r/TopCharacterTropes • u/thebreadthieves • 8h ago
Characters (LOVED TROPE) Mentally unwell character is actually right
1.) The Invitation - the grief-stricken protagonist, Will, is framed as paranoid and is gaslit throughout the story until the reveal that the dinner party’s intentions were as sinister as he believed them to be.
2.) Bugonia - Teddy is shown as a nut job conspiracy theorist through the entire film until we discover that his theories were all spot on at the end.
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u/Seed0fDiscord 8h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/xmf3qbTTh3l5u
John Goodman in Cloverfield Lane
While it looks like he’s delusional keeping people hostage, turns out there is an actual alien invasion happening outside and wasn’t making shit up, he was still unhinged and paranoid though
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u/Tuxedocatbitches 7h ago
The thing I like about this one is that it’s like ‘just because the unhinged wackjob who believes in aliens and built a bunker underground was right doesn’t mean he’s any less crazy for it’
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u/EvilLibrarians 7h ago
This is also how I feel about Bugonia
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u/whorlax 2h ago
Thanks for spoiler tagging that. I haven't seen every movie yet so I won't risk it.
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u/cosmicomical23 7h ago
That is also how a lot of currently dead people felt about covid
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u/Kodiak_POL 6h ago
My thoughts and emotions during the movie: "Oh my god, he's crazy. Oh my god, he's right. OH MY GOD, he's crazy. OH MY GOD, HE WAS RIGHT AND CRAZY". Absolutely loved the flip flopping.
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u/UwasaWaya 5h ago
Like, deep down I was waiting for the reveal that there were aliens. It's a Cloverfield movie.
And it STILL blew me away. That movie is a masterclass in tension.
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u/Athena-Muldrow 3h ago
John Goodman absolutely sold that role, too, I really didn't know what flavor of crazy we were supposed to believe he was until the end.
I would argue that's the best role of his career, he was terrifying.
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u/Horrific_Necktie 7h ago
And had possibly kidnapped other people.
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u/das_hemd 6h ago
if this wasn't a Cloverfield spin off, and people didn't know what was going to happen going into it, this twist would have hit so hard
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u/palochato 5h ago
I think the bigger twist was finding out he actually did kidnap and kill another girl once you let your guard down about the character. But yes, I was waiting for aliens the whole time
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u/youtookthegoodones 5h ago
I actually had never heard of Cloverfield and went into this one totally blind. The twist was insane, but I literally can’t bring myself to watch the movie a second time because the tension was just so high.
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u/saneval1 6h ago
dude was scary in this
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u/Illustrious-Peace989 5h ago
John Goodman is intimidating as fuck.
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u/FeralPsychonaut 5h ago
Hard to imagine he was Fred Flintstone after watching this movie.
He was absolutely deranged in Cloverfield Lane
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u/Wizywig 5h ago
That was the dichotomy of that movie.
John Goodman's character was an absolutely terrible person. He just happened to be right.
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u/Electrical-Room-2278 7h ago
Not quite mentally unwell, but Marty from cabin in the woods is a stoner conspiracy theorist, whose theories about shadowy entities controlling the world turn out to be true, albeit in a much stranger and more specific way than he originally thought
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u/saefas 7h ago
"Oh, my God. I'm on a reality TV show. My parents are gonna think I'm such a burnout."
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u/vanillacaramelsunday 7h ago
Statistical fact. Cops will never pull over a man with a huge bong in his car. Why? They fear this man. They know he sees further than they... and he will bind them... with ancient logics.
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u/I_Cast_Trident 7h ago
And then he locks the car door through the open window. Absolute gold lol
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u/EmbarrassedBody4529 5h ago
All the very best lines are his.
"I don't think it knows about money. I think this is barter gas."
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u/DyingSunSeverian 2h ago
“Alright I’m drawing a line in the fucking sand here, do not read the Latin.”
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u/--GevaudanBeast-- 2h ago
Walking past the couple making out: "he's got a husband bulge"
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u/wubbysdeerherder 5h ago
I've wanted the telescoping coffee mug bong ever since I saw that movie, it's unfair it was just a prop and not actually sold anywhere.
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u/Tuxedocatbitches 7h ago
Best part is that this is the shady government agency’s fault for tampering with his weed to try and make him more affected by it
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u/Rignite 7h ago
Sorry to um actually but ...
They state that he must have snuck some of his own weed which was countering the other stuff. They did say they gave him tainted weed as well.
Like a good ol pothead going camping in the woods, he had a special stash for the trip he brought instead of his bulk flower. Atta boy Marty.
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u/FeralPsychonaut 5h ago
Joss Whedon was actually cooking with that entire movie.
