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1'''New entries go at the bottom.'''
2[[foldercontrol]]
3!!Pinocchio paradox
4
5[[folder:Is "Something Supernatural Will Happen to My Nose" a Lie?]]
6* Pinocchio says, "Something supernatural is about to happen to my nose." What happens?
7** His nose becomes shorter.
8** His nose turns green.
9** Depends on if he's already told a lie. If he hadn't, then nothing supernatural was happening at that moment. It would be happening immediately after he lied.
10** Can you lie about something that hasn't happened yet? Even if you say something you don't ''intend'' to follow through on, there's always the possibility that you could change your mind about it later. When Pinocchio said, "I'm gonna become an actor," but then backed out of it later on, his nose didn't grow at all.
11** If he believes it when he says it, it's not a lie, even if it turns out to be wrong.
12[[/folder]]
13
14[[folder:Do Misinformed Statements Count as Lies?]]
15* If, hypothetically, Pinocchio said: "God does not exist," would his nose grow? Does his nose grow when he *knows* what he's saying is a lie, or if he speaks a lie, regardless of his knowledge about it?
16** Saying something that you don't know is true or not isn't telling a lie.
17** Lying and being mistaken are not the same thing. His nose would probably grow if he gave a definitive answer to any question he didn't know the answer to, because he would be lying about his level of knowledge, but it wouldn't grow based on whether the answer was correct.
18*** But what if the person still THINKS they are lying, even if [[AccidentalTruth their lie turns out to be a truth]]? Would his nose still grow?
19** People generally lie to cover their own ass, so I agree with the above poster. You can't lie about the existence of God unless you've actually spoken with Him face-to-face in some supernatural encounter and then afterward said he does not exist.
20*** In the early chapters of the original novel, Pinocchio's nose grows when he is in stressful situations that do not involve lying. This supports the covering-his-behind theory.
21** For that matter, could you use him to further academic research? Like, if you asked him to say "the Riemann hypothesis is correct" and then checked to see if his nose grew or not. Or, hell, can you use him to help determine policy decisions? "Will policy x lead to desired result y? Please answer yes or no."
22** I imagine Pinocchio's lie-detecting nose is based on whether or not he thinks he's lying. So, if you told him, 'Pinocchio, two and two make five', and he believed you, then later on if you asked him what two plus two is, and he said, 'five', his nose wouldn't grow because he wouldn't know he was lying. It wouldn't predict the future or anything like that.
23** Depends on if he believes in God.
24** The entire universe explodes.
25** Why don't we just settle this by saying that Pinocchio's nose will only grow when he's deliberately lying in order to get himself out of trouble, and that nothing happens to it unless that's what's going on? The point of his nose growing was to help teach him the difference between right and wrong, not to try and break the rules of logic or prove or disprove metaphysical theories or ideologies.
26** In the film, at least, it's established that Pinoke's nose only grows if he's knowingly and willingly lying about something. There is at least one point where he misinterprets something someone said to him, and his nose doesn't change at all.
27[[/folder]]
28
29[[folder:The Liar Paradox]]
30* What if Pinocchio says, "[[LogicBomb I am lying]]"?
31** His nose grows in reverse and stabs him in the brain.
32** Alternatively, [[YourHeadAsplode his nose explodes]] [[NightmareFuel and splinters fly everywhere.]]
33** Magic noses don't care about math. Humans ''can'' believe A^-A without their head exploding. This also lends support to the above theory that Pinocchio's nose grows only if Pinocchio himself thinks he says a lie. The above foul tricks didn't work in the [[Literature/GodelEscherBachAnEternalGoldenBraid Achilles vs Tortoise]] duels either.
34** Nobody [[{{Pun}} knows.]]
35** According to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio_paradox#Applying_common_sense the other wiki]], his nose would not grow.
36[[/folder]]
37
38[[folder:What if Pinocchio Played a Liar?]]
39* What if Pinocchio did become an actor and said lines from a script portraying a lying character?
40** I don't know.
41** My guess would be nothing because it's a "Play" and/or fictional thing. Like how as a kid when you played with others, you would say stuff like "I'm a fireman" or "I'm Batman" despite being neither a qualified fireman nor a superhero. That wasn't lying so much as it was pretending and playing. So in a context like that, if Pinocchio was in a theatre play and had to "lie", it would fall under "playing" since there is a pretense of make believe.
42[[/folder]]
43
44[[folder:Is "You're Not My Father" a Lie?]]
45* What if Pinocchio says to Geppetto ''You're not my father!''.
46** "Father" has more definitions than just "male person who biologically sires a child". It also refers to a male caregiver who raises the child in a close capacity, a definition which Geppetto's relationship satisfies. And even if we were talking from a strictly biological perspective, I wouldn't be surprised if the Blue Fairy gave the real-boy version of Pinnocchio DNA that could be traced back to Geppetto in a genetics test, and might've even done the same for herself, as his "mother" figure.
47** Does he believe it or is he just trying to get a rise out of Geppetto? If it's the latter, his nose grows.
48[[/folder]]
49
50[[folder:Do White Lies Count?]]
51* What if Pinocchio is lying for a noble reason, like to keep others out of trouble (For example, if he lied to an enemy wanting to know where someone else was hiding)? Will his nose still grow then?
52** That's a good question. I can't think of an instance in the film where this would apply, but the Blue Fairy's goal was for Pinocchio to learn the value of being brave and unselfish, as well as truthful. Perhaps lying in order to protect someone you care about satisfies the first two qualities to such a degree that they overshadow the part about it not being completely honest.
53** Although it might also depend on what the person he's covering for was responsible for or why he's trying to stay hidden. Since Pinnocchio's nose only grows when he lies to get himself out of trouble, maybe if he were trying to keep someone else from getting into trouble, that wouldn't satisfy any of the requirements because he isn't doing the right thing. But if he was keeping their secret from someone who wanted them for malevolent reasons (like the Coachman, as an example), his nose wouldn't grow because he's trying to keep them safe from wrongful harm.
54[[/folder]]
55
56[[folder:Do Written Lies Count?]]
57* Would written lies cause Pinocchio's nose to grow, even if he didn't actually say it verbally?
58** I suppose it depends on whether he intended to deceive someone with the lie. In which case, his nose might start to grow as he wrote it down, or it would wait until someone read the message.
59[[/folder]]
60
61[[folder:Does it Count if They Don't Know?]]
62* Could Pinocchio ever lie to someone without the other person knowing it? What if the other person couldn't actually see him, like say if he were lying over the telephone or sending a message of lies?
63** The growth of his nose seems to be a punishment for Pinocchio specifically, making him feel ashamed of it. And the Blue Fairy seemed to already know how he had ended up in Stromboli's cage, so it doesn't seem to be meant as an indication of whether he's lying, so much as incentive for him not to.
64[[/folder]]
65
66!!Disney movie
67
68[[folder:Belated Drowning]]
69* Pinocchio spends a decent chunk of the movie walking underwater with no ill effects. Then he drowns.
70** He doesn't drown. He died of the fatigue of being CHASED BY A GIANT WHALE. That, and he might have hit his little wooden head on the rocks or something.
71*** He did get washed up on the beach, perhaps all the massive waves crashing around and battering his body knocked him out?
72*** The waves knocked him against the rocks and gave him severe brain damage?
73*** But if that's the case, does that mean Pinocchio's brain is made of soft meat like a real boy? Did that act of courage start to change him just as he hit his head?
74*** Did Pinocchio actually die or did he just get knocked unconscious? I'd find it hard to believe a wooden puppet could actually die the same way a human could.
75*** Oh trust me, he did die.
76*** But he came back to life.
77*** Well, there was this one book that heavily implied Pinocchio died from the exhaustion of the chase. But since it's a retelling of the film, it may not be canon.
78** Pinocchio was half-donkey when he escaped from Pleasure Island. Maybe he was still continuing to change, but the process had slowed down considerably the further he got from the island. When he was wandering around underwater, he was still puppet enough to not need air, but by the time they all escaped from Monstro, he had finally become donkey enough to drown.
79*** But... But Pinocchio was made of WOOD. How did a piece of wood catch whatever disease was floating around Pleasure Island? Or is the donkey transformation a form of dark magic, anathema to the Blue Fairy's benevolent transformation magic?
80*** That's another question entirely. See below for some answers.
81*** How many non-magical diseases do you know of that turn people into donkeys?
82** Most likely he was either crushed by falling rocks when Monstro crashed into the cliff side or else the force of the crash flung him into the tide pool and he hit his head.
83** The book says that Pinocchio changed ''completely'' into a donkey and even performed in a circus. But when he was injured, the circus sold him off to someone who just wanted a donkey skin and threw him into the sea to drown him. Instead, the fish ate his donkey body and left him as he was before.
84[[/folder]]
85
86[[folder:Why Not Adopt a Son?]]
87* I know this is pendantic but...if Geppetto wanted a son, why didn't he just go to a nearby orphanage and request the caretakers to bring him a boy for him to adopt?
