Rick and Morty

Does he even know Jerry and Beth? He only knows Morty through Rick.

Bird Person is like Grandpa's old friend visiting from Virginia. He's only here for a few days and he's going back to Virginia. You're kidding yourself if you think he's stopping by to fix Grandpa's life, or that it should in any way be his responsibility to do so. He's just a buddy from out of town, and you're immediate family who's supposed to be helping take care of Grandpa. If Grandpa's an alcoholic or something, that's on you, not him.

He has his own life that he's leading. It's not his job to drop everything to fix YOUR family just because he happens to be bros with one member of it. That is a ridiculous expectation of anyone.

edited 28th Oct '16 8:42:05 AM by TobiasDrake

It's a ridiculous expectation of his twelve year old grandson as well. Seriously, the show lampshades what Rick puts the poor boy through severely traumatises him for life. Even if it's not his problem, it's difficult to take to Birdperson if the one contribution he does make is to tell Morty to just shut up and put up with it.

It's hardly fixing his whole life either. It's stuff like helping Morty clear up the house (which he part wrecked in the first place) so grandpa doesn't get caught. He picks up one can and then guilt slings Morty for wanting Rick to lie in the bed he's made before leaving.

edited 28th Oct '16 5:49:47 PM by Psi001

Hey, Morty's 14!

But seriously, forgive me if I'm not particular receptive to the argument that Rick's family doesn't try hard enough to connect with and help him.

edited 28th Oct '16 5:49:12 PM by LSBK

Beth, like Birdperson, is an enabler. She'll let Rick run wild so long as she can keep Daddy around. Jerry draws the line, but would much rather just ditch Rick altogether, so is less a disciplinarian and more just a nemesis. Combined, they almost make a good combination for Rick, though as lampshaded, they have their own bastion of personal issues which complicate things.

As a result, everything is left on the two kids, who in fairness, should have even less responsibility than Rick himself. Morty does connect and cover for Rick a lot and has a lot of emotional baggage as a result, while Summer has at least some similar moments.

It's not as if we're talking about some helpless old man that needs taking care of either. Rick is by far the most capable of all of them, and only comparatively less stable. Not to mention he abandoned them for most of his life.

edited 28th Oct '16 6:18:20 PM by Psi001

Beth's lowest point to me was when she outright said she'd be fine with with ruining her children's and husband's (and her own) lives, if it meant Rick stayed around.

Like, I understand your issues woman, but damn..

Beth did have one individual interaction with Birdperson by the way, and given their characterisations, it was basically two brick walls talking to each other. Beth was venting her personal issues from him and Rick hanging out together while he should have been with her, while Birdperson talked about how said years were in fact constant hiding from the Galactic Federation. It was obvious both were trying to guilt sling the other over Rick (even if Bird Person was far more passive aggressive about it than drunken slur Beth).

It's hard to feel whose meant to be the (un)sympathetic one here, since both are completely apathetic to the other's problems in favour of their own pedestal (and either way, at the end of it, it's Rick and only Rick's fault he abandoned Beth and became a wanted criminal, so it's no use trying to lay it on thick onto each other). Beth believes anything Rick does to others now is insignificant to her losing her dad, while Birdperson just thinks Rick is so awesome he should be free from consequences, no matter who else pays for it. They both have the mindset "I want Rick, so fuck everyone else".

edited 28th Oct '16 6:15:52 PM by Psi001

Weaponizing guilt is a bit of a theme in this show, yes?

That or analysing the situation you've caused to be pointless in blaming yourself or because someone else is worse. Either way, yes, Never My Fault is the recurring theme.

edited 28th Oct '16 7:50:28 PM by Psi001

@Tobias

Nobody is expecting Bird Person to stick around and try to fix Rick, as yes, it isn't his responsibility. What Bird Person does do, however, is guilt Morty whenever he finally has enough with Rick's behavior. As others have said, Morty (and Summer) are children, and have no responsibility to withstand Rick's abuse in order to help him. It is not about fixing anybody, but instead getting away from the incredibility toxic man that is Rick Sanchez. And whenever Morty does, Bird Person calls him a selfish asshole.

Bird Person is the abuser's friend who guilt trips the victim back.

edited 28th Oct '16 7:52:42 PM by SilentColossus

Birdperson just seems another nod to Rick's likeness, someone who can hide their self indulgence and bias because they can analyse and wordsmith well enough to reason themselves out of any objection, even if their argument is a mere tautological "Everybody else is just stupid and a jerk so we should do whatever we want".

edited 28th Oct '16 8:42:01 PM by Psi001

As much as I sympathized with Morty in that situation, the only problem I have with that analysis is that if Morty hadn't gone back to help, the entire Earth might have been destroyed, so, in a way, he was being selfish, just not for the same reasons Bird Person said.

