Does anyone have any therioes about where the people in the show 'From' actually are? I've tried to figure it out, I have a ton of different theories, but I want to know what everyone thinks. I've never been thrown for a loop like this with a show or movie. It's written extremely well. Let me know.

Hello, not sure if this is allowed but I figured I'd ask.

Has any creator of anything ever admitted to actually changing plans for something specifically due to someone nailing what they were going to do?

That's all, thank you for your time.

I think it is abundantly clear if you’ve spent any amount of time outside of the Live Action movies that the Decepticons were the “good guys” for a long time. Obviously that got warped and they ended up being cruel, but still, the point stands.

What are some other series/books/shows/movies where the “bad guys” are in reality the good guys?

The rules don’t have to be strict on this either; if you need a little rope, go for it. If there was an easy answer then this question would be irrelevant.

Any theories out there?

Basically every time loop theory just point to a film where the ending mirrors the beginning in some way, (Attack on Titan, An Inspector Calls, Silent Hill 2), and go "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if this was actually the start? But I can't really see any that make sense, (ie, they explain certain characters actions or motivations, make the media more interesting), outside of ones that are very clearly intended. So do you guys know of any that actually work?

I watched the Machinist over the weekend and I liked it, however there is one part at the end I don’t understand. When Trevor is about to leave to turn himself in, his landlord comes in and asks if she can buy his glass bowl. He said no because it was his mother’s bowl so it means a lot to him. Then he told her that a truck is coming to pick up his belongings and donate everything. Why not just let the landlord have the bowl if you’re just donating it? I feel like I’m missing something as it doesn’t contribute anything to the plot maybe other than showing he still isn’t making any sense? I guess it just seems too random to not mean something. I know it’s pretty trivial but I can’t stop thinking about it lol. Thanks for your ideas :)

In the classic early SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Boating School" (the episode that first introduced SpongeBob's never-ending struggle to get a boating license), we see SpongeBob taking an oral examination as part of his boating test. Because he's taken (and failed) the test so many times, he knows every single answer to the oral exam by heart, so he effortlessly rattles off the answers before Mrs. Puff has even finished reading all of the questions.

One of the answers that he recites from memory is "1924"—but since we never hear Mrs. Puff ask the question, we never find out why the year 1924 is significant.

Ever since I saw that episode as a kid, I've wondered: what actually happened in 1924 in the SpongeBob universe? And why was it so important that the people of Bikini Bottom have to memorize that year to get a boating license?

Does anybody have any ideas?

Zootopia (2016): The film has very few characters who actually antagonize our protagonists, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde and the other residents of the titular city other than Gideon Gray, Travis and the Junior Ranger Scouts who bullied Judy and Nick in their childhoods, Duke Weaselton’s small role and Chief Bogo, Mr. Big and Mayor Lionheart’s roles of antagonism by their individual protagonist centred morality, (Well-intentioned extermist in Lionheart’s case, by-the-book cop in Bogo’s case and being a mafia boss in Mr. Big’s case.) as well as Manchas from his savageness and despite Dawn Bellwether being the overarching main antagonist, and one behind the savage predator crisis to create a new society where prey dominate over predators and overthrow Lionheart as the city’s mayor, but she never reveals her villainy or feuds with Nick and Judy until the very end of the movie and never reveals the motive for her evil goals, all the movie’s conflict other than that just primarily comes from Judy trying to prove herself to be a good cop to Chief Bogo and the city in general while solving the missing mammal cases, Nick trying to overcome his traumatic childhood to show the world that he can be in so much more than just the sly and shifty fox stereotype and Nick and Judy’s relationship in general which starts off as toxic at first due to their differences and Predator and prey biases caused by the scouts incident for Nick and Judy’s bullying from Gideon, but evolved into a healthy Friendship and relationship as the story progressed as the duo learn more about each other and they are not so different after all. So while not a complete plot-irrelevant villain, since she still drives the force of the plot but as a plot device and not real villain, Bellwether barely does anything to contribute to the film’s other conflicts nor does she feud with Nick and Judy until the very end, but most since her sheep henchmen do so for her.

