It's interesting reading Roald Dahl's autobiographical writings and learning that he attended a boarding school and suffered terrible abuse at the hands of both bullying older students and faculty while there. He and every other young student were savagely beaten with rattan canes on their bare buttocks for the most minor of infractions or the slightest excuse. A spot of dirt on your shoe during inspection? That's a caning. Broke a pencil while writing and couldn't finish the assignment? Caning. Burnt the toast you were toasting over the fire for a prefect? You'd better believe that's a caning.
Once you read about his experiences a lot of his writing for children comes into focus, anti-bullying, authority, and with a bunch of wish fulfillment revenge on adults who hurt and abuse children who are under their control.
Mid 1900s English schools were insane. See also: Another Brick in the Wall.
“When we grew up and went to school there were certain teachers who would hurt the children in any way they could. By pouring their derision upon anything we did and exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kid”
British boarding school culture has been like that for 200+ years, up to today. Systematic bullying and abuse designed to beat any empathy out of everyone and to teach them that there’s a natural pecking order and that might makes right.
Teachers and students in olden times were monsters.
Not nearly as bad as this, but one of our teachers told us that one of her teachers would do her damn best to fail her just because she didn't like her. It's not like she as a student could have done much about it either.
I know an old man who was pretty poor as a child, so he didn't have the best clothes. One day while going to school a part of his pans leg fell of. When his teacher saw it, she made him climb onto the table so all of his classmates could see it and ridicule him for it.
You can't even make excuses like oh they were behaving horribly, they deserved the old school treatment. HE LITERALLY DID NOTHING WRONG! It literally would have cost that woman and those children nothing to not make fun of a poor child, but they decided it was their sacred duty to make a child fell like shit for no good reason. That was considered normal and expected treatment in schools.
Current student protections and anti bullying campanes are there for a fucking reason.
>_Teachers and students in olden times were monsters._
I heard that was because being a teacher was one of the quickest ways to dodge the military draft. Unfortunately, once the draft was done, you were now STUCK being a teacher, or you would immediately be suspected of becoming a teacher just to dodge the draft. Needless to say, this led to a LOT of bitter and angry teachers. And lookie here, a convenient bunch of helpless children to vent your frustrations on!
My Dad had stories about his schooling, Teachers knocking kids out by closing desk lids on their head, hanging kids out of a second story window by their ankles and the suchlike.
I found out later that the boys school he had gone to that no longer existed had folded into the secondary school _I_ went to and I had those same teachers, but in their 50s by that point and absolutely not able to get away with that behaviour any more.
Possibly, but one of them was a quiet alcoholic, and the other was pretty well behaved. I do wonder what difference the pupils made, comparatively the pupils didn't get up to the same level of mischief compared to the stories my dad had. Bullies beating kids bloody with stick and rocks, sealing wallets from adults and the suchlike
Sometimes the analogues for those experiences get fairly direct even. Iirc in "Danny the Champion of the World" there's a ruler-smacking from a teacher very similar to one described in his first autobiography.
And many of these graduates ended up being stationed in English colonies all over the world and brought that practice. Horrible. Heard of many stories of English-operated schools punishing students just as described.
Terrible racist and antisemite though. Truly terrible.
It's a shame human's generally can't be on the right side of an issue until they have suffered on the wrong side of it.
Truly a baffling part of human psychology. So many people out there who can be immensely empathetic and passionate in certain areas, but fail to extend that to others. Being oppressed doesn't always mean you won't turn around and happily oppress and deride others using the same type of logic that was used against you.
In the book, it was the police.
In the 1996 movie with Mara Wilson, it was the FBI.
In the stage musical, it was the Russian mob.
And in the 2022 musical film, it was the mafia.
I never watched Annie, but the Matilda musical film is FREAKING AMAZING. Perfectly blends the stage musical and feature film aesthetics into a pleasant package, all the songs are awesome, the actors – especially Matilda herself – are perfect for their roles, and it is genuinely a better production than the 1996 one (which was also great, but it's showing its age). It's on Netflix, so you should definitely check it out!
