Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory - Television Tropes & Idioms

Neon Genesis Evangelion. Full stop. Although, that was really the point; see the bit about the Mind Screw above.
Many Fullmetal Alchemist fans believe that the religion of Ishval was based off modern Islam, due to the Ishballans' dark skin and the Arabian Nights-esque setting they lived in. Hiromu Arakawa (the creator of the manga) has stated that she based it off of the Ainu, an ethnic group that were driven from Honshu and live on Hokkaido, where Arakawa was born. A similar theory is that Ishval was based off of Ishvara, a hindu concept of monotheism.
- On the other hand, the screenwriter for the anime has, according to this column, admitted that the war themes explored in the anime were meant as a commentary on America's participation in the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The Ishvalan civilians represented the natives of these countries, caught in the middle.
  - And for added flavour, Arakawa comments on the sleeve of volume 15 of the manga that she talked with plenty of Japanese WW 2 veterans for the Ishvalian flashbacks.
- This troper has always thought that the Ishvalans represented the Jews and the military represented Nazi Germany. Both the Ishvalans and the Jews were a group of people that were surpressed because they had a different religion than the country that they lived in. Also, When Edward came out of the Gate he stepped into Germany.
- Another theory is that while she may have based it on a different group of people the issues facing the Muslims/Jews/Ainu have some similarities so we may just interperet it somewhat differently based on our own unique ambiguous informational bais.
Shortly after its release, many began suspecting that Code Geass's Britannian Empire and its resource-grubbing expansionism was meant to be a thinly veiled potshot at America and the War on Terror, to the point where some began calling for a boycott of the show's eventual US release. In an interview near the end of the first season, director/co-creator Goro Taniguchi stated that this is not the case, insisting that the whole reason he made the show was to tell an entertaining story and not to make any kind of political message.
- The series makes more sense if you replace Britannia with Japan, and the United States of Japan with the United States of America. I mean who better to represent George W. Bush than Ougi. There's even a scene where Shirley clearly listens to J-Pop.
- It makes more sense if you look at Britannia as Britain and the United States of Japan as the United States of America. An occupying force? A revolutionary guerrilla war in the name of freedom? Although, I admit, I would be hard pressed to find an allegory for George Washington; nevertheless, Emperor Charles is an easy stand-in for the tyrant King George III.
  - This is actually the case, as the series is based on a universe in which the Britannian empire started in 60 B.C. and therefore "America" remained a part of Britannia, which continued to expand its empire. The series takes place in the 1940s common time, and the only reason the Britannian capital is in America is due to a revolt that happened in England, which forced them to move the capital to America. If it's to be a representation of anything, it is of the western expansion, using England as the central figure in this representation.
- It makes most sense to say that Britannia is the West in general, with all the good and bad baggage that entails. Plus, the series' endgame does seem to preclude any entirely allegorical narrative, although the Britannian use of an blatant nuclear expy carries obvious connotations associating the Britannians with the USA.
  - If this is true, it makes the blatant Pizza Hut Product Placement irony to the next level. "The Westerners are taking over our people and our values! But first, eat Pizza!"
Revolutionary Girl Utena seems to attract this like flies and naturally, massive Internet Backdraft erupts when people try to discuss what it's an allegory for.
Tenchi Muyo: Anybody who was part of the (in)famous Tenchi FF mailing list at the proper time will remember one Mr. Grey, who argued that Tenchi Muyo was all an allegory for an obscure form of Zen Taoism. According to Grey, Ryoko and Ayeka were each half a universe, Ryoko represented the Altruist, and Tenchi represented the goat.
Pretty Cure fans are usually kidding when they invoke this — nobody really believes that Mika's introductory episode was intended as a condemnation of the tendency of news media to focus on celebrities at the expense of more important issues, or that the costume designs in Yes! Pretty Cure 5 symbolize the public school system draining children of their creativity and individuality.
Lain. Even the creators can't agree on what all of it means. Pro-technology manifesto? Massive religious allegory? Treatise on the negative influences of Western culture on Japanese society? You decide; the Word Of God isn't going to help here.
- Word Of God was specifically "I want this to mean something completely different to the Japanese audience than the American audience, to spark a dialog and debate of the ideas." The fact that the Wild Mass Guessing on both sides of the Pacific were diverse and insane in pretty much the same ways was actually called a disappointment.
Haibane Renmei was pretty much made to induce this kind of thing as near as I can tell. Though they take a lot of the fun out by making the 'purgatory' part so literal and obvious. That aside, Yoshitoshi ABe also doesn't seem to be much of a fan of the WordOfGod approach, encouraging viewers to come to their own conclusions about the specifics of the symbolism.
Texhnolyze is set in the underground city of Lux/Lukuss, has episodes named "Heavenward" and "Hades", and eventually suggests that Lux was created as a sort of physical purgatory. The show also features a Mind Screw ending, though in general it's one of the more literal examples of this trope.
- Not coincidentally, Yoshitoshi ABe was involved with Serial Experiments Lain, Haibane Renmei, and Texhnolyze.
  - Not to mention, more importantly, the producer Yasuyuki Ueda. The only one of the three where ABe contributed more than character designs was his pet project Haibane Renmei. Ueda and ABe later joked about this, saying that Niea_7 and Haibane Renmei proved that ABe was the earnest and hardworking one.
This evaluation of Bottle Fairy.
Furude Hanyu? Jesus in Purgatory. Or, rather, Jesus in samsara. What happens if God needs forgiveness too? Is a partly-human, self-sacrificial deity really that much better than the blood-thirsty gods of old, or does that just create new problems? What if no one even realizes there's been a change? (Then again, it could just be a show about psychotic lolis.)
Trigun. Vash is Jesus. Gunsmoke is purgatory. Knives is Satan, or possibly just an embodiment of evil. Wolfwood is Judas. Meryl and Millie are angels. Legato is the serpent from the Garden of Eden. Rem is... Mary? Some of those are debatable, but the first two are pretty much set in stone.
Casshern Sins: Casshern is Satan but good. Luna is Jesus but evil.

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Art historian Roger Kimball points out several particularly egregious examples from his own field of expertise in his book The Rape of the Masters.
This troper has seen people do this to porn in general. Protip: a fetish cannot say anything about society as a whole- it's right there in the definition. And at least I only put this in the "Art" category because I was too lazy to make an "Other" folder.
- That doesn't mean a fetish can't say anything about society. The fact that something is a fetish and not normal can say a lot.

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Any story involving a Masquerade and Puberty Superpower can be interpreted as a metaphor for the awakening of a young homosexual if one looks close enough. Then again, some series deliberately play this up. More frequently, such series are often interpreted as allegories for puberty in general.
- X-men has become even more blatant with this, since they've just moved to San Francisco, and now live in a big, phallic tower. There seem to be anti-mutant hate-crimes going on, as a result of the team declaring the city a safe haven. The first person attacked happened to be leaving a nightclub, and has pink hair, a smallish frame, and insect-like wings. Yes, that's right, she's basically a fairy.
- X-men has also been seen as a Allegory about racism in addition to homophobia, the latter being picked up on by director Bryan Singer and integrated into his first two films based on the franchise.
  - Marvel mutants in general have the recurring themes of puberty and passage into adulthood, from the very beginning of X-Men and reviving with New Mutants, and even though now there are far more veteran X-Men, it keeps coming back each new crop of 'Gifted Youngsters'. Part of growing through teenhood is coping with a feeling of being dreadfully different, or perceived different, and persecuted; racism and homophobia themes naturally grow out of that, as example of persecution from being different that more people could identify with. So while it's grown to encompass broader social issues, and it's perfectly compatible with them, the mutant's dilemma was intended to be examined as a personal one.
Parodied in MAD Magazine`s parody of Watchmen, where Big Figure and his goons attempt to work out what's going to happen next by analyzing the comic's 'direct, concomitant parallelisms' as pertaining to an owl mask on a previous page. They come up with lots of deep, meaningful suggestions, but are cut off by Nite Owl's Owlship crashing through the wall◊.
Maybe the Punisher isn't a fascist, and just wants every single murderer and rapist to die.
Pretty much anything written by Grant Morrison.
Somebody came up with the idea that the Fantastic Four represent the four elements (Thing is Earth, Invisible Woman is Air, Human Torch is Fire (duh), and Mr. Fantastic is Water). To me, this sounds like something that was developed retroactively. Stan Lee, of course, has no problem with being labeled a genius, so he hasn't discouraged this.
- Neil Gaiman took advantage of the four elements scheme for his 1602 version of the Fantastic Four.
Deadpool is everyone in Purgatory!
Superheroes and Sex: The Art and Innuendo of Batwoman.

