Line #114 Headscratchers/SuckerPunch


1	'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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3	* The entire frickin' movie! Seriously, does anyone have any idea what the hell is going on in any of it?
4	** [[MathematiciansAnswer Yes]]. Babydoll is hallucinating everything between the lobotomy scenes. She accidentally kills her sister (or did she?!) and is committed to an asylum and given a lobotomy, and hallucinates to escape from her situation.
5	* Sweet Pea doesn't notice that as she's practicing the weird dance with the lobotomy, someone who is ''basically the character that she's playing'' walks into the room? I feel like I would probably be a bit weirded out by that.
6	** I'm completely weirded out by that whole scene.
7	** Well, it IS entirely in Babydoll's head, so it can really just be hand-waved away. The point of the scene was just to have a nice transition and also hint that Sweet Pea was the real protagonist.
8	** In the universe Sweet Pea is practicing the dance, Babydoll is not the helpless patient who will suffer a lobotomy. She's a girl from a church orphanage, who will be sold to the High Roller. Sweet Pea can't possibly know about the "real" Babydoll.
9	* Ms. Gorski didn't order the lobotomy, but somehow knows about the lobotomy. So who did she think approved it? It seemed like she was the only one who could sign off on that thing, but she never expresses worry that someone is being lobotomized after being there only five days. She comes in, was like "I'm sorry I couldn't help her.", and then is all, "Wait, I didn't say she could get lobotomized. Why didn't I stop this?"
10	** More than one psychologist maybe? Could also be that Blue has that power, but didn't want to connect himself to that specific one.
11	** Isn't there a line of dialogue where Blue mentions faking authorizations for something?
12	*** Yes. Right at the beginning, Blue mentions that he can fake the authorization for the lobotomy. It is kinda in the background, though.
13	*** That doesn't solve the problem. Gorski should have still noticed that the lobotomy was going ahead without her permission.
14	** Possibly parents/guardians can request them too, so maybe she thought the Stepfather just signed Babydoll up for one.
15	*** On the other hand, Babydoll's age is given as 20. Even assuming the "real world" sequences occur in the 1950s as they appear to, could she have been committed to an asylum on the say-so of a ''step''parent without a judge being involved? She's not a minor.
16	*** From my own experiences, you can commit yourself willingly (and many people do so) or else friends, family or doctors the patient has seen regularly can do so. So while Baby Doll might be overage, her father does have some grounds to commit her considering he lives with her and on paper should be a good judge of her functionality. Maybe the process through which he committed her wasn't wholly legal, but she was found in her pyjamas by her mother's grave in the middle of a downpour having recently shot her stepfather through the arm - so there was ''some'' merit for him to commit her. People seem to forget that Baby Doll did suffer from mental illness; it's just that the stepfather doesn't want her to ''recover'', and that's why she's being lobotomised.
17	** Seems to me that if you are the only one able to permit lobotomies and you hate doing that, you'd pay attention to the fact that a girl is about to have a lobotomy under your watch, without your permission. If other people can authorize lobotomies, then why forge her name in the first place? Just put your own down and avoid the inevitable allegations of forgery.
18	*** Most likely parents could request the procedures be done. But the Stepfather wouldn't WANT his name on the request form, because that would be suspicious. So most likely what happened was: Blue told Gorski Babydoll was getting a lobotomy, Gorksi figured that since she didn't sign off on it it was what the Stepfather wanted, Blue forged Gorksi's signature to protect the Stepfather.
19	** What the heck kind of mental hospital would have only one psychologist on staff? It's more than likely that there are multiple shrinks, each capable of ordering a lobotomy and Gorski assumed that one of them (perhaps even a superior, like the hospital administrator) had signed off on them. It was only when the doctor showed her the forged signature did she realize something was wrong.
20	*** There probably ''are'' a multiple psychologists, but Gorski is at the head of the department or is at least the senior psychologist on staff, and is the only one with the power to authorise a lobotomy. The other psychologists likely have to go through her, have her examine the patient before getting an OK on a lobotomy. This would probably be in place to prevent psychologists from getting sick of their patients and throwing around lobotomies left and right. Knowing Babydoll wasn't in need of one, knowing therefore that Gorski would immediately reject giving her a lobotomy, Blue forged her approval.
21	*** To add to the above, it's still possible that parents can request a lobotomy without the doctor's approval, and the stepfather doesn't his name on the form to avoid suspicion.
22	** Is it said outright that Gorski is the head psychiatrist? As someone said above, maybe when she heard Baby Doll was getting a lobotomy she assumed it was ordered by someone over her head. Maybe Blue ''told'' her someone above them ordered it - as she seems to guess he was the one who forged her signature as soon as she finds that out.
23	* During the final escape, Sweet Pea and Baby Doll pass a security guard - wearing a pair of Apple headphones. In a movie that takes place in the 1950s. Wait, what?
24	** They're transistor radio headphones. You can hear the guard tuning the radio and see that there's only one earpiece, unlike headphones in the modern day.
25	* So did Blue actually execute Blondie and Amber, in front of a dozen witnesses? It's generally implied that most of the stuff in the brothel sequence (the fire, Blue getting stabbed, etc.) actually happened, but it stretches the limits of credibility that a hospital orderly could murder his patients without at the very least being put on some kind of administrative leave.
26	** Perhaps they also received Blue's lobotomy treatment and are dead to the world?
27	*** It seems more likely he used the "weapon" of one of the other orderlies -- say, a hypodermic needle? -- to give them an overdose of an opiate or narcotic for "acting out". Given that we saw that the cook was missing his knife and that Blue got stabbed by Baby Doll, it seems plausible that Blue wanted any witnesses to earlier misbehavior (like the cook stabbing Rocket) out of the way. It would also go some way to explaining why the other orderlies under Blue were definitely uneasy about what Blue wanted to do to Baby Doll in the finale, after the lobotomy. Since all the main storyline is cloaked in Baby Doll's brothel-hallucination, though, there's no way to be sure.