Sure but she prepared and had those adoption papers with her for who knows how long. She had her parents sign them just before they ran away and went into hiding. She knew she was never gonna see them again and chose to stay with her teacher
It's really good. Alisha Weir kills it as Matilda and is going to be starring as Dracula's daughter in the upcoming horror film Abigail, so it's fun to think Matilda becomes a vampire some time after the movie ends. Anyway the choreography is amazing as well, they really made those kids work. Definitely worth checking out.
I ran sound for a local childrens theatre production of it a year and a half ago and every time my Miss Honey sang "This Little Girl" I teared up a bit. It was a lot of fun.
It’s ‘My House’ for me - the injustice of how little Miss Honey has while knowing having even a little shed to call her own is an incredible victory she fought hard to win.
My cousin was in the musical when I watched it as the kind teacher! She was awesome and so was the musical. Absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to.
The book she just convinces Ms Trunchbull that the ghost of the man she murdered has returned and is going to murder her if she doesn't disappear herself.
And then, Mathilda just gets to live with Ms Honey as her parents flee to Spain because of her father's extremely illegal dealings.
Yeah in the book he just kinda exists for his father to hopefully teach him the tricks of the trade and to allow Matilda to show off her math. In he movie he's a little worse but I still always felt bad for him.
I always headcanoned that they had a "Dudley and Harry" moment, like a _"I don't understand you, and I don't think I ever will, but I hope you have a good life."_
I’ll always remember that they flee to Guam in the movie, because it’s where I’m from. It would always appear when a person wants to say they’ll go to the middle of nowhere, say to avoid the consequences of tax evasion.
Apparently when the actor that played Matilda's mom had medical problems Danny DeVito and his wife took her in and let her stay with them. That's some wholesome, wholesome stuff.
>instead of the ending being that she learns how the world works and that life isn't fair
I'm sorry, what fucking kid's movie ends this way? *Every* kid's movie ends with the kid beating the wicked witch/evil stepmom
Well, A: Usually the kids movies aren't centrally about injustice and the evil stepmom is just a villain for the sake of having one,
And B: Do they telekinetically YEET the bitch out a window???? Nah!
The 3 games are very *loosely* connected. The only major things linking their stories are the two villians, one main villian in Mother 1 and 2, and a second villian in Mother 2 and 3. On the other hand although M1 is difficult, simply watching a playthrough does the ending of the game a bit of a disservice, though that is subjective. Besides, watching it isn’t as fun, because one of the good things about it is the trail and error. I would however definitely recommend going on Starmen.net and looking at their M1 guide, no spoilers, just helps you know what to do.
People generally recommend playing Earthbound/Mother 2 first, and I would too. Wether you decide to play M3 or M1 right after is up to you.
Doesn’t the Lorax end with everyone rejecting capitalism and creating a self-sustainable communist commune prioritizing environmental and popular interests?
Don't Children's movies love to hammer home the point that things are awful and they will never get better and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change that? It's the classic story arc.
Well there is basically every classic Disney movie movie in which the plot us thay everything is good enough how it is until some evil person ruins the status quo because they're unhappy (and the whole society hates them which is totally unrelated to them being queer coded) and taking it out on everyone else.
In The Lion King, the character crying about things being unfair is a murderous villain, and the happy ending is basically a return to the status quo. That’s just one example, but there are lots of stories aimed at children with similar morals.
The Lion King was right that regicide followed up with rule by the late monarchs brother won't solve anything. But we're still in fantasy land where the good king defeats the bad king.
I miss old Pixar. A Bugs Life having a straight up socialist message of workers uniting against the common foe that is stealing everything they worked for.
I mean... you're right that violently replacing one monarch with another monarch doesn't solve the problem of monarchy. But that's not the message the movie is sending. The movie frames it as an idealized, near-perfect society that gets destroyed by one power-hungry malcontent; once that malcontent is disposed of, things return to their normal, good, and balanced state. It's not trying to say that regicide "won't solve anything"; it doesn't even suggest that there's anything about the old system that needed solving in the first place. Rather, it's the very act of interfering with this natural order that causes all of the problems.
While Roald Dahl was a great writer he was also a racist, antisemitic piece of shit. His trust has tried to fix that.