Of course, I wish I could just say it doesn't matter because that episode was so poorly plotted and written to begin with. I don't know which episode I dislike more, that one or "Raising Gazorpazorp".

He guilt slinged Morty in "Risky Business" as well, and in that case the only one who would have paid is Rick for his own selfish antics due to leaving the house a mess from his party and getting in trouble with Beth and Jerry.

But Birdperson insisted Rick was a man who suffered constantly (his own fault, but still) and the idea that Morty considered just letting Rick accept the consequences for using them and nearly getting them killed made Birdperson question whether he could sleep at night..... And then he flew off to make out with Tammy after helping clean up one can.

Hell, I could argue if he really cared that much about Rick he'd have advised him to cool down on the hard partying before things spiralled out of control.

edited 29th Oct '16 10:31:08 AM by Psi001

I've felt all along that the Galactic Federation isn't so benevolent.

Wouldn't surprise me if Jerry were to be against saving Rick.

Supposedly Rick actually becomes aware he's a an animated character.

edited 2nd Nov '16 11:45:12 AM by azul120

I mean, it's not like they've been portrayed as particularly benevolent.

Why wouldn't Jerry be against saving Rick? There are several valid reasons to be against that and not really many for it.

Galactic Federation actually being malicious would be a pretty big for.

No it wouldn't. Rick couldn't magically solve the situation himself (that's been made abundantly clear) and the Federation being "malicious" doesn't remove the legitimately toxic influence Rick has on all of them.

Besides I think the Federation is probably more ridiculously/coldly bureaucratic than malicious. We know enough about Rick (and a lot of people in real life) to know why he would oppose something like that.

Evil Versus Evil is a thing. So is Black-and-Gray Morality, for that matter. These setups are typically what you can expect from works with a protagonist as caustic as Rick when, despite his consistently self-destructive behavior and negative influence on everyone and everything around him, said character is not depicted as a Villain Protagonist.

The show plays Rick as an antihero. For all his flaws, you're meant to be rooting for him rather than against him when shit hits the fan more often than not. Because of this, it's not unlikely that the Federation is meant to be just as bad if not worse than him.

Like, remember that time Rick murdered the rapist jelly bean in cold blood? In that moment, the audience wasn't supposed to going, "Rick's criminal actions make me uncomfortable." They were supposed to be going, "Yeah! Our cruel asshole protagonist just gave that rapist scumbat what was coming to him!" Like the Punisher or Ghost Rider, Rick gets away with being as bad as he is without descending into straight villain territory by having antagonists who are worse.

edited 2nd Nov '16 12:52:23 PM by TobiasDrake

Well, due not that I didn't call the Federation good. But point taken.

It's worth noting that Rick is a mass murderer of Omnicidal Maniac proportions. Remember when he destroyed an entire world of intelligent beings so he could power his car? As far as we can tell, the Federation has never come anywhere close to atrocities on that scale.

edited 3rd Nov '16 5:39:32 AM by DrDougsh

Or when he killed every rich bastard in the Purge episode?

Birdperson did say that he and Rick (and presumably all the other criminals at the wedding) had committed countless atrocities in the name of "freedom". I wouldn't be at all surprised that while they tried to see themselves as freedom fighters, the public at large sees them as nothing but insane terrorists, a view that's probably pretty accurate.

Like Tobias said, Evil Versus Evil is a thing, but maybe the Federation is a Necessary Evil or something.

edited 3rd Nov '16 7:42:37 AM by LSBK

It helps that Birdperson is an obvious Native American parody, nearly every adult cartoon rips on such archetypes for using their 'spiritual' image and tormented history to hide being corrupt assholes themselves.

In fairness though, Rick never says he's a good guy, just more 'the world's corrupt and annoying, so why shouldn't I be?' excuse heavy. He's slowly giving Morty his more cynical mentality after all.

edited 3rd Nov '16 9:49:02 AM by Psi001

I think that portrayal is at its best when they take advantage of ignorant stereotyping for their own benefit:

Another "Phony Native American" character I really love is John Redcorn from King Of The Hill. Sure, he could be a dick, and resorted to Everything Is Racist far beyond what was honest, but you couldn't help but feel sympathy for the guy.

Birdperson's guilt-slinging, it took until this conversation for me to notice it. I guess it was his Dramatic Deadpan that distracted me? Likewise, his conversation with Beth, I completely failed to notice what they were really saying to each other the first time around.

I guess I take things at face value...

edited 3rd Nov '16 7:08:09 PM by TheHandle

I didn't really get he was being as needy as Beth was in that conversation the first time around either. To be fair, that was his wedding day, but when the whole thing is just them talking at each other it says something about both of them.

I think the problem is sometimes Rick and Morty comes off as an Indecisive Deconstruction, with some characters being treated as flawed but still getting their way without enough ironic humour to the situation. The problem was Birdperson always got his way up until his death.

edited 4th Nov '16 9:18:59 AM by Psi001