88** Two reasons: He was old. And what if said real boy [[BrattyHalfPint was a brat]]? Geppetto wanted to make his own son the way he envisioned him. Plus, you don't have to feed and clothe a puppet so there's that bonus!
89** Maybe he wasn't rich enough.
90*** Gepetto didn't seem particularly poor. He had a nice cozy cottage/shop in the city. Did you see that FoodPorn meal he set out for his family when he was waiting for Pinocchio to come home? He was also able to afford a small ship for his trip out to sea.
91** Back then having adoption rights took more than money. Usually only married couples could adopt because if was believed that orphans needed both a mother AND a father for proper development in a household upbringing. Geppetto is also quite old, and probably wouldn't live long enough to see said child (depending on how old said child was) become an adult. Being old and single may have made it impossible for him to have adoption rights back then even if he had the money.
92** "Well I was going to go-a to the orphanage in da morning, but the Blue Fairy brought my little Wooden Head to life and save-a me a trip! MUSIC PROFESSOR!"
93** He might have if ''someone'' [[HumorMode didn't take them all to Pleasure Island.]]
94** Also, who's to say that the little village Gepetto lives in even has an orphanage.
95** It's not so much that Gepetto wanted a son, he just loved how his latest puppet creation turned out lifelike (he tells Figaro that "He almost looks alive") and envisioned Pinocchio as a real boy. He probably never thought it would actually happen, but he made a wish upon a star, and one thing lead to another. We can also assume Gepetto designed Pinocchio to look like the son he always dreamed of. Some people like to visualize how their future children will look.
96[[/folder]]
97
98[[folder:One Expensive Puppet]]
99* Why was the coachman willing to pay so much for Pinocchio?
100** It wasn't Pinocchio specifically; the coachman was using that sack of gold to wow Honest John into finding some boys for him. Sort of a "You think that's good payment? Work for me and you'll get THIS!" deal. Honest John finding Pinocchio for this purpose was pure coincidence.
101*** Okay, but then why was he willing to pay that much for ''anybody''? Does selling a donkey really bring him more money than that sack of gold?
102*** [[AmbiguouslyHuman One possibility is that he is a supernatural figure]] (which would explain why there are roller coasters in the 19th (?) century), so it's not really about doing business for him.
103*** The roller coaster isn't the headscratcher. That would be the Ferris wheel, which was invented after the book's publication. Course, this is the Disney movie we're talking about....
104*** There's no reason to assume the offer was a sack of gold for one boy. A sack for a hundred, now that's plausible.
105*** For that matter, it's very possible that not ''all'' the coins are actual gold; there's probably more than a few gilded lead ones in there. Why shouldn't the Coachman cheat a cheater?
106** He also never said he would pay him the entire bag. That seemed to be the implication, but he never promised Honest John the whole bag.
107** This is effectively answered right at the end of the scene (after the NightmareFace) if you listen carefully enough. The Coachman grabs Honest John and Gideon and starts giving them instructions, including the lines "Any good prospects you can find, bring them to me. I'll pay you well. I've got plenty of gold". In other words, Honest John and Gideon were to bring him ''any'' boys they could find, not just Pinocchio, with the implication that they'll be paid per child. For all we know, Honest John and Gideon could potentially be responsible for sourcing every single boy who was on that particular trip. The bag of gold the Coachman plonked on the table was likely just to act as an incentive rather than being a promised salary, since at the start of the scene Honest John was obviously shooting his mouth off about he and Gideon tricking Pinocchio, likely leading to the Coachman figuring they'd be perfect to act as kidnappers for him and knew John would go for the gold since he had just been gloating about Stromboli paying him "plenty" (which was just a tiny bag of clearly only a few coins).
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Where Did the Performers Go?]]
111* What happened to all those performers working for Stromboli? You know, the ones controlling the puppets and doing their voices.
112** They were probably in one of the other wagons, and continued on with Stromboli to do shows in other places.
113[[/folder]]
114
115[[folder:Unattended Child]]
116* Why did Geppetto let a naive wooden boy go out on his own when he didn't even know how to get to the school? Seems like he never would have gotten into any trouble if he hadn't have a criminally negligent parent.
117** The man is pretty absent-minded, so maybe it just didn't occur to him. Also, maybe he assumed Pinocchio would just follow the other kids who were heading off towards the school as well.
118*** Pretty much this. All the other children were running to school without parents, so it's probably just how it's done (particularly if the village is as small as it seems).
119** The kid was [[IgnorantAboutFire burning off his own finger]] and not even feeling it the night before, and the very next morning he sends him off all alone? Yeah, negligent is putting it mildly. Also note that Gepetto is not at all worried about his wooden son starting a fire inside Monstro, by smashing a lantern onto a pile of wood no less.
120** Why are you jumping straight to "criminally negligent"? First off, the idea of "stranger danger" wasn't really a thing until the 1980s - it wasn't extraordinary in the slightest for children to walk to school on their own, especially when there were other children doing the same.[[note]]Not that stealing kids off the street or out of their front yards or bedrooms was unheard of before that, viz. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Paroubek Elsie Paroubek]], the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping Lindbergh baby]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Ross Charley Ross]] or the monstrous "adoption agency" of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tann Georgia Tann]]: but FreeRangeChildren was still acceptable generally until the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Adam_Walsh Adam Walsh murder]] in 1981, followed by [[Series/AmericasMostWanted his father's massive publicity campaign]], followed by the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic.[[/note]] And second, this is literally Gepetto's first day as a parent. He's got absolutely nothing to go off of in terms of knowledge or experience.
121[[/folder]]
122
123[[folder:Little Wooden... Stomach?]]
124* How can Pinocchio eat/digest food if he has no internal organs due to being a puppet?
125** [[AWizardDidIt A Fairy Did It]]
126** Or wood golems, being plant-based, could digest the same way as the overgrown Venus fly-trap [[Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors Audrey II]]: "Feed me, Gepetto!"
127** He has wooden internal organs.
128** For that matter why is it treated as such a big deal that Pinocchio starts smoking and drinking on Pleasure Island? I mean as a puppet he doesn't have real lungs, liver, or a cardiovascular system so those things shouldn't hurt him right? I can understand the lesson they're trying to push and Disney not wanting a main character to smoke/drink but it's still kinda silly.
129*** Cigars and alcohol could still affect his wooden body in negative ways. Heck, [[FridgeBrilliance wouldn't he be MORE at risk than a flesh boy when around open flame and booze?]]
130*** Plus, he's trying to prove himself virtuous and good so that he can become a real boy, and the Blue Fairy let on earlier that she might even take away the life she'd given him if he failed spectacularly at doing so.
131[[/folder]]
132
133[[folder:Needing Air or Not]]
134* Did it bug anyone else when they were under the ocean, Jiminy got caught in a bubble, and tried to keep his head above water as it filled up with water... but they were breathing water the whole time??
135** RuleOfFunny. That's literally the only reason for that tiny part of the movie to exist, to make a joke out of the whole breathing underwater thing and to [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade]] it as well. "Yes, we are aware it doesn't make sense for Jiminy to be breathing underwater. Deal with it."
136[[/folder]]
137
138[[folder:Cut the Kid Some Slack!]]
139* What's with the Blue Fairy lecturing and essentially torturing Pinocchio for "lying" about what how he ended up in Stromboli's cage? On his ''first day of existence'', he had been conned, kidnapped, and sold into slavery. If a, say, 5-year-old child were abducted and put in a similar situation on their first day of school, and in terror made up a story like what he said, would your first inclination be to lecture them about lying, while mutilating their body? Considering Gideon and Foulfellow probably would have used violence if Pinocchio had not consented, what he was saying was not that far off from the truth. Yes, it's meant to be [[AnAesop a moral for the audience]], but in context that scene is actually pretty disturbing. Unlike in the book, there is no indication that Pinocchio is actually guilty of the vices he has to "overcome", or of anything other than naivete.
140** Pinocchio even refers to Honest John and Gideon as "two big monsters". From his point of view, that could be what they were!
141*** Doubtful, given that when he encounters them again he isn't particularly fearful of them.
142*** This is why his nose doesn't actually start growing until he says, "With big green eyes." Also, you can [[BadLiar tell from the tone in his voice]] that he's lying.
143*** He does innocently misrepresent the things he heard Stromboli say when repeating them to Jiminy -- "He said he was going to push me in everybody's eyes! And-and because I'm a gold mine, he's going to chop me into firewood!" -- and we didn't see his nose grow at all, which demonstrates there's a difference between genuinely misinterpreting something and actually lying to get out of trouble.
144** She clearly felt she had to get through to him about the importance of honesty somehow, and the growth of his nose isn't shown to be painful, but it is awkward and embarrassing, leaving him in tears. She fixes him after he promises to try to do better.
145** She doesn't do the nose thing because Pinocchio screwed up, she does it because ''he's trying to cover his own ass'' by lying about how he ended up in that situation. He knows that he's there because he ignored Jiminy and didn't do what he was supposed to, but he tries to claim that he was kidnapped, thus getting the fairy to help him without ever admitting that he did anything wrong. The nose deal was to get him to realize that he has to take responsibility for his actions. If he would've said, "I ignored my conscience and skipped school to become a famous actor" the fairy would probably have opened the cage for him without messing with his face.