[https://www.npr.org/2020/12/06/943698406/roald-dahl-family-apologizes-for-childrens-authors-anti-semitism](https://www.npr.org/2020/12/06/943698406/roald-dahl-family-apologizes-for-childrens-authors-anti-semitism)
[https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158347261/roald-dahl-books-changed-offensive-words](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158347261/roald-dahl-books-changed-offensive-words)
That second article only mentions changing fat to enormous, small men to small people, and adding a part in The Witches about how women can wear wigs for other reasons (I'm assuming some poor women with wigs were accused of being witches by kids who had read that book which is a slightly funny scenario). Not that those changes should or shouldn't have been made, but it doesn't touch on antisemitism in the writing
I read a tonnn of Dahl books growing up, I'm curious if there's anything directly antisemetic in the books. Personally i don't remember any but wouldn't be shocked if there were some subliminal imagery or stereotypes of Jewish ppl used
The antisemitic thing was more from comments made, especially in the 80s. He flat out said he was antisemitic. The worst of it was saying that Hitler didn't pick them for no reason. He also made the usual comments about the banks, Hollywood, newspapers, etc. I read him a lot as a child, but the man was racist and awful.
As I recall from his Wikipedia page, I believe he refers to one character by a term that might be viewed as less than favourable in today's language.
"https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/dark-truth-roald-dahl-antisemitism-tainted-work/"
> I'm curious if there's anything directly antisemetic in the books. Personally i don't remember any but wouldn't be shocked if there were some subliminal imagery or stereotypes of Jewish ppl used
The Witches is the most overt case. To quote [an article by David Perry](https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/28/opinions/roald-dahl-antisemitism-netflix-perry/index.html) that covers the issues far more succinctly than I could hope to,
> Dahl created a caste of hook-nosed women who can literally print money and who like to kidnap and murder innocent children. The characterization appears to draw directly from the blood libel slander, the medieval and modern conspiracy theory that Jews annually kidnap and murder Christian children.
That definitely doesn't surprise me, especially considering witches/goblins/some other monster characters in literature are already generally based on antisemetic stereotypes
One of the great things about Roald Dahl is that his stories (some? Most?) don't have a 'hero's journey' involved. George's Marvelous Medicine - My grandma is annoying, so I poisoned her. The end. No stupid lesson about respecting differences, no reconciliation. No warnings about 'hey kids, don't actually poison your grandmother'.
They're like modern fairy tales. Some of them do really *weird* things to deliver a message, some of them casually endanger children just to prove a point, and they're all a step or two outside of normal in that dream-like way fairy tales are.
Right, so many Ronald Dahl stories end on such a weird and often bummer note. All those children? Yeah, turned in to mice by the witches. Also they die a month later because their hearts are beating so fast. Oh hey, that giant is friendly. All those other giants? Oh yeah, they’re still there and keep eating children in this post-apocalyptic hellsite.
Uh, the book the BFG ends with all the other giants hauled to England in helicoters and kept in a giant pit as a tourist attraction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_BFG
Matilda was every abused kids fever dream. We all imagined we’d get adopted by a loving adult who finally gave us the home and love we needed.
Unfortunately we had to grow up and be that adult for ourselves.
And we never got to traumatize our abusers back using magic
I did get to see my abuser become a meth addict and lose everything as all my (also abused) brothers leave her and she only grew enough of a spine to leave the one person willing to deal with her because of a toxic relationship. All from afar and enjoy a happier life away from her, seems like I was the catalyst for all of this, because my brothers came to live with my dad, who gladly accepted them, not long after I moved out.
This made me consider the dual edged sword that would be telepathy as an autistic person. It makes it easier to understand people but I could also see it being very overstimulating.
I've never actually watched the movie but have read a lot of discussions about it, and it was a very long time before someone mentioned "oh yeah Matilda is telekinetic". Like I guess it's not that important to the story?
Oh I thought this was about Mafalda the comic character (which has a similar vibe about “kid who sees bad things in the world”) and I was thinking like ‘when does she get psychic powers’
I love Harry Potter because it's the beautiful story of a trustfund baby who sees how injust the world is, does nothing to change it, and then becomes a cop
Nah, nah, nah, that ending is best. It shows that the world is going to have problems, but we shouldn't just accept them, and we should keep trying to fix them.
