Fridge Brilliance

[Fox12]

Every once in a while something happens that makes you rethink a word, phrase, or story. You learn a peace of information that changes the way you view things. It could be something earth shattering, or it could be something trivial. Either way, it changes your view.

A small one for me would be Skyrim, and that awful arrow to the knee meme. It was annoying, and it always left me wondering why everyone was getting shot in the knee. Then a college friend informed me that "taking an arrow to the knee" was apparently a really old, really obscure euphemism for getting married. While still annoying, it did bring a little smile to my face.

I suppose a larger example would be the entirety of Neon Genesis Evangelion. When I first viewed it, I didn't really like it. It was confusing, and complex. Rewatching it, however, I realized that everything had a purpose, and every question had an answer. You just had to piece it together yourself, like a puzzle. It immediately became one of my favorite stories ever.

What information changed the way you viewed something?

 

[MysticSlayer]

My first play through of BioShock: Infinite was not particularly enjoyable. Long story short, the story seemed to be meandering around without a clear direction, where any commentary felt like it was there because the idea came up at some time during the 4-5 years of development. But then I saw the ending, realized the game followed the original in commenting on player agency, and found the story to make much more sense. As a result, the game was a lot more enjoyable.

I guess the "The cake is a lie" meme also helped make Portal a little more humorous. When I first saw it scrawled on a wall in a "hidden" room, I chuckled but thought little of it. That was, until GLaDOS talked about giving me cake, then I realized I was screwed. The meme made the writing a little more humorous to see later, especially when I remember this comic: http://xkcd.com/606/

 

[WolfThomas]

The Force Awakens. Starkiller base is a snow planet or at least a planet during winter. Or is it because they've been charging the base from the local star that the planet is going through an ice age?

 

[Keoul]

Warframe in a recent quest.

Spoiler

Oh damn every single one of us is a child, the lotus is raising an army of child soldiers.

Kinda hard deciding who is the good guy and who is the bad guy now.

 

[Asita]

The first time I saw Jumanji was well before I started actually paying attention to movies on any real level. So some very obvious things and some subtler but clever things escaped my notice until I caught the movie again some years later. One of these things that had failed to register for me was the fact that Sam Parish (Alan's father) and Van Pelt were both played by Jonathan Hyde, and that Van Pelt was in effect a caricature of Mr. Parish, an amalgamation of the Alan's antagonistic relationship with his distant and (to him) seemingly impossibly demanding father and the gossip of the town that he'd killed his son when Alan went missing. This is further hammered in by the limerick that summoned him. "A hunter from the deepest wild will make you feel just like a child". I was quite impressed when I realized that.

A small one for me would be Skyrim, and that awful arrow to the knee meme. It was annoying, and it always left me wondering why everyone was getting shot in the knee. Then a college friend informed me that "taking an arrow to the knee" was apparently a really old, really obscure euphemism for getting married. While still annoying, it did bring a little smile to my face.

Hate to rain on your parade, but all signs point to that being false, with the explanation apparently tracing to an uncited reddit post. By the writers accounts there was no intended meaning to it beyond adding flavor to the guards dialogue, alongside "my cousin's out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty." in the "why I'm not out there fighting in the war/fighting dragons" category.

On a tangential note, it is perhaps worth remembering that the idea of a single arrow being debilitating is a major case of gameplay and story segregation. Even ignoring the possibility of infection in settings like Skyrim, an arrow wound could be expected to take a month or so to fully heal, and on a limb shots like that would have the potential to cause a partial loss of function either temporarily or permanently, making "an arrow to the knee" a fairly reasonable excuse for not galavanting about and "fighting the good fight".

 

[DoPo]

A small one for me would be Skyrim, and that awful arrow to the knee meme. It was annoying, and it always left me wondering why everyone was getting shot in the knee. Then a college friend informed me that "taking an arrow to the knee" was apparently a really old, really obscure euphemism for getting married. While still annoying, it did bring a little smile to my face.

If by "a really old, really obscure euphemism" you mean "it came out of a joke thread on GameFAQs [http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615803-/63592963] that somehow many people suddenly started parroting and totally not an euphemism, nor obscure (because not bothering to check how it came about does make it hard to find)." then yeah, it totally is.

 

[DoPo]

Hate to rain on your parade, but all signs point to that being false, with the explanation apparently tracing to an uncited reddit post.

Hmm, haven't seen the Reddit post. The earliest mention I've found was the GameFAQs thread. At any rate - they both exactly the same level of credence. That is to say: none.

 

[happyninja42]

I can't think of any example of later information making me suddenly like something more than before, but I do have a case of coming to enjoy something I didn't like at first was V for Vendetta.

