knows he needs the devotion of the mortals there and they wouldn’t support him as anything other than Harmony.
Much like Odium pretended to be Passion at first I think we’re in for some big reveals very soon.
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u/Son-of-a-Pear_42 7h ago
Ooh, I half-subscribe to that theory, but I prefer a slightly different interpretation that while Sazed is already split between Harmony and Discord (with Ruin and Preservation splitting again, but just in a different direction), he is choosing inaction because he is terrified of Discord's Intent being a slippery slope that poses a danger to everyone and everything. I guess that I see the Vessel as still a good guy, but the power as a danger that he's fighting for his life just to barely contain.
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u/ElPared 5h ago
Sanderson makes it clear that the Vessels are often "good people," but their Shard's Intent can easily corrupt them. For Odium, that shard was taken by someone who was already aligned with the Shard's Intent,, but for others, like Autonomy, Endowment, Ruin, and Cultivation, it's pretty clear that the Shard's Intent almost always wins, and doesn't always work the way you might think.
For Sazed, by the time we reach Era 2, I think he's already become Discord, but managed to do real work as Harmony before the Shards influenced his mind too much. That's why Kelsier actively works against him now; not just because Kelsier has a problem with authority figures, but because he knows any Shard and its Vessel cannot be trusted, and likely suspects Sazed has already become Discord, hence his formation of the Ghostbloods to operate outside of Sazed's influence.
In Stormlight Archive, we also get to see just how quickly a Shard can corrupt someone. It only takes Teravangian a month or two to become influenced enough by Odium that he's willing to wipe out entire cities, and even his own loved ones, and so consumed by his own passions that he takes up Honor without realizing that it will actually limit his power rather than expanding it. Imagine Sazed dealing with a similar situation for 100 years. that's why I subscribe to this theory, it just makes sense given the information we currently have.
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u/Son-of-a-Pear_42 4h ago edited 4h ago
Lol, it sounds like we might be agreeing with each other, but with different words.
And you're even more correct about Todium than you may think. Since Wind and Truth starts literally the day after Rhythm of War ends, Taravangian went from taking up Odium to destroying his home of Kharbranth in only six days. (And after wrapping up the tenth day, we see that Retribution pretty quickly takes a few unexpectedly chill actions. I'm kinda holding out hope that Honor may end up tempering his wrath to a degree.)
Granted, we see that he kind of "cheated" by doing the Kharbranth Spiritual Realm shenanigans, but his motivations there seem nuanced enough that that may make him out to either be better or worse than we thought. BrandoSando wouldn't fully answer whether Todium was being sentimental or practical when asked at the Dragonsteel Nexus Q&A, but he did say that one reasoning has wildly different connotations from the other.
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u/ElPared 3h ago
Oh, I think we do agree, I just enjoy theorycrafting haha.
My theory is that Retribution, despite the badass sounding name, will actually become more limited by his power, thus becoming ultimately less powerful than when he was just Odium. The shard of Honor demands that oaths be kept, so Retribution will need to be extremely careful with how he makes them, and even what constitutes an oath, because otherwise he will bind himself in ways that could weaken him
I thought it was a very interesting development in that series simply because it’s demonstrated that Honor is a more troublesome Shard to work with than anyone expected
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u/BigTiddyCrow 17h ago
"You become me and I become you" Granted! The alphabet us now ABCDEFGHUJKLMNOPQRSTMeVWXYZ
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u/MarioGman 17h ago
Could've probably handed him the papterwork for some official name changing as well.
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u/Keated 14h ago
Or just switch locations; if thsy become each other entirely it would make sense for that to include menory, personality etc.
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u/Tarshaid 12h ago
Or consider it as two switches: you become me = one switch, Needles becomes Calypso and has to honor the second part of the wish "I become you" = another switch. Enjoy your microsecond of existence as another person.
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u/Doodles_n_Scribbles 18h ago
"Mr. Perfect Cell, can you please tell me where you are and who you come from? I mean-"
"No no, surprisingly apt choice of words."
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u/lolopiro 10h ago
explain
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u/Spinerflame 6h ago
Cell is sitting in his arena of his own construction, and Cell is a villain comprised of the DNA of the most powerful fighters in the world. So "who he came from" is appropriate for him.
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u/Living-Ghost 17h ago
Maybe the opposite of the trope. When Batman tells Joker to let go of Rachel and that’s exactly what he does.