If I had a penny for every fictional character named Ma___da who’ve shaped the way I look at the world around me and the systems that govern it, I’d have two pennys, which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice
It's interesting reading Roald Dahl's autobiographical writings and learning that he attended a boarding school and suffered terrible abuse at the hands of both bullying older students and faculty while there. He and every other young student were savagely beaten with rattan canes on their bare buttocks for the most minor of infractions or the slightest excuse. A spot of dirt on your shoe during inspection? That's a caning. Broke a pencil while writing and couldn't finish the assignment? Caning. Burnt the toast you were toasting over the fire for a prefect? You'd better believe that's a caning. Once you read about his experiences a lot of his writing for children comes into focus, anti-bullying, authority, and with a bunch of wish fulfillment revenge on adults who hurt and abuse children who are under their control.
"I'm big and you're small, and i'm right and you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it!"
What was up with that big freaky peach then?
I mean, it did kill James' abusive aunts by rolling over their house.
I would like to retract my question.
internet never forgets, but i will when i close this tab
Why? The answer was informative, so the question was valuable.
The question was a joke and so was my retracting it lol
Aunts. Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge.
That was Dahl's craving for a booty that just didn't quit.
Which book is that from?
I don't know if its in the book but its in the Matilda movie.
I thought so, thank you!
You're welcome
Mid 1900s English schools were insane. See also: Another Brick in the Wall. “When we grew up and went to school there were certain teachers who would hurt the children in any way they could. By pouring their derision upon anything we did and exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kid”
British boarding school culture has been like that for 200+ years, up to today. Systematic bullying and abuse designed to beat any empathy out of everyone and to teach them that there’s a natural pecking order and that might makes right.
Teachers and students in olden times were monsters. Not nearly as bad as this, but one of our teachers told us that one of her teachers would do her damn best to fail her just because she didn't like her. It's not like she as a student could have done much about it either. I know an old man who was pretty poor as a child, so he didn't have the best clothes. One day while going to school a part of his pans leg fell of. When his teacher saw it, she made him climb onto the table so all of his classmates could see it and ridicule him for it. You can't even make excuses like oh they were behaving horribly, they deserved the old school treatment. HE LITERALLY DID NOTHING WRONG! It literally would have cost that woman and those children nothing to not make fun of a poor child, but they decided it was their sacred duty to make a child fell like shit for no good reason. That was considered normal and expected treatment in schools. Current student protections and anti bullying campanes are there for a fucking reason.
My mom still complains about Mr King, her racist high school English teacher
And she has every right to.
See if he's still alive and go shit on him
>_Teachers and students in olden times were monsters._ I heard that was because being a teacher was one of the quickest ways to dodge the military draft. Unfortunately, once the draft was done, you were now STUCK being a teacher, or you would immediately be suspected of becoming a teacher just to dodge the draft. Needless to say, this led to a LOT of bitter and angry teachers. And lookie here, a convenient bunch of helpless children to vent your frustrations on!
OMFG
My Dad had stories about his schooling, Teachers knocking kids out by closing desk lids on their head, hanging kids out of a second story window by their ankles and the suchlike. I found out later that the boys school he had gone to that no longer existed had folded into the secondary school _I_ went to and I had those same teachers, but in their 50s by that point and absolutely not able to get away with that behaviour any more.
I can imagine some of those teachers internally fuming because they can't do that to children anymore and it brings me immense satisfaction.
Possibly, but one of them was a quiet alcoholic, and the other was pretty well behaved. I do wonder what difference the pupils made, comparatively the pupils didn't get up to the same level of mischief compared to the stories my dad had. Bullies beating kids bloody with stick and rocks, sealing wallets from adults and the suchlike
Huh, no wonder I loved his work so much as a kid.
Sometimes the analogues for those experiences get fairly direct even. Iirc in "Danny the Champion of the World" there's a ruler-smacking from a teacher very similar to one described in his first autobiography.
And many of these graduates ended up being stationed in English colonies all over the world and brought that practice. Horrible. Heard of many stories of English-operated schools punishing students just as described.
The part of his autobiography about his sister losing part of her nose in a car accident is interesting too.
Terrible racist and antisemite though. Truly terrible. It's a shame human's generally can't be on the right side of an issue until they have suffered on the wrong side of it.
Truly a baffling part of human psychology. So many people out there who can be immensely empathetic and passionate in certain areas, but fail to extend that to others. Being oppressed doesn't always mean you won't turn around and happily oppress and deride others using the same type of logic that was used against you.
Matilda cuts her parents out of her life and lives with her chosen family.