146** There's also the fact that the Blue Fairy ''does'' give him multiple opportunities to either back out of the lie or at least bring it back to something closer to the truth and each time he doubles down, not the least of which is just before the final "growth" where she ''outright asks him'' if he was lying to her and he continues to deny it despite the consequence of doing so almost literally staring him in the face. As she tells him herself: "a lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face". Pinocchio has, by that point, already expressed an understanding that he's partly to blame for his situation by not doing as he was told and going off with Honest John instead of going to school; his lies are simply about him ''trying to escape potential consequences from an authority figure'', and in the process he ''again'' goes against Jiminy's advice to tell the Blue Fairy the truth (which means he's going against the overarching moral of "always let your conscience be your guide"). It's not about a young traumatised child innocently trying to interpret something they aren't fully able to understand. If you listen to his voice and watch his expressions as he's lying, it quickly becomes obvious that he's enjoying doing it on some level while he thinks he's getting away with it; it's not until his nose becomes totally unwieldy that he breaks down and admits his lies. The moral of the encounter is a joint one: lies will always be found out one way or another, and you can't escape the consequences of your own actions by trying to lie about it.
147[[/folder]]
148
149[[folder:Murder < Kidnapping?!]]
150* Minor one, Honest John has no qualms towards murder, but is reluctant to send boys to an illegal island? Huhh??
151** Killing grown adults is one thing. [[WouldHurtAChild Killing innocent little children]] (or hurting them, or luring them away from home so you can sell them into slavery) is another. This type of conduct isn’t uncommon even with real criminals — just because they have dirty hands [[EvenEvilHasStandards doesn’t mean]] they want to see, partake in, or tolerate children being harmed. It’s why those that do are always the dregs of the prison caste system.
152*** I wasn't questioning Honest John's morality, but his concern over law. The guy is a [[ConMan CON-ARTIST]] fox who deceives, kidnaps, and apparently murders. If none of those things got him criminal charges, what's to worry about sending a bunch of wayward children to some off-limits island?
153*** And Honest John has already proven he has no qualms toward selling children into slavery when he just sold Pinocchio to Stromboli. (Maybe a living puppet counts as an exception, but still..)
154** Murder is just something Honest John knows how to get away with scot-free. Sending hundreds of rebellious kids to an illegal island, not so much.
155** When the Coachman brings up the topic of taking the boys to Pleasure Island, Honest John's protest isn't that it's wrong but concern over the possibility of the boys blabbing about Honest John & the Coachman bringing them there to which the Coachman responds that it isn't a problem because the kids never come back as boys. So Honest John's issue with the whole scheme isn't due to the morality or legality of it but rather the risk of them being caught. It's simple enough to get away with murder if you do properly & leave no witnesses however expecting a bunch of rambunctious young boys who are known for not following the rules to keep their mouths shut about the whole thing is a different pill for Honest John to swallow hence the Coachman reassuring otherwise.
156** Yet even after the coachman reassures him, he and Gideon are still terrified by the prospect when he says they won't come back as boys. (His NightmareFace sure didn't help matters either) John probably just mentioned the law so as not to look morally concerned.
157** John is against kidnapping because he knows that while a murder can be covered up and dismissed without concern by the people the sudden disappearance of a bunch of children frequently results in the law coming to sniff about especially if one of those kidnapped children is the child of someone important and has the means and determination to find them or bring their abductors to justice. John knows that while he might wiggle out of a murder charge with his head on if caught, the same would not be said for kidnapping a count’s son by mistake.
158[[/folder]]
159
160[[folder:Last Boys Standing]]
161* Why are Lampwick and Pinocchio the last victims of the Donkey transformation curse? It seems hours or at least one hour has passed since the rest of the kids turned into donkeys. So why did it take so long to affect Pinocchio and Lampwick?
162** Maybe some simultaneous virtue slows down the curse. Lampwick was acting friendly to Pinocchio while most rebellious kids would bully him (he's made of wood you know, and this is a chapter of history where even adults would shun a talking puppet.) Pinocchio himself was insecure about doing rebellious things (especially since he vowed to go straight after being released from Stromboli's cage but at the same time, wanted to have fun with his new friend). Obviously neither one of these virtues prevented the infamous transformation, but they did delay them for a significant amount of time.
163*** One could also say it’s because of what they were actually doing the whole time as being made of wood Pinocchio would naturally avoid anything that could actually get him or others hurt so things like rough housing or vandalism would be out of the question and Lampwick might’ve also been nice enough not to leave Pinocchio alone and very vulnerable to attack by the other more violent boys. Which meant that they most likely avoided the worst of the bunch as when Pinocchio asked what happened to the others it’s clear that the 2 had separated and gone off on their own sometime prior thus had no one egging them on into doing even more self-destructive activities. This is also based in a time period where for many people water was often contaminated to where there were frequent and often deadly widespread outbreaks of waterborne illnesses like Cholera so it was actually safer to drink alcohol even children over the age of 5 were allowed to drink it granted it was weaker alcohol than what the adults drank but better than poisoned water. Smoking was heavily frowned on by society for a number of reasons but was never officially made illegal. More over Pinocchio and Lampwick are just playing pool which as long as there was no actual gambling involved was seen as being relatively harmless.
164[[/folder]]
165
166[[folder:How Does Pinocchio Learn to Talk?]]
167* How does Pinocchio pick up the ability to speak language from the first minute after he is alive?
168** The same way he picks up being able to move around without muscles, can smoke, and gets intoxicated (and can actually drink ''period'') despite being made of wood. AWizardDidIt.
169** This is a case of something we'd have to set aside. A wooden puppet boy manages to act like a regular human being despite having no muscles or internal organs to help him digest or anything. We may as well argue why in ''Star Fox'', there are humanoid animals piloting starcrafts. It's a part of the story.
170** He has a wooden brain and larynx.
171** Well, this isn't just a case of simply ''saying'', "a wizard did it" as a hand-wave. A fairy really ''did'' do it. If she's magic and can bring him to life, then it's not implausible that she'd be able to make him talk too.
172[[/folder]]
173
174[[folder:Fairy Inconsistent]]
175* So, after releasing Pinocchio from the cage, the Blue Fairy said she can no longer help him.... then later flies down to drop him a note that tells him the whereabouts of his father?
176** Maybe she meant "helping him" in terms of direct supernatural intervention (i.e. her magic). Informing someone where their "[[TrulySingleParent father]]" is (depending) usually is a mundane thing, VoluntaryShapeshifting notwithstanding...
177** Really she was just giving him a tip - after all, Pinocchio had no idea where to go.
178** She clearly meant "help him" as in "let him out of trouble he'd gotten himself into".
179[[/folder]]
180
181[[folder:There's No Risk... or Is There?]]
182* "There's no risk! They ain't ever come back, as BOYS!!" Sinister plot Coachman, but contrary to what you just said, there is a risk! What would happen if some the boys you brought to Pleasure Island didn't turn into donkeys? Even rebellious kids can have moral standards. Pinocchio was only there because of Honest John's manipulation (which he tried harder to resist this time). Had he not befriended Lampwick (or any other boys), he probably wouldn't have grown those ears and tail. Pleasure Island also has amusement park rides, nothing ethically taboo about those. (At least today.) Free food and drinks: Any orphan or homeless kid would go for that alone. And I kind of doubt that destroying property is considered vandalism if the landlord approves.
183** For one, supplemental material hints that being on the island is all it takes to induce the transformation. For two, the Coachman hints that he’s not doing this just to make money, but that he has some moral standards and a sense of karmic justice to him — he does say that he’s collecting the kinds of “stupid little boys” who play hooky from school and generally cause trouble and mischief. It could be that he would recognize when someone isn’t on the island to cause trouble, if he would even let them come there to begin with. For three, are you saying you would thoughtlessly vandalize a piece of property just because someone tells you it’s okay? What if they don’t actually own the property? (I realize the Coachman seemingly did in this case, but the children didn’t have any reservations about wrecking it, which is the point of the matter.)
184*** A background voice says, "Model home is open for destruction. And it's all yours boys!" That line alone makes vandalism acceptable. Granted it's obviously not the kind of behavior to that can be tolerated under most circumstances, but in this case it is.
185*** That does not invalidate the earlier point. Just because someone says it's a model home and it's okay to tear it apart, doesn't mean it's actually true. (Even though, in this case, we can presume that the Coachman did own it.) We're clearly supposed to assume that the kids are vandalizing the model home because it's something they would normally partake in anyway, not because they're classifying it as okay in this specific instance. That they allegedly won't get punished for it is just a bonus to them. And you're acting as though the Coachman is framed as some righteous deliverer of justice who fairly punishes naughty children, when he's clearly supposed to be seen as wicked and vile even if we take the kids' transgressions into account.