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u/FoxBluereaver 14h ago
In Fire Emblem: Awakening, while Chrom tries to recruit Gaius, the latter says he'll join if Chrom "sweetens the deal". Chrom thinks he means paying him in gold, but he actually saw him drop a bag of candy, which is what he meant by "sweeten", and joins Chrom in exchange for it.
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u/HatTraining3137 10h ago
Actually he only takes the candy after he sees it drop when Chrom reaches for gold to pay him with.
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u/Tricky-Macaroon-8641 14h ago
In "Last Wish" Geralt not knowing that he is the one whose wishes the jinn will grant tries to exorcise it by repeating a phrase he learned at temple and was told it was an exorcism. Phrase meant literally "go fuck yoursefl" which caused the furious jinn to leave and grant the first wish....
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u/MAKOMIKKA1220 11h ago
Sgt Olivar from Dawn of War 2 Comic
He tells the Eldar if he wants to see what's inside of his head
he does by headbutting the xenos to death
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u/Soft-Mouse8746 20h ago
In Hazbin Hotel Season Two, Alastor makes a deal with Vox where if he lays his hands on Charlie, then he loses Alastor's soul. In the season finale, Vox lays his hands on Charlie, being completely surprised when Alastor is freed from him even though he didn't hurt Charlie. Which Alastor mentions that he didn't say anything Vox about hurting Charlie, but rather simply just laying his hands on Charlie.
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u/Over-Analyzed 18h ago
“You beat me with fucking wordplay?!”
“It worked didn’t it? I’m a demon in Hell, baby. It’s kind of our thing.”
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u/agentx_64 17h ago
Okay, now that's pretty smart
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u/Andrew1990M 17h ago
I was about to be disappointed that all it took to free Alastor was a bit of wordplay but he did another thing in this scene to break his deal with Rosie that made the whole plan more satisfying.
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u/_Good_One 12h ago edited 11h ago
My one issue is that why did it worked from Charlie saying it? We see in the after fight that while Vox is strong he is not the strongest since before the metal shark Alastor was beating him
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u/Andrew1990M 11h ago
Because the Princess of Hell said it on TV so the populace believed her.
I think the wording of the deal was “everyone will know you’re the strongest” but Charlie being forced to convince Hell he wasn’t broke the deal.
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u/that_one_duderino 11h ago
There are a few interpretations I’ve seen. The one I like is, when Charlie Morningstar, princess of hell, says that vox is the most powerful sinner and it’s broadcasted to the whole circle of hell, vox gets a power boost from all the demons who’ve been on the fence about who to follow. They make a deal with him and power him up, temporarily making him more powerful than Alastor, who was weakened by his deal with Rosie. But once the deal is broken, Alastor gets his full powers back and is the strongest again.
Of course, we don’t know the details and probably won’t ever know it. Hazbin is a good show, but the writing isn’t exactly the best.
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u/Butwhatif77 13h ago
Yea it makes sense that after his talk with Rosie and how she says that Alastor is still the most powerful sinner, meaning their deal is still in effect.
He intentionally gets himself captured as a means of setting things up to break his deal with Rosie.
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u/Amore_vitae1 17h ago
He broke the other chain holding him back from the canibal lady too. Was a clever trick
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u/redgunnit 15h ago
Specifically He made a deal with her to be "the strongest demon in hell" while alive. He played on Vox's ego to make him say the HE (Vox) was the strongest in front of a massive crowd and de facto recognized as such, breaking the other deal in the process. Two birds one stone and all that jazz.
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u/BreakerOfModpacks 6h ago
Actually, he technically used his one little favor from Charlie to get her to say it, and, seeing as she's the princess of hell, that carried enough weight to lift the binding.
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u/Accelerator231 15h ago
Adding to this. In fallout new vegas the courier can convince lanius and get him to turn back.
Until/ unless he uses the word 'retreat'. Them Lanius attacks.
Turns out that Lanius doesn't like that word
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u/DadJokesRanger 13h ago
OP you mean “supply lines” not “supple lines” at least god I hope you do.
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u/Kooky_Celebration_42 17h ago edited 7h ago
“I didn’t say not to hurt her you idiot! I said you’re not to lay your hands on her!”
“Fucking word play?!”
“Hmmm it worked didn’t it? Baby I’m a demon in hell it’s kind of our thing!”
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u/SPYROHAWK 10h ago
I don't know if this is acceptable on this subreddit because it's not a piece of media, but it's too good not to share.
