History Headscratchers / ThePrincessBride

*** Seconded. If you think that this movie has suspicuously many wacky one-scene characters and sidequests, try ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''.

** Yes, but why would Vizzini have just made up that it was from Australia? It was Westley's iocane and there was every chance he knew where it was from. If he had said 'It's from America!' then Westley would have corrected him and he'd have appeared stupid. If Vizzini had not said anything about the origins, he would not have appeared stupid and randomly guessing had a very high probability of guessing wrong and then looking stupid. Vizzini may have read about iocane powder andn so when it was identified he knew where it originated from at least.

** OR, being the hopeless romantic that he is, he did it out of love and then heartbreak. Initially, if the Dread Pirate Roberts was threatening him with death daily, what use would it be to tell his love he was alive if he might die any day? Why give her false hope? By the time he was not threatened anymore and handed the title, he may have received the news of Buttercup's engagement (in the book, she spent three years at princess lessons, so it's possible) and convinced himself that, since she was going to marry someone else, she clearly was not waiting for him anymore, so it was no use to communicate with her and he might as well let her be happy with Prince Humperdink. He only went after her when she was kidnapped because, obviously, being kidnapped is not how you spend a happy life and he didn't want her prisoner o dead.

** Your standard JRPGs and ''The Princess Bride'' share influences from similar sources, such as fairy tales and fantasy fiction, where such kind of exotic and unusual quests, characters and settings are commonplace.

*** Technically yes, but again -- the grandfather's just framing it that way to make it sound a bit special for his grandson. That doesn't make it ''actually'' a family tradition that's rigidly set in stone, the way this headscratcher is presuming (though it could certainly become one over time). The fact that this grandfather had this story read to him as a child and consequently decided to read it to his own son doesn't mean it's become a fixed-in-stone family rite-of-passage that a father ''must'' pass this story down to his son, and that a failure to do so is indicative only of a major family upheaval that means the father is either dead or absent. It simply means that the grandfather liked this story as a child, liked reading it to his son, and thought his grandson might like it as well. There are any number of possible reasons why the father never read it to him that don't hinge on him either being dead or absent. Maybe the father didn't really like it but didn't want to upset the grandfather. Maybe the boy's mother always read him a bedtime story instead of his father. Maybe the father always meant to but kept forgetting to get the book, and the grandfather finally decided it was a good opportunity to bring it around. Maybe the father ''asked'' the grandfather to read it to the boy because he thought the grandfather would tell it better. Heck, maybe this family simply didn't really do bedtime stories up to this point. There are any number of possible explanations.

* Westley didn't cheat. The quote was, "Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead." There was a correct answer: Vizzini could have chosen to drink from the ''[[TakeAThirdOption bottle]]''. But Vizzini failed the battle of wits, chose wrong, and died. Had he chosen right, both would have lived, and the battle would have continued.

* Westley wasn't drinking. The quote was, "Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead." There was a correct answer: Vizzini could have chosen to drink from the ''[[TakeAThirdOption bottle]]''. But Vizzini failed the battle of wits, chose wrong, and died. Had he chosen right, both would have lived, and the battle would have continued.

** Watch the scene again. Vizzini waits for the MIB to sip first, then drinks happily. Vizzini thinks the MIB thinks he's drinking from the unpoisoned chalice, so Vizzini thinks he's drinking from the unpoisoned chalice. I supposed Vizzini would have refused to drink if the MIB had hesitated

** This is all explained by examining the differences between the novel and the film. The conceit of the novel is that the author is abridging a political treatise his father (who is originally from Florin) read to him when the author was young. Like the grandfather of the film, the father skipped boring parts and just read "the good stuff," and the author regularly interrupts the story to let the reader know which parts he's editing or cutting completely. The film dropped the abridgment conceit and and replaced the authorial interjections with scenes between the boy and his grandfather. The grandfather was likely aged up because the original telling would have been in the late 30's/early 40's, when Goldman was a child. The modern day portions of the film take place in 1987, over a generation later. A 40 something in 1973 can have an immigrant father without issue, but they decided to make it a grandfather to a boy in the 80's.