I love bad horror movies, and campy ones...
It's like Joss Whedon saw Scream 1 and said "how do we dial this shit to 11" and wrote the most ridiculous shit he could think of
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u/alex_timeblade 6h ago
The best best part is that the harbinger noticed something was up with him and tried to report it, but they were so busy making fun of him that he wasn't able to get the warning through,
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u/FeralPsychonaut 5h ago
My favorite part is the dude on the left dying to the exact monster he bets on in whatever office pool they had running.
That entire movie is campy as fuck and I love it.
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u/Electrical-Room-2278 4h ago
He was so upset because he always wanted to see the mermaid in action, and in a way he got his wish granted lol
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u/Glittering_Garbage28 6h ago
Puppeteers….
Puppeteers?
Pop tarts? Are you saying you have pop tarts?
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u/Neon-kitchen 7h ago
Basil - The World's End; he's a crazy conspiracy theorist but because of it, he ends up being one of three people in the town to not be replaced by robot aliens so he couldn't be that far off
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u/AMostBoringMan 4h ago
I learned three things from that film:
- Simon Pegg could do martial arts/action movies if he wanted
- Don’t trust new technology blindly
- Invest in crazy straws
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u/uncontainedsun 3h ago
this makes me so sad and maybe that’s the point of the movie. i haven’t seen it. but avoiding a fate you’re right about while watching everyone else succumb must… suck…. and at that point, why resist, why not die along so you don’t live alone
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u/JLHSMG 7h ago
Jumanji has Sarah: "I have spent over 2,000 hours in therapy convincing myself that that doesn't exist. See, what happened to you was so awful I made up that whole thing."
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u/SeeBriRun 7h ago
-- 'You just saw three monkeys go by on a motorcycle, didn't you?'
-- 'Yes?'
-- 'Good girl.'39
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u/SatoruGojo232 8h ago edited 7h ago
Deadpool's belief that his world is actually a comic book is canonically stated to emerge from the insanity caused by his brain cells constantly regenerating mixed with cancerous tumour growth. Well, he is right though in the end.
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u/Salarian_American 7h ago
The Marvel comics universe just has people in it that have "awareness that they're a character in a comic book" as an ability. She-Hulk was one. In one of her comics - during John Byrne's run, IIRC - Jen had a legal assistant who used to be a superhero herself but retired from it.
The assistant also had this ability to realize she was a character in a comic book universe. She convinced the partners at the firm to hire Jen and make her Jen's legal assistant... because she missed appearing in a monthly comic book title and this was her chance to be adjacent to the spotlight.
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u/Calm-Conversation715 6h ago
I think that’s Gwen Pool’s whole shtick. She’s from the “real world” where Marvel is a comic series, and when transported to the Marvel universe, retains her knowledge and behaves appropriately.
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u/Sea-Foundation5036 6h ago
She Hulk knows she's a comic book character as a tongue in cheek reference to her existence only being due to IP reasons. Since she existed only for the IP, anyone could write her, and write her in any direction they wanted, which is why she was used for print ads. That eventually transfered to the comics.
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u/bestoboy 6h ago
I thought the difference was that while She Hulk knew she was a comic book character, Deadpool was just crazy
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u/smokeweedNgarden 3h ago
She Hulk is different because she has "comic warping" powers, if you will.
Deadpool is like Daffy Duck, he's sure he's in a comic and he is. That's just frustrating.
She-Hulk is like Bugs Bunny. She's in a comic and can hit you with a speech bubble or summon the writers room
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u/BDSMChef_RP 6h ago
She Hulk, Loki, Mister Sinister (dude actually has Trades of Xmen), Deadpool, Glenpool I think Madcap also knows. Rogue should know with how many of those characters she's absorbed powers from
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u/weerdbuttstuff 6h ago
DC has Superboy Prime who's from the real world and was an irl comicbook nut, or something like that. He's had a nice little run recently in the mainline Superman book since issue #36 or so.
There's probably others, but he's the only one that comes to mind.
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u/26Cactus 7h ago
Buscemi in Armageddon makes some quips about the fate of the world falls on a rocket built by the lowest bidder. It was before the space dementia hits him, so maybe not completely unwell at the time.
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u/Sweet_Baby_Cheezus 7h ago
It's actually an adapted quote from John Glenn
“I guess the question I'm asked the most often is: "When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”
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u/ankayanik 7h ago
Honestly, to anyone who’s hung out with a military maintenance crew of any type in any branch, Steve is acting pretty normal here. This strikes me as pretty baseline behavior for the flying grunts. They’re kind of a weird bunch.
Source: I married one.