186*** I still don't get where this is going, especially since it's already been addressed (twice even) that the Coachman ''owns the property'' and gave kids ''permission'' to destroy it. It may not be morally appropriate, but it's not illegal under those circumstances. (I'm probably thinking about this in terms of legal standards instead of ethical standards, but my point still stands.) If you hire someone to paint your house, do you charge them with graffiti afterwards? Similar principle applies here.
187** 1.) Just because it may not be illegal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. I don’t know about anyone else, but I wouldn’t destroy a model home just because the owner told me I could. Do you know how many homeless people a house like that could support? 2.) The Coachman spells out to us that he specifically targets the type of stupid, naughty little boys who skip school and cause trouble as they are. They didn’t need an excuse or justification for destroying the house; they were just more inclined to do so this time because they were told they couldn’t get in trouble. 3.) Even if we brush all of that aside, I’m not even sure where you’re coming from. You seem to be trying to argue that the Coachman isn’t a good person because of what he did to the kids, when he’s clearly not supposed to be seen as a good person already! The kids were wrong for misbehaving while on the island, but the Coachman was also in the wrong because he doled out excessively harsh and cruel punishments.
188** Probably it wasn't being naughty that made them turn into donkeys, so much as being on the island. Being naughty might have sped up the transformation, but it would've happened to them eventually regardless of morality.
189[[/folder]]
190
191[[folder:Pinocchio's Knowledge of Fire and Sneezing]]
192* Even if we can assume Pinocchio observed a lot of the results from all the smoking on Pleasure Island, whales obviously have a different respiratory system. So how did Pinoc figure that smoke from a large fire would make Monstro sneeze him and Gepetto out?
193** Seeing as he's a naive kid, he probably doesn't know enough about whale anatomy to realise that they don't work like humans.
194*** Then again considering that not many people even in the 1940s knew the anatomy of whales and other aquatic mammals in general the animators and scriptwriters were just stuck in a “we got him in there now how do we get him out” conundrum and just went with the most simple solution.
195[[/folder]]
196
197[[folder:Why Bring the Pets?]]
198* Why did Gepetto bring Figaro and Cleo with him to look for Pinocchio? I can understand Figaro might have followed at his own accord, but why is Cleo there? Wouldn't looking for a kid be hard enough without dragging pets around?
199** Gepetto brought them along because he didn't want them to starve in case he was gone for a month.
200*** Even if he could leave them with someone he could trust not to do them harm said person might not want to return them after Gepetto returned, more over if word got around that an old man with a goldfish and a black and white kitten was searching for someone named Pinocchio, Pinocchio would be able to easily find them.
201[[/folder]]
202
203[[folder:Will Figaro Grow Up Anthro?]]
204* Figaro is a [[IntellectualAnimal non-anthropomorphic]], black and white kitten (normal animal or IntellectualAnimal depending on his appearances) and Gideon is a light brown, [[TheSpeechless mute]], FunnyAnimal cat. If Figaro were an adult cat, [[AnthropomorphicShift would he be a]] FunnyAnimal like Gideon or [[VideoGame/EpicMickey Ortensia]], a CivilizedAnimal like [[WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers Fat Cat]], an AnimalTalk type Talking Animal with CivilizedAnimal moments like WesternAnimation/TheAristocats, a TalkingAnimal like [[WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland The Cheshire Cat]], an AnimalTalk type TalkingAnimal like [[WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}} Mittens]] or [[WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp Si and Am]], an IntellectualAnimal like Lucifer from {{WesternAnimation/Cinderella}} or a normal animal like Fluffy from ''WesternAnimation/HandyManny''?
205** Probably just an IntellectualAnimal like the fish. Whether he uses AnimalTalk depends on the viewer, since some animals (like [[WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry Tom]]) vary between TheSpeechless and a TalkingAnimal DependingOnTheAuthor. On one hand, he doesn't show any signs of becoming anything else when WesternAnimation/MinnieMouse owns him, so he could be full-grown but of a small breed. On the other hand, ComicBookTime. Anyway, if he was the kitten form of a FunnyAnimal like Foulfellow or Gideon, that would have the UnfortunateImplications of {{Funny Animal}}s being considered saves or pets, since Gepetto treats him like a pet instead of a child and doesn't consider him to be a candidate for sonhood.
206** He's clearly not going to grow up to be a FunnyAnimal, since if he was, he'd still be bipedal and either be talking or babbling and wearing a diaper.
207[[/folder]]
208
209[[folder:Why Not Save the Other Boys?]]
210* Wait a minute... Why can't the Blue Fairy help all those kids who were donkeyfied?
211** They never wished upon a star.
212** They didn't have a conscience.
213*** To break up the funny comments:
214---> 1. Despite being very powerful, the Blue Fairy can't be everywhere at once. She had to come down from the sky to help Pinocchio (except for the end, but she might've gone by the shop and gone back to the sky)
215---> 2. Who says she didn't eventually? Just because we never see it doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just isn't relevant to Pinocchio's story (like showing whether or not Gideon, Honest John, or the Coachman ever are punished)
216---> 3. Pinocchio is an unusual case, being created from wood, by the Blue Fairy herself. It may be the case that fully human children have different types of guardians, (angels?). Maybe the others are set free another way.
217** One theory about the Coachman is that he's sort of the Blue Fairy's opposite number. Whereas the Fairy rewards good deeds, the Coachman punished bad ones. So the two basically don't interfere with each other's work, or are forbidden from doing so. And while Pinocchio is essentially innocent, and keeps screwing up because he is naive, trusting, and inexperienced, the other boys knew what they were doing is wrong. Not that this justifies [[DisproportionateRetribution what happens to them]].
218** The Blue Fairy doesn't just hand out miracles for free; she only granted Geppetto's wish because she says he deserved it for bringing so much happiness to others. As she tells Pinocchio, "A boy who won't be good might just as well be made of wood." It may be harsh, but no one forced the kids to go to Pleasure Island. They ended up in that predicament of their own volition.
219** Adding to the above, the Blue Fairy actually places a lot of emphasis on learning that actions and decisions will have consequences: good acts have good consequences, bad acts have bad consequences. Pinocchio's nose doesn't start growing until he intentionally begins lying specifically to get himself out of trouble, for example, and Pinocchio is only granted life in the first place because Geppetto has done enough good in his life to warrant it. And the punishments in the story all have an air of being karma taken to the literal extreme - the Blue Fairy states that a lie will keep growing until it's plain as the nose on one's face, thus Pinocchio's punishment for lying is his nose growing. Likewise, the Coachman explicitly calls the boys on the island "jackasses" and...well, that's exactly what they become. And yes, [[DisproportionateRetribution the punishment is ridiculously extreme]] but we're in firm "moral lesson" territory here; subtlety and nuance aren't going to be high on the agenda. Pinocchio was probably cut a little more slack than the others because it's literally his first day of life and he's still a fundamentally good person/puppet, just very naive and easily led; the other boys have all had anywhere between what seems to be about 8-12 years to learn to be good and still all clearly chose to board that carriage specifically for the purpose of going to Pleasure Island presumably because they, like Lampwick, have all heard that it's a place without any authority figures (even with Foulfellow and Gideon presumably tempting them, we're never given the slightest indication that any of them were there for reasons other than their own free will). Sure, they regret it later but, sad and horrifying as it is, it was their own choices that led each and every one of them there.
220[[/folder]]
221
222[[folder:How Does Monstro Breathe?]]
223* How can Monstro be sleeping at the bottom of the ocean? He's a mammal! Even as a kid that confused me. (For some reason, Jiminy's SuperNotDrowningSkills didn't, though.)
224** He was just resting after a gulp of air (and presumably, a good meal).
225** He was faking. Note that he opens his eyes as soon as a school of fish swims by, implying that he was laying in ambush for a meal.
226** Monstro's also a sperm whale. This species can survive at incredible depths for up to 6 hours. Pinocchio was only taken to Pleasure Island the night before. So it's probably only been a few hours since Monstro swallowed Geppetto's boat.
227*** But before Monstro awoke, Gepetto said that they hadn’t got a bite (caught any fish) for days.
228** This is a movie that has a cricket who looks like a little man with an egg for a head and cats and foxes who interact with humans. A whale who can sleep on the bottom of the ocean is pretty normal by comparison.
229[[/folder]]
230
231[[folder:Why Not Pretend to Be Speechless?]]
232* Why didn't the donkeys who could still talk ''pretend'' they couldn't when the coachmen was checking them vocalization (by simply asking what their names were). Then when they were taken to the circus or farm, they could tell people about Pleasure Island and have people come and stop the coachman.
233** They are still children. Completely freaked out children, unable to think ahead. They might have thought that, if they could still answer to their names, they could have the donkey transformation reverted, or maybe receive a more compassionate treatment. Of course they are wrong.
234** This question would have been better suited for the teenage boys that were turned into donkeys, because children aren't the smartest in scary situations.
235** Even if one of the talking donkeys had escaped, that doesn't mean the entire scheme would be discovered, since the children presumably don't know where the island is or even who the Coachman is. Not even that, but the Coachman describes the Pleasure Island sham as though it's something he only recently started or a temporary thing. He could have moved on to another scheme by the time any of the talking donkeys were discovered.
