It’s the same old scam the rich and powerful have been exploiting for years.
By the way, you did know that Oglaf’s creators have a patreon account that includes amusing cartoons, some not safe for work?
Also by the way, I just realized it’s Sunday, and am feeling like I had a couple of days totally stolen from me.
This is not Sunday. You are not on planet Earth. Or in the Solar System. Never heard of this Milky Way thingie… in fact, you’re not even on a planet. That you feel does not exist. This message is not only beyond your understanding, you have not read it, seen it, and it certainly is not blit to your feeble… — I mean, you still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. Hopeless. Next, you’ll be going on about spiders or something…
(This encouraging message brought especially to you by the Benighted Sisterhood, commonly known as BS.)
There’s a great subversion of this trope in Spartacus (1960):
Wasn’t Harry Potter also rich?
Also see Paul Muad’Dib Atreides from Dune.
That’s funny, because I grew up on all those stories but I never once thought “wow, I’m just like _____!” just because I had a shitty childhood. Sure, I thought “wouldn’t it be great if I had magical powers or a space ship or, at least, someplace where I could go where I wouldn’t have to live my life in constant terror of the people who are ostensibly my protectors?” I thought and dreamed about that all the time.
I never really believed it would happen, though. Lasting happiness or joy, unconditional love, safety- those things only exist in books or TV shows. I knew that by the time I was five, but I was a dreamer. I learned that, if I was quiet, I could mostly be left alone with my books and stories and dreams.
In my books, there were no parents to grab their kids by their arms and squeeze them until they were sure they would break while screaming death in their faces. Friends were people you could count on and have adventures with, rather than people you had to lie to about why you’re limping and the reasons they you almost never had anyone over to your house. At the very least, friends believed you when you told them why you’re afraid, and didn’t say “but your folks seem like such nice people.”
In my stories, families stood by one another no matter what, and never threatened to disown each other or put each other through a wall. There were brothers and sisters who were sometimes a pain, but who you could at least talk with, instead of maintaining a fearful silence, afraid to even breathe too loud.
In my dreams, I wasn’t a space wizard or a chosen one. When I pretended I was in the Star Wars universe or whatever, I seldom pretended to be a hero. I just pretended to hang out with them, because real heroes wouldn’t hurt me. When I dreamed, I dreamed I was just a regular person who wasn’t so lonely and afraid all the time. I dreamt that I belonged somewhere.
But belonging is a lie. All of it, a lie. Every dream I’ve ever had is nothing but childish fantasy, and when I look on it and ask “so why can’t I die?” I find my answer in this: Spite. Oh, how the MAGAts with their petty, entitled little hatreds because they didn’t get a shiny new sports car or a big house or a pretty face, how they disgust me. Whiny sniveling dregs and their venal, tiny-fingered orange avatar, how I long to teach them what true malice is.
And so I shall, for I have found at the bottom of the pit of blackest despair something True, and if it is the last thing I do I will make them look upon it. All of them. I will revel in their anguish, glory in their despairing cries and, at last, I will make a place for myself in the holes blasted in their withered little hearts. There I shall dwell, forevermore.
But first, a nap.
I thought all the kids who went to that school in harrey potter were rich sure none of them were simple working class kids anyway.
@5 I recognize your conclusions as familiar if your actual experience some what differs from mine. maybe I learned that easier anyway. I no longer dream of revenge I noticed some bigger things along the way some thing bigger then me and certainly bigger than all the small minded people and their small interests which never seem to have included me. I keep looking up and looking out and enjoy a nice nap now and again as well.
uncle frogy
People don’t vote for demagogues because they’re disappointed they’re not wizards. They vote for them because Mud-bloods don’t drop to their knees and kiss they’re arses.
@ unclefrogy, #6
I’m not really interested in revenge. If I had the power to do what I claim in my comment, I could do something more productive with it than that. Making the people who hurt me hurt has only ever left me cold and sick. Those two paragraphs are just a mad little joke.
The last line turned out to be a fantasy too. I was just drifting off to sleep when the tornado sirens started wailing. I can’t remember the last day we went the whole 24 hours without a storm.
@ gijoel, #7
Yep. There’s plenty to criticize about Star Wars and Harry Potter, but what this comic misses all of them. This is like that asinine rant by Bill Maher about how Stan Lee is to blame for Trump. Nope. Everybody knows that wizards and Jedi are fiction.
It’s the “American Dream” that gave us Trump. The frustrated nationalist believers in that ugly lie are Trump’s biggest fans.
@8 glad to hear it it did sound a little over the top.
when that dark mode starts to take over and the feeling of utter futility creeps into my mind what finally drives it away is as I wrote looking up and looking out. the darkness that lives inside is the one to worry about.
even works when against the appalling crap that is the news these days.
uncle frogy
Joseph Campbell to the white courtesy telephone….
The original Robin Hood was just a charismatic thug. A robber with a sense of humor. He was all about sticking it to the Man. His stories were popular with the downtrodden because he was one of them, and he was striking back at their obvious enemies.
Then the nobles got wind of the story. And because they were clever, they didn’t just outlaw the egalitarian propaganda — they got inside the story, and they changed it. Robin wasn’t just a commoner — he was the Earl of Locksley, no less, and just slumming for a bit due to Politics. At the end, he gets his nice castle back, and the poor are once more content with their sorry lot. Yay!