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u/slavislove 7h ago
True detective season one - Rust Cohle
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u/davidryanandersson 7h ago
He is correct about the cult's existence, but his final revelation is realizing that the cult's worldview (which he has obsessed over and adopted) is wrong. The universe is not damned to repeat itself over and over, it is slowly but surely experiencing progress and becoming a more just world.
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u/Catdeaddetailslater4 7h ago
Beautifully put thank you reminding me of the beauty of Rust's journey
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u/AdCartoonEnthusiast 6h ago
Honestly one of the best character arcs in tv or movies of all time. From one of the most nihilistic and pessimistic people (he’d lost everything so I don’t blame him) to “Well, once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light's winning”
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u/UwasaWaya 5h ago
Thank goodness they weren't in downtown LA or New York. You wouldn't see a single star for all the light pollution. lol.
Rust looks up at the endless black
"Well, we're fucked."
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u/SquareFickle9179 7h ago
Garry the Prophet from Cyberpunk 2077.
At first, he's seen as a crazy kook who spouts things like technomancers and reptiles from Alpha Centauri who's the real threat under Night City. Seemingly your average kind of guy who spouts nonsense for a quick eddie.
Do his quest though, and it's revealed he's not completely crazy, as he had a bug in his cyberware that allowed him to listen in on some radiowaves between corpos and Maelstrom. And when you pick up a mysterious package during a meet up between the two, Garry suddenly vanishes and is said that people with Blue Eyes took em
And seeing how important people with Blue Eyes have been with the titular Mr Blue Eyes, Garry must have been tapped into a conspiracy that's deep in the belly of Night City, and was silenced because of his half truths
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u/Duck_Duckens 3h ago
Most conspiracies you hear arround night city are not too far off from reality. The term "necromancers" alude to what Arasaka isndoing with Mikoshi and Soulkiller. He speaks how they peek through our eyes, and later in the quest Dream On, you see something similar happen. There's even one cyberpsycho encounter that from affar looks like a spiritual possession due to a cult-like ritual, but if you start looking into it you realize it's some kind of AI trying to escape cyberspace.
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u/Uncle-Cake 6h ago
His sidequest was honestly one of my favorite parts of that game. Did he remind you of David Cross too?
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u/Benverinestay 6h ago
You might know this, but this character is voiced by and resembles Cohh Carnage. A famous game streamer/content creator
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u/SpikeRosered 3h ago
Garry is an excellent example of why conspiracy theory is stupid. Garry has the answers. He knows the secrets. However, he's so focused on fitting those pieces in his warped world view that he missed the very real conspiracy he discovered.
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u/MKBRD 7h ago
Sarah Connor starts T2 in an hospital facility because she has visions of the future war and what happens if she doesn't stop Skynet.
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u/puppykhan 6h ago
And she is mentally unwell, just misdiagnosed. Quack thought she was inventing a reality, but she really was having trouble living with the truth. PTSD, or Pre-TSD rather
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u/Mike-Sos 5h ago
Not so much pre-PTSD. Definitely just PTSD from (if we remove the sci-fi elements) being hunted by a serial killer that also managed to wipe out an entire police precinct. The hospital acts as though she were an accomplice in everything that happened rather than a victim.
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u/space_keeper 2h ago
She's there because of things that happened between T1 and T2. John explains it, she got caught trying to blow up a "computer factory", and probably got found to be insane during questioning, exactly like Reese in T1.
Before that she was going around with mercenaries and smugglers. If you connect the dots, she's only been in Pescadero for a short while. The hospital treats her severely because to them, she's an insane terrorist, along the lines of the Unabomber.
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u/Kaurifish 2h ago
Cops have a hard time dealing with women crime victims who aren’t corpses. In the ‘80s and now.
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u/ExLuckMaster 7h ago
Woody Harrelson in 2012
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u/Equivalent-Sink4612 7h ago
You know, I love Woody Harrelson, and I've seen that movie, but I do not remember him being in that.
Truth be told, I only remember the general premise, and that John Cusack was in it.
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u/ImmaAcorn 6h ago
He’s in it for MAYBE 20 minutes if that, he’s in Yellowstone when blows up and dies and then is never mentioned again
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u/Equivalent-Sink4612 6h ago
Ugh! No wonder I forgot it, I was probably like, "You bastards! Killing off Woody Harrelson quickly!" So my brain naturally tried to protect itself from that terrible memory.
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u/ImReallyFuckingBored 6h ago
Well his character in 2012 had no regrets about his death. Saw the world ending and decided he was going to have front row seats to Yellowstone supervolcano erupting. He went out cheering and celebrating. It's the end of the world so might as well enjoy it ya know.
