# Obvious things about a creative work you realize after the millionth time (OPEN SPOILERS POSSIBLE) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117 "2009-07-24T13:20:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/341 "2009-08-06T16:49:13Z")
> [@ajdebosco](#): > > Bugs Bunny cartoons were/are still some of my favorites, but the classical music shorts, even the ones with Sylvester rank as the best. I honestly didn’t know for quite a while that the music had been composed several dozens of years earlier, and _not_ by the musicians employed by Merrie Melodies, Looney Tunes, or whatever. :o It was only after second grade or so that I discovered the names of the real guys and heard symphonies playing the pieces without the accompanying animation. :smack: I wonder how many concertgoers listening to a performance of Wagner’s _Die Walküre_ can’t help humming to themselves, ["Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxiv3CBMS4M) ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/342 "2009-08-06T16:57:41Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I wonder how many concertgoers listening to a performance of Wagner’s _Die Walküre_ can’t help humming to themselves, ["Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxiv3CBMS4M) Totally reminds me of a Boy Meets World episode where Eric goes to the opera and at first he doesn’t get it but then he’s all, “The songs from Looney Tunes!” ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/343 "2009-08-06T19:13:25Z")
In \*Jurassic Park \*(the movie), Dr Grant struggles with the helicopter’s seat belt. When he realizes he has two female connectors, he ties them together. It took me a while to see that this was foreshadowing how the all-female dino population would find a way to hook up and breed. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/344 "2009-08-06T20:47:42Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > I wonder how many concertgoers listening to a performance of Wagner’s _Die Walküre_ can’t help humming to themselves, ["Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxiv3CBMS4M) I spend half the time I listen to Wagner singing Bugs Bunny’s lyrics and the other half reciting Anna Russell’s monologue. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/345 "2009-08-06T20:51:14Z")
> [@Rhodes](#): > > In \*Jurassic Park \*(the movie), Dr Grant struggles with the helicopter’s seat belt. When he realizes he has two female connectors, he ties them together. It took me a while to see that this was foreshadowing how the all-female dino population would find a way to hook up and breed. I don’t think that’s obvious, but it’s cool! ---
**Author:** ![Histrion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/76d3ee/32.png) [@Histrion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Histrion)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/346 "2009-08-06T21:42:13Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Ahhh, thanks. I don’t pronounce meadow like meta so that never occurred to me. I thought maybe a meta was some kind of milking tool. :smack: 😃 In certain USA dialects both words would be very close to “medda.” (Shifting the unvoiced dental “t” to the voiced dental “d” is common all around the US; shifting the “ow” to “uh” is more specifically a southern thing, I’d wager.) ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/347 "2009-08-06T23:30:25Z")
Re the blue blood. It’s depicted that way in diagrams as a way to differentiate it from the oxygenated blood (the red stuff); it helps people see the difference between the arterial “system” and the venous one. Of course, it’s not really blue… but there is that phrase, “blue-blood” meaning someone of high stature and lineage etc. Language is confusing! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/348 "2009-08-07T00:53:46Z")
Gore Vidal doesn’t exactly go out of his way to bury them (there was a new edition as recently as 1991), but few people remember that in the early 50s he wrote three mystery novels under the name of Edgar Box. (_Death in the Fifth Position_, _Death Before Bedtime_, and _Death Likes It Hot_.) They stand up well, as long as you approach them like watching an early version of Mad Men. (Or _Royal Pains_, since the last is set on the Hamptons and could easily be reprocessed to be an episode.) Well written, obviously, and with Vidal’s trademark wit and vituperation at the American rich. His hero is heterosexual, of course, and it’s fun to watch him bed nymphomaniacal women while casting slurs at a gay scene that Vidal obviously knows a million times better than other mystery writers of the day. I’ve been re-reading them, They were entirely forgotten, though one is a first edition (in terrible shape, alas). And it struck me. Edgar Box. Edgar, as in Poe. And Box, as in… Having read the books, Box was almost certainly vagina. Never occurred to me before. (Let’s also celebrate his part in the greatest debate in the history of television: ) > [@](#): > > from ABC News, August 28, 1968. > > Vidal: “the only pro or crypto-Nazi here is yourself.” > > Buckley: “Now listen, you queer, you stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/349 "2009-08-07T01:49:21Z")
