# Fanwanks or fan theories you love (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 4, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148 "2013-06-04T20:11:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/121 "2013-06-08T11:53:56Z")
Anthropomorphic cartoon animals are lab grown abominations. Human DNA explains their relative intelligence. Those aren’t gloves they’re wearing- they’re mechanical hands grafted onto the ends of their legs. The pain resulting from the reconstruction of their bodies necessary to simulate upright human posture requires a constant infusion of drugs, explaining their overall zaniness. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/122 "2013-06-08T12:17:38Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > He’s been known to complain of headaches. Might be a tumor. It’s not a toomah! ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/123 "2013-06-08T14:02:52Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Anthropomorphic cartoon animals are lab grown abominations. Human DNA explains their relative intelligence. Those aren’t gloves they’re wearing- they’re mechanical hands grafted onto the ends of their legs. The pain resulting from the reconstruction of their bodies necessary to simulate upright human posture requires a constant infusion of drugs, explaining their overall zaniness. Where do they live when their not acting? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/124 "2013-06-08T14:41:46Z")
> [@Disheavel](#): > > I’ve always had respect for you, but this is just out of this world in awesomeness! Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/125 "2013-06-08T15:04:03Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > 1. Sherlock really does love John, love him as thoroughly as he can love anyone, and it would almost be romantic love, but he is completely asexual so it never goes anywhere.? Was that why he was so brilliant? Sort of like when Costanza on Seinfeld got really smart from abstaining from sex? > [@Little Nemo](#): > > There’s the long-standing theory that Zion was just as much a computer-generated illusion as the “contemporary” Earth was. It was just a second layer of illusion to catch anyone who managed to slip out of the first layer. > > So the idea that computers were using humans as batteries was just another made-up story. It’s Matrices all the way down!😃 It would explain how Neo could use his powers to destroy sentinels and see computer code in the real world. My own personal fan-wank (and I think they allude to this in the Animatrix) is that the machines didn’t start storing humans in goo-pods to use as batteries (since that would violate the laws of thermodynamics anyway). They did it as a sort of a Three Laws of Robotics thing of protecting the humans from our selves and protecting the environment from humans. As Smith said, “humans are a virus”. Left unchecked we would overpopulate the Earth and use up all the resources. So the machines figured the most efficient approach was to build a VR world for us to live in. That was the proposal the machines made at the UN in the Animatrix, which the humans found so abhorrent that they went to war. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/126 "2013-06-08T15:06:53Z")
Batman/James Bond: Alfred is a former 00 agent. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/127 "2013-06-08T15:07:34Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The reason that the Federation from Star Trek keeps staggering from one near-disaster to another but never actually is destroyed is that they’re _save scumming._ They’ve had limited time travel since Kirk’s era after all. Every time something manages to ruin or destroy the Federation, some secret Federation agency, perhaps Section 31 or perhaps someone we’ve never heard of travels back to before the disaster and quietly makes _adjustments_ to the timeline to prevent it. I like this one! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/128 "2013-06-08T15:17:42Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > I like the idea that “James Bond” is a legacy identity, passed from one agent to another, similar to the Dread Pirate Roberts. So are M, Q, maybe even Moneypenny and CIA agent Felix Leiter. They all sort of overlap the films in different ways. Desmond Llewelyn played Q for Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and Brosnan. They say the Daniel Craig bond is a “reboot”, but Judi Dench was still M. And at the end of Skyfall Bond just starts calling Ralph Feines’ character “M” as if he had been M all along. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/129 "2013-06-08T16:28:55Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > So are M, Q, maybe even Moneypenny and CIA agent Felix Leiter. They all sort of overlap the films in different ways. > > Desmond Llewelyn played Q for Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and Brosnan. > > They say the Daniel Craig bond is a “reboot”, but Judi Dench was still M. And at the end of Skyfall Bond just starts calling Ralph Feines’ character “M” as if he had been M all along. M and Q are a different issue, though, since those are both code-names assigned to whoever currently holds those positions (Director of SIS and Quartermaster, respectively), and this is explicit in the films. M, at least, is based on reality: the Directors of SIS (MI6) have used the code-name “C” since the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/130 "2013-06-08T17:40:19Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Was that why he was so brilliant? Sort of like when Costanza on Seinfeld got really smart from abstaining from sex? > > It’s Matrices all the way down!😃 > > It would explain how Neo could use his powers to destroy sentinels and see computer code in the real world. > > My own personal fan-wank (and I think they allude to this in the Animatrix) is that the machines didn’t start storing humans in goo-pods to use as batteries (since that would violate the laws of thermodynamics anyway). They did it as a sort of a Three Laws of Robotics thing of protecting the humans from our selves and protecting the environment from humans. As Smith said, “humans are a virus”. Left unchecked we would overpopulate the Earth and use up all the resources. So the machines figured the most efficient approach was to build a VR world for us to live in. That was the proposal the machines made at the UN in the Animatrix, which the humans found so abhorrent that they went to war. Wait… but… um… but… no, no, it totally fits. There’s actually no reason they would need to store humans as either incredibly ineffectual batteries nor really useless organic computers. Therefore the Matrix is protecting humanity, keeping them happy at the peak of civilization, before 9/11 and the credit crunch. And Morpheus is an insane luddite bigot who will train naïve youngsters to become mass-murdering terrorists just out of irrational technophobia. Agent Smith was supposed to protect mankind from themselves. And Neo… Neo is the Unabomber. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/131 "2013-06-08T19:52:59Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s Matrices all the way down!😃 > > It would explain how Neo could use his powers to destroy sentinels and see computer code in the real world. As I wrote, this was a common theory and there’s evidence like you noted in the movie to support it. In fact, there’s a meta-fan theory that this was supposed to be the big reveal in the sequels. But the Wachowskis tipped their hand by being too blatant with the clues in the first one and people figured it out. So the Wachowskis didn’t want to use an ending that people had already guessed so they made up a new ending, which didn’t work as well. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/132 "2013-06-09T00:10:19Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Star Trek and the old British SF show Blake’s Seven are set in the same universe. One tows the official Federation line, and the other is cheaply made rebel propaganda. _Love_ it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/133 "2013-06-11T05:30:25Z")
A couple more theories: In _Pride and Prejudice_, Lydia understood that she was hurting her family by running off with Wickham; that was what she wanted. She wasn’t so much vacuous as she was desperate to win her father’s attention. Mr. Bennet made it clear to everyone that Elizabeth was his favorite, and Lydia was tired of playing Jan to Elizabeth’s Marcia. After Darcy found her, she was gloating because she had finally gotten the attention she wanted and she got married first, which proved she was better than Elizabeth. And she was glad that her family’s reputation suffered; they deserved it for not appreciating her enough. Admittedly, her plan was short-sided: Elizabeth married well and Lydia’s contentedness in her own marriage would pall. Nick Carroway and Jay Gatsby are the same person. Strongest evidence is when Gatsby and Daisy have their most intimate moments, Nick is always there to witness and later record them for posterity. It’s a little creepy how much he knows about Gatsby’s private life. So possibly Nick is telling Gatsby’s story, he is telling his audience about about what happened to himself, substituting Gatsby to distance himself from the pain of his crushed dreams. There’s more to it but I don’t know how to make a spoiler box so I’ll leave it at that. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/134 "2014-06-05T04:18:13Z")
Phineas and Ferb: Candace is a schizophrenic, and every episode is just another of her hallucinations. That’s why she can never catch her brothers no matter how hard she tries. Gilligan’s Island: Don’t bother trying to tie up loose ends, because everything’s just a pot dream by Maynard G. Krebs. Gidget: She’s the female Doctor Who, constantly being regenerated. That’s why she looks so different movie to movie and barely ages. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/135 "2014-06-05T05:24:25Z")
One I’ve heard. I don’t know how popular it is. Amanda Grayson, wife of Sarek of Vulcan and mother of Spock, is distantly related to Richard “Dick” Grayson of Gotham City, the ward of billionaire Bruce Wayne. So Spock is related to Robin the Boy Wonder. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/136 "2014-06-05T08:15:19Z")
Another “Owl Creek Bridge” theory. The toys were all melted in the furnace in _Toy Story 3_ and the happy ending we saw is just what Woody was imagining in his final moments. Notice that when Andy passes on his toys to Bonnie, he identifies Jessie and Bullseye by name. But Andy never knew their TV show names - they were just two toys that appeared in his bedroom one day. It was Woody that knew their names, which indicates that final scene was occurring in his mind. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/137 "2014-06-05T08:47:26Z")
The reason that the militarily far-superior Borg don’t just roll over the Federation with thousands of cubes is that they are farming the Federation. They deliberately attack with forces they think the Federation will be able to _just barely_ defeat, forcing the Federation to come up with innovative technologies and techniques to meet the challenge that the Borg can later assimilate for themselves. If they just outright overran the Feds then that flow of new goodies would stop; so as long as they find the Feds a useful source for new tech & tactics they’ll keep not-quite-overrunning the Federation. ---
**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:** [June 5, 2014, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/138 "2014-06-05T09:04:37Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > This is actually the case in the 1967 film _[Casino Royale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_%281967_film%29)_ (the main character is David Niven as the _original_ James Bond, a retired WWI-era spy) although somehow I doubt most Bond fans consider this to be canon. 🙂 Of COURSE it’s canon. It’s all of the subsequent Bond films that are plot holes. 😛 ---
**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:** [June 5, 2014, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/139 "2014-06-05T09:59:10Z")
There’s a site out on the internet that makes a pretty ingenious case for all of the Pixar features to have taken place in the same universe/timeline. I’ll try to link to it later (can’t on my phone, sorry), but as a sample, think about how similar the Bug’s Life tree looks to the tree where Carl and Ellie Frederickson had their picnics, AND to the tree that eventually grows from the sprout rescued by Wall-E and EVE. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148/140 "2014-06-05T10:08:41Z")
The reason why Power Girl has that cutout over her chest is because the skin-tight force field that Kryptonians produce that makes their clothing nearly as indestructible as they are doesn’t extend out far enough from the dip of her cleavage to affect cloth stretched out over it. So, she has a neatly cut out hole because the alternative is a ragged one. A common reason why superheroines wear skimpy outfits is that their skin is _much_ tougher than any costume. The more exposed skin she has, the less likely it is she’ll have to buy a new costume when a bullet or death ray rips a hole in it before bouncing off her skin. Therefore, it’s cheaper for her to wear the minimum her standards of modesty allows. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fanwanks-or-fan-theories-you-love-open-spoilers/660148.md?page=8)