28	** [[WordofGod Zack Snyder said]] that none of the girls actually die/get hurt in the asylum world. Most likely they really were just "crazy" and therefore couldn't survive in the real world, so in her head Babydoll imagined them being killed as a way to explain that to herself. She even tells Sweet Pea that Sweet Pea's the "only one who could have survived" outside of the asylum.)
29	** And when Gorski is telling the surgeon about what Baby Doll has been up to since arriving, she doesn't mention any deaths. There's also a visual cue in that the deaths are not shown on camera - cutting to something else as the shot is fired. It's a clue that the death isn't real.
30	** The ''Cinema Wins'' video suggests that Baby Doll never actually interacted with Rocket, Blondie or Amber in the asylum layer - and the friendships between them seen in the brothel layer was just pure imagination or her projecting aspects of her own personality onto these girls she barely knew. So in that theory, there may have been no equivalent to the deaths in the real world, and that was just Baby Doll's (or even Sweet Pea's) way of 'explaining' in her mind that they couldn't leave the asylum with Sweet Pea.
31	* All right. So, when Baby Doll asks for a way out, she meant for her. So why did the Wise Man give the way for Sweet Pea to get out?
32	** Babydoll was always going to leave the brothel. If she hadn't planned to escape she would have ended up with the High Roller, and the additional scene shows that he is a nice and caring man, so Babydoll already had her way out/freedom. In the real world the lobotomy was going to free her from the trauma of losing her mother and killing her sister. Wiseman was giving her a way out for Sweet Pea who wasn't crazy and had a chance of a life outside the brothel/asylum.
33	* The entire plot is built around the fact that Baby Doll's stepfather paid off Blue to have her lobotomized and she's trying to escape. She might be going through some emotional issues, but it seems she's not really crazy. She knows what's happening and she's lucid enough to organize an escape plan. So why doesn't she just tell Ms. Gorski in therapy that her Stepfather paid off Blue to forge the doctor's signature and have her lobotomized? Even if Gorski didn't believe her, she would still double check when the lobotomy specialist shows up. And even if we're to believe that Baby Doll was catatonic and/or unresponsive to the doctor's attempts to reach her, despite being lucid enough to organize an escape plan, there's still the fact that this doctor, who seems to care about her patients, didn't bother to double check the authorization papers to have one of those patient's brain butchered?
34	** This is pretty much how it went in 1950s mental institutions, sadly.
35	** Baby Doll might not have been crazy as she went in, but the perception shift to the brothel right after her stepfather dropped her off was probably her snapping under the grief. She saw everything through that filter, and since Madam Gorski was his dog, she couldn't rely on her for anything. Her relative lucidity does not have too much bearing on whether or not she is crazy. For example, in PTSD flashbacks, the sufferer is completely lucid and often high-functioning, but in a totally different situation.
36	** Most likely no one would have believed Babydoll if she'd tried to expose the lies and forgery, since everyone believed she was crazy; they would have just brushed it off as her being delusional and whatnot. And there's no guarantee Gorski would have checked to make sure that the lobotomy was legally signed off on.
37	** This troper's theory was that after being assaulted by her stepfather, Baby Doll snapped and became convinced that she was a victim in all scenarios. This explains the brothel reality, where Gorski (someone who could have helped Baby Doll in the real world) was visualized as helpless and the girls were forced to fight to save themselves. Because of this, Baby Doll couldn't get that there were people on her side, who would be powerful enough to help save her.
38	* [[NoEndorHolocaust Isn't Sweet Pea just going to be arrested and sent back to the asylum once she "goes home"?]] She ''was'' involuntarily committed, which means she's either been found insane in a court of law and institutionalized by the state, or adjudicated mentally unsound and institutionalized by whoever has power of attorney over her. Either way she's a fugitive, the police are definitely going to be snooping around her family.
39	** She said in the brothel hallucination that she ran away from home with Rocket. Assuming things said in the brothel panned over into real life, she's in there because she "refused to leave [Rocket]", which can be taken to mean that either their parents committed them both when Sweet Pea refused to leave Rocket, or, more logically, that their parents committed Rocket and Sweet Pea committed herself voluntarily because she wanted to make sure her sister was okay.
40	** Playing off what Sweet Pea said to Rocket, Sweet Pea ''wasn't'' involuntarily committed. She committed herself voluntarily because she wanted to make sure her sister was okay. The asylum would try to keep her from leaving because they think that she's insane, but legally she can't be re-committed.
41	** Rocket's talk about how she had "problems with her family while Sweet Pea didn't have any and left on her own account to take care of her (Rocket)" actually meant "I'm crazy coo coo ca choo, but Sweet Pea is only acting crazy to be with me,". This is further supported by Baby Doll's "you're the only one who could live outside here" line and the fact that Sweet Pea is the only one who acts like a sensible person to the whole plan.
42	** Is it implied that their parents don't know where they are? If Sweet Pea has to take a long distance bus to get home then it's likely their parents didn't commit them. If we believe Rocket's story that she ran away, then that's probably how they got committed. No orphanages or place to put the insane teenage girl so she gets put in Lennox House by the local authorities - and Sweet Pea commits herself to look out for her sister. And Sweet Pea has sort of dodged the law now. The bus driver vouched for her. In the 60s it'd be pretty hard to track down one girl without internet and limited TV. And if Rocket was committed ''without'' her parents' consent then it's the asylum who's going to be in trouble with the law.
43	** Sweet Pea doesn't have to have been pretending to be mentally ill. She may well have been committed for legitimate reasons. But perhaps she had gotten better through Gorski's therapies, but she wasn't getting released because Blue was undermining Gorski's authority. In the brothel reality Sweet Pea is the star of the show, so maybe we can assume that in the real world, Sweet Pea was one of Blue's favorites and he wouldn't want her to get away.
44	* How the heck was the lobotomy Baby Doll's way out? What kind of a "freedom" is that? It nearly got her raped.