236** Panic. Considering these are young children who just had the world turned upside down by a maniacal villain, they probably had a hard time thinking straight enough to come up with a plan. Alternately, maybe some of them did try it and their new owners didn't care and [[HumansAreBastards either kept them for labor or showed them off for money.]] I can imagine the situation for the talking donkeys would be similar to Stromboli and Pinocchio, "Work for me and get some good food, lodgings and become famous. Get too uppity or complain and I'll be having some donkey stew." The Coachman probably sells the talking donkeys to people whom he knows won't care about where they came from as long they get rich.
237** The Coachman can probably tell the difference between a donkey who can't talk and one who's holding his tongue to hide the fact that he can. Since it's implied that being on the island is all it takes to induce the transformation, all he has to do is keep them locked up in a pen until all vestiges of their humanity are gone, and then crate them up and sell them.
238[[/folder]]
239
240[[folder:Why Not Buy Real Donkeys?]]
241* This was brought up in a tongue-in-cheek article on io9, but what exactly is the business plan with Pleasure Island? You give kids candy and cigars and all these other temptations, and they turn into donkeys you put to work in a mine. But there are already donkeys that you can buy pretty cheap. And real donkeys are probably better behaved than little boys who were transformed because of their lack of discipline.
242** Judging by the amount of donkeys we see, and boys on the island, they make profit through the sheer amount of donkeys they sell.
243** It's entirely possible that the Coachman isn't even really human, but is instead a demon disguising itself as human. And assuming that's the case, would it be at all reasonable to assume he'd be interested in something as material and easily-lost as monetary wealth when he could get an endless emotional high out of causing misery and pain to young boys just for the pure dick factor? That's right. The Coachman is probably a demon who is psychologically tormenting boys and turning them into donkeys just to be an ass, and any money he could possibly be making is entirely just for show.
244*** The money incentivizes people like the Fox and the Cat to collect stupid little boys for him.
245*** If he is a demon, or possibly the Devil himself, then the real business of Pleasure Island is collecting souls and inflicting some torment along the way. The whole donkey/salt mines thing is incidental.
246*** In what way is he collecting souls, exactly?
247** It's important to note (because the phrasing of the question is somewhat ambiguous on this matter) that the Coachman '''isn't''' the one using the donkeys. He's selling them on after they've transformed. That's why they're all being thrown into boxes labelled "To the salt-mine" or "To the circus". Presumably, he charges fairly (since he has ''a lot'' of donkeys to sell, there's no need for him to overcharge) and never tells the folks he's selling them to exactly where the donkeys came from; for all the buyers know, these could just be regular donkeys the Coachman or an associate of his is breeding. Turning into a donkey is also serving as a belated lesson for the boys (i.e. "if you'd behaved and gone to school, didn’t disobey your elders and just followed the rules you wouldn't now be facing the prospect of working yourself to death") and judging by the time period and the places they're being sold to, their new owners likely wouldn't think twice about either selling them again or else putting them down the minute they ''didn't'' work hard and simply buying another donkey either from the Coachman again or from another source.
248[[/folder]]
249
250[[folder:Where Are Gepetto's Shoes?]]
251* Where are Geppetto's shoes when he and Pinocchio are trying to escape Monstro? They reappear when they make it home. Where'd they go?
252** Maybe Geppetto had another pair at home?
253** There is a small trunk on the raft that they use to escape Monstro. Possibly, Geppetto stored his shoes inside it so that they'd be dry for the walk home once they made it back to shore.
254[[/folder]]
255
256[[folder:The Conmen Wanted Boys, Not Puppets... Right?]]
257* Since, during the Pleasure Island sequence, Pinocchio isn't yet a "real boy," how does he end up turning into a donkey and being sold? He's still wooden, right? And boys--flesh-and-blood children--are the ones being turned into donkeys. So what's the deal here? Do Honest John and Gideon simply not care he's a puppet? (Although if you buy into the Coachman-is-a-demon theory, I suppose that's exactly what's going on).
258** I know it doesn't square with the apparently flesh-and-blood ears and tail he sprouts, but as a kid, I imagined him turning into some kind of life-size toy donkey or a rocking horse or something.
259*** Now I cant help but picture Pinocchio turning into Eeore.
260** That actually makes sense because some life-size horses or donkeys do have realistic hair, tails, or ears--or at least they used to back when the movie was made. Rocking horses in particular would have tails made from real horsehair, which you could take as FridgeHorror.
261** Would being made of wood make a difference? Pleasure Island was shown to turn bad little boys into flesh-and-blood donkeys regardless of what they started out as. We know that magic can turn wood into flesh in this setting, so it isn't a stretch that Pleasure Island was capable of it.
262*** [[YourMindMakesItReal His mind made it real]]. It's not so much the misbehavior ''itself'', but the emotion, the ''thrill'', of misbehaving that eventually turns the boys into donkeys. The idea is for the boys to get so caught up in themselves that they won't notice the transformation, but Pinocchio's own good nature made him self-aware enough to notice the transformation and stop himself at just a tail and ears.
263*** it might also have to do with whatever threshold a misbehaving boy is supposed to meet as Lampwick didn’t start transforming until after he’d spoken badly about Jiminy and the reason Pinocchio was the last one affected was because he DID notice and stopped first smoking and then drinking which lowered his level of misbehavior (moreover he never actually insulted or dismissed Jiminy), followed by his honesty and immediate reaction to his laugh at Lampwick’s initial new appearance turning into a bray (he immediately covered his mouth in shock and embarrassment), and then when Lampwick completely transformed right before his eyes Pinocchio was absolutely terrified! The reason that Pinocchio only got ears and a tail is because he’s confused and conflicted and listened to and followed Jiminy's instructions to get off the island with no hestiation. In the book the illustration of his and Jiminy's flight from the island shows the Coachman and his goons trying to shoot them as they dive into the waves which could mean they were seen escaping and were being chased to prevent the Coachman’s entire operation from being exposed.
264*** Or maybe it's the island itself that turns the boys into donkeys, and the thrill of misbehaviour just exacerbates it.
265*** if that was the case then why did Lampwick’s transformation accelerate while he was in a state of absolute panic? The spell that transforms boys into donkeys might be semi-aware of what’s going on the island. Normally the boys are too oblivious to notice until its too late. The fact that there were only 2 by themselves and both immediately took notice once the other pointed it out (meaning they still had their wits about them) so when Lampwick panicked upon seeing his transformed face and called for help from someone, anyone the spell realized that it had been caught and began to accelerate the transformations in order to silence them.
266[[/folder]]
267
268[[folder:Who'd Want a Spanking Clock?]]
269* Who is going to buy a clock with a mother spanking her child as the child is crying?
270** It's an old-fashioned clock, constructed at a time when spanking a child wasn't considered to be as cruel or abusive. A clock like that would certainly not be available for purchase today.
271** If you look closely at that clock, you'll notice that the child's hand is in a jam-jar. The mother was justly punishing her boy for being naughty and stealing jam. Any parent who can identify with trying to teach their bratty kid not to steal sweets is going to identify with this.
272*** Not all punishments are as extreme as spanking, though.
273*** Not true there are “punishments” that children have received that are significantly worse than spanking and not all of them historical either. Deliberately locking a child in a windowless room with no food or drink and forcing them to relieve themselves. Trust me when I say there’s a big debate over when does punishment become abuse.
274** There's also a clock with a drunk man, one with a man trying to decapitate a turkey, and another with a hunter trying to shoot a bird. Even if these clocks don't sell, who can blame Geppetto for trying to be creative with his ideas?
275** Maybe designing the clocks that way was meant as a knock on the ambiguous moral standards of Gepetto's voice actor, who was an outspoken Nazi sympathizer?
276** ComedicSpanking
277[[/folder]]
278
279[[folder:Why Not Wait for School?]]
280* When Gepetto first meets Pinocchio, his first thought (after the initial joy) was that Pinocchio had to go to school. Um, Gepetto? Your son literally JUST came to life. I think you can let him skip a day of school to spend some time and get to know him. Or more importantly, let the boy figure out who YOU are. Even back then, I don't think the truant officers were THAT strict.
281** We only know for a fact that the day Pinocchio went to school was the next day based on Jiminy's comment that this was his first day; it's possible that he meant it was the first day for him to actually ''act'' as Pinocchio's conscience, but Pinocchio and Gepetto had spent a day or two getting to know each other.
282** Gepetto would also need to put his wood-carving job on hold. If he fell behind a day's work, he'd have to say, "The Blue Fairy brought my recent puppet creation to life the night before. I spent the day with him teaching him life-lessons. That's why your music box isn't ready yet sir." Might be too risky of a move for both the action and the excuse. Some people might wanna send him to a mental ward until they see Pinocchio, but even then he could get a reputation as a village loon.
283*** On top of that learning how to talk and learning how to read are completely 2 different things. What upsets me is that Gepetto didn't take some time off to personally escort Pinocchio to school as it’s his first time out of the house into greater society or if he couldn’t have someone he could trust to do so (as it’s clear that he can ring all his clocks at odd hours without the neighbors getting upset which means he has some standing in the town)? Honest John might not have even been able to lure Pinocchio away the first time if there had been an adult present with him.