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At least one person believes that Stanley Kubrick's The Shining was evidence that the moon landings were faked.
Literature-to-film example: during pre-production for the movie Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Marilyn Manson expressed interest in playing the role of Willy Wonka, and outlined his theory that Wonka was actually Satan, tempting and leading the damned souls (the children) into Hell. Of course, to be fair to him, the original novel was written by Roald Dahl, so he might have had a point.
David Lynch actually encourages people to come up with their own theories on Eraserhead. The Lady in the Radiator is frequently interpreted as Death, Henry is the everyman, and the Man in the Planet is either Satan or God. But nobody can agree what the Baby is.
- His Penis...it's clearly his penis.
- The trope applies to basically everything Lynch has ever made, particularly Rabbits, a sitcom-parody involving three actors wearing rabbit heads hanging out in what may very well be purgatory.
Donnie Darko is almost invariably never interpreted the same way by any two people, with interpretations going all over the allegorical scale.
Pulp Fiction possesses several plot points that are subject to this; one revolves around the mysterious glowing contents of Marcellus Wallace's briefcase that are never explained (with one popular theory being that it is, in fact, Wallace's soul, which he bought back from Mr. S), and another being the reason for a band-aid that is prominently displayed on Wallace's bald head as it is filmed from the back. The first is merely a plot Mac Guffin that Tarantino never bothered to explain (although, granted, one which is open to some interpretation); the second is merely a result of actor Ving Rhames (who played Wallace) cutting the back of his head whilst shaving it and requiring a band-aid to stop the bleeding.
- But face it, it's cooler if you give it cosmic overtones.
Because it starred a black protagonist, quite rare for the early 1960's, Night of the Living Dead was — and still is — lauded for its metaphorical depiction of race and the Civil Rights movement in America. Funny part is, George Romero didn't intend to include such a message at all; he had previously stated that he cast Duane Jones simply because he gave the best audition. Of course, the praise seems to have gone to his head, as he's run with the "visionary auteur" label and jammed extremely Anvilicious socio-political allegories into his movies ever since, to the point that Land of the Dead came off like a 527 ad with zombies.
This link discusses how Goldfinger had subtext involving the Oedipus Complex.
The final scene of (fittingly enough) Jesus Christ Superstar, the film, shows a shepherd walking through the desert. Some thought it was supposed to symbolize Jesus's resurrection, which was not itself featured with the movie (and the play it was based on). However, it was not one of the actors but a real shepherd, who just happened to walk by when the crew was filming, and they decided to leave him in.
Remember when Happy Feet came out and there were arguments by certain social commentators that it promoted the gay agenda to children? All because the main character — an anthropomorphic CGI penguin — is a tap dancer who encounters resistance from his father, telling him at one point, "You have to accept me for who I am!". Apparently the commentators didn't realize that this classic story is at least Older Than Television.
The book Citizen Spielberg attacks the portrayal of women in the Indiana Jones films. This, of course, is only too easy to do with Willie Scott and Elsa Schneider. What about Marion? Well, we're told she started off the film wearing pants before committing the terrible crime of putting on a pretty dress, which apparently represents her "growing vulnerability and emerging sexuality". Oh, and the scene where she conks a guy on the head with a frying pan? That's apparently symbolic of her taking on the domestic duties of the female gender role.
- She might actually fit when you realize that Lucas and Spielberg apparently came up with backstory (never mentioned in the movies) wherein her prior affair with Indy took place when she was 12, and he was in his 20's. Aside from the squick value inherent in that, a woman who spends her entire life more or less pining over someone who statutory raped her when she was 12 fits quite well with the other two (if not trumping them) in terms of poorly-written women.
There exists more than one interpretation of Pan's Labyrinth as an allegory of puberty, growth and all that jazz.
Need a really good laugh? Then read this review of Red Zone Cuba and keep in mind that the author is praising the artistry found in the rich, sociopolitical symbolism of a Coleman Freakin' Francis movie.
Roy Batty in Blade Runner is rather Christlike, in that he saves Deckard in the end. If so, he's a very Gnostic Christ, with Tyrell as a fallible and imperfect God.
Signs' initially rage-inducing ending is arguably improved by this sort of interpretation. Consider for a moment that water per se is never explicitly stated to be the invaders' Achilles' Heel - a television newscast on the subject only refers to something along the lines of "an esoteric method discovered in the Middle East," the birthplace of the major Abrahamic religions. Moreover, the only water that is actually shown to harm the invaders has been handled by a priest, and is only effective after he begins to resolve his crisis of faith. That would tend to suggest that the "aliens" in question are, in fact, demons (which makes the whole "creeping around in the shadows and screwing with people instead of death-raying the entire planet" thing a lot more reasonable), and are subdued by holy water and (presumably) similar religious articles. Plus, it is M. Night Shyamalan himself (the Creator) who appears to suggest using water against the creatures. The considerable volumes of work in which folklorists draw numerous parallels between the superstitions of antiquity and the modern UFO phenomenon don't exactly hurt this interpretation either. Intentional or not, it at least makes the movie seem less stupid.
The short film Pencil Face. Just read the comments to witness this trope in full force.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is just a mindless action movie... Or Is It? This article brutally rips on both this trope and the movie.
- And this analysis interprets Revenge of the Fallen as being an Egyptian Myth with giant robots in it!
Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day stands as Hollywood’s sole Buddhist message movie. As Phil (short for “philosopher”, obviously, a common name for the Buddha), Murray eventually realizes what takes many lifetimes to understand; namely, that every cycle of birth-death-rebirth (every “day”) is always the same, over and over, depressing, painful, and bound by karma (i.e.- how you've treated others in the past), until you awaken and make a conscious choice to change that destiny. It’s interesting that Phil takes the Tantric path, initially using the opportunity of being “reborn” every morning to simply fulfill all desires, and therefore, to ultimately purge himself of them. Still, over who knows how many “days” — how many lifetimes of days — he eventually comes to see the connectedness of all things, the sacredness of all life, and the joy to be found in knowledge, wisdom, and simply making a difference in the lives of others. By his own effort, and even against his own initial nature, over many lifetimes he achieves Enlightenment, and is able “move on.” Plus, that scene where he lets the groundhog drive the truck is freakin’ hilarious…
Is Ferris really just Cameron's subconscious forcing him to become the independent and self-assured man he needs to be? Some believe it to be so.
If... is a favorite example for people who feel plagued by pretentious movie criticism. Possibly due to the film's anti-establishment themes, a lot of critics at the time were eager to show that they "got it" and came up with various symbolic meanings for its switching between color and monochrome. In fact it was just a low-budget project and they couldn't afford to do the whole thing in color.
- This troper once spent weeks agonizing over the symbolism of the exact points when my copy of Across The Universe changed from color to monochrome. Then I relised the disk I had was actually a shitty pirate job. (It was a gift from my friend).
You could potentially read read way too much into Quentin Tarantino films if you wanted to. For example, Oliver Stone basically did this with the script of Natural Born Killers by turning it into a commentary on the mass media. And Inglourious Basterds arguably implies that the basterds' sentiments towards the Nazis (and thus the sentiments of the audience that glorifies the basterds) are Not So Different from the Nazi's sentiments towards the Jews and are similarly contemptible. Of course since 95% of everything Tarantino does is based on the Rule Of Cool you're probably just reading too much into it.
- Tarantino has even gone on record in support of The Death Of The Author, stating that his works aren't necessarily about what he thought they were about when he wrote them.
  - Would that make it "Death of the Autobiography"?