45	** IDieFree (Mental Version): She lost her mother and killed her sister. Once she's lobotomized, not only Blue doesn't want to touch her sexually, but she also escapes from a world everyone she loves is dead, and from where guilt from killing her sister was consuming her. [[DownerEnding It's not a perfect happy ending.]] It's not like she didn't try and escape and to live out her life after all. I'd assume that once she got out she would overcome. But she simply didn't have that option. [[BittersweetEnding In the end, being brain dead (and so free of her painful life) was the closest thing to freedom she could get.]]
46	** It's a good thing that anyone has the choice to deal with their pain however the hell they see fit.
47	*** The lobotomy means she doesn't have to deal with her pain or grief, so I consider it running.
48	*** [[ArcWords "Reality is a prison.]] [[ExactWords Your mind can set you free." ]] Considering that everyone she loves is dead, her step-father is evil and the authorities are either corrupt or stupid, her freedom was that she choose to let herself get lobotomized (and get someone else who has a family out of that hellhole) instead of being forced into it. And since she didn't have any clue that Blue would be revealed and flip on her stepfather after the fact, she would be free from having to live under his thumb for the rest of her life (as far as she would know). So her active decision to let herself be caught got Sweet Pea free, and her decision to let herself be lobotomized (which she didn't really have much of a choice about, but she still went willingly) spited Blue, and, unknown to her, got her and the girls a full measure of revenge/justice on Blue and probably the rest of the staff.
49	** Also, due to the brothel level, she was able to think of it as something ''she'' chose rather than something forced on her, so she went out a hero.
50	** Just because you don't like your choices, doesn't mean you don't still have a choice. She could either be helpless, not trying to save herself or anyone else until she was forcibly lobotomized, or she could FIGHT for a chance for herself and others and end up [[HeroicSacrifice making a "great sacrifice" in order to help someone escape.]]
51	** It may also be a form of penance for her. She feels responsible for having killed her sister, so the lobotomy not only brings her peace but makes sure she pays for her crime.
52	** As noted elsewhere, the lobotomy might not have turned her into a complete vegetable. She smiles after Blue is thrown out, so maybe she's still somewhat sentient. Or she might have viewed the lobotomy as a sacrifice for the greater good. In getting lobotomised, Gorski realised that Blue had forged her signature and was abusing the girls behind her back. So she was able to bust Blue, get him and the stepfather implicated and save the rest of the girls from his cruelty.
53	** The Extended Cut makes this plot point a little better. It's shown that when Babydoll meets the High Roller, he's actually a man who wants to love her rather than have her by force. As this is Babydoll's imagination, she writes herself a happy ending because she's finally forgiven herself for what happened. So Babydoll got lobotomised but she went into it having forgiven herself and also saving hundreds of other girls from Blue's abuse.
54	** So basically High Roller made zero effort to save her and in fact took advantage of her (regardless of how you see what happened, he was in a position of power and could have delayed things but didn't and went through with the lobotomy regardless), there was no effort on anyone's part to stall the process, and Babydoll is turned into a vegetable (or possibly a sociopath, if you read about what happened to some lobotomy victims) that's ripe for future abuse.
55	** A few things. One, he's a surgeon, he can't just throw his hands in the air, shrug and say "Nope, not doing it." He ''doesn't'' have a position of power because he has no authority over the institution that prescribed and scheduled the lobotomy; to the viewer it's a form of torture and mutilation, but in-universe, it's a medical procedure designed to help alleviate mental illness. He may not agree it's the treatment Babydoll needs, but he can't just overrule another doctor on the subject any more than a heart surgeon can refuse to do a triple bypass because he doesn't like the cardiologist who prescribed it. Two, all that fun research about the horrors of lobotomy came about ''because'' of the use of lobotomies during the time the movie takes place. Getting upset because the High Roller didn't refuse to give her he lobotomy because of our modern understanding of lobotomy failure is a little like getting mad at Hitler's mother for not getting an abortion because of our modern understanding of World War II. Third, Babydoll becoming a vegetable ''is'' her idea of salvation, which is why she envisions the High Roller as a kind gentleman; when he says he doesn't want to take her by force, he means it, he ''wants'' to help her, he ''is'' helping her, because even though it destroys her personality, it also takes away her grief, her pain, her sadness, and it makes her safe from Blue's abuse. It's a bittersweet ending at best, but that's the point: it may have come at great cost, but she went out on her own terms, and won safety and freedom for herself and Sweet Pea in the process.
56	** Er his job is to be a lobotomy surgeon. One was ordered and he did what was asked. It's not his place to question whether a patient needs one. He's brought in because someone on the staff signed off on a lobotomy - he assumes Dr Gorski because it's her signature. So from his POV, the head psychiatrist examined the patient and ruled that a lobotomy was the only thing that could be done for her. The poster who mentioned that Baby Doll choosing to let herself be lobotomised was the sacrifice to save the other girls. From her perspective, she has nothing. Her mother and sister are dead, and her stepfather is going to get her inheritance now. If she does this, then Gorski discovers that Blue has forged her signature, and busts him for what he's been doing to the girls. Any orderlies who were in league with him - and it's implied that several will now come forward to back up the story - will also be thrown out. Blue is also heard implicating the stepfather too. So everyone who has been abusing the girls will be thrown in prison and Gorski will now be able to help the patients recover. And with the stepfather out of the way, Baby Doll might get her inheritance or it'll go to some relative who needs it.
57	** A major theme of the movie is Self Sacrifice. Baby Doll is introduced as a loving and protective guardian to her little sister, and sacrifices her own safety to do whatever she can to protect her from their stepfather. Once she's in the asylum, she again goes out on a limb to save Rocket from the cook, after which Rocket says that no one does anything for anyone else in this place. Baby Doll's arc in the film is regaining that protective CoolBigSis persona, which is all building up to her giving up her chance for freedom so that Sweet Pea can have hers. And in facing the lobotomy, she sacrifices herself for all the other girls that are being mistreated by Blue. She overhears Blue early on saying that he can forge Gorski's signature for the lobotomy, and realises in that moment that if she goes through with it, then Blue will definitely be exposed.