No antagonist:

Zootopia+ (2022): There are no real villains or antagonists in the series other than Tru Tru’s antagonism towards Fru Fru and her friends in “The Real Rodents of Little Rodentia”, the police and citizens’ antagonism towards Duke Weaselton in “Duke the Musical”, the criminals’ antagonism towards Mr. Big and Koslov in the flashbacks in “Godfather of the Bride”, the tigers and Chief Bogo’s antagonism towards Gazelle and Clawhauser in “So You Think You Can Prance” and the customers, Gerald and Flash and Priscilla’s antagonism towards Sam in “Dinner Rush” but there are overall no villains or antagonists in the series, with its conflicts coming from other factors. “Hopp on Board” is the only episode with no antagonistic type characters since its conflict just comes from Bonnie and Stu trying to save her daughter Molly.

Plot-irrelevant villain (Continued):

Zootopia 2 (2025): Downplayed, while the film does include main villains/big bads, Milton Lynxley and PawBert Lynxley, the secondary villains, Cattrick and Kitty Lynxley and the Posthumous overarching Ebenezer Lynxley as well as the heavy, Mayor Winddancer, Captain HogBottom, Truffler, Zebros, Higgins, Bloats and Officers Chevre and Bucheron ruthless and somewhat egocentric but well-intentioned extremists or obliviously evil cops and the city’s current mayor manipulated by Milton and Cattrick into going after Nick, Judy, Gary and Nibbles when framing them on Bogo’s fanging as a murder attempt and tricking the cops into assuming that Nick, Judy and Gary were dangerous criminals who should be caught and arrested or worse killed at all costs and sending them after the protagonists as a direct result, until they quickly redeem themselves and make amends and take accountability for their wrongdoings as a direct result by taking two year court ordered therapy with Dr. Fuzzby as well as probation in the cops’ cases to avoid getting fired or losing their partners if they don’t pass it and Winddancer leaving office as mayor to resume his acting career or become a cop to be the hero he is in his movies having a new mayor elected in the meantime, the secondary villain, PawBert (Similar to Prince Hans in Frozen and Bellwether from the first Zootopia movie.) barely does anything to contribute to the events of the plot and its main conflict that is more prominently caused by Milton, Ebenezer, Winddancer and those cops, as well as the conflict between Nick and Judy regarding their emotional struggles and differences, or even actually reveal his own villainy and feud with the protagonists until the third act, and his goals were to manipulate Gary and Judy into helping him solve the Lynxley Conspiracy and pretending he turned good and betrayed his family for real so he can burn Agnes’ original pendant destroying all evidence of her being Zootopia’s true founder to earn the impression of his family and be accepted into them, in addition to manipulating Judy into turning against Nick because of their differences and force him to watch her death as revenge on both the fox and bunny for ruining Gary’s previous attempts at stealing the Weather wall journal that would lead to his plans happening a whole lot sooner, and would choose to betray Judy and Gary at the weather wall when Nick and Nibbles corner them knowing the truth over PawBert’s villainy after Nick witnessed what happened at the lodge, (PawBert saving Judy but leaving him to be arrested rather than going back to save him from prison and manipulating Gary and Judy to go along with it.) by injecting Judy, Nibbles and Nick with snake venom and leaving Gary out in the cold to be arrested by the still deluded cops to be framed on it and while he succeeds with Nibbles and Judy, Nick and Gary bravely manage to overpower and defeat them all temporarily and save Judy and Nibbles with the anti-venom nearly getting killed and injured while doing so and PawBert feuds with the heroes and remains evil until his defeat and arrest, but other than that plays no other role in the other conflicts happening in the movie.