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Several Voyages to Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver, aka Gullivers Travels. It is difficult to find a line in this book that isn't either a critique on culture or humanity or a metaphor for a specific event. This, of course, means that even the exceptions tend to get a lot of critique trying to figure out their symbolism.
- It doesn't help that Swift was unnervingly intelligent and, like many earlier writers, spent way too much time on his book. The whole seemingly random section about the Conversational Engine is a set of hints to solve the freaking cryptogram he used to name everything (which helps explain what the books really about).
  - Please Elaborate - this idea seems to show up nowhere else on the Internet.
Pick a sonnet sequence, any sonnet sequence, and the symbolism will be very heavy, if usually a bit more obvious than certain cryptic writers, but you won't get most of it unless you know something about the history of sonnets, as everything after Dante's Beatrice and Petrarch's Rhyme Sparse is ultimately a response to these and other sonnet sequences. It gets confusing fast.
- And people like Spenser insist on making the numbers of the sonnets tell you all kinds of information, and people (well, English critics) argue constantly over whether or not various sonnets sequences have important numerology, to the point where the actual content starts getting looked over.
- It really doesn't help that part of the whole response to other Sonnets factor is showing how much more clever you are than previous writers (you know, like Petrarch throwing in special rhymes besides Sonnets, and later writers making up their own ever more complicated rhyme schemes to show off).
Pretty much every English teacher in the world insists that Robert Frost's poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening is about suicide and/or a longing for death, despite the fact that Frost stated publicly and often that it was just a poem about a guy who is enjoying looking at the snowy woods and didn't have any deeper symbolic meaning.
Things Fall Apart. In one scene, it is noted that the white colonists arrived at about the same time as did the swarm of locusts which would be eaten by the African characters during that season. Thus, the obvious conclusion (supported by Cliffs Notes), is that the locusts symbolize the colonists — seemingly a good thing, but ultimately destructive. However, there is never a scene where the locusts are destructive, and they were simply intended to be edible locusts.
In one of his books, I Have Landed, Stephen Jay Gould discussed how many critics thought there was a symbolic meaning to the references to butterflies in Nabokov's novels. However, the author was an entomologist, and intended no symbolic meaning.
- It's possible Nabokov did intend a symbolic meaning. When Nabokov gave a lecture on Kafka's Metamorphosis he discussed what kind of insect the main character had transformed into and what significance it had; in particular, that he could have discovered that he had grown wings, hidden under his shell.
Brazilian writer and "jazz musician" Luis Fernando Veríssimo once wrote a essay in which he claimed that the Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice In Wonderland were metaphors for Buddha and Jesus (one being fat, and the other, a carpenter), and the oysters they brainwashed represented the followers of both religions.
- This claim is put forth by Loki, the exiled Angel of Death, in Dogma, in his attempt to convince a nun that God does not exist.
  - He wins, and tells her to buy herself a nice dress and go find a man...or woman.
- Notably, the Buddha was not fat. The fat guy is the bodhisattva Butei, the so-called "Laughing Buddha", or may be another deity named Hotei, who is used almost interchangeably. (But would Carrol know that?).
- From Wikipedia: "In The Annotated Alice, Martin Gardner noted that when Lewis Carroll gave the manuscript for Through the Looking-Glass to illustrator John Tenniel, he gave him the choice of drawing a carpenter, a butterfly, or a baronet (since each word would fit the poem's meter). Tenniel chose the carpenter. Because of this, the carpenter's significance in the poem is probably not in his profession. Although the two characters of the poem were interpreted later as two political types, there is no indication of what Carroll may have intended; Gardner cautions the reader that there isn't too much intended symbolism in the Alice books; the books were made for the imagination of children, not the analysis of "mad people". (Others have claimed that they're clearly about logic, but the imagination of children part is certainly a nice side dish.)
  - Interestingly, the only reason why Tenniel chose the carpenter is he'd grown accustomed to drawing them for Punch.
- Okay, that's enough. Listen to Carroll's Duchess from the first book:
Duchess: There's a moral in everything, if only you can find it.
The seven Chronicles of Narnia have been claimed to be An Aesop focusing on one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Just goes to show that this trope applies even when there's plenty of actual, valid symbolism, allegory, and "supposition" to choose from.
- CS Lewis has specified how the books compare with Christianity: "The Magician’s Nephew tells the Creation and how evil entered Narnia, The Lion etc. — the Crucifixion and Resurrection, Prince Caspian — restoration of the true religion after a corruption, The Horse and His Boy — the calling and conversion of the heathen, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader — the spiritual life (especially in Reepicheep), The Silver Chair — the continuing war against the powers of darkness, The Last Battle — the coming of Antichrist (the ape). The end of the world and the last judgement." (Source)
- I thought the Ape was Stalin?
- It's safe to say, however, that The Deplorable Word of The Magician's Nephew is a nuclear metaphor, as Aslan says that humans are working on weapons just as dangerous. And that Earth will soon have rulers just as disinterested in human life as Jadis. This is pretty overt.
  - Given that the Deplorable Word was able to instantly and totally destroy all life on Jadis's planet upon being uttered, one can't help but wonder exactly what sort of weapons Aslan was talking about humans developing; destructive as they are, nuclear weapons pale.
- And a book was just published saying that each novel corresponds with one of the seven heavens of the medieval cosmos.
The Greek poet and Literature Nobel Prize winner Odysseas Elytis once attended a celebration in his honor, where samples of his work were read and then had their meaning analyzed in detail by distinguished scholars. When his turn came to speak and thank everybody, he put his tongue in his cheek and gave special credit to the scholars for finding more depth to his poetry than even he had thought of.
Despite what every English teacher (and Bradbury himself, when he wrote the book) has said, Ray Bradbury now claims that Fahrenheit 451 is in fact not about censorship, but about how TV makes you stupid and less likely to read.
- Which is ironic, as one of the characters in the book explicitly states that television does not make you stupid, and is merely a convenient way to keep the already stupid masses entertained.
Despite Douglas Adams explicitly saying that the number 42 was randomly chosen with no intended hidden meaning in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Epileptic Trees involving everything from base thirteen to Tibetan monks continue to live on.
- Speaking of base 13, 4 suits of 13 cards each, plus 2 jokers... a deck of cards!
  - As quoted by the Author himself, "I may be a sorry case, but I don't write jokes in base 13."
- He later created a puzzle which came out as 42 several different ways. The challenge was to figure out the questions.
  - And later said: "Everybody was looking for hidden meanings and puzzles and significances in what I had written (like 'is it significant that 6 * 9 is 42 in base 13?'. As if.) So I thought that just for a change I would actually construct a puzzle and see how many people solved it. Of course, nobody paid it any attention. I think that's terribly significant."
Take your pick with Harry Potter. An allegorical polemic against the UK's strict gun laws. A diatribe against Thatcher's Britain. A foaming defense of fascism. Praise for a class society. Subversive feminism. Subversive racism. Subversive Marxism. Damaging society by making nerdiness cool and desirable instead of a cause of beatings to minimize its destructive influence. Damaging society by projecting and propagating the domination of sport over superior influences such as nerdiness.
- There are those that argue that Harry Potter is symbolic of gay society. To support this, some people simply replace the word "wand" with something else, If You Know What I Mean, and reflect upon how it seems almost as many scenes were written with that substitution in mind. Ignoring the fact that the series only has one (informed by Word Of God only) gay character.
- Let's not forget that John Granger teaches a class on, and wrote two whole books on, how Harry Potter can be seen as a fully Christian work filled to the brim with symbolism culled from classic authors the likes of which Tolkien and Lewis were reading in their heyday. However, whether he is right or wrong, it could be a bit too much of a coincidence that all the good guys are on the team with the lion mascot (*coughAslancough*) and all the bad guys are on the team with the serpent mascot (which Satan is commonly associated with).