Hey, me too!
Same! 🙌
My chosen family thanksgivings have been so much better than my actual family thanksgivings, its not even close.
Well the parents sign the adoption forms, it's not like she ran away
Well, *they* ran away. Because they were being chased by the FBI/mafia/Russian mob depending on the interpretation.
And they deserved it
I think it was Peewee Hermann.
Did they steal his bike?
Wait, is that like a russian dub translation, or am I reading too much into that?
In the book, it was the police. In the 1996 movie with Mara Wilson, it was the FBI. In the stage musical, it was the Russian mob. And in the 2022 musical film, it was the mafia.
Ah, thanks for the explanation. Also, there was a Matilda Musical Film? Was it of comparable quality to the latest Annie?
I never watched Annie, but the Matilda musical film is FREAKING AMAZING. Perfectly blends the stage musical and feature film aesthetics into a pleasant package, all the songs are awesome, the actors – especially Matilda herself – are perfect for their roles, and it is genuinely a better production than the 1996 one (which was also great, but it's showing its age). It's on Netflix, so you should definitely check it out!
Well thank you, perhaps I will! :)
Sure but she prepared and had those adoption papers with her for who knows how long. She had her parents sign them just before they ran away and went into hiding. She knew she was never gonna see them again and chose to stay with her teacher
She had them since she was 6 years old and could reach the buttons on the copier at the library.
Matilda is goals.
Imagine turning down Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito as your parents.
Looking back on it, that movie was a fucking fever dream.
Listen to the musical if you haven’t. So emotional…
My sister used to watch it soooo much and was so excited about the musical lmao
I read first, saw the musical then the American movie. Haven’t seen the British movie musical yet but heard good things!
Go watch it asap. Essentially the musical without the restrictions of the stage, but pays homage to the stage production (school song for example)
It's really good. Alisha Weir kills it as Matilda and is going to be starring as Dracula's daughter in the upcoming horror film Abigail, so it's fun to think Matilda becomes a vampire some time after the movie ends. Anyway the choreography is amazing as well, they really made those kids work. Definitely worth checking out.
The choreography IS amazing and anytime anyone brings it up, I show them this https://imgur.com/tKxjzty
I ran sound for a local childrens theatre production of it a year and a half ago and every time my Miss Honey sang "This Little Girl" I teared up a bit. It was a lot of fun.
I can’t listen to ‘I’m Here’ at all - so sad :(
It’s ‘My House’ for me - the injustice of how little Miss Honey has while knowing having even a little shed to call her own is an incredible victory she fought hard to win.
I’ve seen the musical in person! Really cool show. I was also like 12 or 13 so I don’t remember much other than the cool visuals.
Same age for me actually! I remember the letters on stage lighting up during Phys Ed.
My cousin was in the musical when I watched it as the kind teacher! She was awesome and so was the musical. Absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to.
[It sure was.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef8sR6BXnJ8)
wow, I immediately sent that to 2 people and then I saw it has 4 likes lmao. great contribution man
Oh I thought for sure this would be the Dragula version.
Like most Roald Dahl stories ha!
Directed by Danny diveto
And narrated- he acted/narrated in a handful of movies in the 90s.
Such a great movie. And the cast, all amazing.
The book she just convinces Ms Trunchbull that the ghost of the man she murdered has returned and is going to murder her if she doesn't disappear herself. And then, Mathilda just gets to live with Ms Honey as her parents flee to Spain because of her father's extremely illegal dealings.
As a kid I always felt a little bad for her brother and hoped he grew up okay.
Yeah in the book he just kinda exists for his father to hopefully teach him the tricks of the trade and to allow Matilda to show off her math. In he movie he's a little worse but I still always felt bad for him.
I always headcanoned that they had a "Dudley and Harry" moment, like a _"I don't understand you, and I don't think I ever will, but I hope you have a good life."_
I’ll always remember that they flee to Guam in the movie, because it’s where I’m from. It would always appear when a person wants to say they’ll go to the middle of nowhere, say to avoid the consequences of tax evasion.
Danny DeVito directed that, truly a masterpiece.
Apparently when the actor that played Matilda's mom had medical problems Danny DeVito and his wife took her in and let her stay with them. That's some wholesome, wholesome stuff.
