Line #16 Headscratchers/Babe


1	* A pig touchingly saves himself from the slaughterhouse... by herding sheep. Um... mustn't Hoggett have eventually slaughtered those sheep? There are wool farmers who don't slaughter sheep, but most of them are vegetarians; raising sheep and letting them die of old age is like throwing money to the wind. There's a reason we talk about "lambs to the slaughter." They all appeared sentient. [[CarnivoreConfusion What makes Babe's life so much more valuable than theirs]]?
2	** Because they have no skills to offer? Babe is useful only because he can herd sheep. If he hadn't had that ability, he would've been killed, since that was the only reason Mr. Hoggett talked his wife into having duck for Christmas instead of pork.
3	** Hoggett actually talks his wife into Christmas duck before he's aware Babe can herd. It's sort of implied that he intuited there was something special about Babe, but the excuse he gives is that they're better off waiting until they can enter his hams at the upcoming fair.
4	** The entire situation is pretty well summed up in the subplot with Ferdinand and even by Fly when Babe first arrives at the farm ("the bosses only eat stupid animals like sheep and ducks and chickens") - an animal won't be killed as long as they are perceived as useful. Dogs have a skill, therefore they aren't killed. Sheep, ducks, chickens and pigs have no skill useful to humans, therefore they are killed. At best, Hoggett sells the sheep on when they get old so the FridgeHorror aspect is someone else's responsibility. At worst, he's just like any other farmer who has absolutely no reason to suspect the animals on his farm are sentient.
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6	* What kind of ''stupid'' farmer thinks a ''pig'' can take down a sheep?
7	** One that knows what pigs are capable of? To quote The Other Wiki, "Pigs can be aggressive and pig-induced injuries are relatively common in areas where pigs are reared or where they form part of the wild or feral fauna." Pigs are omnivorous, and do remember that Farmer Hoggett wasn't in on all the conversations Babe was having with the sheep.
8	** Fun fact for ya: Pigs kill more humans each year than sharks. A sheep wouldn't be too difficult.
9	** Maybe it's just the fact that Babe is still a piglet and not fully-grown. He's like half Maa's size.
10	** Well, he was standing right over her body, with blood all over his snout. It would look pretty suspicious to me.
11	** Plus, the humans may have assumed Babe had suddenly become deranged and attacked Maa by biting her feet first, then biting her neck after she fell.
12	** Which piglets, especially domestic piglets, don't suddenly do.
13	** Its partly an AdaptationInducedPlotHole. The original book doesn't use the RuleOfCute NotAllowedToGrowUp that the film applies to Babe: by this point in the book, he's fully grown and enormous. Presumably capable of killing a sheep easily if he were so inclined.
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15	* Babe was cheating: He uses the password for his own benefit. He's not a sheep pig. If he were he'd be able to work with those other sheep.
16	** In the book the pass-phrase is more of a Creed that all sheep know (which sums up as "Sheep aren't stupid, and are loyal to their own") that Babe uses to get their attention, and convinced them that he's nice enough to listen to, since they rightly assume that he wouldn't have been told the password if he wasn't.
17	** But isn't that still cheating? None of the other sheepdogs had the password: they had to rely on their own persuasive skills to get the sheep's attention.
18	*** Using the Sheep's Creed to signify you are trustworthy and having the sheep willingly follow you, rather than being frightened into performing the routine, isn't against the rules. If any of the other sheepdogs had ''just asked'' (which they could have done, kind of a point of the film), they might have had the same advantage. And if sheep and dogs had developed a mutual understanding for a while, ALL the dogs would perform a flawless match, and the whole competition would quickly break down into a sham, if it existed at all. Why would it need to, if all a dog needed to do to herd sheep is ask? Time will tell if Babe's advantage will spread out and change the world, but, in this case, think of it a bit like ''Ender's Game''. Babe broke the mold that had dictated the role of dogs and sheep for as long as any of them knew, but unlike ''Ender's Game'', Babe is a children's movie, and It's all just good fun.
19	** Maybe Babe didn't use the Password to get the Sheep to do what he said. Maybe he just used it to get them to finally open up and talk to him, before winning them over on his own merits.
20	** [[AnimalAthleteLoophole Ain't no rule says a pig can't have a pleasant conversation with a sheep to get them to perform a task]]. Heck, ain't no rule that says a ''dog'' can't have a nice pleasant conversation with a sheep to convince them to do the tasks either; it's just that the dogs consider themselves superior to sheep so don't deign to ask, and the sheep don't trust the dogs so don't deign to tell. And most importantly, the ''reason'' there's no rule is because the humans don't know that pigs, sheep and / or dogs can talk to each other. So no, it's not cheating, because it's not against the rules.
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22	* This has always bugged me... so the animals are sentient and can talk. The humans aren´t exactly aware of this, which is why there is no problem with killing a sentient pig and eat it. After all, you don´t know that it is sentient. But... can´t this be considered CarnivoreConfusion? Humans are basically eating a sentient creature, albeit unknowingly. Now, we know that Esme and Arthur love animals and treat the ones at their farm well... which is why it can be a little out-of-character to see them making plans for Christmas dinner considering the circumstances (again, they DON´T KNOW,but...). I wish to know if this can be considered CarnivoreConfusion.
23	** Well, to some degree many of these animals are sentient to an extent. We know now that pigs, for example, are among the most intelligent animals and have a certain level of self-awareness, like dogs and cats. Horses too. In some countries they hunt dolphins and eat them, so is kind of complicated even in real life.
24	** Even in real life, many farmers may care about and treat their animals well, while at the same time not having any qualms about killing and eating them, or at least being able to set their affections aside for the sake of needing to eat. Nothing out of character about it, it's just a different way of looking at things (though it's understandably difficult to wrap one's head around if you don't have a farming background).
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26	* How can getting rained on make someone go deaf anyway?
27	** Rex wasn't just "getting rained on"; he was caught in a flash flood that raised waters high enough to drown an entire group of full-grown sheep (who normally stand higher than dogs anyway). It's also stated that Rex himself was more than half-dead by the time he was found so presumably he'd spent quite a bit of time under water himself. Not being an expert in canine biology, I'd nevertheless imagine that the kind of pressure that amount of water would have put on a dog's eardrums (and I'm assuming champion sheepdogs of Rex's type tend to be bred to prioritise sensitive hearing to hear the various commands) would certainly be enough to significantly damage his hearing. I do know stories of loss of hearing or even sight in ''humans'' that have almost drowned so a dog going almost completely deaf from the same experience seems believable enough.
28	** Dog's ears are awfully designed for draining liquid. After being submerged in water, Rex's ears would have been completely waterlogged. Waterlogged ears usually results in an infection, an infection usually results in damage to the inner ear, and damage to the inner ear inevitably results in deafness.

Context Headscratchers / Babe