- The Rowling vs. Lexicon trial notes point out that lycanthropia is AIDS. It's infectious by contact with blood, almost no one refers to the condition straight-forwardly, and it is a big deal that Voldemort threatens to let Greyback loose near people's kids. This isn't in the notes, but Greyback is a pedophile. No way around it.
- There are some cases of genuine, intentional symbolism in the books. For example, J.K. Rowling has said that the Dementors are meant to represent clinical depression. And given this example of the "depth" of Rowling's symbolism, I think we can safely discount most of the more convoluted theories. Duh!
  - The feeling of being around Dementors as exactly the same as being depressed. "Like there would never be any happiness again in the world" is one example. It's safe to say that if anyone manages to convince themselves that Rowling meant the Dementors to be anything more allegorical than "depression", they're terribly deluded.
- Unfortunately for Ms. Rowling, while other books are overanalyzied to find any meaning, her books are commonly found to have whatever meaning that person happens to be on the side of.
Isaac Asimov once wrote a short story, titled "The Immortal Bard", that made fun of this tendency. He also wrote a serious essay that ended up concluding that the "true" meaning of a story is whatever the reader thinks it is.
There was a girl who was the daughter of a book author, and coincidentally, they were reading one of the books her father wrote in class and discussing all those hidden meanings and symbolism. When she got home she asked her dad about them, who proclaimed that the school had made all those up and it wasn't his intention to put symbolism or anything in the book. He asked the school to correct this, and they said no. The girl in question was Astrid Bear, daughter of science fiction great Poul Anderson, and wife of Greg Bear. Mostly he was amused.
Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum plays on the theme of hidden meanings and symbolism.
- Eco himself has jokingly called Foucault's Pendulum "Dan Brown's Biography".
Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 does everything it can within the text to stop you from over-analyzing it; the basic plot is about a women seeking the meaning of a symbol she found written on a bathroom wall, and after finding some of the most improbable answers ever... well, the book ends just before we find out whether it was imagined, a hoax, or f'real.
- Considering the whole book is explicitly a Mind Screw punctuated by events which are probably completely random, trying to solve the mystery is the real joke. Seriously, how many people would be seriously concerned about a conspiracy about the Postal Service?
- The novel's about paranoia and the role it plays in everyday life. At least, that's the consensus interpretation. The reader is deliberately manipulated into over-analyzing the text so that she empathizes with the protagonist. We never find out the answer because the answer doesn't matter. What does is that all of the characters use paranoia to create overarching order that's more comforting than the cold chaos of reality. In that respect, it's sort of about this trope.
In the third book of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, The Waste Lands, Jake is forced to submit a psychotic rant he doesn't even remember writing as his Final Essay, which he worries will finally let everyone know he's losing it, but the yuppie teacher interprets it as an astounding symbolic piece despite its insanity.
Not long after it was published, the Dr. Seuss book Horton Hears a Who was co-opted by anti-abortion activists, largely thanks to the line "A person's a person, no matter how small"... even though Theodore Geisel was himself pro-choice, and protested the use of the phrase by pro-life activists. The debate continues to this day, including litigation by Geisel's widow, and the release of The Film Of The Book hasn't helped a bit. Seuss himself said the book was about the Cold War and post-war relationships between America and occupied Japan, and according to his wife it was about corporatism and fascism.
- The prequel to Horton Hears a Who is called Horton Hatches the Egg, interestingly enough...
- Speaking of the good Doctor, many of his books can be taken as allegorical or symbolic of something. Yertle the Turtle, for example, is supposed to be Hitler, while The Butter Battle Book is an obvious satire of the arms race.
In Lord Of The Flies, is Jack supposed to represent Hitler? Is Simon Jesus? Is the lack of girls on the island proof that boys are evil? The overuse of symbolism and metaphors in the book don't help.
- The "head on a stick" pops up in the second Spider Man movie, almost certainly a Shout Out. Very few people got it.
- And don't you dare forget that the only female in the entire book (a pig) gets sodomized by a spear by the boys as they kill it, and all the bodies keep disappearing.
This trope is parodied extensively in House Of Leaves. One critic of The Navidson Record goes as far to say that since only men wish to explore the house and women are not interested in doing so that the house is an allegory for a vagina.
- Obviously this means House Of Leaves is homophobic. Obviously.
Santiago of Old Man And The Sea is Jesus.
- Hemingway stated that the book was just about fishing and old age, nothing else.
So is Santiago from Chronicles of a Death Foretold. The reason? He wore white and might not have slept with a woman before she married. Never mind all the other women he did for a fact sleep with.
Although not straight, Basic Instructions proposed a new cryptic interpretation for Moby-Dick: a metaphor of marriage.
Unsurprisingly, Neal Stephenson hangs a lampshade on this trope by having several of his characters explicitly identify themselves with figures from ancient and classical mythology (e.g. Hiro and Juanita from Snow Crash are Enki and Inana fron Sumerian mythology, and Danial and Eliza from The Baroque Cycle are Pluto and Hermes from Greco-Roman mythology).
The Wizard Of Oz is an allegory about post-industrial America: the Tinman is the industrialized, heartless North or East Coast; the Scarecrow is the unindustrialized, lazy/ignorant South; the Lion is the undeveloped West; and Dorthy is the developing Midwest. At least, I think that's how it went...
- It's the Populist Movement, and as Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope notes in the linked column, it kind of falls apart when you cross-correlate the individual parts. As he notes, if the Wicked Witch of the West is the Forces of Nature, well, why are the Forces of Nature so hot for Free Silver (Dorothy's Silver Slippers)? See also the article to which Cecil links at the end of that page.
- The Wicked Witch of the West is Manifest Destiny Imperialism that drove the annexations of the Phillipines, Hawaii, and other Pacific islands. She wants Free Silver because only such a massive expansion of credit (through her sister, The Wicked Witch of the East/Wall Street Bankers) can drive the military expansion necesarry to make the Pacific an American lake.
- "Oz" works beautifully as a metaphor of the Search For Enlightenment. The heroine wants to Get Home (to return to her innocent past), her companions are hoping to find Wisdom, Love, or Power: the Teacher turns out to be a fraud, and the final moral is - what else? - she had the way to get her wish with her all along.
- Another theory raised decades after the books were published suggest it's an allegory for the political battle between the silver and gold standard for the Treasury. The main character is told that she must follow the "Yellow Brick Road" (i.e. bars of gold) to the "Emerald City" (i.e. greenbacks) where the wizard will make everything right. Of course, he's a fraud, and the real power is in the "Silver Shoes" (i.e. the silver standard).
If you believe the critic R.W. Stallman, Jim Conklin in The Red Badge of Courage is Jesus Christ and redeems Henry. Stephen Crane lied and said it was just a "psychological portrayal of fear."
John Cotton in Bless The Beasts And Children is Jesus too. After all, he's killed by a Judas truck. (And yes, this is taught in schools.)
John Steinbeck himself said that The Grapes Of Wrath had five distinct "layers," and that he didn't expect everyone to understand or even notice all of them.
Some fans of Sherlock Holmes have speculated on the fact that master criminal Professor Moriarty and his second in command Col. Moran both have clearly Irish surnames, despite both apparently being English. Doyle himself, though Scottish, had Irish ancestry on both sides and a recurring, if often ambivalent, interest in the country adding to the speculation over the meaning (if any) of the names.
Tolkien. Poor, poor Tolkien. You can't write a successful good-versus-evil story in the twentieth century without every other english highschool teacher hijacking it for a "Tom, explain how Lord of the Rings is an allegory on WW II!" lesson. He stated in the introduction of the first volume that no, it's not an allegory of any kind (and was apparently against straightforward allegories anyway), and doubly no, not one on facism, Nazis, WW II or what have you. Doesn't stop some teachers.
- Some people also seem to think that 'the West' into which Frodo&Co eventually go is only allegorical. While it can be construed as symbolic, it's also very much an actual place (as explained in the Appendices and The Silmarillion.) Yes, it's a place. Where the angels and immortals live, and the dead rest in the ever-expanding halls of Mandos. It's not allegorical, it's stated. That is heaven. The elves sail to heaven. Let's be done with the pointless symbolism of something that isn't even up for debate.
Subverted by Mark Twain in the opening of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

"PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

-BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance."//

And bonus points for meta-humor, as many readers develop strange theories concerning the identity of "G.G., Chief of Ordinance."
- Unfortunately, Word Of God made that one pretty clear G.G. stands for Gatling Gun

According to an author's introduction to one of his Rebus books, Ian Rankin once sat in on a lecture about the symbolism in said book, specifically his use of colours. He said that none of it was intentional but he thought that they were coming out with some pretty good stuff.
There are many who suggest Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher was all about incestuous rape. Madeline had a faint blush and a smile on her face when she "died" because "orgasm isn't always voluntary", and humped Roderick to death at the end of the story.
In VALIS by Philip K. Dick, many things are Jesus.
Richard Adams has admitted he regrets telling people that Hazel, Bigwig and Keharr in Watership Down are based on real people he served with in World War Two, because since he did the people who thought it was a re-telling of WWII through clever analogy can say that they were right all along, whereas Richard Adam’s himself has always maintained that those who thought it was a book about Rabbits moving from one place to another and overcoming various obstacles were right all along, and that Woundwort, although very unpleasant, was meant to be a generic dictator and does NOT represent Hitler, just as Campion is not Rommel, the farm dog getting involved does not represent the soviet union or the atomic bomb…

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The Prisoner pushed the limits of this trope about as far as live-action TV can possibly go; you're never certain whether you're being told a straightforward, literal story or witnessing something allegorical — except in the final episode, where the show ditches nearly all pretenses of literalism.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer had many examples of subtext and allegory, which led naturally to some overanalysis by the fans. One theory involves each season representing one of the seven steps on the path to Buddhist Nirvana (originally posted between seasons 6 and 7, with an amendment after the finale).
The ending of Life On Mars: Did Sam commit suicide? Or did he never even wake up from his coma in the first place? Was he even in a coma to begin with? Or something else entirely? Although the writer himself has directly stated that the first one occurred, plenty (including the star of the series) go with the second interpretation — and it has to be acknowledged that the series is ambiguous enough to make either possibility valid.
- Ask five Ashes To Ashes fans about the meaning of the scene in the S1 finale with Gene carrying young Alex away from the scene of her parents' death; expect about seven different interpretations.
Lost is a series with much deep meaning and symbolism, but many fans take it too far. This is, after all, the fandom where the name for Epileptic Trees came from. There are even theories that include this exact trope title, which have already been discredited by the Word Of God and the show itself, as the survivors are still alive and escape into the outside world, plus characters come to the Island from what is clearly a existant world. And yet people still claim they are in Purgatory.
- Well, it doesn't really help that the producers are dirty liars.
  - What makes it worse is that it's hard to tell if the people behind the show simply lie about everything to throw people off the scent, or if they actively mine the Wild Mass Guessing of the audience for ideas. Where you stand on the issue probably depends on whether or not you believe the writers when they say they aren't just making everything up as they go along.
  - Given how even the weirdness of fan theories managed to not perdict such bizarre twists as a frozen wheel moving the Island, a immortal man living in a statue of a Egyptian goddess, changing the timeline so that 815 never crashed by going back to 1977 and stopping the Incident and another immortal man posing as a dead John Locke, they're at least not mining crazy fan theories.
Is the Doctor Who story "the Happiness Patrol" really about Feminism? Thatcherism? Homosexuality? Or is it just a fun, weird little story on a Planet Of Hats where one of the villains is made of candy? You decide.
- The Candyman resembles Bertie Bassett, a mascot of a British candy company. (The company actually complained and the BBC had to deny everything.)
- And the pot is further stirred by character-acting goddess Sheila Hancock's pitch-perfect Thatcher imitation playing Big Bad Helen A. It might easily have been her own interpretation of the script rather than the production team's, though.
There are plenty of theories on Supernatural's "What Is and What Should Never Be". Some think Dean's wish was for rest (as suggested by continual use of "Get some rest") while others think that it was just getting his Mum back. And some think that it was just an Alternate Universe where he would have been a bastard if not for hunting (which, if true, might just be the most disheartening thing that they've ever done) while others think that the Djinn just took it from his wish and Dean's the one who hates himself enough to think that he's a slutty, worthless, borderline alcoholic jerkass (which would be more in keeping with his serious lack of self-worth throughout the entire series). Either way, it's still a massive tearjerker.
A theory that became popular a while back is that the cast of Gilligans Island represent the seven deadly sins: Mary Ann is envy, the Professor is pride, Ginger is lust, Mr. Howell is greed, Mrs. Howell is sloth, the Skipper is both gluttony and wrath, and Gilligan himself is Satan. An alternate form of the theory assigns Gilligan gluttony (either because he constantly eats but never gets fat, or because all he does is take up space) and leaves the Skipper with just wrath.
Keep an eye out for wacky theories about Christian allegory in In the Night Garden. Makka Pakka lives in a cave, and garages his scooter in another cave, rolling a round stone in front to close the entrance (like Christ's tomb). He also goes around washing everyone's faces (John the Baptist). Igglepiggle goes out in a boat (sermon from the boat/"fishers of men"). Upsy Daisy (Mary Magdalen). The Pinky-Ponk (merkabah). And so on. The point is that the creators of In the Night Garden are all old enough to have had compulsory religious education at school, and have all the Christian imagery floating about in their heads, waiting to slip out into a programme concept. If they had intended to include a Christian allegory, it would have been more coherent and with a stronger moral message (not to mention a work ethic!).
- Not to disagree, but the "work ethic" is not a tenet of traditional Christianity. Before Puritan times working harder than you needed to was seen as a sign of worldliness and greed.
  - That said, there are passages of scripture that suggest one should perform their work as if they're doing it for God alone. It's never been official church dogma, however.
In The Sopranos episodes "Join the Club" and "Mayham," Tony Soprano, while in a coma, dreams of himself as a salesman who loses his wallet and takes the identity of Kevin Finnerty. Numerous fan theories have suggested the dream was actually Purgatory, which Tony was visiting. Note that while series creator David Chase has Jossed all theories of the significance of the "Kevin Finnerty" name, he has neither confirmed nor denied the Purgatory theory regarding the dream itself.
Parodied on MST3K. At the end of Bloodlust, the villain ands up nailed to one of his own trophy stands, causing Tom Servo to quip "Why this symbolism? Did Christ hunt people on deserted islands?"
Also parodied in a skid of german Comedian Loriot, where two film critics get into a heated argument about a silent movie slapstick clip, that is just 4 second long. One of them sees the "movie" as one of the greatest examples of cinematography and artistic quality, while the other one regards it as a socialist allegory about the population revolting against the exploitation by the ruling class. The skid and the clip in quest, can be viewed here.