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u/FrescoTheHunter 6h ago
I can't put my finger on why that movie is as forgettable as it is given how much spectacle is in it, but something about it slides right over my brain and falls off, and I've seen it a few times
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u/QuentinTarzantino 6h ago
Think its we have no way of connecting with the characters. i mean. They transported a Giraffe by air, tk the Himalayas...
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u/xxAnnikaLve 6h ago
He had a radio station where he was talking about the end of the world in detail and he was spot on. He was presented as a nutjob living in the woods, but he was right.
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u/Mangled15 8h ago edited 7h ago
A lot of characters from SMILE and SMILE 2, but I'm gonna go with Laura.
She comes into the main character's(who's name I forgot rn) hospital as a person presenting with sudden-onset psychosis and mental issues. This is because she's being mentally ruined by a demon only she can see, and she is then forced to kill herself infront of someone else to pass on the curse via Trauma.
The demon makes you look crazy. Until you traumatize someone else, and then it all makes sense.
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u/Womblue 6h ago
I'm kinda torn on Smile. Both movies are well made, the second one far more so. The first one is an interesting idea - a therapist who learns that her patient wasn't lying about her demonic hallucinations. The second one is just... watching a poor mentally ill former addict have her life ruined and be relentlessly psychologically tortured? It's a good film from pretty much every standpoint but it's the thematic equivalent of a movie about pushing a disabled woman down the stairs for 90 minutes.
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u/MouthJob 6h ago
The only thing that bugged me about the sequel is the end. The way she kills herself is just so goofy.
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u/Yog_Kothag 6h ago
I agree- I was really expecting her to rip open her old stomach and chest wound. The mic... Eh. That said- I can't fucking wait for number 3. My entire household has theories about what's going to happen because of the concert.
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u/Biggy_DX 5h ago
I'm not even sure how a 3 works without it basically becoming post-apocalyptic Earth. 5K people saw what happened, and you bet that some people live-streamed or posted what happened online. Worlds cooked.
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u/Yog_Kothag 5h ago
Precisely. I'm hoping it's titled Smiles.
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u/Corpsman913 3h ago
As simple and brilliant as that is, you know its going to be either "Smil3" or "Smil3s"
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u/CaptainMills 5h ago
It's kind of like Lights Out for me. It's a pretty neat and frightening premise, but having themes of trauma and depression and choosing an ending that basically just says "well, you're just broken, nothing to be done about it, time to die" is just too much for me to overlook.
Downer endings are fine, they can work really well. But you really need to consider how they mix with the rest of the story
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u/STLmab 7h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/JzzMfVgUu75gOFJjaZ
Sweet Tooth in the Twisted Metal TV series had correctly pegged Calypso as a “Josher,” or someone who would con them for amusement sake, and he actually ends up being right (Calypso screwed the main cast with Minion, and he “granted” everyone’s wish in a twisted manner that left everyone worse off).
Not bad for a failed child actor turned psychotic clown killer
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u/anononobody 8h ago
Melancholia by Lars von Trier. Woman with depression is the only one happy to accept the world is ending.
Great concept, the worst camerawork possibly in a movie, ever.
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u/Cybermat4707 7h ago
Also possibly the worst press conference to promote a movie ever.
‘I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew ... Then it turned out that I was not a Jew ... I found out that I was really a Nazi which also gave me some pleasure.’
‘What can I say? I understand Hitler. He did some wrong things, absolutely, but I can see him sitting there in his bunker at the end ... I sympathise with him, yes, a little bit.’
‘But come on, I am not for the second world war, and I am not against Jews. I am very much for Jews; well not too much because Israel is a pain in the ass. But still, how can I get out of this sentence ... OK I’m a Nazi.’
- Lars von Trier prompting Melancholia at a press conference, 2011
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u/Seed0fDiscord 7h ago
What the fuck!?
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u/Cybermat4707 7h ago
It may have been a really, really, really bad joke about the fact that he was raised by a Jewish father, Ulf Trier, but later learned that his biological father was Fritz Michael Hartmann, who had German descent… even though he was a member of the Danish anti-Nazi resistance in WWII.
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u/Fifty-Lucky 7h ago
I remember trying to get through that video, if I recall not one fuckin person asked for that or mentioned a God damn thing about Jews, nazis or anything related to that rant.
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u/BreakCreepy4673 7h ago
“…the worst camerawork possibly in a movie, ever.” Someone hasn’t seen Taken 3.
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u/smbutler20 8h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/KHQdmirytpfr1uRPBE
Ben - Ozark
Called out all the BS on the Byrdes and their boss.