58	* Why the hell did the police let a person who was suspected of being violently delusional and of assaulting her stepfather and murdering her sister be sedated and then taken away by the aforementioned stepfather in his personal vehicle to be institutionalized without being questioned, and then didn't even seem to think of questioning said person for at least five days? Even for the fifties, that's kinda ridiculously negligent for the police.
59	** Two theories. One: the step-father may be covering the whole thing up, not telling the police about the death of the younger sister until after the lobotomy. After which his version of the what happened can be whatever he wants it to be. This would have him drive Baby Doll to the Lennox House the same night... Two: Baby Doll was catatonic/in shock and couldn't/wouldn't answer. Which would have been made final with the lobotomy.
60	** Three, Blue has been at this (abusing the girls and pimping them out to orderlies) a ''long'' time and he knows how to evade the police just long enough.
61	** If you remember the conversation between them, the stepfather doesn't sound happy when he's told it'll be five days until a lobotomy surgeon comes. So he's aware that getting away with this will be difficult. And since we never see him again, we don't know how successful he was.
62	* How did Baby Doll's stepfather get his hands on the will, which must be kept by a notary and opened with several witnesses present to confirm the fact (otherwise it's null and void). And, if he can pull enough strings to "secure" the testament, why not forge a "right" one, with himself as the sole heir? (I'll state outright that I am not intimately familiar with 50's US legal system.)
63	** Neither am I, but I figured he probably stole the will and had no intention of using it properly, because he guessed he'd get nothing.
64	** Dramatic narrative. It shows how much power he has -- not only the girls, but their future. And him raging in the office was pretty dramatic.
65	** Maybe the mother kept an attested copy issued by the notary at home, and the stepfather knew about it? That was how my brain handwaved it away the first time I watched the movie.
66	** There's the possibility that what we're seeing isn't literally what happened, but only Sweet Pea's imagination or interpretation of what she knows about Baby Doll's backstory.
67	* It just bugs me that Rocket tried to steal baker's chocolate. Without proper preparation, its pretty bitter, and she seems to have some experience working in the kitchen so she should probably be aware of this. I'd chalk it up to her being a mental patient, but they trusted her to work with knives and fire, so maybe she just liked bitter stuff?
68	** The girl lived in a terrible world with no way out and no pleasantries. A simple chocolate is worth a lot in that kind of reality (also, bitter chocolate is of higher quality than sweet one).
69	** The chocolate box very clearly says "Sweetened". I had to rewind several times to confirm, but it does.
70	*** Well, there we go then. I stand corrected. sits down incorrectly
71	*** What me bugs now: [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil How did you rewind a movie that's still in it's first month in the cinemas?]]
72	*** The above troper is the film's projectionist, duh. The audience in that movie must have gotten a bit dizzy though.
73	* How did the girls actually steal the various quest items? It seems like the movie world has three levels: the real world, in which Baby Doll and the other girls are stuck in Lennox House, a mental institution. Baby Doll's Dream World, in which the girls are stuck in Lennox House, a brothel/strip club. And then there's Super Dream World, in which the 5'1, 75-pound blond girl can destroy giant robot samurai. The Super Dream World is what's going on in Baby Doll's head when she's dancing in the Dream World. It's in the Dream World where the plot is hatched. Within the Dream World, the girls are able to steal all the things they need because everyone else is mesmerized by Baby Doll's dancing. But how do they steal the items in the Real World? Is Baby Doll just creating a mental institution type of distraction, which is represented in the Real World by the dancing, which is represented in Super Dream World by the dragon slaying?
74	** It's a shitty, shitty mental hospital. I mean, what kind of mental hospital has a kitchen accessible by the patients, with all the knives and such that go with? They probably just swiped them.
75	*** It seems likely to me that the knife in the asylum world was actually a scalpel, not a kitchen knife, and she took it from the infirmary. Still pretty negligent of the staff, but more likely.
76	*** That doesn't really fly far, in the ending sequence it's specifically shown that the cook was missing a knife (the same one they got in the dream world).
77	*** It's possible, given that they're shown cleaning around the asylum, the asylum allows trustees to work near knives or other dangerous objects, much like prisons. Assuming they haven't shown themselves to be incredibly violent in the past, it's not unreasonable that they might have such privlidges. Plus Rocket mentions she was working in the kitchen when the cook assualted her.
78	*** That's probably the reason they couldn't easily steal a knife from the kitchen. The cook kept the only knives on his person so there weren't any more. He let the girls work in the kitchen but he kept the knives to himself.
79	** I saw a theory presented that in the asylum world, Babydoll was actually seducing whoever it was she was "dancing" for in the brothel world. Babydoll's virginity is only an issue in the brothel world; it's not a big deal anywhere else. That's probably why her dances were so provocative and seemed to memorize anyone who was watching.
80	** It is still quite possible that Baby Doll created diversions to attract attention, whether they be tantrums, seduction, etc. while the others still went about their missions. Even then, it would be tough for the patients to get by with these types of things unless they had free reign to go nearly anywhere they want without supervision.
81	** RefugeInAudacity perhaps? The orderlies get distracted by whatever diversion Babydoll is creating and don't imagine that there are other patients running around stealing stuff. And if I remember how the movie went, they ''didn't'' get away with it. Blue found out pretty soon. He knew they'd taken the map and lighter almost immediately after they got them.
82	** Taking the mental hospital reality into account, the patients are constantly meeting with psychiatrists and having therapy. So their doctors are able to determine what tasks they can do. If a girl is prone to violent outbursts, then of course she won't be trusted around knives in the kitchen.
83	* I've seen the movie twice, and I still can't see how Baby Doll's bullet hit her sister. She was sitting on the floor, and Baby Doll shot at her stepfather who was standing. Then the bullet hits the light-bulb. What, did the shards of glass hit her sister? No way would that kill her. Maybe just leave a few scratches. Did the bullet ricochet off of the bulb or wall or something? I really can't see how it possibly would have killed her sister at all.