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Some people claim that the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" is really about drug use, despite the song's writers having repeatedly stated that this was not their intent.
- This is because Puffing the Magic Dragon means smoking weed.
- And of course the song's writers would deny everything. Unless they were somehow misled, which seems pretty unlikely.
Similarly, Subliminal Seduction author Wilson Bryan Key insisted that the Simon and Garfunkel song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was really secretly promoting heroin use. He went so far as to claim several of the more poetic phrases in the lyrics were actually "common drug slang", although their use as such has never been seen anywhere outside of his fevered imagination.
Freddie Mercury insisted unto his death that "Bohemian Rhapsody" had not only no hidden meaning, but no meaning at all. Due to this, most theories revolve around his bisexuality, which he also denied (well, refused to confirm) until his death. To be fair, though, the song definitely sounds like it might have some meaning deeper than "Mom, I just shot a guy and the police are after me, help..."
The Beatles get this a lot:
- Any of the various outlandish interpretations of the lyrics of "Come Together", such as what "toe-jam football" is.
  - The most popular theory for "Come Together" is that it's about John Lennon, its primary author. Some of the clues for that theory fit better than others.
  - I once read an analysis that ties "Come Together" to the "Paul Is Dead" rumors. "He wears no shoeshine" refers to Paul being barefoot on the "Abbey Road" cover. "Toejam football" is rugby, and refers to Paul's school rugby trophy on the "Sgt. Pepper" cover. "One and one and one is three" refers to the three remaining Beatles, after Paul's death. Or so it's said.
  - Hm. I always heard that each verse described a particular Beatle: Depending on what you're thinking at the moment, either the first verse is Ringo and the second is George, or the first is George and the second is Ringo; the third verse is John; the fourth is Paul. I've always interpreted it as a simple "What Kind Of A Decade Has It Been" review, with an implicit lament (for the looming break-up of the band).
- "Helter Skelter" and the rest of the White Album, along with several other Beatles songs, are all a huge (and tragic) example of this. The song was written about nothing (or a playground slide, or maybe the Roman Empire), but Charles Manson built up this whole mythology around it about how it was prophecy and so on. Then he went around murdering people to fulfill the prophecy, or whatever. Whoops. Turns out it wasn't any of that at all...
- A few backwards messages on a handful of tracks and a whole volume of coincidental, ambiguous and at times downright random pieces of "evidence" strung together, including isolated song lyrics and specific elements of the images on album covers, were enough to convince a whole group of fans that Paul McCartney was dead, and that there'd been a conspiracy to replace him. To be fair, some of this evidence is quite easy to interpret in such a fashion; much of it, however, is highly obscure and requires an extremely convoluted, selective and prejudicial reading in order to reach such a conclusion. Of course, the Beatles themselves reacted with laughter at this concept.
  - John Lennon admitted, not long before his murder, that the line "The Walrus was Paul" was included in "Glass Onion" for the sole purpose of screwing with the conspiracy theorists.
  - The originators of the "Paul is Dead" phenomenon have actually come out and admitted that it was a hoax, but that doesn't stop most proponents from claiming that they accidentally stumbled upon the truth.
  - Paul has a 50% chance of achieving the irony of being the only Beatle who isn't dead.
- John Lennon was in the midst of writing the infamous "I Am The Walrus" when learned one of his old primary school teachers was having his students analyze lyrics from Beatles' songs, and decided to vex them by adding a verse composed mostly of nonsense. Considering the song contains Word Salad Lyrics like "Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna / Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe", you'd think the whole song was dedicated to confusing people who over-analyze song lyrics.
  - Bob Spitz's biography says that "I Am the Walrus" was inspired by Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter." Combine that fact and the items already listed here with the examples for that particular piece (under the Literature section), and you could probably raise your own plantation of Epileptic Trees.
- Six words: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". The Beatles insist it's about a painting that Julian Lennon once did of a classmate. The entire rest of the world insists it's about drugs, and LSD in particular. Although many seem to have gained this idea just from isolating the letters above in the title, to give the rest of the world some credit it sure sounds like it's more about drugs than children's paintings. The actual girl who the drawing was based on has remarked the nobody believes the song was actually about her because they all thought it was about drugs.
  - I don't think the song is about drugs, but really, did the Beatles not notice what people would think? My theory is that they were all having a chuckle, thinking how funny it is that a song about some random classmate of Julian with "kalediscope eyes" would lead everyone to this. Or this conversation happned: "Hey, guys, do you think that people might take this the wrong way, like its about drugs or something? I mean, the title spells LSD." "Nah, I think your just reading too much into it mate."
- "Happiness is a Warm Gun" is obviously about heroin, amirite? Well, despite the fact that John Lennon claims that it was based on a handgun ad that contained the phrase from the title. That didn't stop Julie Taymor, bless her, from using the song for a scene in Across the Universe where an injured character gets doped up by Sexy Nurse Salma Hayek in a VA Hospital.
- The Beatles themselves experienced this at times; John Lennon often maintained that 'Get Back' was intended by Paul McCartney as a snide little attack on Yoko Ono ("Get back to where you once belong..."). McCartney insists that it isn't, and that Lennon took this interpretation because he happened to look at Yoko whilst singing it once.
- Although there is apparently a recording of rather un-PC lyrics about Pakistani immigrants.
Two words: "Particle Man". Is it a pastiche of superhero comics, an allegory for the struggle between science and religion, or just a goofy little song by They Might Be Giants? You decide!
- Of course, as the Interpretations pages on This Might Be A Wiki demonstrate, that isn't their only song to fall victim to this.
Inverted by Don McLean's song "American Pie", which is intentionally jam-packed with obscure imagery and references. McLean, however, refuses to explain any of them, or to confirm/deny any interpretations by fans. He once gave an explanation, after much pestering, as to what the song meant: "It means I never have to work again." For the record, most of them seem to be jabs at rock-and-roll "sellouts", and the central theme is the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and Jiles "The Big Bopper" Richardson.
Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" has been interpreted as an anti-Vietnam War song, or a story about getting arrested for drug use. When actually asked, Simon himself said he had never really thought about it, but supposed it may have been a song about two schoolboys sexually experimenting with each other.
Blue Öyster Cult, Dio and other bands with cryptic lyrics as a part of their Signature Style pretty much ask for this. Of course, when Moral Guardians do the interpreting, they aren't nearly as creative as the band is about it, so every song becomes about doing drugs and killing yourself for the glory of Satan.
Nik Kershaw's "The Riddle" was complete random gibberish, according to the singer himself, and he wondered whether people would actually think of a meaning for the song. His record company decided to make a competition out of it, which resulted in loads of mail with analyses for the song. According to Nik Kershaw, "Some even made sense!".
Faith No More's "Epic" practically asks for this, with the end featuring repetitions of "What is it? It's it!" This, unsurprisingly, has led to many people trying to figure out just what exactly "it" is. The most common interpretations seem to be life, rape, and fashion (if you've never heard the song, just try to imagine what lyrics could inspire those three interpretations). In the end, though, this is yet another example of words just being put together because it sounds good.
The entire genre of progressive rock is known for songs which are loaded with allegory, metaphor, obscure symbolism, and the "concept album," in which all the songs on an album are all based on a specific theme, or which are all part of a larger story. For instance, the song "Supper's Ready" by Genesis was based on the Book of Revelations. Or their concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which is about... well, take your pick. Or Jethro Tull's "A Passion Play". Or "Dark Side of the Moon", and everything Pink Floyd did afterwards.
Judas Priest had to go to court after two fans attempted suicide with one succeeding, their parents claiming several songs featured the phrase "Do it" when played backwards. The band was acquited after pointing out A. "Do it" is such a simple phrase that many random sound combinations can sound vaguely like it, B. who was to say that the "it" meant suicide, and C. the band wouldn't want its fans dead; if they did have the ability to put post-hypnotic suggestions in their music, they'd probably go with "Buy more Judas Priest records".
Much of Bob Dylan's popularity is based on playing with this trope. His first, self-titled album was a flop, and he only gained notoriety due to the deliberately vague lyrics on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, with such gems as "How many roads must a man walk down/Before you call him a man?/How many seas must the white dove sail/Before she sleeps in the sand?". And that's just the first song....
- Oh, come on, that one actually has specific meanings. It's clearly about civil rights and peace. First, "How many roads must a man walk down/Before you call him a man?" references the beautifully simple civil rights protest slogan "I am a Man." Even more clear "How many seas must the white dove sail/Before she sleeps in the sand?" The white dove is an ubiquitous symbol for peace. Besides, exactly how can we misinterpret the verse "And how many times must the cannonballs fly/Before they're forever banned?" I mean, it's not that difficult.
  - Things only get more bizarre in later albums, such as on the track Desolation Row, which is about 11 minutes long and discusses subjects such as "Selling postcards of the hanging," and "Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood/With his memories in a trunk."
  - "Postcards of the hanging" is Truth In Television, was inspired by the lynchings that happened in Duluth, Minnesota (his birthplace and his father's hometown) in 1920. Dylan was told about this by his father, who experienced this in childhood. Postcards featuring victims of lynchings were often sold, unfortunately, along with some featuring Mexicans killed by Texas Rangers.
In much the same vein as Dylan, James Blunt's music would not be nearly as popular if not for his complex and symbolic lyrics.
Someone once asked Kim Mitchell if "Go For a Soda" was an anti-impaired driving song. He replied, "No, but if you want to think of it that way, go ahead."
- He also mentioned somthing like this on his radio show once.
Many think Chicago's song "25 or 6 to 4" is about taking drugs. Writer Robert Lamm clarified that it was about writer's block and staying up late (25 or 26 minutes till 4:00 AM) to complete a song, but the former interpretation remains popular.
Musicologist Susan McClary wrote a great deal about the inherent male-chauvinism in tonal music, right down to the cadence itself (now found in nearly every western music style). Beethoven was specifically targeted, with McClary talking about the strong elements of rape and sexual frustration found in his Ninth Symphony (best known for its final movement, "Ode to Joy"). She also relates to Adrienne Rich's poem "The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven Understood at Last as a Sexual Message," with quotes such as "The beating of a bloody fist upon a splintered table."
- It would certainly add some interesting factors to A Clockwork Orange.
The notion that "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was written by English Catholics as a coded catechism lesson has become widespread, even appearing in reference books about Christmas. Too bad there isn't any evidence for it.
Ah, Mac Arthur Park. Possibly - no, definitely - the most insane song to ever hit the charts. What's it about? Who the hell knows.
- A cake?
- I actually like Weird Al Yankovic's version better, since it's very obvious what is it about: "Jurassic Park is frightening in the dark, all the dinosaurs are runniing wiiiiild!!"
- I always thought it was sort of a metaphor for change, comparing the singer's memories to a cake- just like a cake melts in the rain, things have fallen apart and he no longer has the "Recipe" for the relationship he desires.
Every goddam Nirvana song is proof Cobain did or didn't kill himself (I Hate Myself And Want To Die). It is well documented that he basically wrote shit down, sometimes immediately before the songs were recorded, and sometimes songs were re-worded with different lyrics (Pay to play >> Stay Away). Somebody claimed 'Mr Moustache' was about Nietzsche.
Devo seems to have gone to great lengths explaining that "Whip It" was intended as a style-parody of self-help poems rather than stuff like BSDM (made an even more popular interpretation due to the music video - though that was intentional) or, as some proposed, Whipping the Other "It". They also tried to explain that the video was not meant to offend women, but to subvert and mock American culture. It kind of defeats the purpose of these arguments though, when their more obscure work includes lines like: "It is the thing females ask for/When they convey the opposite", "That slant-eyed catfish/Was a fisherman's wet dream", "I need a chick/To suck my dick...There's no hope for my pole/I'd fuck a mink stole", "I wanna pet your fur...I wanna stand your fur on end", etc. Not to mention song titles like "Uncontrollable Urge" and "Jerkin' Back and Forth".
- Granted, some of their most blatantly sexual and "offensive" songs were never released until their demo compilation, Hardcore Devo. And most of these songs are merely twisted parodies of culture. Still, "Triumph of the Will"? The only way they got away with that is by not achieving enough fame for anyone to notice.
Dee Snider of Twisted Sister was called to court to defend his music and lyrics against the PMRC (Parent's Music Resource Centre). You can find his interview on the subject in Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. He basically accused Mrs Gore for having a dirty mind because she interpreted his lyrics as BDSM.
- His arguement was, a determined person would find any meaning they wished in any medium, whether based on subconcious thoughts or predeteremined meaning, but they would only find what they wanted to. That Mrs. Gore "wanted" to find BDSM imagary was just icing. As was Al Gore's expression.