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u/MuffaloMan 7h ago
Love this example, because we as viewers have come to accept and even look forward to the clever schemes the Byrdes use to get out of situations. In reality, there really is nothing good or normal about what they are doing; yes they’re technically protecting their family, but the family wouldn’t need protecting in the first place if Marty hadn’t taken the deal, and in reality Marty and Wendy kept doing what they were doing because they both enjoy it.
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u/3dchib 7h ago
while not mentally ill in a traditional sense (unless you consider being a Florida man a mental illness) Jason Mendoza from The Good Place is shown to have moment of SUPRISING clarity and insight, once even correctly figuring out the main twist of the series (well, maybe twice if you stretch the definition of 'prank show'). This is the moment that gives us the iconic meme of:
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u/ChuckECheeseOfficial 7h ago
I think the better example from The Good Place is Doug Forcett, the guy who mostly got the whole system right. He becomes a hermit who lets everyone walk all over him in the name of points
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u/Demoniac_smile 6h ago
As a person living in Florida, can confirm being a Florida man is a mental ilness. Go Jags!
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u/alan_blood 5h ago
If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm throwing a molitov cocktail I will definitely be yelling "Bottles!" as I do it.
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u/Phoenix-308 7h ago
Bugonia Teddy ended up being right about aliens but he was still pretty baseline crazy. He believed it when the protagonist claimed that anti-freeze was a life-saving drug
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u/HeavyMetalMonk888 6h ago
Technically, she convinced him that she had replaced the actual antifreeze with the 'antidote', and kept it in that bottle to hide it.
But there's plenty of other shit he was shown to have done that makes him even crazier that that, anyway.
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u/D1EHARDTOO 5h ago
Poor Don, did not deserve to be wrapped up into Teddy's insanity. Does make me wonder if she was telling the truth about resurrection or if the world was already a doomed experiment from the start of her getting kidnapped
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u/Long_Lock_3746 7h ago
Technically in Bugonia, the stuff support his premise (i.e. MOST of what makes his theories) were completely wrong and several people suffer and die as a result, if not the whole world. He uses conspiracy to get a sense of meaning and control over the terrible stuff that happened in his life
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u/-underdog- 7h ago
I do wonder if they still would've ended humanity had Teddy not done all that, but then if she only did it because she got kidnapped, that feels petty in a way that I don't think the aliens would actually be.
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u/Long_Lock_3746 6h ago
If we take her at her word, she became cold and somewhat uncaring as a RESULT of her time amongst humans, even before Teddy, but Teddy reinforced those views, though her tears suggest she still feels torn about it.
I think there's a valid argument that had she met anyone even remotely normal, she would have been significantly more likely to give us a chance. Heck, she seemed to genuinely try and connect with his cousin and that only failed because of Teddy
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u/HauntingStar08 6h ago
Idk, I'm a dark forest person myself so if we see aliens we know nothing about my bet is just keep our mouths shut.
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u/romcarlos13 8h ago
THE INVITATION IS SUCH A GOOD MOVIE
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u/cherenk0v_blue 7h ago
Super underrated. My favorite John Carol Lynch performance after Fargo.
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u/Medium-Sized-Jaque 6h ago
What's it about? Or is it so good I should just watch it without knowing anything?
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u/translove228 6h ago
The old man who warns the group of kids not to take such and such road or go into such and such house or venture in so and so forest from any given horror movie from the 70's. You know, this guy:
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u/FeralPsychonaut 4h ago edited 4h ago
I know what you're thinkng Stotch, don't do it.
What are you talking about?
You know that old Indian burial ground up the road... what you put in isnt the same thing that comes out.
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u/veriverd 7h ago
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u/Ok-Lifeguard-4614 5h ago
I like to think he had to do fly into the ship because he fucked up his last missile when he was in the hangar and accidentally armed it for a second. It's been years since I've seen it, not sure it actually holds up. I remember coming up with that theory as a kid.
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u/Literati_drake 2h ago
Im pretty sure that's exactly what was happening. I can recall watching it and a friend saying 'oh shit, it's armed" when the missile clamps didn't unlock. He knew he was already dead, so he was going to make it count.
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u/KMjolnir 7h ago
Stargate SG1 has this a couple of times.
In the original movie, Daniel is... probably not well. He's right aliens did build the pyramids tho.
There's an episode in he TV series where a former vet is mentally unwell and goes on about bugs and secret military experiments... yeah.
And another where someone talks about something taking over the town.
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u/thefuzzybunny1 7h ago
Daniel also hallucinates during the show, in an episode where he's been infected by a secret bioweapon. When he figures out what's happening and tries to explain it to his doctor, he admits, "I wouldn't believe me either."
