Line #6 YMMV/StrangerInAStrangeLand


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2	* {{Anvilicious}}: In case you didn't get it, Robert Heinlein dislikes mainstream religion (particularly televangelists), likes polyamory and also likes "[[BigBeautifulWoman pleasantly plump]]" women. He also advocates personal development (in a semi-spiritual sense). (For the record, he said he didn't want to present the story and its values as something he endorsed, but wanted to jar people's preconceived notions and get them to question and think.)
3	* DesignatedHero: For an AllLovingHero, Michael makes a LOT of people disappear... Jubal even calls him on it toward the end of the book, and he explains that since no one ever really dies, he's doing the equivalent of removing a football player from the game for unnecessary roughness.
4	* EsotericHappyEnding: Michael's death is entirely irrelevant because he's become an Old One (or possibly an angel, or both) and will exist eternally, and since his cult has eaten him, he's now a part of them all, and they will continue to spread and, in five thousand years from now, save Earth from being destroyed by Martians! Because, at that point, all humans will be members of Michael's cult and have all developed to beautiful, incredibly powerful psychic superhumans. And all those who didn't agree with their message (or were just plain too "inherently wrong" to be considered worthy of "sharing the water with" -- gays, for instance) have either died out or were made to disappear. Which is perfectly fine, because human morals and justice don't apply to any of them. Yay?
5	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: Not in this book, but there's one in a later Heinlein work, ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast'', [[SelfDeprecation in reference to it]], where one of the characters derides two others for admitting to enjoying ''Stranger in a Strange Land''. They then consider [[ItMakesSenseInContext visiting Heinlein]] to ask him what possessed him to write it.
6	* HilariousInHindsight: Heinlein predicted screensavers:
7	-->"They went to the living room; Jill sat at his feet and they applied themselves to martinis. Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known winchell[[note]]"A [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell winchell]]" is slang for a gossip columnist or a more tabloidish, sensationalist reporter. A "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann lippmann]]" is a serious investigative reporter, as Ben Caxton strives to be.[[/note]] Augustus Greaves."
8	* MemeticMutation: The word "grok" (Martian for "drink", but used in the sense of "completely grasp an idea") became a popular slang term after the book came out.
9	* NightmareFuel:
10	** Valentine Michael Smith has vast psychic abilities owing to his Martian upbringing. Among these is the ability to make any object, regardless of size or make-up, just "go away." This includes humans, and Smith spends most of the book with an odd mix of BlueAndOrangeMorality and BlackAndWhiteMorality, meaning if he perceives a "wrongness" in you, you're just gone. Mike's bodycount, not that there are any bodies to count, gets up into the high hundreds.
11	*** And absolutely ''no one'' in his little cult can see anything wrong with that. Because those people didn't agree with Michael or did something that displeased him, ''they'' were in the wrong and thus, making them disappear is fully justified. Their {{Ubermensch}} mentality regarding Michael (and, by extension, themselves) has them disregard the inherent moral wrongness of murder entirely.
12	** As Jubal points out in the book, the moral code that religions always ascribe to their gods is not the same as that they insist on for mortals, and this combines in disquieting ways with Mike's philosophy that all people are God.
13	** There is a second and more deliberate NightmareFuel in the notion that the "Old Ones" of Mars are capable of dismantling planets, have done it in the past, and simply haven't made up their minds yet on whether or not to do it to Earth.
14	** A subtle, psychological example: You can learn telekinesis and other amazing psychic powers but, to do so, you must practice a discipline that will drastically shift your values and way of thinking. If you choose not to learn it, other people will. In the end, people who are hesitant will have to choose whether to give in or to live as a powerless throwback (or possibly ''gone'') in a world full of superhumans. Mike explains this in the very last pages of the book. Most readers probably didn't even grasp the essential ruthlessness of what he has done to humanity.
15	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: This book wasn't written to exploit the counterculture movement of the 1960's, but ''predicted it''. Since then, free love has become significantly less shocking and controversial (although something of a DeadHorseTrope). However, Heinlein's publisher pulled it off his "too controversial to print" list and released it to exploit the counter culture movement of the 1960s.
16	* {{Squick}}: After [[spoiler:Mike dies]], his followers boil his bones into broth and drank him. It’s clearly a reference to transubstantiation but even so it’s disturbing.
17	* ValuesDissonance: All over the place.
18	** Jill's ideas on women, homosexuality, and sexism are frighteningly reactionary for such an [[EternalSexualFreedom otherwise progressive]] novel. Her CharacterDevelopment consists largely of the more liberal Jubal (and especially Mike) getting her to recognize this and become less prudish (she becomes a model in a carnival "posing show" to abandon her inhibitions), and she essentially serves only as a SatelliteCharacter to inform Mike about human society. Duke undergoes a similar, if abbreviated arc, and the main conflict of the story is Mike's "church" running headlong into the reactionary values of society.
19	** All of the male characters, even Jubal, talk patronizingly to Jill and the other female characters, and love to lecture them about why they're wrong. Note that Miriam is a scientist and Anne is a Fair Witness (a completely unbiased legal expert).
20	** Spanking is mentioned or brought up with what Creator/AdamCadre called a "what the fuck is your ''problem''" frequency, which certainly doesn't help even without considering the misogynistic overtones described above.
21	** One of the book's main points is that women can and should enjoy sex ([[FairForItsDay controversial back then, due to held-over Victorian beliefs]]). That's fine, but what is not fine is the language used by men to describe these pleasure-loving women. Michael sings a not-very-funny ballad about Jill as a "willing tart" and her friend Dawn as someone who "never shops for pants"; a Jewish man rather improbably greets his wife with the words "you limber Levantine whore". It's worth noting that this doesn't even make any sense, as they are all in a group marriage, so she's not a whore.
22	** For all the advocating of free love and openness, gay people are still considered to be inherently wrong and subhuman.
23	** All religions are considered wrong or false, except for Mike's which is pretty blatantly just a sex cult. Also said cult also sees no problem with casual murder of anyone who would go against them.
24	** In a ''very'' jarringly racist scene noted by ''WebAnimation/OverlySarcasticProductions'', Jubal tries to excuse the Martian practice of cannibalism to his rightfully {{Squick}}ed out assistant by stating that the assistant's [[TheSavageIndian Native American ancestors]] were cannibals and [[InsaneTrollLogic so he shouldn't be "criticizing other cannibals."]]
25	** The book's idea of consent is... rather warped. Both Ben and Jubal get sexually assaulted... [[DoubleStandardRapeSciFi and this is not portrayed in a negative light]].
26	--->'''[[WebAnimation/OverlySarcasticProductions Red]]:''' ''Heinlein'', did you just write your self-insert character being assaulted by your sex cult and frame it like it was a good thing?!

Context YMMV / StrangerInAStrangeLand