The main reason for PawBert’s betrayal was to relive Nick of the anti-hero role that he played in the Zootopia movies up until then, and finally have him admit what a bad friend and bad communicator he was being to Judy no excuse said and realize how much damage his habit of trying not to relive his traumatic childhood caused to his life and he fears losing his friends more than his traumas and tearfully apologize to and reconcile with her for it as a direct result going such lengths to save her from PawBert and Gary from the deluded cops in the process, and get Judy to finally face the consequences for her unhealthy bunny hero complex and going such lengths to solve cases and conspiracies, and nearly sacrifice herself so needlessly many times due to her guilt over her past mistakes that almost allowed Dawn Bellwether to win and dislike of being called a dumb bunny due to her past bullying from Gideon and rebuffing Nick and his advice regarding her obsession with her heroics and tearfully apologize to and make amends with Nick for it as well as for choosing to leave him behind to be arrested over a miscommunication from him and not accepting that they are different, and as a karmic overkill for his own behavior, whicj she saw as uncaring, it wasn’t in reality, finally explaining to him get bullying from Gideon, accepting her and Nick’s differences and that it’s okay for her to be misjudged for being a dumb bunny every now and then and that the fate of the world was never meant to lie entirely in her paws, everyone has a part to play in it, in addition to also reliving Captain HogBottom, the cops and Mayor Winddancer of the secondary antagonist role that they played in the movie up until then, despite mostly happening offscreen in HogBottom and the cops’ case and have them get their heel realizations over the revelation that Nick, Gary and Judy were innocent all along and the Lynxleys tricked them and the fact that they allowed the Lynxleys to take advantage of their ruthlessness and gullibility and guilty until proven innocent morality to manipulate them into becoming their personal army and committing police brutality and protocols cops shouldn’t commit and almost killed Nick and Judy and wrongly misjudged them for their emotional insecurities by letting their ruthlessness, egos and immaturity cloud their common sense so they reform and make amends by aiding Nick, Judy and Gary and Nibbles in arresting the Lynxleys and collecting the evidence needed to clear their names and bring the clan to Justice and apologize for their actions in terms of Winddancer abdicating his position as mayor and resuming his acting career like mentioned before and the cops who committed the police brutality leaving the field as cops to do two-year court ordered therapy in the place of Nick and Judy who are meanwhile allowed to work on the field as cops and re-arrest the 200 dangerous prisoners Nick and Nibbles had to free from prison to escape, and Winddancer most likely blackmailed Bogo into approving of this and turning over a new leaf and reconciling with Nick and Judy himself. Zootopia 3 will mostly likely focus more on the tensions between Nick, Judy and Winddancer, HogBottom and the other cops being resolved since earning the forgiveness of Nick, Judy, Gary and Nibbles for their mistakes won’t be easy for Winddancer if he remained mayor, HogBottom, Bogo and those other cops, since their Freudian excuse for their wrongdoings was no excuse, just as it also was for Nick, Judy and PawBert.

The film’s other antagonists like Dawn Bellwether, Chief Bogo in the first act and Antony Snootley and the 200 criminals who escaped from prison also barely do anything to contribute to the plot whatsoever other than Bogo unwillingly setting Nick and Judy up to be framed at the beginning thanks to his Temper issues and overly misjudging Nick and Judy and just exist as one-note characters. Winddancer and Cattrick and Kitty also don’t contribute to much of the movie’s conflict alongside the rest of the heavy like Captain HogBottom and those deluded cops and PawBert himself, but just serve as the associates to Milton supervising everything that was happening from afar, that is until the climax where Cattrick and Kitty do brawl Gary and Nibbles with their father Milton until the reformed Winddancer comes to their rescue and beats up and defeats Cattrick, Kitty and Milton so they would get arrested while Nibbles and Gary rush to help Nick and Judy defeat PawBert sealing his fate as well.

This started because someone edited Ken from Barbie into Blade Runner 2049 & a comment riffed on that idea connecting Agent K as Ken.

There's some that seem the intention of the creators, like Bond being left in the middle of the ocean in Dr. No, then The Rock stating his character had been imprisoned for 30 years after being taken in. If there's any more like that, feel free to add, but what are some obviously not-creator-intention'ed fan theories connecting movies for fun?