84	** It's been a week, so maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure that scene included a floor-to-ceiling pipe being punctured and releasing some kind of gas through a hole that had some chunks (i.e., shrapnel) missing. Also, the kid was pretty small, and who knows what the mother died of? Could be something genetic, left her with a weak constitution/body, and it was a combination of things that killed her. Physical damage from both the bullet & shrapnel, shock, a system already stressed from neglect induced by grief, whatever that possibly very hot gas was both being inhaled and spraying into the fresh wound...Hell, she could've just been unconscious and bleeding from a head wound, big sis overreacted and ran off, then the Stepfather suffocated her or something, and blamed Baby Doll.
85	*** From the fact that we can see what came out of the pipe, I'm guessing it was steam from the heating system. But yeah, from only seeing the movie, I'd thought that the step-father had accidentally/deliberately killed Baby Doll's sister just before Baby Doll managed to get there
86	*** Definitely the impression I got, and it made him look like even more of a monster for telling people Baby Doll killed her.
87	*** The stylistic, dialogue free opening does indeed indicate that the step-father killed the little girl before Baby Doll could get there. If that isn't the case, then it should have been IMPLICITLY STATED at some point that Baby Doll accidentally killed her, otherwise the WHOLE PREMISE bugs the hell out of me. The police show up, responding to gun fire, so they check out the house. Even if they were unanimously retarded, corrupt and blind, someone would notice that the girl had died from being beaten by either a small gorilla or a big freaking man, rather than death by gunshot. Even in the most bleak, phallocratic interpretation of an alternate 1950s, they would have taken one look at the little girl's body and then pointed at the evil looking guy with defense marks and bloody fists that stood to gain an inheritance from the girls and said "Yeah, its pretty obvious. Why the hell did you think this would work?"
88	*** Well, the doctor did state that she accidentally killed her sister right at the end of the movie. Whether or not that statement is reliable, however, is another matter altogether.
89	*** I always just assumed the bullet ricocheted off the pipe and hit her sister, given there was blood on the back of Babydoll's sister's head.
90	*** I thought it was implied that the Stepfather poisoned the mother. She didn't look old enough for the Stepfather to really expect her to die of natural causes anytime soon and he seemed to expect something from the will.
91	** The Extended Edition shows that she fired two shots, one passing through her step father's arm.
92	** I got the impression that her jugular was severed by the broken glass.
93	* Admittedly I know nothing about lobotomies but surely they leave a mark? We see Babydoll's face and there is no mark at all that she just had a metal spike rammed into her brain next to her eye. For that matter, would they really perform a procedure like that, even in the fifties, with a conscious, un-anesthetized patient?
94	** Bargain lobotomies can be done with a hook through the nose and not leave a mark. Back when they were popular, "doctors" would drive around in lobotomy vans and have people line up to get rid of unwanted emotions or make their kids more compliant.
95	** The other Wiki says, that the method depicted in the movie really was done this way, with only local anesthesia. Also there was very little mark left behind, so the way the movie shows it isn't that unrealistic.
96	** In previous scenes, they don't show the face of Baby at all. It is very weird. Maybe the last scene was a hallucination. Or maybe Baby Doll is really an immortal guardian angel.
97	** Actually, what happens in the movie is a transorbital lobotomy: the orbitoclast (surgical chisel) is [[EyeScream driven through the thin eye socket bone behind the eye then, sliding between the eyelid and the eye itself, it penetrates in the brain and is moved around in order to sever the prefrontal brain matter]]. That is also hinted by the trickle of blood oozing from the corner of her eye. The other wiki has some very squicky [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy#Transorbital_lobotomy description for it]]
98	* During the first fight with the giant robot samurai, why didn't Baby Doll use her gun until the very end? I know sword fights are cooler than gunfights, but seriously.
99	** You sort of answered it yourself. [[RuleOfCool Sword fights are cool.]]
100	** Conservation of ammo? She had three freaking boss levels to take down!
101	** She didn't just shoot the samurai. She had to distract him with her sword, and then jump to his head in order to shoot him accurately through the eye-holes in the helm.
102	** The clue is in Sweet Pea's line "a dance should be more than just titillation". Essentially the first fantasy is gratuitous and without any reason, because Babydoll is using it just for {{Fanservice}}. It doesn't run on the same logic as the following ones - which are designed with a clear purpose. The gratuity in the first dance is to show that Babydoll is going for flash over substance.
103	* Why would Babydoll imagine Ms. Gorski as submissive to Blue, even though he's a measly orderly and she's presented as a celebrated doctor. Should all of this show how little Babydoll thinks of the doctor?
104	** It was probably meant to show how Blue was undermining Dr. Gorski in the asylum world. He was the one pulling all of the strings and doing things behind her back (and even says, "these are MY girls," implying that he thinks the place is his), so in the brothel world he was actually in control.
105	*** Also, try to think of it from Sweet Pea's perspective. She probably has plenty of reason to hate him, but very little power to do anything about it.
106	** Because Snyder doesn't know how to write.
107	** This troper got the impression that after being attacked by her stepfather and Blue, Baby Doll got a ''huge'' victim complex, becoming convinced that no one would help her but herself. To justify not simply asking Dr. Gorski for help, her victim/fighter fantasy imagined the doctor as being nice but in no position to protect her.
108	** An abusive father is hardly likely to give his victims much freedom to meet and talk to people. Babydoll has likely never got to know a strong woman or a good man. She had opportunities to escape her fate easily enough but they required her to believe someone might be one of those things. The idea that a woman might get angry with a man, shout "Take him away!" and other men would obey her without hesitation doesn't fit her experiences.
109	** This is exactly it. Abuse victims or even those who have been bullied often don't speak out about it because they believe one of two things will happen: a) nothing will be done about it and they'll be victim blamed ("you shouldn't have acted out against your stepfather") or b) they'll be treated even worse for saying something.