His grandfather similarly has hallucinations that turn out to be real because of exposure to a crystal skull.
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u/onemorespacecadet 7h ago
Martin Lloyd’s first episode too! he thinks he’s an alien and is just chalked up to being mentally unwell but it turns out he’s right, and some of his fellow aliens have been intentionally keeping him off balance out of fear of retribution from their original home world.
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u/ChaucerBoi 7h ago
Vincent Van Gogh in Vincent and the Doctor (Doctor Who)
Vincent's mental illness allows him to see the Krafayis, which is otherwise invisible to the other characters - see the Doctor's Krafayis-spotting device, above.
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u/ClunarX 7h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/xT5LMXZiK24YcGZqyA
In “Brother’s Little Helper,” Major League Baseball is in fact spying on Bart
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u/hansjo_ 6h ago
(Better call Saul) Almost everything Chuck said in his chicanery ramble was correct.
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u/CreepyClothDoll 7h ago
Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen. MC has severe anxiety, and lives with a constant feeling of dread, especially leading up to her wedding.
When she learns that her wedding is literally cursed, and if she makes the wrong decision on her wedding day she will literally die, her fiancé acts supportive of her-- as he's used to her irrational paranoia-- but secretly, he resents her and has just been saying all the right things this whole time because he wants to be a good guy.
Despite the MC having enough evidence of the supernatural to convince multiple other people that this curse is real, the fiancé continues to operate on the assumption that this "curse" is just her irrational paranoia, and gets cold feet on his wedding day. This is catastrophic for the curse, due to the rules it operates by.
He tries to change his mind once the curse starts killing his entire family at the reception dinner, but it's too late to save them, and he just winds up killing her, too, by fulfilling her part in the curse by forcibly marrying her last-minute to stop the bloodbath.
In the end, pretty much everyone dies. That's not a spoiler. They let you know straight-up. So, she was right all along.
While she does misinterpret things and draw the worst conclusions at points in the story, you can easily see how rational and generous she's actually being given the situation. This woman has to put up with the most unbelievable bullshit at all times and she's holding it together really well-- probably too well-- considering her anxiety disorder. Other people in the narrative treat her like she's overreacting all the time, but she's honestly underreacting given the circumstances.
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u/JLHSMG 7h ago
Sam Neill in Event Horizon.
I could have uploaded the image of the padded room, but this one references the best line ever: "Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see."
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u/FeralPsychonaut 4h ago
I don't know if Sam Neill or Lawrence Fishburne did a better job in this film but man they acted the shit outta that film.
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u/Formal_Illustrator96 5h ago
Doug Forcett, in the show “The Good Place”. On October 14th, 1972, he gets high as fuck on mushrooms and goes on a rant about what he thinks the afterlife is like. Funny thing is, he absolutely nails it. He gets like 92% accurate.
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u/jcbaggee 7h ago
Dr. Manuel from the first Mass Effect. He's the first Indoctrinated person you'll run into, but the game never directly identifies him as such, and you meet him long before you know Saren's ship is actually a Reaper, let alone what Indoctrination is. Manuel's associate, Warren, describes him as having always been unstable, but ever since the Geth attack, he's an incoherent, rambling mess and increasingly paranoid. If you actually listen to him, though, he's spelling out the game's central conflict with the first wave of a Reaper invasion.
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u/Skullface95 6h ago
Thor: The Dark World.
After suffering the affects of the mind stone under Loki's control Dr Erik Slevig is in a mental institution after running around Stone Henge in his underwear rambling on about something, when we see him in the institute he explains the convergence of the realms and how it will cause untold chaos around the world (much to the uninterest of those around him(Stan Lee cameo)).
And lo and behold he was right.
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u/toomanymarbles83 5h ago
I always thought this plot is basically what happened in Witcher lore with the conjunction of the spheres.
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u/JLHSMG 6h ago
Sarah Connor is diagnosed with acute schizoaffective disorder and delusions of perscution in T2.
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u/kgwilde 5h ago
"It's ghouls, I tell you! Religious ghouls in rockets looking for a land to call their own. Don't you laugh at me! I know a spell that will make you show your true form! A cave rat taught it to me."
-No-Bark Noonan
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u/Sure-Appearance-2769 4h ago
Rorschach from Watchmen
A paranoid socially/developmentally stunted man who is regarded as a lunatic even by his former colleagues, is convinced that former supes are being intentionally taken out by a single person.
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u/Gwarnage 6h ago
The classic one is Randy Quaid in Independence Day. Funny that Randy Quaid playing mentally unwell is still more normal that Randy being actually mentally unwell.