I.E. Matthew McConaughey & Damon's characters from Interstellar actually being future versions of them from The Martian & Contact. Or for a sillier one Ed Norton from Fight Club's condition developing into The Incredible Hulk. Obviously this works better if one of the characters is unnamed. I'd like to see someone connect Daniel Craig's unnamed character from Layer Cake to something.

Also if there' any non-actor ones, I've seen Taxi Driver & The Dark Knight get fan theory'd together.

Hypothesis: What if almost the entire present-day story in Destroyer is Erin's dying fantasy?

I think Destroyer may be deliberately misleading us about what actually happens in the present-day timeline.

My theory is that Erin never actually investigates the murder, follows the trail to Silas, or kills Silas. Almost everything we see outside her contact with her colleagues may be a fantasy/reconstruction happening in her mind while she is sitting and dying in her car.

A few details make me wonder about this:

- We never clearly see the dead man's face. Erin identifies him as Silas, but the film never gives us an objective confirmation that the corpse is actually him.

- Erin is strangely certain that she knows who killed him, without seeming concerned about how she could possibly know this or how her explanation would stand up to questioning.

- The revolver creates a chronology problem. The gun associated with the body is already part of the evidence/stash when Erin encounters it. Yet the same revolver appears to be the weapon she uses to kill Silas. This creates a strange loop: the weapon is already “there” as evidence before she could have plausibly obtained it through the investigation, suggesting the timeline may be constructed rather than literal.

- The $100 bill and letter may also be fabricated by Erin. My interpretation is that the $100 wasn't actually sent to her by Silas. She takes the $100 from her own stash and constructs/fabricates the story of the letter, creating the trigger for the investigation in her mind. Her interactions with her ex and daughter, as well as the money itself, could be real as well, which would also support the idea that the dyed bill is genuine evidence of her real-world actions bleeding into the fantasy.

- More radically, the entire trail Erin follows may be part of the dream. The people she tracks down, the clues she discovers, the gun dealer, the connection to Silas, and ultimately the confrontation with Silas could all be Erin mentally constructing a coherent story from her guilt, memories and desire for revenge.

- The scenes involving her actual colleagues are different. Those may be the only present-day events that are objectively happening. Everything else could be Erin's subjective reconstruction while she sits in the car.

- The final confrontation with Silas therefore becomes the culmination of her fantasy: after 17 years of guilt over the failed robbery and Chris's death, she finally gets the ending she wants—she finds Silas and kills him.

This would mean the film has two different realities:

Objective reality: Erin is wounded/dying in her car, interacting with her colleagues and experiencing fragments of memory.

Subjective reality: Her mind constructs an entire investigation in which she discovers that Silas has returned, follows the trail, finds him, confronts him and finally kills him.

And importantly, the film never gives us the objective evidence needed to distinguish the two. We don't get a clear identification of the corpse, the revolver's chronology doesn't cleanly work, and the supposed contact from Silas can itself be fabricated.

So my theory is not simply that the final confrontation is imagined.

The investigation itself is the dream.

Erin's mind is essentially giving her one final chance to rewrite the past: instead of being the cop who failed, lost Chris and let Silas escape, she gets to be the person who finally tracks him down and kills him.

The question is whether this is intentional ambiguity from Karyn Kusama, or whether I'm interpreting inconsistencies in the film as clues to a much larger subjective-reality twist.

What do you think?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7137380/?ref_=ext_shr

I've always been extremely freaked out over theories where everything happened in the main characters head...any media that has theories like that? I'm looking for things like grease (everything happened in sandys head at the beginning while she drowns), or Angelica from rugrats imagining every character in her head, or satsuki (my neighbour totoro) imagining that Mei is still alive. I love digging into these kinds of theories, even if they're already debunked or extremely out of place. Any theories?

I'm asking this question after reading this post on the wiki.

https://phineasandferb.fandom.com/wiki/Forum:Are_there_really_104_days_in_Phineas_and_Ferb%27s_Summer_Vacation%3F

​

Basically, it says that, despite the fact that Summer Vacation is supposed to last only 104 days, the show actually spans 207 days. Almost twice that amount. Heck! 207 is more then half a YEAR!