Here is something my wife and I have been discussing and it counts both as something we recently noticed and something that we don’t understand. It’s regarding Voldemort’s return to life in Harry Potter. I guess in my mind, I had it understood that Voldemort was able to come back to life because Peter Pettigrew did the spell in the graveyard and that it used a Horcrux. Therefore, he should have only had 5 Horcruxes, with the 6th part of his soul in his new body. Basically, I’m confused. How did he get resurrected without using a Horcrux up? I thought the point was that you could divide yourself up. I figured Voldemort had 7 deaths he could survive. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/350 "2009-08-07T01:53:50Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Basically, I’m confused. How did he get resurrected without using a Horcrux up? I thought the point was that you could divide yourself up. I figured Voldemort had 7 deaths he could survive. The Horcruxes set up the ability to come back: they held pieces of his soul so that it would be available for him to return. No Horcruxes were actually used in his graveyard resurrection. Except Harry, of course, the Horcrux he didn’t know he’d made. Which later led to a tired joke among single Dark Wizards: “Hey, [name], do you have any Horcruxes that you know of?” Nagini was around, and she was a Horcrux by that point, but it’s not like she was an actual part of the spell. ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/351 "2009-08-07T02:02:10Z")
Okay, let me see if I can work this out in a way that makes sense. Voldemort’s soul was in \*eight \*parts: [spoiler]1.) His original body 2.) The diary 3.) The ring 4.) The cup 5.) The snake 6.) The locket 7.) The diadem 8.) Harry When he tried to kill Harry as an infant, his physical body was destroyed, but his soul was not because it was tethered to the other bits of his soul that were in the horcruxes.[/spoiler] So when Wormtail did the spell in the graveyard, he was only creating a physical body for that “loose” bit of Voldemort’s soul to reside in. Does that help? ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/352 "2009-08-07T03:16:17Z")
In the song “The Sadder But Wiser Girl” from “The Music Man”, there’s a line… **I hope, and I pray, for a Hester to win just one more "A"** Came up on my iPod’s random play recently, and it occurred to me for the first time that “Hester” is Hester Prynne, and he wants her to win one more adulterous “A”…ala _The Scarlet Letter_! Can’t say that I’ve heard the song a million times, but that sure didn’t occur to me when I did the play in school years ago… ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/353 "2009-08-07T03:57:15Z")
> [@PeskiPiksi](#): > > When he tried to kill Harry as an infant, his physical body was destroyed, but his soul was not because it was tethered to the other bits of his soul that were in the horcruxes. When is the “tethered” aspect of his loose soul explained in the series. Does Dumbledore explain it to Harry in Book 7? ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/354 "2009-08-07T04:26:51Z")
Something pretty obvious I just remembered. The first time I saw Pulp Fiction, when Jules and Vincent shot Brett and Flock of Seagulls but spared Marvin, I thought it was just because they walked in and just happened to realize that Marvin was an acquaintence of Jules. Only after the second or third viewing did I realize that Marvin had been a spy in Brett’s little gang all along, and he set them up by standing at the door at the apppointed time and unlocking it without Jules and Vincent having to knock. That allowed me to feel just a tad less sorry for him later on. But anyway, duh. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/355 "2009-08-07T08:02:37Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > When is the “tethered” aspect of his loose soul explained in the series. Does Dumbledore explain it to Harry in Book 7? No, it’s in _Half-Blood Prince,_ Chapter 23, “Horcruxes”. ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/356 "2009-08-07T13:27:13Z")
Thanks, **WotNot**. Here’s the quote, from Slughorn: > [@](#): > > Well, you split your soul, you see, and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But, of course, existence in such a form… ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/357 "2009-08-07T14:28:27Z")
Moderator comment: I have changed the titles of the thread, because several posts were reported as “spoilers.” I suspect that there’s not much of a way of discussing this topic without spoilers, so I’ve edited thread title… those who don’t want any spoilers can avoid the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/358 "2009-08-07T15:18:03Z")
**Mahaloth** said: > [@](#): > > When is the “tethered” aspect of his loose soul explained in the series. Does Dumbledore explain it to Harry in Book 7? Isn’t that bit of soul what is working in the first book (Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone)? ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/359 "2009-08-07T15:41:50Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > \*\*Isn’t that bit of soul what is working in the first book (Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone)? Quite so. As Dumbledore says, a few pages after the part that **PeskiPiksi** quoted: > [@](#): > > “The seventh part of his soul, however maimed, resides inside his regenerated body. That was the part of him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his exile; without that, he has no self at all.” ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117/360 "2009-08-07T17:32:20Z")
This was actually told to me by a friend of mine, but I had the “Oh yeah…” reaction to it all the same. In the movie **Clueless** they are talking to Ty (Tai?) about her old school and she mentions having had “coke”. Took a good 10 years or so of watching that movie before I was told it was cocaine, and not Cola. Smart me… And this one is even worse! It took probably a good 2 years of me lightly watching “A Pup Named Scooby Doo” before I realized that every time they solved a mystery and Fred blamed his bully “Red Harring” that it was supposed to be a Red Harring every time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-a-creative-work-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time-open-spoilers-possible/504117.md?page=19)