Things you feel stupid for not having immediately gotten ::SPOILERS::

[axlryder]

So I was watching through the two episodes of black mirror I'd never gotten to, and among them was
White Christmas. It wasn't until 20 minutes after I finished the episode that I noticed the obvious visual metaphor of the cookies looking like eggs, the contents of which were very easily "cracked" when pushed or prodded, illustrating the fragility of the human mind.

So what about you guys? What are some things (not necessarily limited to fiction) that you kicked yourself over for not having gotten until later or after it had been explained.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I watched the whole movie Contact without realizing William Fichtner's character was blind.

 

[Chessrook44]

It took me YEARS and multiple watchings of Galaxy Quest before I eventually realized that it was a parody of Star Trek. My only defense was that I never actually watched Star Trek...

 

[Majestic Manatee_v1legacy]

That crisps are less healthy for teeth than sugar

That Jesus is not my best imaginary friend

That cold, deep water is bad for the survival

That bowling 4 soup is shit

That uncle fester from the Addams family movies is the doc from back to the future

That Smallville is the worst offender of covering up the po-faced wooden acting of doll-like pretty people with angsty teen songs to suggest intended emotions

 

[Xprimentyl]

There was a section of the game in ?The Force Unleashed? where I was stuck trying to traverse what I thought was a particularly tricky platforming section. I struggled for over an hour while my friend watched; at first he was laughing, then it got old watching me die over and over, then he got mad and said to me ?are you serious??? He snatched the controller from me only to show me that I was supposed to turn RIGHT to continue the mission and not LEFT which was actually off the map altogether. To this day, I blame it on the dev?s superior level design which made the unreachable background seem as viable as the playable area, but my buddy just says ?Right turn?? to me whenever I do something stupid or miss something obvious.

 

[maninahat]

There was a brilliant reddit thread on this subject years ago. People came out with the craziest stuff, like one guy who had raeched adulthood without realising they were blind in one eye (they only found out because they were caught jacking off in a public place they thought was out of sight, but was actually in full view of anyone 20:20). My favourite was one guy who had no knowledge of alcoholic drinks. He swaggered up to a bar and tried to order a customised, unique cocktail, James Bond style, and ended up asking for a pint of red wine with ice and 6 orange slices.

I didn't really have my own to share, sadly.

 

[maninahat]

That Smallville is the worst offender of covering up the po-faced wooden acting of doll-like pretty people with angsty teen songs to suggest intended emotions

That's an old as dirt film technique they talked about on QI. They used to tell Humphrey Bogart to stand with a neutral expression, and show him opposite a thing that was visually/audibly dramatic. The human brain associates the actor with the thing, causing us to paint an emotional response onto an actor's face when there really is none. Consequently everyone thinks Bogart is brilliant and subtle actor, when really he was just bored.

 

[Neverhoodian]

That the little arrow on the fuel icon indicates which side of the car the gas cap is on. I've been driving for fifteen years, and I had no idea what its purpose was until a few weeks ago when someone explained it to me.

 

[axlryder]

That the little arrow on the fuel icon indicates which side of the car the gas cap is on. I've been driving for fifteen years, and I had no idea what its purpose was until a few weeks ago when someone explained it to me.

I had honestly never even considered it until a few years ago when I saw it in a youtube video that was probably titled something along the lines of "10 things stupid idiots like you never realized".

 

[Creator002]

That the little arrow on the fuel icon indicates which side of the car the gas cap is on. I've been driving for fifteen years, and I had no idea what its purpose was until a few weeks ago when someone explained it to me.

Oh, my God. I always thought it was which side of the dash the fuel gauge was, yet kept getting shown I was wrong. I probably heard the same and then mis-remembered it.

OT:
TV shows. I tend to forget what happened in the last 30 seconds and need to be caught up on why that guy appeared and why that girl said that.
"Oh, he's the bad guy from before."
"Oh, she's in disguise and that was her slip-up."

 

[twistedmic]

It took me years of knowing about Batman to get that Harley Quinn's name was a play on Harlequin (a type of mime/clown).