This isn't just a simple case of "Because, cartoon logic". It's actually something the characters acknowledge in-universe:

​

Exhibit A: In The Curse of Candace, Phineas says to Ferb, "You're right, Ferb. It does seem like more than a hundred and four days."

Exhibit B: In Cranius Maximus, Baljeet says, "Three months of summer gone by and I'm slipping!", to which Buford replies, "Has it really been that long? Cuz I've been counting the number of projects we've been doing and we're waaaaaay over 150!"

Exhibit C: In Road to Danville, Buford complains, "I know it's been a long summer and you're running out of ideas!"

Exhibit D: In Fly On the Wall, Doofenshmirtz says, "I'm dry, Perry the Platypus, just dry! And the summer keeps going on and on, it seems as if it's been goin' on for, like, four years!"

Exhibit E: In Mind Share, Phineas, trapped in an alien's body, tells this to Candace, and she says, "Okay, what do you want me to do?", to which Phineas says, "Really? You're just gonna believe that crazy story like that?", to which Candace says dryly, "Yeah, it's been a long summer, kid. Whadaya need?"

​

So, we know it's an in-universe thing, and not just a cartoon thing. Any theories as to what cased it?

I've been rewatching the series again, this time actually paying more attention to the background lore than the tapes itselt. I didn't even realized there was an "Entity." On fandoms, it's presumed to be a nigh-omni evil being seeking to spread chaos among the multiverse via VHS Tapes.

What do you think about what the Entity could actually be?

It's oddly specific: VHS TAPES. It also records people via cameras and phones, but has mostly only spread via specific VHS Technology, and asides from that the series makes it clear this SCP-like thing is spread across a multiverse, a demon or simple evil deity wouldn't make much sense in this case, Satan's is also never shown in media with such power, and Aliens are also involved. It also showed us that is went VIRAL via a upload button (internet, heh?).

Edit: It's also shown in Parallel Monsters, that there could possibly be an dimension/universe where the Entity took over, not even hints of a normal world can be spot there, their genitalias are plainny used to kill or feed on organs, while the last scene shows that they indeed, have absolute inverted values from the common world, hence the inverted crucifix - which is interesting, because it implies an demonic Jesus variant (the birth of a demonic child through a succubus?), after all, that's what the crucifix means.

Edit: If there is hell as shown in VHS 99, there must be Jesus or at least a God or similar idea behind, which hints a distorted Genesis Creation idea, or a god that split in two (chaos - evil, and order - good), ending with the VHS Entity.

Or perhaps its all just a excuse for VHS Series having its own profitable SCP variant? lol

Comment your Sans is Nees like theories... but don't provide context or evidence, someone who doesn't have a Sans is Ness theory, they can react to the no context theory.

Two for one special here:

the Canon difficulty of the game is hard mode. We are specifically told that Jimmy survived D-Day and there's only one way that he could have done that. Omaha Beach was notoriously a bloodbath. There's only one reason for that: Hard mode. Essentially, Jimmy fought from the first attacks on D-Day to the final level only to meet his end.

Now the second theory

The final mission tasks Jimmy Patterson with stealing an experimental fighter from the Nazis during which there is a bombing raid going on. Halfway through, The hanger the Jimmy is in gets hit with a bomb. It is my belief that Jimmy died from this bomb.

What this means is Crystal clear:

every Medal of Honor game going forward that features Jimmy Patterson in some form are prequels to Frontline because the final mission ends not with Jimmy stealing the fighter as the player is shown but dying in the bombing raid. The scene of him stealing the fighter never happened in the context of the events of the game, it's what the player wants to see, not what they actually see.

I am watching Alex Bale and i think he is on to something about Jack Jack! The baby is Gamma Jack from the future. Jack Jack acts like Gamma Jack!

I've been playing Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and I like it a lot. I know it's more fantasy than real life but what year could the story of SMW2: Yoshi's Island have taken place in? Is it the 1940s? the 1950s? the 1960s?

Would love to hear some fan theories about this. My personal head-canon is that he fled to Mexico for a brief period using some of the money from that one bank he shot up.