When I first saw the movie, I was still very raw from what the Wachowski's did with Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, and I had zero patience for what I saw as the pretentiousness and wordy bullshit that was V for Vendetta. But, after several years of distance from the Matrix, I came to remember several scenes from V fondly, at random times during the day. Then I decided to sit down and watch it again, and realized that I actually liked it a lot. It was funnier than I thought it was originally, and I found the "preachy" bits to actually fit the story quite well. It was, just not as bad as I remembered, and was in fact, a movie that I found to be quite enjoyable. It is, in fact, one of the few movies I've bothered to buy on DVD. I find it still is able to move me emotionally at several scenes. I still root for V and his crusade, and how the people react to events that take place. It's just, a good movie. And it definitely took a little time to germinate before I could see that.

 

[Sonicron]

For those of you versed in European cartoons (not sure if these particular ones are big anywhere else in the world), I'd have to say the third Asterix movie did the trick for me.
For those of you who don't know, Asterix and Obelix are the protagonists of a series of comic books (and other media) concerning the resistance of a small Gallic (?) village against the Roman Empire. The druid of the village regularly whips up a secret magic brew that gives the villagers enormous physical stat boosts, and any Roman attempts at conquering the village are therefor destined to end in bruises, lost teeth and broken bones. In the third movie based on the franchise, mighty Caesar has had enough of all the nonsense and challenges the villagers; they are to complete a set of 12 tasks no ordinary human being could hope to tackle. If they do manage to successfully complete all tasks, he will concede that his opponents, being mightier than he (read: the nominally unchallenged ruler of all people as appointed by the Gods), must be Gods and therefor beyond conquering.

The eighth challenge has Asterix and Obelix enter a (literal translation incoming) house that makes people crazy. Inside they have a very simple task: Obtain a signed copy of form A38. What follows is a maddening odyssey through cramped hallways and corridors, redirections across endless staircases and weird offices full of terminally unhelpful people.
Watching this movie as a child, this part was always my least favourite, because the challenge appeared so far removed from the rest of the Herculean tasks on the list, and it seemed so nonsensical and out of place I could barely perceive it as a challenge at all. I concluded the writers must have been drunk.
Having recently re-watched the film after ages, this challenge is now my favourite bit of the movie. From a grown-up's perspective the entire thing is a delicious riff on the preposterous, almost mutant sense of bureaucracy displayed by basically any modern administration, and it had me tears and stitches. Brilliant joke from start to finish, especially the eventual solution to the problem (wherein the weapons of the system are redirected at itself).

 

[maninahat]

The first time I saw Jumanji was well before I started actually paying attention to movies on any real level. So some very obvious things and some subtler but clever things escaped my notice until I caught the movie again some years later. One of these things that had failed to register for me was the fact that Sam Parish (Alan's father) and Van Pelt were both played by Jonathan Hyde, and that Van Pelt was in effect a caricature of Mr. Parish, an amalgamation of the Alan's antagonistic relationship with his distant and (to him) seemingly impossibly demanding father and the gossip of the town that he'd killed his son when Alan went missing. This is further hammered in by the limerick that summoned him. "A hunter from the deepest wild will make you feel just like a child". I was quite impressed when I realized that.

The idea probably comes from productions of Peter Pan, wherein Captain Hook's actor usually also plays Mr Darling (the kid's dad). Captain Hook desperately wants a "mother" and sees Wendy as the most plausible candidate, which has some Freudian implications, but is probably just a way to thematically tie the two characters together in and out of Neverland. It also has its own fridge brilliance when you realise why Captain Hook's greatest fear is Tick-Tock the crocodile; the Captain and the pirates are aware that they are the only ageing adults in a world populated by perpetual children.

 

[Barbas]

What's all this got to do with brilliance in fridges? I thought this was going to be a topic about the benefits of Smeg.

 

[happyninja42]

What's all this got to do with brilliance in fridges? I thought this was going to be a topic about the benefits of Smeg.

I'm going to assume that you are familiar with the trope named Fridge Brilliance, and are just being silly.

But in case not. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance

 

[FPLOON]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance

Huh... A few link clicks later, apparently the 2003 FullMetal Alchemist series has some serious fridge brilliance... It's a good thing I re-bought the series on Blu-Ray so that I can re-watch it again...

OT: Uh... I just found out that Thundercat's Tron Song was actually about his cat... Fucking brilliant!

Other than that, Over The Garden Wall... Just fucking brilliant!

 

[Thaluikhain]

I assume it wasn't intentional, but there's a bit in the Vampire Academy movie where:

Spoiler

Christian Ozera has Strigoi attack the school, and he does some bad acting with clunky dialogue.

Only, it turns out that this is a dream Vasilisa is having. And she very often has bad acting and clunky dialogue

EDIT: Oh, in the second Cyberman story of old Dr Who, it's set in the future and they have some kind of shoulder launched missile launcher like a bazooka. Two stories later it's set on contemporary Earth, and they don't, but the human forces use bazookas against them.

So, the Cybermen possibly got the idea for the weapon in the second story from the fourth one.