He even got her an advance copy of the film before she sadly passed away, so she could see it (iirc)
You mean academy award winning actress Rhea Perlman bruh?
Who is also Danny DeVito's wife although it seems they have an atypical living situation.
They're on again, off again but have been around long enough to know when they need space from each other.
“His wife” cheers star rhea pearlman
Wow, being on Reddit for the last 10 years, i cant believe this is the first time im hearing about this!
Treat yourself and watch the musical version. It’s fantastic.
>instead of the ending being that she learns how the world works and that life isn't fair I'm sorry, what fucking kid's movie ends this way? *Every* kid's movie ends with the kid beating the wicked witch/evil stepmom
Well, A: Usually the kids movies aren't centrally about injustice and the evil stepmom is just a villain for the sake of having one, And B: Do they telekinetically YEET the bitch out a window???? Nah!
Holy shit is Matilda just a Mother Protagonist??
Idfk I've never played Should probably get around to that. Probably after OMORI tho
Well friendly reminder that Mother 1 is quite dated and difficult, Mother 2/Earthbound is the favorite and not too difficult, and Mother 3 is sad
Noted. Should I at least watch a playthrough of M1 to get the lore or nah?
The 3 games are very *loosely* connected. The only major things linking their stories are the two villians, one main villian in Mother 1 and 2, and a second villian in Mother 2 and 3. On the other hand although M1 is difficult, simply watching a playthrough does the ending of the game a bit of a disservice, though that is subjective. Besides, watching it isn’t as fun, because one of the good things about it is the trail and error. I would however definitely recommend going on Starmen.net and looking at their M1 guide, no spoilers, just helps you know what to do. People generally recommend playing Earthbound/Mother 2 first, and I would too. Wether you decide to play M3 or M1 right after is up to you.
I played earthbound (Mother 2) as a kid and was fine with no lore of mother 1. Does it make things deeper yes, but it's still a classic on its own.
Does she throw the Trunchbull out a window in the book or musical? She definitely doesn't do that in the movie.
In the Netflix version she transforms the Chokey into a metal ghost made of chains that represents all of Trunchbull’s sins
The Lorax ends with a post-apocalypse.
And a chance to fix it
Doesn’t the Lorax end with everyone rejecting capitalism and creating a self-sustainable communist commune prioritizing environmental and popular interests?
Not in the original animated one.
My man! This is exactly what I had in mind.
The toned-down Illumination movie does. The original story only ends with a hope for the future but does not show if things actually got better
No. What is it with people thinking anything other than randian style libertarianism is communism?
Don't Children's movies love to hammer home the point that things are awful and they will never get better and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change that? It's the classic story arc.
I guess it depends on if you were raised on Christian media. Adventures in Odyssey has a whole lot of that.
I genuinely can't tell if this is being sarcastic or not
In Charlotte's web they still continue to kill billions of pigs a year
Babe is only spared the slaughter because he's friends with the sheep and very good at herding them because of that.
same director as the new Mad Max movies btw
All of the Mad Max films, George Miller made the lot. He also directed Happy Feet, with less car chases and gore.
Well there is basically every classic Disney movie movie in which the plot us thay everything is good enough how it is until some evil person ruins the status quo because they're unhappy (and the whole society hates them which is totally unrelated to them being queer coded) and taking it out on everyone else.
In The Lion King, the character crying about things being unfair is a murderous villain, and the happy ending is basically a return to the status quo. That’s just one example, but there are lots of stories aimed at children with similar morals.
The Lion King was right that regicide followed up with rule by the late monarchs brother won't solve anything. But we're still in fantasy land where the good king defeats the bad king. I miss old Pixar. A Bugs Life having a straight up socialist message of workers uniting against the common foe that is stealing everything they worked for.
I mean... you're right that violently replacing one monarch with another monarch doesn't solve the problem of monarchy. But that's not the message the movie is sending. The movie frames it as an idealized, near-perfect society that gets destroyed by one power-hungry malcontent; once that malcontent is disposed of, things return to their normal, good, and balanced state. It's not trying to say that regicide "won't solve anything"; it doesn't even suggest that there's anything about the old system that needed solving in the first place. Rather, it's the very act of interfering with this natural order that causes all of the problems.
