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there are worse hills to die on (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (3 children)

my interpretation of it is: when you ask a genie for something they’ll give it to you, but with a nasty twist. e.g., if you ask for a lot of money they’ll say okay, then give you the money, and then tell you it’s all marked notes from a recent bank robbery or something.

but since this element is so stupid, there’s no twist necessary. the element itself is the nasty surprise.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

when you ask a genie for something they’ll give it to you, but with a nasty twist

And if I remember correctly, it's about asking a wish with precise, thoughtful phrasing, or it's going to backfire.

"Your wish is my command."
"I don't want to see my mother-in-law ever again."
Boom! Makes him blind.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That part didn't make sense to me, either, but my brain kind of elided it until I saw these comments. You're right, it's gotta be a genie that was created by a wish with a monkey's paw. That brings up another question: do monkeys even have paws? A quick search indicates that they have, as I suspected, hands and feet! I blame W.W. Jacobs for this. Did the guy ever even see a monkey? I'm finding this hard to establish.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

maybe the whole thing started because a monkey asked for paws and they got a monkeys paw instead

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh I see. I never associated monkey’s paw type twists with the genie tale. Perhaps I need to re-read the source myths.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Monkeys paw = you get what you asked for but it takes a nasty path to get there. Example from the OG story, the parents ask for money, then their son dies, and they get the insurance money.

Genie = chooses to ignore the spirit of the wish and gives you something that technically meets the criteria. Ex: you ask for a "hot chick", and get a boiling hot baby chicken.

You can try to work around the genie's trickery with more and more precise wording till there isn't any ambiguity. The monkey will fuck you over anyway, because fuck you, that's why.

99.99% of the comments on r/monkeyspaw are just granting wishes like they're genies and not like they're a monkey's paw, and it rubs me the wrong way.