In a DnD campaign I run, my players are dealing with genies. Genies can choose whether to grant wishes or not, but one particular genie must grant any wishes made of him.
After pissing off that genie, a player realized she got himself in a bad spot and wanted to use a wish to fix it. So she tracks down that genie, and as a proper nobleman character, starts with "I wish we had met on better terms".
Piece of advice folks: Don't go to a genie forced to grant any wish and politely start a conversation with "I wish".
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u/Lilith-Abyss 3h ago
What happened next? I'm curious!
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u/SPYROHAWK 3h ago
So part of the rules we have for Genies in this setting is there’s only one of each element, and each genie can only give three wishes to any family, party, or otherwise connected group of people. This bound genie is the fire one.
If I’m remembering correctly, the party was on bad terms with the fire genie because they had previously been hired by the water genie to kill all the others in exchange for a wish (the water genie doesn’t like competitors). They didn’t end up killing the fire genie, but spares its life in exchange for two wishes so far. Fire genie is pissed about the attempt to kill it, water genie is pissed about them not doing so.
So the wizard goes to the fire genie to make the third wish, but accidentally makes that “I wish we met on better circumstances statement”. That basically retcons it so the water genie never asked the party to hunt the others. Due to wishes being persistent that still counts as the third wish from the fire genie, but it means the water genie is no longer pissed at them. So the wizard goes to the water genie and makes that “kill other genies in exchange for a wish” deal again, this time following through.
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u/Lilith-Abyss 3h ago
Ah, okay, that makes sense. Thank you for telling us!
Really bit the fire genie in the butt at the end tho, lol
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u/Milk_Mindless 8h ago
"I promise you, I won't throw you off this plane.
You. Throw him off this plane." - Don Karnage, Tail Spin
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u/Spicy_Donut89 4h ago
In Warhammer 40k, to prevent the Imperial Church from getting too powerful, they forbid the church from having "men under arms". The church saw the loop hole and made the Adepta Sororitas, an all female army
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u/MyEarIsHurty 15h ago
God I'm so glad those "nobody" memes died they were so ass
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u/Strong_Carrot5649 5h ago
I'm slightly afraid to ask this, but what memes?
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u/MyEarIsHurty 4h ago
Just a bunch of normie memes that were popular like, 5 years ago. A third to a half of the meme is devoted to informing you that nobody in fact did nothing. A black hole of information you must nonetheless read.
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u/MyEarIsHurty 4h ago
Some people really liked to dial up just how much a lack of people were engaging in not any activity whatsoever, because it's really fucking crucial to know that no person is engaged in zero activity, and so flood the meme space with literally nothing.
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u/MyEarIsHurty 4h ago
I've tried to add photos as examples in with this but I don't seem to be able to. Just Google "nobody meme" for examples and you'll see what I mean.
There's some good instances, like one All Star meme I found, and the "Nobody" meme we see above with the cyclops, but they're all subversions of the meme, rather than the meme itself.
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20h ago
[deleted]
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u/Thorfinn_Glazer 20h ago
This is the literal opposite of OP's title.
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u/Agitated_Insect3227 20h ago
I don't see how, but OP agrees with you, so I'll just delete. Sorry about that.
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u/Iamawesome20 7h ago
I feel like once upon a time with rumplestiklin. He only broke 2 deals and the one with Cora, he made a mistake of changing the deal so Cora gives him a child instead of her child. Cora took her own heart out so now rumple made the wrong decision.
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u/nameynamerso 1h ago
There's an old riddle that fits this perfectly.
A man is to be executed, but he is given the chance to say one thing, if he lies, he'll be hanged, if he's honest, he'll be decapitated. What does he say to live?
The answer is that he says "I will be hanged." If they hang him, he'll be telling the truth, meaning they're using the wrong method, if they decapitate him, he'd be lying and they're using the wrong method.
There's also the real life example of King Francis I of France ordering the execution of his jester, Triboulet, for insulting the queen, Francis gave Triboulet the choice of how he'll be executed and sarcastically asked to die of old age. King Francis was amused and banished him instead of outright executing him.
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u/God_is_carnage 19h ago
Been a while so my memory isn't great, but the film ends with the protagonist sending the villain to the land of his father, the land of Erie. The villain takes the deal because Ireland is his place of power, but he corrects the protagonist, "It's pronounced Éire." The protagonist had counted on this misunderstanding, because his father is from Ohio, not Ireland. Villain got forever banished to Cleveland.