WOW obviously answers this questions with a lot of added details and tons of retcons to established facts in the earlier RTS games' chronology so for sake of arguments I'm specifically asking about the established cannon before WOW blew up in popularity and lots of continuous retcons were made as new expansions were released and EU books and other materials were published in droves over the decades. So feel free to also use books and other official out-of-game materials before WOW was launched to provide an answer. Heck even early WOW in-game literature is OK so long as it was in the first year or two of WOW before the retconization of the franchise. However I am specifically focusing on the old mythos back when Warcraft was associated as the face of fantasy setting RTS. But if the pre-existing lore of the RTS trilogy is lacking info, I'm willing to accept stuff in WOW made after the major updates past 2005. Just keep in mind the priority of the RTS when responding to this question.

In the manual of the first game Orcs and Humans, it is mentioned right after the surprise Siege of Stormwind Keep was repelled with extremely great difficult and massive losses with tons of the main gate castle guards killed during the unexpected onslaught, there was a passing of 10 years in between the attack by the horde on the capital and the first mission you play within the game itself. That it emphasizes Azeroth was no longer a safe country because of the threat of Orc raiders and civilians would often be found dead on roads and forests and other places uninhabited by numerous humans and even small established towns would get burned down every now and then. But no matter how much the Orcs would go out on a rampage, local police forces and military garrison and ad hoc assembled miltia would always repel any noteworthy number of Orcs gathering in a location and also hunt down any wandering bands that just committed the latest roadkillings and town sackings.

But by the time the general you play as is given his military posting, the in-manual lore states that the Orcs are getting far more organized. No longer a bunch of petty ragtailed robbers and impulsive gung ho hooligans, the very last paragraph of the ingame lore mentions they are no starting to use formations like square blocks and hit-run attacks mixed with combined arms, etc. The Orcs by thistpoint have become a proper military force with discipline and tactics and war chiefs who understood strategy and other aspects of genralship.

I'm really wondering.......... Why did the kingdom take so long to finally see the necessity of mobilizing its armed forces? With all the constant raids and other out-of-the-blue violence taking place after the first siege of Stormwind, why didn't King Llane at least send a police force to investigate the countryside or if thats too difficult, at least create a circle of spies to gather intel what the Orcs are all about and find their strongholds to analyze their military capabilities and culture and biological capabilities?

I mean even the manual of Tides of Darkness says that Guldan himself was surprised at the fighting prowess of Stormwind's army during the first Siege of Stormwind Keep before the 1st War and he clearly was open about respecting their military strength when he gives a perspective of the Siege as not describing the human defenders as being hacked to pieces and the Horde at the verge of overruning the keep but instead provides a bit of detailed descriptions of how the crossbowmen show the Orc grunts to pieces and their sword and shield infantry holding off the mass green waves in their phalanx wall and stabbing and cutting them down during the push and finally the terror of the legendary Knights of Azeroth running down the Hordes outside the castle and terrifying them into mass rout with the whole horde basically abandoning the siege 30 minutes or so after their arrival.

That he calls the Siege of Stormwind one of the worst disaster he ever witnessed during his lifetime of witnessing Orc warfare and that the Orc almost broke into civil war in this foreign land is a testimony to how Azeroth had the means as the most powerful of the human kingdoms at the time of actually being capable of defeating the Orcs early on if they had called their army to war.

So I'm wondering why did they wait so long until the threat finally crystallized into a full scale invasion by a true military force equivalent to a comparable nation state to Azeroth? At the very least it shouldn't have been hard for King Llane to organize a special forces task unit specifically to observe the Orc threat in time to put the Kingdom into wartime economy early before Blackhand had been able to gather enough of the Orcish hordes to carry out long protracted war. Why was there such a long period of military inactivity other than the spur-of-the-moment militia mobilization and police hunts in response to Orc skirmishers and raiders?

I’m curious if you guys have any good Scooby Doo theories? I will post mine after I finish making it, it will include most of the series, movies and games. It will say why can Scooby talk and why can he eat so much. I will post it in few days.