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In Peanuts, a common theory is that Linus' belief in the Great Pumpkin is a way of making fun of Christian evangelism, due to the fact that there's no evidence for the Great Pumpkin's existence, and Linus tries to convince people he's real. The fact that Linus quotes from the Bible often adds more fuel. This has been officially Jossed, with Charles Schulz claiming that the only inspiration for the Great Pumpkin was that he thought it would be funny if a character believed in a Santa Claus-like figure for Halloween.
- Parodied◊ in Pearls Before Swine.
In a rather legendary example of this, a Garfield Halloween storyline in 1989 depicted Garfield waking up and finding everyone and everything he knew to be gone and broken down. The storyline ended with Garfield embracing denial and suddenly Jon and Odie are back in front of him. A fan theory began on the Internet suggesting that every strip since that point has been Garfield slowly starving to death in his delusions or already dead. Davis was made aware of those theories in 2006 and is reported to have laughed about them.
Calvin And Hobbes has to at least get a mention for the Fight Club theories. As well as from a long lost Non Sequitur comic that makes it's own theories about the child's need for an imaginary friend.
Not so much Jesus, but it's generally excepted amongst it's (many) detractors that the entire population of Funky Winkerbean (and by extention, Crankshaft) is in Purgatory (Limbo is also accepted) and merely awaiting inevitible death.

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Most of the works of Shakespeare. Take, for example, A Midsummer Night's Dream. There is argument as to what the Love Potion is a symbol for — menstrual blood, symbolizing female dominance over males, or blood shed by a virgin in her first "act", symbolizing male dominance over females.
- On that note, try asking your English teacher what Iago's motives are in Othello, and what Iago stands for. Go on, ask. You'll be there for a while. The obvious one is that he's Satan, which has a bit of weight to it. Another is that Iago is the author, trying to engineer a tragic play. Or maybe — just maybe — he's an intolerant redneck who has a problem working under a black man and a teetotaller, and suspects both of nailing his wife, like he says in the play.
  - Strangely enough, another common theory has it that Iago is merely a Card Carrying Villain — no matter what other justifications he may make up, he's simply evil for the sake of evil, because Evil Feels Good. From a field in which everything is analyzed, scrutinized, and dissected until whatever life it had is gone, this seems like way too simple and sensible an explanation.
  - One can find sufficient textual evidence for an interesting production based on Iago's romantic love for Othello being his drive to eliminate first Desdemona and then the Moor himself.
- And Julius Caeser? Probably not about the "five stages of sex" like The Other Wiki claims.
- Brian Aldiss wrote an article humorously arguing that Hamlet is meant to be extrememly overweight. He said Hamlet should be played by the type of actor who is usually cast as Falstaff. This was based on two quotes: "O that this too too solid flesh would melt," and "We fat all creatures to fat ourselves, and we fat ourselves to fat maggots."
  - Actually, a far clearer line is during the duel at the end, when Gertrude says that Hamlet is "fat and out of breath". Some scholars have however explained it with "fat" being a typo for "hot, or having the meaning "sweaty" in 17th century English.
An instance similar to the Ray Bradbury one above, in which a writer comes to insist on a work having one meaning, even though it was originally written with some ambiguity, would be Bertolt Brecht with the Threepenny Opera. Some translations of the play include a lengthy section of notes in which Brecht offered a diehard Marxist interpretation. However, another translation noted that this section was composed several years later, and that Brecht was much less partisan when he initially wrote it. In fact, the play was initially attacked by other German communists.
Critics of ten debate Harold Pinter's absurdist play The Birthday Party, and just what the cake at the end is supposed to represent. When asked, Pinter replied that he thought the party should have a cake.
Equus lends itself to this. Many have interpreted it as a discussion of homosexuality (since the playwright Peter Schaffer is gay), or a libertarian ideal. The symbology within the play is messed up enough...
Waiting For Godot is either an allegory of the Cold War, a collection of Jungian archetypes or an examination of human existence and the role of God, depending on who you ask. Godot himself is often as being God, largely because of his name and the fact that both him and God are described within the play as having a white beard.
- Samuel Beckett himself was very insistent about the fact that Godot was not God and if he meant Godot to be God he would have called him God.
- Plus Waiting for Godot was orginally written in French and Godot's French name has nothing to do with the word 'God'.