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u/Final-Tutor3631 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/fGbbcXk14nqfe
abed is autistic and is convinced he’s on a tv show.
he is.
he’s also the only of the group who had normal psychiatric results (yes troy said he botched his, but his test look normal at the end; no boobs/butt. and we ALL know there’s something wrong w jeff)
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u/Calm-Conversation715 6h ago
In Godzilla vs Kong, the crazy conspiracy theorist is always trying to convince people that the government and large corporations are up to secret and nefarious schemes related to titans. He turns out to be correct, but also is still pretty crazy
https://giphy.com/gifs/GGnlJov7T5TL3zLJ7A
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u/TheDorkKnight53 7h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/mq5oIemi83KisNrnOa
Crazy Ralph from the first two Friday the 13th movies. While incorrect about the area being cursed, he was spot on that a fair amount of people were going to die. And then he gets offed by Jason during the second movie.
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u/Life-Child 3h ago
wiress from the hunger games trilogy/prequels
everyone believed she was insane when she wouldn't stop repeating a nursery rhyme, until it's discovered that she knew the secret of the arena the whole time and was trying to tell them through the rhyme lol
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u/Demoniac_smile 6h ago
The Question,Justice League Unlimited. He’s a standard conspiracy theorist, even having a Charlie Kelly style board with string and newspaper clippings in his room on the watchtower. He also figures out that Luthor isn’t reformed and just wants to merge with Brainiac again before anyone else. He even uses this in his plan to stop Lex by killing him, saying that he’s a known crackpot and the Justice League will just wash their hands of him and their reputation will remain untarnished despite him murderering Lex.
Also he discovered Baskin Robins actually has 32 flavors.
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u/Capybarabanananam 7h ago edited 2h ago
Harry in Kingsman: the golden circle. Even though he suffers from some severe amnesia after being shot in the head, he is the only one to clock that agent Whiskey* is a traitor. The main character Eggsy thinks that he is just confused.
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u/Old_Cyrus 5h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/HYhp4V2Fpbmr6
Old school—Richard Dreyfus in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
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u/alex_timeblade 7h ago
I mean, Bugonia did have him make that one critical error in judgment leading to the aliens killing everyone instead of helping uplift humanity like they were trying to do So he wasn't entirely correct.
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u/Vounrtsch 7h ago
In bugonia, the fact that teddy is correct also never undermines the fact that he is in fact crazy. Like, he did kidnap and kill innocent humans
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u/No_Seesaw2700 7h ago
phantasmagoria 2, the main characters mother was put into an insane asylum for believing her son was an imposter who replaced her son, and physically abused him because of it. it turns out she was completely right and her son was actually replaced by an alien clone, who loved her regardless
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u/ChocolichKing 7h ago edited 2h ago
John Givings in Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler are a deeply dysfunctional couple that reflect suburban families in the 50s. On the surface, they are perfect and beautiful, Frank has a job, April is a stay at home mom with two kids, they have a beautiful home on a nice property in a good neighborhood. Under the surface, they are extremely contemptuous of each other, Frank is dismissive of April's aspirations, and April feels Frank is breaking their promise to travel to France and is settling for mediocrity.
John Givings is the son of their realtor, Mrs. Givings. John had a psychotic break and held his parents hostage for a few days before being institutionalized and receiving electroshock therapy dozens of times. He comes to stay with his mom and Mrs. Givings wants John to spend time with the Wheelers, who she sees as a stable, loving family and good role models of sanity and happiness.
John absolutely, aggressively tears down the suburban Americana myth. He is mostly talking about his own family and experiences, but Frank and April are like, "Damn, he kinda right..." April especially realizes that what John is saying applies to them, but Frank seems to think that, while what he says about typical suburbanites is true, their family is above it.
Big man you got there, April. Big family man. I feel sorry for you. Still, maybe you deserve each other. I mean, the way you look right now, I'm beginning to feel sorry for him too. You must give him a pretty bad time if makin' babies is the only way he can prove he's got a pair of balls.
John is right, and the competing push-pull of appearances and the social definition of success versus personal happiness and real fulfillment leads to the denoument of the book and movie when April dies trying to give herself an at-home abortion. Frank gives up their kids to be raised by his brother and sister-in-law and keeps working as an empty shell of a man.
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u/Kanuck3 7h ago edited 5h ago
A fun twist on this: 'Conspiracy Theory' featuring Mel gibson.
He is a paranoid and things everything is a government conspiracy. When the conspirators show up he is proven right, but had no idea which one was right.
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u/Hamblerger 3h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/eJvCQpFqqP9XZ7Twgq
Amelia Pond, Doctor Who
"Twelve years!"
"You hit me with a cricket bat!"