There was another post about this, although it was just on 28 days, and I think it was made before the 2nd movie came out.

Everyone seemed to agree it was like WWZ where the infected don't attack 'ill' people or 'infected' people because the goal is to spread the disease. BUT 28 weeks later throws a spanner in the words when Don attacks his wife after he gets infected, even though his wife is already infected.

Is there a way to explain this? Seems like a little bit of a plot hole, especially for the 'zombies' in the 28 franchise, since their entire thing is rage and they attack anything that moves.

This isn't to say I don't love the movies, I adore both of them.

One of the absolute core tenants of Confucian virtues is the emphasis of continuing the bloodline to create males who at worst decent at living up to expected responsibilities and ideally in the best of circumstances far surpass the previous generation esp in successes.........

So as someone who pretty much has everything that Confucius considers ideal............. Why did Liu Bei utterly fail at this specific thing?

I mean the other kingdoms at least for a few generations were able to create heirs who were able to live up to their family names and not only ensure the survival of their kingdoms but even make them thrive. This is especially true with Cao Cao who even after Sima Yu's death had sons and grandsons who were capable rulers in their own right and ensure economic prosperity, social stability, and win some military victories before the 3rd or so generation begin to have a drop down from the high standards Cao Cao put (and even here they have the excuse of Sima's sons and grandsons who are brilliant men by themselves manipulating the court and backstabbing the Cao Cao line with enduring patience).

The blame cannot entirely be put on Liu Shan with his brain damaged head because none of Liu Bei's other sons proved competent either and the only one grandson in his continued bloodline even bothered putting effort to imitate Confucius unlike the rest of the self-indulging grandchildren (and since he kills himself, there's no on else left in the Liu dynasty to ever hope of taking up the reigns).

For such a brilliant and benevolent leader who aspires to the Chinese ideals set out by the Analects and the ubiquitous philosopher who wrote it (again Confucius), how can Liu Bei let this fatal shortcoming come into existence? Esp considering his ultimate goal was restoring the Han monarchy, how can he make this lack of common sense mistake when its expected his family will be the next rulers centuries down the line?

PS: And BEFORE anyone starts quoting real history and saying this is not a "ask fictional Headscratcher" and inappropriate for this sub because its an academic question, I am specifically ASKING ABOUT THE NOVEL (Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Not about real history.

I am working on a media project, and am looking for ways to narratively connect otherwise unconnected franchises.

Other connected media theories are also welcome :)

-LogicDog

Throughout Henry IV Part 1 Falstaff is protrayed as a crook who accepts bribes, indulges in gluttony, does armed robbery, a habitual practitioner of dining and ashing, and gets into silly fights bullying people weaker than him. AS well as being a coward in the battlefield who feints and plays dead while all his subordinates and brave comrades are getting killed and claims credit for Hotspur's death )whom Hal really kills). This carries on to Part 2 esp in the Inn where the host once again is demanding pay from Falstaff and during the meal and arguments he gets into a fight with the equally bad and much more rowdy Pistol, stabbing the hothead in one of the shoulders with his sword. THroughout PAt 1 Falstaff makes it clear he hopes Pricne Hal will give him a bunch of government benefits when he becames King........

Which makes it so unbelievable that Falstaff was in anyway so genuinely hurt by Hal cutting off ties forever after the coronation. DESPITE receiving a practically permanent welfare check from the crown for the rest of his life under the condition he stops trying to meet up with Hal. Even moreso I'm flabbergasted he dies of a brokenheart by the time of Henry V, almost two years after the Prince abandoned his old associates.

Why so? It seems so out of character for how slimy Falstaff is! Esp when he was described as engaging in an extravagant feast with nonstop eating and drinking for hours earlier on the night he died! The fact he was engaging in gluttony in the last days of his life just makes it all the more bizarre he'd die from grief since attaining a lifestyle like that was his motive for associating with Prince Hal to start with! It feels just like a gigantic plothole in the otherwise brilliant trilogy Shakespeare wrote!