110	* Lobotomy is a fairly hap-hazard process with multiple outcomes, but the movie suggests lobotomies result in a brain dead patient. Though I'm sure that occasionally happens, the consequences are extremely varied in real life. Some people end up disabled, some end up normal, ableit "less anxious", some even went on to write novels and function well in society. There was even one case of Howard Dully, who went much of his life unaware he had even been given one when he was 12. Was it just a plot contrivance in this case that Baby Doll would definitely end up brain dead and catatonic? What would happen if she was still perfectly functional afterwards, thus being unable to free herself from the nightmare?
111	** In fiction, lobotomies are almost ALWAYS presented as a way of turning people into vegetables. So yes, it's just a plot contrivance. And even if the lobotomy hadn't turned Babydoll completely brain dead, there was still a high chance it would have messed her up enough to not make her a reliable witness against the Stepfather.
112	** This lobotomy was executed with the intent of making her braindead, so she could never testify. Sure, under a doctor that actually wanted to perform a good lobotomy, she might have just lost small functionality and issues related to those. But this one explicitly was to silence her forever.
113	*** Yeah, this - depends on how deep it goes or much the pick gets wiggled about, from what I hear. {{Squick}}. It ''is'' quite possible for a lobotomy patient to remain mostly or partly functional, as shown by the case of Howard Dully, who did indeed live a normal life (unlucky name, though), but since it's not possible to see which parts of the brain you're jabbing from the outside, it's a bit hit-or-miss, and it would presumably be easier to intentionally render someone a vegetable than to intentionally avoid doing so.
114	** Of course, it's entirely possible that she was like that not from the lobotomy, but was in shock.
115	*** Given that Baby Doll smiles and closes her eyes when the police ask her if she was alright, that's pretty likely.
116	* Why the hell did Rocket hit the cook? I can understand the chocolate thing because when you're in a crappy situation like that who wouldn't want to sneak some chocolate, but when the cook catches her why did she think it was a good idea to slap him. Lady, he's twice your size and pissed and you have sticks for arms - did you really think you stood a chance?
117	** Because it causes the cook to lose it, try to rape Rocket and the rape-rescue can then be used to further Babydoll's relationship with he other inmates. In other words Snyder likes rape, it's practically the only way he knows how to deal with characters who don't have a penis. (the less angry explanation would be, she panicked)
118	*** She's fighting back. Isn't that the whole point of this movie, to fight for yourself and loved ones with everything you've got, regardless of the situation? Assuming the girls really are being sexually abused by the staff in real life, he was going to attack her regardless. So, she preemptively fought to stop him.
119	*** The thing is, Rocket fighting back in that specific scene is really stupid. The cook is mad because he caught her stealing chocolate, and is going to confront her about that - there is no indication that the cook is going to assault her, let alone sexually. The fact you're supposed to assume that's what he's going to do is rather missagenist. So Rocket slapping the cook just comes out of no where and just used as a reason for the cook to attack her.
120	*** One, 'missagenist' is not a word. Two, the cook sexually assaults her. So no, assuming that he would make that choice is not unfair to him. Regardless of the action that set off the volatility of the scene, he is explicitly the kind of person who sexually assaults teenage girls, ''period''. And finally, Rocket is repeatedly shown as struggling under, defying and willing to go to reckless heights to not feel the way she does in the brothel. Considering she risked death for a pipe dream, it's not only not implausible but actually establishing characterization and foreshadowing; she wants to keep the chocolate, to improve her situation just a little, and she hates the situation enough that she makes the split second choice that she can't accept it and buckle under. So she returns his aggressively grabbing her with physical forcefulness; if she'd managed to get him to back off, not only would she have her chocolate but she'd also have a more intangible victory, and potentially a more safe position in the kitchen.
121	*** misogynist
122	** If one goes off of the theory that Rocket really was insane, that could explain it. It's possible that she suffers from something that causes her to not act rationally and/or be violent, which would explain her running away from home and why Sweet Pea is so concerned that she's making bad decisions. If that's the case, that would explain why Rocket would choose to hit someone who (A) is clearly able to physically overpower her and (B) obviously pissed at her already, when it would logically make more sense to just give back the chocolate and leave.
123	** In the extended cut, the cook is introduced making pervy kissy faces at Rocket as she walks by. So presumably whenever she worked in the kitchen, she had to put up with him hitting on her or making her feel uncomfortable - making her outburst a little more understandable.
124	* I might have missed this part of the movie in all the confusion, but when did the girls manage to grab the knife in the kitchen? Rocky was dead, Sweet Pea was incarcerated, so that leaves Baby Doll and Amber, but none of them were in the cook's proximity before Blue and his goons barged in. And the girls have clearly ''not'' collected the "Knife" bomb in the Super Dream World, either.
125	** The knife landed in front of Amber feet. We have two shots of the floor near Amber: one with the knife in front of her and in the second (when Blue storms in the kitchen) the knife isn't there anymore.
126	** And then Blue stormed in and ordered Amber to get ready for the show later. So that gives her time to hide the knife under the drawer, while Blue is busy talking to Babydoll.
127	* Why would Babydoll dream about her and her only friends at the Asylum friends being sex slaves, with three of them ending up killed? It, as a metaphor, makes no sense.
128	** It's pretty apparent that they are indeed being raped by Blue and perhaps other orderlies or "guests", thus making them sex slaves in reality. Their deaths, as speculated above, probably indicate that they were too damaged to function in the outside world.
129	** In the reality, Babydoll is coming up with a plan to escape from the asylum. She realises that Sweet Pea doesn't belong there and it becomes a plan to get her out as well. The other three girls are mentally ill and they ask to come along as well. Babydoll humours them and lets them help but she has no intention of letting them escape. So in order for them to not be able to escape in the Brothel Fantasy (where there is nothing wrong with them) she has them killed off. And it isn't until the very end of her fantasy that she realises ''she'' can't leave the asylum either - and sacrifices herself to let Sweet Pea escape.
130	** And Babydoll imagines them as whores in a brothel because that's pretty much what their lives are like. They're being abused by the orderlies anyway, so imagining that they're whores plotting to escape a brothel is their way of coping with it. Imagine your shitty life as an exciting and glamorous story. For example, in the brothel fantasy, Sweet Pea is now the star of the show. She's being abused by orderlies? Well she copes with it by imagining herself as the best whore in the brothel, and so good that all the clients want her.