"Twelve years and four psychiatrists!"
"Four?"
"I kept biting them"
"Why?"
"Because they said you weren't real"
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u/FluffyWalrusFTW 7h ago
I still haven't really wrapped my head over the fact that Bugonia happened and the twist still lives with me months after watching
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u/rwcgamer 3h ago
Marvin’s character in R.E.D. is seen as a paranoid schizophrenic with wild conspiracy theories. He says the government was trying to mind control him. Which another character mentions “Turns out the government was really secretly dosing him with LSD for a decade”… “well I mean in that case he looks great”
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u/D0CTOR_Wh0m 6h ago
Danielle Rosseau from Lost. Had been stranded on the Island for 16 years which did a number on her mental state, not helped by her newborn daughter getting kidnapped in front of her and all the crazy shit on the Island. Oceanic 815 survivors thinks she's crazy except:
- She's right that her crew mates had been infected by the Smoke Monster's "sickness" and had to be killed before they could kill her.
- She overheard The Others talking about how they want "the boy" and thought if she kidnapped baby Aaron and gave him to The Others they would give her daughter back. Wrong about them wanting Aaron but correct in that The Others actually wanted Walt and subsequently kidnap him
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u/MorganTheSpider 7h ago
Subcomandante Bagman from Zero Parades for Dead Spies. He's the host of a conspiracy themed public access show were he claims that the moon is fake, the Luzians are taking orders from space shrimp and that the Portofiro government made human-dolphin hybrids for their space program.
The dolphin hybrids turn out to be real and while he is wrong about the space shrimp, there is something very wrong with the stars in-universe. He also apparently has fourth wall awareness, as him and one of his followers can directly effect the games timer and save functions.
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u/eo5g 7h ago
Supernatural - Nightshifter
A bank security guard is convinced that a string of inside-job bank robberies, where employees steal and then commit suicide, is the work of a "man-droid" living in the sewers, impersonating these employees. That's clearly not a real thing!
(It is a shapeshifter though)
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u/Allronix1 6h ago
It's mostly just written off as PTSD/Paranoia but if you played Star Wars: KOTOR... Yeah, Carth drops major foreshadowing bombs CONSTANTLY, including a major one as soon as your player character wakes up.
While not confirmed, it's a pretty common fan guess that the guy's bullshit detector is Force powered.
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u/Rukanau 5h ago
Michael Shannon in Take Shelter. Spoiler: has visions and nightmares of a catastrophic natural disaster, becomes mentally unstable including bedwetting, losing job, building a storm shelter and trapping family in the shelter because of his paranoia, is proven correct by the end. Brilliant film.
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u/Illustrious-Peace989 5h ago
Lt. Levy on Star Trek: Lower Decks. He’s a conspiracy theorist who believes insane theories like that Wolf 359 was an inside job and that the Dominion War never happened. In a flashback in the episode Caves Boimler and Levy are trapped in a cave and Levy theorizes that Vendorians are responsible and that they’re testing their morality. Boimler eventually loses it on Levy, after which a group of Vendorians appear and tell Boimler that because of his cruelty towards Levy, he failed the morality test.
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u/Suspicious-Stand-464 5h ago edited 3h ago
In some incarnations of the Joker, he has something called "super sanity", which makes him aware of the fact that he exists in a comic book and that his actions are amoral since he is never hurting anything "real". His ultimate goal in this version of his character is not to kill Batman, but to get Batman to kill him because he believes that this would be the only action that would matter and would also make Batman just as aware as he is.
This is also basically what happens to any character that is given a Shadow Crystal, namely the secret bosses). The twist is that they are less aware that they exist in a video game (though that was our initial assumption) and more so the fact that the Dark World isn't real and that they are just objects in the Light World. Interestingly, since Gerson is only the memory of a deceased person, he notably remarks that he was given a Dark Crystal but doesn't understand what the big deal with it is. That's because he already understood what the "real " world of Deltarune is.
Jevil especially is reported to have gone on a rampage, attacking and killing other Darkners before being imprisoned. Initially, his claims that he is more free than the other characters outside of his cage, and his prior behavior, seem like simple madness. But then you realize he is completely right. Jevil is free in a way other characters like Spamtom aren't because he is imprisoned outside of the narrative. You realize then that the reason why he went on a rampage is less so a random act of insanity and more so a deliberate plan to ensure that he is imprisoned and to keep himself from becoming plot relevant.
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u/NessTheGamer 8h ago
Crazy Carl - Sonic the Hedgehog Movie
It’s unknown whether he was labeled the town kook before meeting and subsequently being constantly pranked by Sonic, but he was right about the Blue Devil