# Easy Answers for Fictional Dilemmas **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2025, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080 "2025-04-15T20:26:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/361 "2025-05-01T14:30:55Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > Well, if you’ve got a licence to kill I suppose that includes a licence for all lesser offenses as well. > > You just hand the officer your license, and he punches out a couple holes equal to the crime. When the card has no more empty punch spaces, MI-6 can issue you a new one. I _totally_ want to live in your world. If you fill the card do you also get a free appetizer on your next visit? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/362 "2025-05-01T19:28:14Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > > [@mbh](#): > > > > At least he would not have been > > > > > liquidated, I’m afraid, sir. Our Finland, stabbed to death in a ladies sauna bath, sir. Our Madrid, burned in a blazing bordello, sir. And, Tokyo, sir, garroted in a geisha house. > > It’s depressing that the words “secret agent” have become synonymous with “sex maniac.” Which Daniel Craig Bond film started with him shooting up a consulate? Her Majesty doesn’t consider that secret at all. _The Fast and the Furious_ clowns could do that. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/363 "2025-05-01T20:06:20Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > It’s depressing that the words “secret agent” have become synonymous with “sex maniac.” [_Giving a description of his era’s spy type_] _… vocationally devoted, sublimely disinterested. Hardly a description of that sexual acrobat who leaves a trail of dead beautiful women like so many blown roses behind him - that bounder to whom you gave my name and number._ Casino Royale- 1967! ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/364 "2025-05-02T00:22:43Z")
It’s sort of ironic that Daniel Craig complained that Austin Powers ruined the Bond franchise and the Bond writers end up using one of the Powers plot points as a big reveal. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/365 "2025-05-02T00:27:37Z")
SPECTRE was one of those movies where the best scene happens at the start and literally everything else is a downhill slide, it just gets dumber and dumber with each passing minute. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/366 "2025-05-02T00:34:51Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I get that Death wants…well death, but do they mention why Death wants less souls in total in the future? **Fewer** souls! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/367 "2025-05-02T00:39:28Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > You just hand the officer your license, and he punches out a couple holes A double-o? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/368 "2025-05-02T01:49:48Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And yes, there is support- you saw Frodo couldnt give up the Ring. They’d have to drop frodo into Mt Doom. You watched that happen- so you then KNOW Frodo wasnt gonna give up the Ring. That has nothing to do one way or the other with what I said (granted it was several pages ago now). Yes, Frodo didn’t want to give up the Ring. That would be true whether the Eagles carried him there or whether he walked there himself. Heck, getting him there faster presumably means he’s less corrupted. But, again, arguing about the minutiae of the Eagles is kind of ignoring my point, which is that it’s kind of jarring. There’s a reason that so many movie-watchers-but-not-super-in-depth-lore-knowers have the same reaction. It would have been nice if Peter Jackson had come up with a way to spell it out a bit more. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/369 "2025-05-02T02:00:13Z")
Y’know, it occurs to me that for the movie, they could have just cut from the destruction of the Ring to the hobbits at home, without making it explicit how they got there. If you don’t introduce the Eagles at all, then nobody would ask why they weren’t used before. And if folks were to ask how they got home, well, the simple answer is “They cut that part for time, because it wasn’t as interesting as getting there”. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/370 "2025-05-02T02:26:58Z")
That Lily Bart from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, no need t for her to succumb to her own insufferable demureness. At the very least she ought o have said fuck Gus trenner taken her legacy$ and run to Monte Carlo ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/371 "2025-05-02T03:05:54Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I get that Death wants…well death, but do they mention why Death wants less souls in total in the future? Strictly, in the Marvel comics Death the anthropomorphic incarnation isn’t about the _condition_ of “being dead”, which is rather a contradiction of terms. She/it is the personification of dying, of ceasing to exist, of passing into the nonexistence of Oblivion (which is another anthropomorphic personification). ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/372 "2025-05-02T17:56:45Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > > [@Sitnam](#): > > > > but do they mention why Death wants less souls in total in the future? > > **Fewer** souls! Sigh. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/BccyQaNKXz8/maxresdefault.jpg "Grammar rules you can stop sticking to") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BccyQaNKXz8) ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/373 "2025-05-02T18:38:35Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > You just hand the officer your license, and he punches out a couple holes equal to the crime. Heh. Something like that was the twist ending in a story I read once. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time\_in\_Advance#"Time\_in\_Advance"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Advance#%22Time_in_Advance%22) > The story presents a future in which citizens serve out sentences for crimes they have not yet committed. Two “pre-criminals”, “Blotto” Otto Henck and Nicholas Crandall, manage against all the odds to serve out two full terms for murder in an off-world [penal colony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony). They are returned to Earth as minor celebrities with the right to kill one person each In the end, the protagonist decides not to kill the person he’d planned to kill. He tosses away his weapon, which breaks a window. When a cop tries to arrest him for vandalism, he shows his “free murder” certificate, and says, “Take it out of that”. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/374 "2025-05-02T18:42:00Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Moderating: > > The discussion about the eagles carrying the ring perhaps risks overwhelming this more general thread. Let’s turn to other examples. If there’s interest in continuing this question, DM me and I’ll break it out into its own thread. Reminder: the eagles kinda took over the thread already. Let’s talk about other stories. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/375 "2025-05-02T18:43:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And if folks were to ask how they got home, well, the simple answer is “They cut that part for time, because it wasn’t as interesting as getting there”. Yeah, it’s like asking why it took the allied soldiers more than a year to reach Berlin, but they got home to Podunk, Iowa in less than a month. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/376 "2025-05-02T18:49:05Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > In _A Few Good Men_, all Colonel Jack Nicholson has to do is say “No, I didn’t order the code red.” Boom, Tom Cruise gets court marshalled. Kaffee: You made it clear just a moment ago that your men never take matters into their own hands. _Your men follow orders, or people die._ So Santiago shouldn’t have been in any danger at all, should he have, Colonel?" Jessup: These two men _did not_ follow orders, and Private Santiago died. Anything else? ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/377 "2025-05-02T22:11:41Z")
Didn’t the Eagles disband when Glen Frey passed on? I’m goin, I’m goin! ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/378 "2025-05-02T22:18:03Z")
I am now visualizing the Mirror of Galadriel scene, with Linda Ronstadt playing Galadriel. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/379 "2025-05-02T22:24:18Z")
Continue… . ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/380 "2025-05-02T22:28:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > You think _that’s_ bad – during WWII the British joked about being such good pilots that they painted bullseyes on their planes. Even worse, the US Navy entered the war with their roundels having a red dot, akin to the (larger) hinomaru on Japanese planes, apparently leading to a lot of friendly fire incidents, resulting in it being eliminated in 1943. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080.md?page=20)