131	* Three things about the knife:
132	** What was it's purpose in Babydoll's plan? Did she count on Blue trying to rape her?
133	*** "In case of emergencies". In case they needed to cut something or kill someone.
134	** Of all the lethal weapons in the kitchen, they HAD to steal the one on the Cook's person?
135	*** I checked. No more knives. Those two the cook had were ''it''. In fact, they were presumably "it" specifically so inmates couldn't steal them.
136	** Why didn't Babydoll kill Pimp!Blue with it?
137	*** She tried. She missed IRL, but may or may not have succeeded in the Brothel. It didn't matter, he was out of the story.
138	** And killing someone isn't as easy as you might think. Babydoll might not have had it in her to physically kill him.
139	** She might not have meant to kill him - given that would be murder and there's no way to prove he was raping her (especially in the 60s). Stabbing him how she did incapacitated him long enough for her and Sweet Pea to get to safety.
140	* Forgive this foreign troper, but what does the expression/words "High Roller" mean? I get the character he's supposed to be both in the asylum and the brothel, but is the expression a reference to something?
141	** Assuming by foreign you mean non-American, this American troper has never heard the expression before this movie. Maybe "Person who spends a lot of money"? But then, they call him THE High Roller...
142	** "High Roller" tends to be used in the context of a Casino for someone rich that likes to gamble. In return they get preferential treatment such as complimentary meals or free tickets to shows.
143	** Also has an implication on the way they spend their money. To compare, the term "holy roller" is sometimes used to refer to those rich preachers at one of those televised megachurches.
144	*** This. Basically, it means someone who is rather wealthy, and with little regard to how s/he speds his/her money.
145	* When Baby Doll is going to do her dance for the chef, the girls knock over a pot of potatoes and water. There's a lot of focus on the water going down the drain...This troper found that odd. Why did they even knock it over anyway? It should have just made the chef mad(madder) and didn't serve any purpose.
146	** They spilled the water in the first place because the plot needed them to. The shot of the water going down the drain was specifically to show the radio cord nearby. The radio's cord slips into the water, which causes the music to stop, which causes the cook to come out of his trance, which leads directly to Rocket's death.
147	*** It also helped get the chef's attention. He looks up at the noise, wondering if it was by accident.
148	* The entire movie basically relies on the police not trying to question someone who is suspected of assault and murder before/after sedating her and letting one of her alleged victims and primary beneficiary drive her away and institutionalize her, or for ''at least'' five days afterwards, and for an apparently ethical lobotomist and therapist to not even think of verifying the paperwork on a lobotomy that the latter didn't think was necessary before performing the procedure. And this has apparently happened multiple times without anyone getting suspicious. Awesome to watch or not, the entire movie requires almost ''everyone'' in authority to be stupid or as corrupt as Blue.
149	** They released Baby Doll into the custody of her guardian, who took her to Lennox House, where she started raising Cain. The specialist was only there to lobotomize, and wasn't familiar with BD. He just comes in when they ask him. You're assuming this wasn't the first time Blue forged the signature ''for a lobotomy''. There's no real indication of that. All the "real world" Blue said was that the stepdad made him do it, and we saw them discussing it before. "I'm taking a really big risk here", implies it's unusual. Dad was expecting her to have her Sucker Punch spiked, so to speak, a lot sooner. ("I don't have a lobotomy surgeon on staff--" "What?") All Daddy has to do is stonewall the cops for a few days, and they might not have considered her story in the first place or taken it seriously. She ''did'' scratch and try to kill her stepfather, and she ''did'' shoot her sister. ("[[DeliberateValuesDissonance And we all know how crazy those girls get with grief]], right fellas? She doesn't know what she's talking about. Too bad you found her after the hospital lobotomized her, right, fellas"?) Even the "dozen times" could refer to times he forged signatures for other things, or could be an outright lie. The entire point of the lobotomy is to prevent BD from being able to testify. He implicitly raped--and possibly killed--other "girls", but if there had been other ''lobotomized'' girls he raped, he wouldn't be so surprised at Baby Doll's reaction, and the other orderlies wouldn't have such a strong reaction.
150	** I think the stepfather does flip out and at least Lampshade this when Blue says it'll take five days for the specialist to perform the lobotomy. Since we never find out what happens to the stepfather after this, it means he'll have to have ducked the authorities somehow. But since he'll get implicated by Blue at the end anyway (Blue can be heard yelling that the stepfather ordered him as he's taken away) it's likely their plan wouldn't have worked anyway.
151	** The most logical way to look at it is the stepfather not telling the police that the sister is dead. He puts out a call to the police that his eldest stepdaughter is running around in hysterics and is possibly violent. The police find Baby Doll and release her into his custody. His plan was presumably to check her into the asylum and once they had her lobotomized, report the sister's death (saying she died from lingering injuries inflicted by Baby Doll). It's a flimsy plan, and thus it's pretty likely he'll be busted by the police.
152	* When I hear the part about the forged lobotomy signature, [[IdiotBall Idiot Balls]] aside, I get a strange feeling that Baby Doll somehow forged the signature as her HeroicSacrifice in the real world. I mean, why would Blue be surprised that she was lobotomized if he was the one who forged the signature? Besides, "Did you see how she looked at me? It's like she wanted me to do it."
153	** No. Blue forged the signature. He wasn't surprised that it happened. The problem we have is that he forges Ms. Gorblowski's signature. This implies she is the only one who can order lobotomies, but there becomes a problem when she knows about the lobotomy but doesn't question who signed off on it.
154	*** It was speculated above that there were other doctors on staff, and that Dr. Gorski assumed that one of them ordered it. It still takes some suspension of disbelief (Gorski seemed very hopeful that Baby Doll might have recovered, so one would wonder why she didn't try to find out more details about why a lobotomy was immediately ordered), but it's a reason.
155	*** It has also been speculated that parents and guardians can request a lobotomy without the docotor's approval, but that it would be suspicous if the stepfather was involved.