284[[/folder]]
285
286[[folder:Pleasure Island and Money]]
287* Pleasure Island in general. Okay. Turning the boys into donkeys to sell as slaves makes sense. But the whole amusement park looked like it had been hit by a tornado afterwards. The boys completely wrecked the place. How much does it cost to construct a whole amusement park? Would selling a bunch of donkeys really cover that cost?
288** Judging by the sheer number of bad little boys we can glimpse (enough to crowd a steamboat at least), probably. Though I get the feeling it's not really about the money, it's about punishing stupid boys who never listen to anyone and cause nothing but trouble.
289** If you believe the Coachman to be a supernatural creature (he is able to turn boys into donkeys, after all), it's possible he uses magic to repair the damage done, or that the island can even repair itself. Or this latest round of boys just tore the place up more than usual, which explains why he's so angry with them.
290[[/folder]]
291
292[[folder:Where Was the Water From?]]
293* When Geppetto was trying to find water for Pinocchio's finger, Jiminy tries to give him some water from his hat. Ummm, where did he even get the water?
294** He filled it from Cleo's fish bowl.
295** He could have gotten it from the tap.
296[[/folder]]
297
298[[folder:Unbreakable Fishbowl?]]
299* How exactly did Cleo's bowl stay intact during the climax?
300** Glass is relatively light in weight, the bowl’s flat bottom displaced its weight, the glass used to make Cleo’s bowl is thicker than normal cause it’s a vessel that has to contain something that’s heavy in mass, and the fact that saltwater has a higher density than the freshwater in Cleo’s bowl.
301* Also, how did Geppetto manage to carry Cleo's bowl and Pinocchio's body on his way home?
302** He slings Pinocchio over one shoulder and keeps his other arm wrapped around the fishbowl.
303[[/folder]]
304
305[[folder:Inconsistent Security]]
306* At the beginning, why does Geppetto go to sleep with his glasses on and a gun under his pillow, then leaves the window ''wide'' open?
307** Probably because it'd be stupid for someone to break into a home through a window that's right above the owner's bed. 'Specially when he keeps a gun under his pillow.
308** With the glasses, maybe he just forgot to take them off.
309** it also might have to do with the fact that he’s an old man who just makes clocks and has nothing of actual value that is worth stealing.
310*** I wouldn't put money on that. Hand crafted cookoo clocks, as well as the music boxes, toys, and knickknacks in Geppettos shop would be quite expensive. Although I'm mainly saying that based on my perception of those items priced today, when they would be considered valuable antiques.
311*** But every major town had at least 1 clock maker and besides while Geppettos clearly lives the good life making and selling his wares it’s also possible that he does custom orders. Thieves tend to go to places where they know they can make a lot of money and disappear easily, something that would be hard to come by in smaller communities like Geppetto’s village where nearly everyone knows everyone.
312** Let's keep in mind that air conditioning didn't exist yet. (Even if it did, I doubt it would be available to someone like Geppetto.) It's bound to get stuffy in that workshop at night. And the guy does need some fresh air too. He does indeed need to open up some windows, and the one right above his bed is an ideal choice because A) He'd get the fresh air and night breeze directly from the source. And B) If anyone DID try to break in from said Window, they'd have to avoid steeping on Geppetto and thus waking him up. (And he keeps a gun under his pillow for good measure in the event this would happen) Geppetto has very little to worry about in this case.
313[[/folder]]
314
315[[folder:The Rain Dried Up Quickly]]
316* When Geppetto goes out to look for Pinocchio it's raining heavily, and looks like it has been for a while. When Pinocchio attempts to return home a few hours later, all the streets are dry, with no sign of recent rain.
317** The animation was just too limited to show the signs of recent rain, not that they were very important to begin with.
318** This doesn't really answer the question in-universe, but we do have a trope for that and similar situations. It's called WaterIsDry.
319[[/folder]]
320
321[[folder:What's Wrong with Pool?]]
322* So, Pleasure Island allows everything bad. Smoking, check. Drinking, check. Causing havoc, check. Playing pool, che- wait a second! What's so wrong with playing pool? Isn't it just a regular game?
323** Pool tables can commonly be found in bars which wouldn't be an appropriate place for a young boy. I believe there used to be a belief that billiards was a game for delinquents.
324*** See ''Film/TheMusicMan''.
325*** Also see BadGuysPlayPool.
326** Also, pool was (and for some people, still is..) considered taboo for little kids for safety regulations. Pool balls are pretty heavy for something their size, and could hurt if they hit you. And the sticks could [[EyeScream poke an eye out]]. Adult supervision is often required, but Pleasure Island isn't accommodating that necessity.
327** This is a fairly classic example of ValuesDissonance. Nowadays it's considered to be pretty much the least immoral of the various activities going on in Pleasure Island (besides the Ferris wheel/rollercoaster combo...). In the early 20th century, however, playing pool was believed to actively encourage gambling, an activity which was either outright illegal or heavily frowned-upon in many states at that time. Pool was therefore seen as being something of a gateway to other frowned-upon things like excessive drinking (thanks to a lot of pool halls also operating as bars), petty crime (pool=gambling=debt=crime to pay off the money), and then larger crime often related to falling in with an actual crime syndicate (which, in the eyes of law abiding citizens of that time, basically meant that there was absolutely no hope of you having a decent life from then on). On the other hand society tended to look the other way if such games excluded gambling or else playing with marbles and non-gambling competitive sports as a whole would’ve long been outlawed.
328[[/folder]]
329
330[[folder:How Does He Know What "Right" Means?]]
331* If Pinocchio doesn't know right from wrong, how does he know right is... well... right? When Jiminy instructs Pinocchio, he says: "But I'm gonna do right!" How does he know right is the good choice, and wrong a bad choice?
332** Intuition?
333** He knows that "right" means "good," just not what ''actions'' are the right ones for him to choose.
334[[/folder]]
335
336[[folder:Why the Amusement Park?]]
337* Pleasure Island doesn't make a lot of sense, actually. The Coachman turns bad kids into Donkeys to sell, alright, but does he need to create an elaborate Amusement Park to do that? On top of that, if Pleasure Island is just a trap for bad kids, surely just wanting to go there would be bad enough for the kids to be punished, right? If going to a place to do intentionally bad things is not bad enough to get the kids into donkeys, what would happen if a kid went there and did absolutely nothing wrong? Would they still get turned into donkeys just for being there? If they did, then the park is completely pointless!
338** There's many people who believe the Coachman is turning kids into donkeys ForTheEvulz.
339** I like to think of him as a slightly more evil Willy Wonka. He sets up a place where children are invited to come and misbehave as much as they want, just to see if they'll do it. By trying to entice them, he's teaching them a lesson - if they choose to learn that lesson and leave, so be it, they don't get rewarded for that. If they choose to stay, smoke, drink, vandalize property, and play pool, well, they've made their beds. Now they have to lie in them.
340** As the Coachman himself says as he's ordering the doors to the park to be shut and locked while the kids are having fun: "give a boy enough room, he'll soon make a jackass of himself". It's also established that he's ''only'' interested in taking "stupid little boys...the type who play hooky from school" to the island. There's absolutely no indication that any of those boys were on the coach or the island unwillingly. So yes, even just going to the island is enough to sentence the boys, hence the locking of the doors. This also offers some explanation for the ones like Alexander who can still talk as donkeys - they could arguably be the boys who ''didn't'' engage with the bad behaviours as much as the others. The Coachman's line implies that the more the boys misbehave while on the island, the more effective the transformation is and the harsher their subsequent punishment as donkeys; the ones who behaved the worst and are fully transformed are sent to the salt mines or the circus to presumably be worked [[DeathOfAChild to death]] and live miserable short lives of drudgery. Using this theory, the park itself is simply a means of separating (speaking purely in terms of moral behaviour) the bad children from the good children (which would be all those left safe and who weren't in danger in the first place due to going to school and not being stupid or naughty), and then distinguishing the bad (like Alexander who we assume went to the island but didn't fully indulge in the bad behaviour that was encouraged) from the worse (like Lampwick who did fully indulge himself).
341*** The doors symbolize the threshold of temptation and that crossing them is falling into temptation. Thus when the coachman orders the doors to be shut he’s also literally closed the boys’ last chance to turn back and save themselves. If even one had ultimately decided that he wasn’t interested (or suspected that the stories about it being true) and thus decided to stay on the outside of the gates before they closed the Coachman might have him taken back to the mainland if he believed that the boy had learned his lesson or wasn’t naughty enough in exchange for keeping his mouth shut. Payment for transit is frequently less costly and easier to pay back than staying in an inn especially when one’s having second thoughts.
342[[/folder]]
343
344[[folder:Lampwick Doesn't Bat an Eye?]]
345* Why doesn't Lampwick think it's odd that the boy he's hanging out with is made of wood? Honest John and Gideon were able to instantly figure it out when he walked by them, and were surprised at the sight of a little wooden boy walking without strings, but Lampwick didn't seem to notice or care.