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For an in-universe example of this, Fable has the book "The Rotten Apple" seen as one Albion's premeir philisophical works. However, if the book is taken litterally, it actaully gives good advice on fruit farming.
Probably goes a long way to explain the continuing fascination (of the train-wreck kind? You decide!) with the convoluted plot and psychologically damaged characters of Final Fantasy VII over equally 'deep' but more straightforward entries in the series. Maybe it was all the references to Nordic myth, Jewish Kabbalah, and Judeo-Christian symbolism, maybe it was main hero's troubled past and unresolved Love Triangle, the abrupt and ambiguous Gainax Ending, or maybe it was just the bishounen with huge swords...but they're still arguing about this one, and the new games aren't clearing much up. The inspiration for this trope title comes from here, after all.
- This article, which makes the claim that Aerith is evil. Especially the line "Assume for a moment that everything you know about Aeris is completely false" — in other words, "Assume that Aerith is evil, focus on everything that might point to this, and ignore everything to the contrary."
Chrono Trigger. Crono is Jesus, Marle is Mary Magdalene, and the entire game is simply rife with Biblical symbolism. It's true! This site says so!
- Most of it is pretty good; but he missed the obvious allegory for Lavos. Evil, fell from "heaven", has (at least in the english version) been manipulating humanity since it came to earth, causes the Apocalypse once it reveals itself, is powering the allegory to the Anti-Christ; and the guy who made that site makes it some stupid comet from Revelations. Come on! It's Satan! It's obviously Satan!
Xenosaga. chaos is Jesus, KOS-MOS is Mary Magdalene, and the entire game is simply rife with Biblical symbolism. No, wait, that one's true.
- Close, but not exactly. The trick is that Xenosaga is based on Gnostic philosophy and mythology, not contemporary Christianity. chaos is not Jesus. Jesus was just a prophet and a preacher; just a man with no actual divinity of his own. chaos and Mary (or Anima and Animus) were the actual power behind him, though, who worked all of "his" miracles. Or at least, that's as close as I can get without taking up an entire page. Xenosaga's fun like that.
  - chaos is called Jeshua, which is the Aramaic name for Jesus, and was close to Mary Magdalene in a previous life, so he's at least a Jesus, if not the Jesus.
Portal. There is an article claiming that the game has feminist/lesbian themes: The only male presence (or at least, the only thing ever referred to with a male pronoun) is the Weighted Companion Cube, an inanimate object; the way your "gun", rather than being a weapon of destruction, shoots oval-shaped "openings"; nearly all aggression on GLaDOS's part is passive aggression, or aggression by proxy via the turrets; and the fact that the player character, Chell, is neither male nor Stripperiffic eye-candy for male players like nearly every other female video game character. To be fair, it wasn't entirely clear whether the articles were serious or not ...
- On the other hand, there's also a theory that GLaDOS desperately wants to die and that the whole maze was just a Xanatos Gambit to make Chell hate her enough to do it. Subsequently, 'Still Alive' expresses her disappointment when she finds out there's a backup.
- It is also possible to read Portal as a pro-anarchist political allegory — the government tells you to run this "maze" — modern life — and attempts to secure your obedience with promises of "cake" and a "party" — wealth, fame, the "American Dream" — only to cast you aside and dispose of you when you cease to be useful for their purposes.
  - In the commentary tracks (New Game Plus, in the chamber for the final fight), GLaDOS' voice actress states that she needed to get back into character to sing "Still Alive". Said character is: "A lonely little AI who's angry that everybody comes to kill her."
Team Fortress 2 as noted elsewhere, is a fun game about two teams of soldiers killing each other, with no plot whatsoever. This hasn't stopped Tropers on the Fridge Brilliance page from making comparisons to the cold war, claiming it represents Change vs Stagnancy, and many more. These claims have almost nothing to base themselves on, because there is no plot.
The Game Overthinker is a blog that occasionally does this, when the webmaster isn't analysing the landscape of gaming in general.
The debate over possible messages in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots actually made the New York Times.
The lyrics to "Twister". Take a look. You can't really blame the guy though. For lyrics like that, this mindset is completely necessary.
- More so, that interpretation is probably accurate, given how weirdly worded the song is. What else could it mean?
- The World Ends With You is practically a Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory game as a whole. Subliminal messages and religious symbols can be found everywhere if you look hard enough, and the roles of characters in the plot can be pretty much delved into something much deeper.
- These are indeed fair guesses, given that the majority of the characters are, in fact, in a kind of purgatory.
The cryptic puzzle-platformer Braid inspired a number of theories mere days after its release, where main character Tim's obsessive search for the Princess represents everything from the pursuit of love and romance to the atomic bomb.
- Apparently, that was the author's very intention when he added the highly symbolic walls of text to the game.
Being a Post Modern series that loves to tap on the video screen, and notable for it's Mindscrew, Metal Gear Solid series practically invites this kind of speculation... as if the the offical explanation wasn't strange enough already.
The Silent Hill series is filled with these. In this town, everything is symbolic, but are just vague enough so every player can make up their own interpretation. The first and second game, specifically, had a big deal of Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory material. Those monsters? They're the protagonists' repressed fears or guilt or sexual urges. Those fans? They represent the cycle of Alessa's rebirth, or the change from misty to dark world, or that it's just really hot in hell.
- Well, Konami did release a book in Japan confirming a lot of that symbolism. Whether they intended it from the beginning or just went along with the fans to shut them up is anyone's guess.
- The Movie doesn't help, and just adds new theories, screws some up, and makes crazed fans break out their gardnening tools and make everything fit together.
There's a theory with popularity that says the Stone Tower temple of The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask an allegory of the Tower of Babel.
Final Fantasy Wiki theorises that the final battle of Final Fantasy VI is a direct allegory to Divine Comedy. The first part of the battle has you fighting a huge demon half submerged in ground, like how Satan is depicted in Inferno, thus making that part a symbolism for Hell. The second fight is against a multitude of suffering mortals, meaning the purgatory. The third fight has you face a pieta figure with Kefka in place of Jesus, representing Heaven. In the final, fourth part, you ascend above the clouds and Kefka himself comes to you, dressed in a toga, telling that he will destroy everything. Divine Comedy ends with Dante ascending to meet God, who tells him the meaning of life.
- Kefka is wearing a full purple toga in the final fight. In the Roman Empire, a white toga with a purple line was the cloth of senators, while the emperor alone was allowed to dress in a fully purple attire.
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War is about King Arthur's crusade to claim the Holy Grail. I bet someone out there has already "proved" that. Somewhere.
Just what the hell is Pokemon? Neo-Nazism, Satanism (enslaving creatures), atheism (you can capture GOD), and so on. The most common one is that it's glamorized dog/cock fighting. Word Of God is completely ignored of course.
- There has been at least one article relating it to simply coming of age. The main character leaves the safety of home with just a bare amount of power or knowledge (symbolized by the starting pokemon) to get by in the world, and as the character explores it grows in both (capturing more pokemon and learning new abilities) until it can take control of its own destiny and become an actualized adult (winning the game).
The Path can be (and was, in fact, intended to be) interpreted in many ways. Is it a cautionary tale about the dangers of temptation in its many forms? Is it a metaphor for life and growing up? Are the girls actually the memories of the grandmother at different stages in her life?
Earthbound has a lot of this going around, but one of the bigger reasons for this is the Eldritch Abomination final boss Giygas. One interpretation that the only reason that you can beat Giygas- who can't be damaged by anything and seems nearly invincible- is because he is the final boss of a video game, and therefore, it is your duty to beat him. Hence, Paula's prayer command only really works when it reaches you, the player.
This article on Pac-Man had got to be a parody of this trope.

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1/0 goes over the whole "subconscious" thing (in reference to an in-story EIJIP linking an earlier arc to the Taliban) here.
Parodied in Subnormality.
Parodied in Mac Hall.
Parodied by Riku in this issue of Ansem Retort.
This Three Panel Soul strip deserves a mention.

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Parodied in this MST, when a Snape/Hermione fic based on The Phantom Of The Opera summarizes the plot of the latter. McGonagall, having taken a correspondence course in Muggle Freudian Psychology, immediately starts in on it, much to the horror of the other characters.

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A popular theory states that the dwarfs' names and personalities in Disney's version of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs represent the seven stages of cocaine addiction. It's bunk on all levels, of course.
- Especially since there were some forty-odd names considered for the dwarves (maybe more). An early sketch of the seven dwarves included Baldy, Deafy and Gimpy.
Parodied with Three Panel Soul's interpretation of Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? as representative of the struggle between God and Satan.
Subverted, to great effect, in the "¡Viva Los Meurtos!" episode of The Venture Bros. which features a group of characters who match up with both the Scooby Doo gang and famous criminals Ted Bundy (Fred), Patti Hearst (Daphne), Valerie Solanis (Velma), and David Berkowitz (Shaggy). Truly a tour de force.
- In the Five College area of Massachusetts, Fred corresponds to Amherst College, Daphne to Mount Holyoake, Velma to Smith College, Shaggy to Hampshire College, Scooby to U Mass-Amherst, and your choice of community college to Scrappy.
The "F.U.N." song from Sponge Bob Squarepants has been alleged to have sexual innuendo in it.

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