156	** Blue wasn't surprised that she got the lobotomy, he was upset at the lack of response when he tried to rape her. Presumably, it was the first time he tried something like that.
157	** Or alternatively, he thought he wanted her vegetated and unable to resist, and didn't realize until he could actually have her that he preferred her with the "fight in her", with her personality intact. He probably had raped vegetated girls before, but he hadn't been nearly as attracted to them as he was to Baby Doll.
158	* If the point of the film is that the girls are more than eye candy how come we learn next to nothing about Amber and Blondie’s character and backstory (especially Amber)?
159	** Because the girls really are just eye candy and people try to defend it as TrueArt that's really very deep and not contrived at all.
160	** Baby Doll does not know them and knows they are too damaged/unstable to escape the asylum so she doesn't give them a backstory. They offer to help with her plan so she includes them but she knows they won't be able to leave.
161	** Also in action movies, does every male character get a detailed backstory? Why should every female character have to have one if they're not important to the overall narrative?
162	*** Even their narrative isn't very important, everything in the movie was impatiently trying to get back to the fantasy world and brothel scenes.
163	** Amber and Blondie are ''supporting'' characters. Any writer can tell you that there's a hierarchy with characters and backstories. Babydoll is our lead - so hers is the backstory we know most of. Sweet Pea and Rocket come next - and their backstory is important to the narrative, so that's why we know about their home lives. All that's important about Amber and Blondie is that they're in the asylum/brothel and want to escape it as well - so that's all we know.
164	** What do we know about Amber and Blondie? For starters, we know that Blondie is a tough and cynical ball-buster ("she's ''no'' virgin") or at least she appears to be - and she's got an empathetic and vulnerable side that makes her easily want to be friends with the girls and join their plan to escape. But she also fears Blue's retaliation, which is why she confesses to what they're doing - and her loyalty to the others still makes her feel terrible about it. As for Amber, she's the shyest and most timid of the girls but she's also very caring and empathetic too (she wants to be nice to Baby Doll when she arrives, she can be seen gasping in horror when Rocket talks about being assaulted and she's the first to agree to the plan). She's also not as weak or timid as she appears - as she proves brave enough to successfully steal the Mayor's lighter and think on her feet when Rocket has been stabbed (it's thanks to her that Baby has the knife to eventually stab Blue). She also doesn't hold it against Blondie for betraying them, and her expressions show that she sympathises with what she is feeling. We don't know why they're both in the asylum but we know plenty about them as people.
165	* Why not steal the map last? That's what tips Blue off to them trying to escape. Stealing the lighter and the knife could be explained away, the girls could say they wanted to sell them but the map would be really hard to explain away so why not steal it last with less time for Blue to figure it out?
166	** I think they stole the items in the order the old man provided. And the girls aren't exactly in the right state of mind to fully work out the intricacies of the plan. Might also have been based on opportunities.
167	* If the mother bequeathed everything to her daughters and the stepfather is now their legal guardian, why does he fly into a rage if he would have full control of their finances until they came of age?
168	** Baby is twenty- she's already of age and he wouldn't have any legal control over her or her possesions.
169	** The father may be the legal guardian of her ''sister'' but Babydoll is of age and would inherit all the money and presumably the house too. He's mad because he's got nothing from his dead wife and his financial situation now depends on the kindness and generosity of his eldest stepdaughter.
170	** So that means he tries to attack Babydoll because if ''she'' then dies, he now inherits everything. Or at least he will until her sister comes of age - but that's several years away.
171	*** Which makes things even weirder, because that means that he actually had no right or ability to send her to an asylum 'even' in the 1950s. She would have gone straight to jail, so why did they include her being 20?
172	*** The form that her stepfather filled out said she was 20. It's possible that she's also underage, but they wouldn't accept children into an asylum.
173	** Well if she's living in his house, he does have a right to commit her if he feels his life is in danger. Baby ''did'' shoot him with a gun.
174	** The thing about being committed to an asylum or a mental facility is that it's a very complicated matter, at least in terms of consent. If a patient can recognise that their mental health is deteriorating and wish to seek treatment, they can commit themselves willingly. However there are some who can't recognise the extent of their mental illness, and may be committed by a friend or family member - someone who knows them well and can give an account of their behaviour to provide the doctors with as much information as they need. The age of the patient doesn't really matter - the stepfather would be considered a reliable source if he had her committed since they've lived together and he suffered some injuries from an 'episode' (we the audience knows it was greyer than that but hey, patriarchal 1950s-60s). The form he's filling out has a list of symptoms for him to tick off corresponding to Baby Doll's condition - and the psychiatrists would then evaluate the patient and decide on suitable treatment (some need medication, others just need therapy, some need a combination of both). What with Blue being a dirty dealer, it's likely he skipped some of the official stuff or fudged things to get Baby Doll ready for the lobotomy besides forging the signature.
175	* The brothel "layer" is clear in its relation to the physical world. Brothel girl dances, asylum inmate dances, this is entirely clear. But the battle "layer" is... less so. What, if anything, would an observer see the girls doing in physical reality?
176	** The third layer is almost entirely symbolic, more there to represent the feeling the dance creates. The dance is Baby Doll's way of fighting back, and it's very cathartic for her. Gorski uses dancing and performance therapy as a way for the girls to process their trauma, and a lot of people who become performers have suffered in the past and find the performance itself a way of processing these emotions or releasing them in healthy ways. Baby Doll is trying to process the following: rage (at what was done to her), fear (could the abuse happen again), sadness (at what she's lost), empathy (for the other victims she's surrounded by) and rebellion (a desire to fight back against this system). Basically it's a bunch of different emotions and sensations colliding inside of her, so a spectacular battle sequence is the most apt representation. So in the asylum and brothel layers, an observer would see what they are literally doing. In the third layer, that is entirely what the girls are feeling, with only minimal relations to what's really happening (Rocket's jet pack is her fight with the cook, killing the baby dragon is stealing the Mayor's lighter).

Context Headscratchers / SuckerPunch