346** Maybe he thought Pinoke just had a lot of prosthetic limbs? Or he was just too stupid to notice at all - his arms look normal enough to avert suspicion at a glance, and Lampy didn't have much reason to be looking at his legs for very long. Or maybe he’s seen even stranger things already so interacting with a little wooden boy who can walk and talk is the least weird thing.
347** This is a world in which a bipedal fox and cat stand as tall as adult humans, wear clothes and talk to humans. Honest John and Gideon may even have been the ones responsible for Lampwick being on the coach. A walking, talking wooden boy might not seem like such a big deal after that...
348** At the beginning, Geppetto says "He almost looks alive." Even at the end, Pinocchio in his real boy form has a lot of similarities to his puppet form. Geppetto's goal was probably to make Pinoke look as lifelike as possible. Honest John and Gideon probably only noticed Pinoke was a wooden puppet because they have more keen observation, being streetwise con artists and all. And being anthropomorphic animals, they can probably SMELL that Pinoke is made of wood. This would also explain why Stromboli paid them so little for Pinocchio, as his audience wouldn't be too impressed with a "live puppet" that from a distance looked like an actual child.
349[[/folder]]
350
351[[folder:Who Saves the Boys?]]
352* Who's going to stop the Coachman and save all the donkey-turned boys now that Pinocchio and Jiminy can't save them?
353** Fanfic writers. There are dozens, probably hundreds, of FixFic on this subject.
354*** But that's not canon.
355** Why can't Pinocchio and Jiminy save them? They got away from the Coachman and made it home. Couldn't they send the police after them or something?
356** Pinocchio doesn't know anything about who the Coachman is. The only people who do - Honest John and Gideon - are implied to be too terrified of him to snitch on him.
357*** A deleted scene actually showed them revealing the whole scheme to authorities!
358[[/folder]]
359
360[[folder:Rewarded for Nothing?]]
361* Why is Jiminy Cricket rewarded at the end of the movie? He did NOTHING! Every time Pinocchio goes bad, he says "O.k., you don't need me" and he turns away. When he tries to pick a lock, it fails. When he wants to help with Monstro, he can't pass through the teeth of the monster. Pinocchio learns most of his mistakes by himself and proves to be more courageous than his father. He deserves to be a boy. But what did Jiminy do?
362** Provided [[InterspeciesFriendship companionship]], morale support and a [[OnlySaneMan voice of reason]] (mostly ignored during the first half of the movie). Also, when the half-donkey Pinocchio was running around in a panic, he almost certainly would have been caught like the others if Jiminy hadn't showed up in time to lead him away from danger and show him the way to escape.
363** FridgeBrilliance, maybe. That's about what a real conscience is capable of doing. It points the right way, but it can't make you listen to it. And it sure can't pick a lock.
364** And the fact that he stuck with him, through it all. Even when he thought Pinocchio didn't need or want him, when he found out he was in danger, he always went back for him. He was even willing to follow him into the depths of the ocean and the belly of a giant whale - for no other reason than because he promised to. That's pretty respectable.
365[[/folder]]
366
367[[folder:Plans for Pinocchio's Body]]
368* What exactly was Gepetto going to do with Pinocchio's body before the Blue Fairy brought him back to life? How does one even dispose of the body of a "dead" puppet? Was he going to bury him (and if so, in a wooden casket no less?)? Cremate him? Paint over his eyes and try to sell him as a regular puppet since even though Pinocchio's apparently dead, he's still technically a functional puppet?
369** I'd say Gepetto should sell him.
370** What's wrong with burying him? And who's going to want to buy a puppet with donkey ears and a tail?
371*** Sure that would be unusual and kind of weird, but it's possible somebody might want to, especially if that person is into weird-looking creatures. Some people are, you know.
372*** It'd still be weird for him to choose to sell his own son's body, don't you think? Why would anyone even suggest that?
373*** Besides, it seems more in character for Geppetto to bury him. Selling just any puppet is one thing, but it's unlikely that Geppetto would sell the body of a puppet that was his own son.
374** Probably either bury him, cremate him, or just keep him on the off-chance that he comes back to life.
375[[/folder]]
376
377[[folder:Why Such an Obvious Lie?]]
378* One of the lies Pinocchio tells the Blue Fairy is that he’s been chopped into firewood, [[BlatantLies even though she can clearly see that he’s still in one piece]]. Even ignoring the fact that his nose is growing, Pinocchio must be really dumb to think she would believe that when she’s looking right at him. Something more like “they tried to chop me into firewood” would be far more believable.
379** That's the point. "A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face." Of course it was obvious that he was lying, but he was telling such a tall tale already that he just kept going with it.
380** TruthInTelevision. Young children are often excruciatingly bad liars precisely because they tend to go overboard with their stories and claim something that very obviously can't be true. It's not that they're dumb, necessarily, they just don't yet have the experience to know that their lies are going beyond the realm of believability, especially if they're challenged on any part of the lie and double down on it.
381[[/folder]]
382
383[[folder:Why Isn't the Coachman Punished?]]
384* Why is Walt Disney never let [[CardCarryingVillain The Coachman]] [[TheBadGuyWins lose]]? he just gotten away with all the children. Disney really hates TheBadGuyWins Trope always.
385** 1.) Because they were adapting the story from a book, and in the book, the Coachmen ''does'' get away with it. 2.) It's also a much more [[HardTruthAesop realistic, albeit harsh moral]] to teach - sometimes, in the real world, the bad guys will get away with their crimes, and there isn't anything you're able to do about it. But as the deleted scene also shows that no matter how hard the bad guys try sooner or later they can and will screw up and while the Coachman might get away with his crimes Honest John and his sidekick are another matter as they are accessories to said crime and considering Pinocchio’s testimony when pushed against the wall Honest John would probably spill the beans of the coachman’s entire operation to the authorities to save himself.
386[[/folder]]
387
388[[folder:Dying for a New Form]]
389* Why do Disney characters often seem to die just before a transformation. I’ve seen this happen not just when Pinocchio turns from a puppet to a real boy, but with other Disney characters as well who undergo a transformation (like [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast the Beast]], for example). The character supposedly dies and then comes back to life in a new form. Is their “death” supposed to signify that their life in their previous form has ended?
390** I don't think it's as widespread a concept as your question implies, but in Pinoke's case, the fact that he "died" tied into the circumstances of his transformation -- he had to prove himself brave, truthful, and unselfish in order to become a real boy, and he proved these things by helping Gepetto to safety when he could've just saved himself. The Beast requires a declaration of Belle's love in order to break his enchantment, and let's face it, she's just a lot more likely to confess her love when he's on his deathbed than if he had survived the scrap with Gaston unharmed.
391** Not true in many societies death such as Pinocchio’s case is a death of personality. The Pinocchio that was a naive yet curious wooden puppet is now dead and the flesh and blood Pinocchio is a new one.
392[[/folder]]
393
394[[folder:No One Investigates the Missing Boys?]]
395* Even if it couldn’t be proven that the boys were turned into donkeys, surely someone would have noticed that the long list of boys missing were last seen on a coach or boat heading for Pleasure Island, which in itself would have had the amusement park closed.
396** You're assuming that the boat that takes them to Pleasure Island isn't kept secret and off the books somehow. The Coachman is already implied to be some demonic entity -- he probably makes it so that even the island is kept secret, except to himself and his associates.
397*** What about when the parents go to check up on them and see their beds empty and they find that all but the town’s or district’s “good boys” are missing? A mass disappearance like that in a single night isn’t something that can be easily dismissed or explained away.
398** Assuming everything to do with the island ''is'' a secret, there's another much more "easy" explanation available to the parents: the boys ran away from home. It's demonstrated that the boys (barring a potential few like Pinocchio) are "bad boys who play hooky from school"; this means it likely wouldn't be first time any of the boys have not been where they were supposed to be. While child-snatching wasn't unheard of, at the time the film appears to be set the basic concept of FreeRangeChildren was a much more widely-accepted one, and the sad fact of the matter is that sometimes, said children wouldn't come home. Provincial and rural areas especially would fairly regularly see children and teens leave home and head to the cities and sometimes it would be entire friendship groups that left together, and the parents weren't always informed beforehand. Not to mention that at the time the film appears to be set, there wouldn't exactly be many resources available to what appears to be a fairly small provincial area to officially investigate anything. After all, Gepetto has to resort to setting off on his own and traipsing around the countryside for a number of days looking for Pinocchio when he goes missing, and given the demographic of boys that are being taken to the island, it's entirely possible that at least some of the parents of the other boys simply don't have the time, resources or inclination to drop their work (and thus lose their income) for potentially weeks to look for their sons with potentially no leads or idea of where to start...
399[[/folder]]
400
401[[folder:How Long Was Pinocchio on the Island?]]
402* What sort of timeframe does the movie ascribe to, exactly? On the same day that Pinocchio was sold to Stromboli, the Coachman tells Honest John and Gideon that the coach to Pleasure Island departs at midnight, presumably that same evening. But the time Pinocchio spends on the island is enough for Gepetto to charter a boat to search for him, leaving his house to gather dust, and while inside Monstro, he says he hasn’t caught a fish in days. How long was Pinocchio on the island, then?