 

[WindKnight]

In Soul Music, the main character is an expie of buddy holly, and there's a running joke that he looks like he could be part elf, or as its typically put, 'you look elvish' or 'are you sure you're not elvish?'

It took pictures of the animated adaptation being published, and someone commenting 'wow, he really does look like Elvis' for the penny to drop.

 

[balladbird]

It took me years of knowing about Batman to get that Harley Quinn's name was a play on Harlequin (a type of mime/clown).

you'd be forgiven for missing that, these days. For whatever reason, as years go buy, her costume and motif seem to be less "Harlequin" and more "peppy cheerleader who's a little crazy" XD



As for me, back when "Salt" first became a go-to word on the internet for describing behavior the user regards as being overly whiny and melodramatic, I assumed it was being used in its former slang way, as a positive (i.e. "an old salt", someone who's grumpy, but skilled)... for some reason, even when reading threads where it was clearly being used in a negative way, I didn't put two and two together until months after it had become a permanent part of gamer jargon. I'm slow on the uptake, sometimes.

 

[twistedmic]

It took me years of knowing about Batman to get that Harley Quinn's name was a play on Harlequin (a type of mime/clown).

you'd be forgiven for missing that, these days. For whatever reason, as years go buy, her costume and motif seem to be less "Harlequin" and more "peppy cheerleader who's a little crazy" XD

I feel I must admit that my main introduction to Batman, other than reruns of the Adam West t.v. show, was Batman: The Animated Series where Harley's costume looked very Harlequin-like.

 

[Asita]

It took me years of knowing about Batman to get that Harley Quinn's name was a play on Harlequin (a type of mime/clown).

you'd be forgiven for missing that, these days. For whatever reason, as years go buy, her costume and motif seem to be less "Harlequin" and more "peppy cheerleader who's a little crazy" XD

I feel I must admit that my main introduction to Batman, other than reruns of the Adam West t.v. show, was Batman: The Animated Series where Harley's costume looked very Harlequin-like.

On the one hand you can be forgiven by virtue of the fact that "Harlequin" isn't exactly a commonly used term these days. On the other hand, how? Mad Love directly invoked it.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Took me 3 years to realise I could change the little avatar thingy on Netflix. And I only discovered this because my brother asked to use my account one day and when I used it later that day I saw his profile had a shitty robot face instead of a shitty smiley face like mine.

 

[Pyrian]

In the original StarCraft when I first played the Zerg campaign, despite foreshadowing as subtle as rock to the face, I had absolutely no idea what was in the Crysalis.

 

[Saltyk]

I got two from Breath of Fire 3.

You come to this desert that you must cross. You have to walk at night, use the stars to navigate, drink water, and deal with the occasional enemies. You're also given very particular instructions on how to get there and even have a copy in your tent. Here's the thing, I never realized the instructions in the tent were wrong and different from the ones you are told and always followed the ones in the tent. Seriously, I only ever managed to get past this part because a friend told me the proper way years ago. I didn't realize I was following the wrong directions until a recent play through when I actually asked the guide the directions.

The second comes from a section where you're in Ryu's mind and being given a glimpse into the minds of your party members. You come to this one part with a dragon statue and if you inspect it, you'll get a message about praying to it. I was actually stuck here for days, until I learned from that same friend that you had to inspect the statue and wait for a few seconds for a path to open up.

 

[Bobular]

I completed the entirety of Final Fantasy 8 the first time without using the junction system, the cards[footnote]I did play the card game a couple of times, but that was it[/footnote] or getting any abilities on my GFs.

Years later I went back to play it again, actually understood what was being discussed in the tutorials and found the game so much easier and funner. It kinda felt like a whole new game with tones of extra features.

I honestly don't know how I managed to enjoy playing Final Fantasy 8 the first time through without actually really playing the game, but I really did use to think it was an awesome game even without these features.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

The Simpsons has a Halloween episode called Hell Toupee which is about a possessed toupee made from the hair of an executed criminal. It was only a couple of years ago that I realised the title was a play on the phrase "hell to pay".