403** Maybe Gepetto's house was always quite dusty, the guy carves wood for a living you know. (Just emphasized more in the animation for dramatic effect). Geppetto may have been exaggerating when he said it was "days" or just wasn't thinking clearly (He's an old man who was up all night looking for his son, and hunger pains CAN make people think improperly you know) Geppetto's story is done mostly off-camera, and between Strombolli's show and Pinocchio going to the bottom of the sea, none of the scenes are set in broad daylight.
404** Just because it's night when Pinocchio is taken to pleasure island and night when he returns to Geppetto's empty home doesn't mean it all happened in one night. Pinocchio could've been on Pleasure Island for 2 or 3 weeks. After he and Jiminy reach the mainland, it could be taken them a full day to get back home. That could be understandable how gepetto couldn't eat for a few days.
405** And Pleasure Island is a CURSED place. If you hear that a bunch of rebellious kids were taken to a forbidden island were naughty behavior turns you into a donkey, you'd probably make your way out there to rescue your kid if he's there as soon as possible too.
406[[/folder]]
407
408[[folder:How Did the Cons Find Pinocchio?]]
409* How did Honest John and Gideon find Pinocchio after he escaped from Stromboli? They didn't know he escaped until they saw him. Also, before they found him, how did they think they could get him to go to Pleasure Island if he was still with the puppeteer (as they had every reason to assume he was as they sold him)?
410** They weren't looking for Pinocchio specifically, just any stupid little boy they could find for the Coachman. They just so happened to come across Pinocchio when they searched.
411[[/folder]]
412
413[[folder:Where Did the Clothes Go?]]
414* When Lampwick gets transformed into a donkey, he still had his clothes (like all other children who went to Pleasure Island), but after breaking the mirror with his hooves, the next time we see him when he kicks away a table and a chair, his clothes have mysteriously disappeared and he is naked. When he took off his clothes if he could no longer do so?
415** Watch that scene again in slow-mo. It's quick, but you do see his clothes getting flung off as he's kicking his legs about.
416[[/folder]]
417
418[[folder:Why Go to Sea?]]
419* Why did Geppetto go out to sea when he was searching for Pinocchio? You'd think he'd stay on land.
420** On this page, it's suggested that Geppetto was out at sea because he somehow found out that Pinocchio was either on or had been seen getting onto a boat to Pleasure Island and was intending to rescue him, before being swallowed by Monstro. In the movie, we aren't really given an explanation except that he was out looking for Pinocchio, bearing in mind we don't know how long Pinoke was on the island to begin with.
421*** Justified as child labor was very common back then and it wasn’t uncommon for greedy unscrupulous people to trick children into said career field. More over this story was written in the late 1870s or early 1880s a time when Spain, England, and France had many overseas territories now starved for free/cheap labor (as they had or were in the process of abolishing slavery) as well as the USA (where the push for child labor laws and compulsory education for children under 16 was starting to gain major traction) which made child labor trafficking a rather lucrative industry especially by “recruiting” children from places suffering from extreme geopolitical and/or economic depression/turmoil like Italy which had only finished unification in 1871 and still feeling the fallout of when the original story was published.
422[[/folder]]
423
424[[folder:Why Not Bring Lampwick?]]
425* When Pinocchio and Jiminy escaped Pleasure Island, why didn't they take Lampwick with them? I know by the time Jiminy found Pinocchio Lampwick's transformation was complete, but would they really let him suffer the same fate as the other boys? Besides, the Coachman was apparently distracted at that time as he was busy rounding up the other boys turned into donkeys, so it would probably be some time before he remembered Lampwick and Pinocchio. So why not have Lampwick escape while he still could?
426** Because their biggest priority was getting Pinocchio off of the island before his transformation got any worse than ears and a tail. They didn't have time to go looking for Lampwick.
427** And besides, when Pinoccchio says that Lampwick's his best friend, he's clearly not meant to be taken seriously. There's a trend of making Lampwick out to be a lot better than he is in the movie, but doing a few basic niceties like taking Pinocchio under his wing and nonchalantly answering a question of his doesn't mean the two are best buddies now.
428** Then there's the small fact that Lampwick was effectively having a panic attack in donkey form, to the point of kicking at and breaking the furniture. You do ''not'' want to be on the receiving end of a full-force kick from a panicking hooved animal, even if you're made of wood. Pinocchio and Jiminy were also racing the clock at that point since judging by how quickly Lampwick's transformation is once he started panicking and how soon Pinocchio grows ears and a tail, once the transformation starts it doesn't take long to complete. They simply didn't have either the time or agility to think about calming a kicking and screaming donkey down enough to get him to try and escape with them without alerting the Coachman or his henchthings and ''then'' have to talk him into diving off a cliff (which, let's be honest here, would probably have killed him then and there anyway).
429** In a deleted scene he did escape with Pinocchio and Jiminy only to be captured by the Coachman's goons.
430[[/folder]]
431
432[[folder:Gepetto's Wish Relies on Pinocchio]]
433* Why is the final fulfillment of Gepetto's wish hinged on Pinocchio's actions and character development? I wouldn't consider it fair if the fulfillment of my wishes depended on someone else. Especially someone who could have been given the virtues needed for the quid pro quo on the spot. Is there that much of a limitation the Blue Fairy could have done?
434** Because much like ''The Princess and the Frog'', the message the movie is trying to teach is "Your wishes can come true if you believe it's possible and put in the work to make them happen," and ''not'' "Your wishes will come true if you just laze around and wish for them really, really hard." And all things considered, Gepetto would look ''really'' ungrateful if he complained about his son's condition. Pinocchio as a wooden puppet is able to fulfill all the same criteria that a real boy would. It's not like Gepetto can't take him out in public or send him to school or anything. The "become a real boy" thing is just further incentive for him to be good.
435*** I get that, but even still the movie is contradicting, or at least under playing that very principle. The Blue Fairy said that Geppetto "Deserved to have his wish come true". Not "You deserve an OPPORTUNITY to have your wish come true." (Altering this ONE LINE could have rectified this entire plot hole) Geppetto never expected his wish to come true, so seeing Pinocchio be brought to life would definitely thrill him, even if it's just step one. Cinderella's fairy godmother did a similar tactic by temporarily giving her a fancy dress, definitely enough to help her score the happy ending she deserved after putting up with all the crap her step family imposed on her for years. But the thing with Geppetto's wish is that it was ultimately prone to falter. Pinocchio clearly doesn't do so well at first in fulfilling the criteria to make the wish come true. Even though Geppetto's lack of parenting experiences can be at fault here, wouldn't it have looked awful if he had to lose his opportunity to see Pinocchio become a real boy had said puppet completely disregarded morality? (Although this kinda raises a different question entirely).
436*** It all comes down to how the Blue Fairy chose to grant his wish. Not every single action by the main characters needs to line up concisely with the stated or assumed message the movie is trying to push. She obviously thought it was more appropriate for Pinoke to be able to learn and grow from his experiences. There's nothing saying she couldn't have made him a real boy right off the bat, it's just that as a free-thinking character in-universe, she ''chose'' not to.
437*** She might’ve not been able to so and thus Pinocchio needing to prove himself worthy of being a real boy was a round-about method to granting Gepetto’s wish. Remember when she freed Pinocchio from that cage it was the last time she could help him directly (which is why she sent that bird to deliver the message on what had happened to Gepetto, Figaro, and Chloe had gone so even she is limited as what she can and cannot do.
438*** My own theory is, it was a safety measure. The Blue Fairy is essentially bringing a new person into the world and who knows what Pinocchio's nature would've been like and if he could've been molded into something good... just as likely Pinocchio could've been a hellspawn or a brat (like he was in the book). In which case maybe the rules of magic would allow her to say "lol nope" and undo him... but once Pinocchio is human, he's out of her hands.
439[[/folder]]
440
441[[folder:Does Pinocchio know the concept of death?]]
442* As emotional as Pinocchio's apparent death and revival as a real boy, one thing that hasn't been made sense is when he comes back to life. When Geppetto tells Pinocchio he's crying because he's dead, Pinocchio tells him that this isn't the case. How does someone who’s only been alive for a few days more or less know about death? Does Pinocchio understand the concept the death? Or did he simply pick up on Geppetto's sorrow when he mentioned the word 'dead' knowing it meant something awful had happened to him? And if it is the former where did he learn the concept of death? Was it from someone else like Lampwick, Jiminy, or Geppetto prior to escaping Monstro? Or was he born with the knowledge on the concept of death already when the blue Fairy gave him life?
443** It’s probably just one of those things that the Blue Fairy instilled in him from the beginning, like walking and talking. It would be hard to prove himself truly brave or unselfish if he doesn’t understand what death is.
444[[/folder]]
445
446[[folder:How complete is the donkey transformation?]]
447* Do the boys go through complete DeathOfPersonality or do they [[AndIMustScream still retain their memories and just can't talk]]?
448[[/folder]]

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