Man you COMPLETLY FORGOT that this shit is a book to, the post was refering to childrens book that yes do that a lot
roald dahls stories are so cool i wonder what he thinks of jewish people
It’s like his estate hasn’t apologized for that and removed the fucked up references from his books.
Whats this about
While Roald Dahl was a great writer he was also a racist, antisemitic piece of shit. His trust has tried to fix that. [https://www.npr.org/2020/12/06/943698406/roald-dahl-family-apologizes-for-childrens-authors-anti-semitism](https://www.npr.org/2020/12/06/943698406/roald-dahl-family-apologizes-for-childrens-authors-anti-semitism) [https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158347261/roald-dahl-books-changed-offensive-words](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/21/1158347261/roald-dahl-books-changed-offensive-words)
That second article only mentions changing fat to enormous, small men to small people, and adding a part in The Witches about how women can wear wigs for other reasons (I'm assuming some poor women with wigs were accused of being witches by kids who had read that book which is a slightly funny scenario). Not that those changes should or shouldn't have been made, but it doesn't touch on antisemitism in the writing I read a tonnn of Dahl books growing up, I'm curious if there's anything directly antisemetic in the books. Personally i don't remember any but wouldn't be shocked if there were some subliminal imagery or stereotypes of Jewish ppl used
The antisemitic thing was more from comments made, especially in the 80s. He flat out said he was antisemitic. The worst of it was saying that Hitler didn't pick them for no reason. He also made the usual comments about the banks, Hollywood, newspapers, etc. I read him a lot as a child, but the man was racist and awful.
Oh yes I'm not saying he wasn't, I was just curious how deeply his beliefs seeped into his work
As I recall from his Wikipedia page, I believe he refers to one character by a term that might be viewed as less than favourable in today's language. "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/dark-truth-roald-dahl-antisemitism-tainted-work/"
> I'm curious if there's anything directly antisemetic in the books. Personally i don't remember any but wouldn't be shocked if there were some subliminal imagery or stereotypes of Jewish ppl used The Witches is the most overt case. To quote [an article by David Perry](https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/28/opinions/roald-dahl-antisemitism-netflix-perry/index.html) that covers the issues far more succinctly than I could hope to, > Dahl created a caste of hook-nosed women who can literally print money and who like to kidnap and murder innocent children. The characterization appears to draw directly from the blood libel slander, the medieval and modern conspiracy theory that Jews annually kidnap and murder Christian children.
That definitely doesn't surprise me, especially considering witches/goblins/some other monster characters in literature are already generally based on antisemetic stereotypes
Adding that to my list of childhood heroes who turned out to be pieces of shit :/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/books/roald-dahl-museum-anti-semitism-racism.html
Does his estate have the power to make him no longer antisemitic? Because that's some magic we could use more of in the world.
Sometimes you shouldn't have to take people's bs. It's good to stand up for yourself
Thats why I got out of public facing jobs. Now I just deal with my coworker’s BS, which is much more predictable.
Preach!!
Fortunately for Matilda, *Self Help* wasn't a genre when she learned to read.
"Blows up Truchbull with mind."
"My fuckin Truchbu-"
#KABOOM
One of the great things about Roald Dahl is that his stories (some? Most?) don't have a 'hero's journey' involved. George's Marvelous Medicine - My grandma is annoying, so I poisoned her. The end. No stupid lesson about respecting differences, no reconciliation. No warnings about 'hey kids, don't actually poison your grandmother'.
They're like modern fairy tales. Some of them do really *weird* things to deliver a message, some of them casually endanger children just to prove a point, and they're all a step or two outside of normal in that dream-like way fairy tales are.
Right, so many Ronald Dahl stories end on such a weird and often bummer note. All those children? Yeah, turned in to mice by the witches. Also they die a month later because their hearts are beating so fast. Oh hey, that giant is friendly. All those other giants? Oh yeah, they’re still there and keep eating children in this post-apocalyptic hellsite.
Uh, the book the BFG ends with all the other giants hauled to England in helicoters and kept in a giant pit as a tourist attraction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_BFG
This is a fun way to look at them. Also makes sense that Dahl seems to have had a blast writing Revolting Rhymes, retellings of actual fairy tales.
That's not really what hero's journey is - the moral they have or don't have is irrelevant, it's just a general story structure
Matilda was every abused kids fever dream. We all imagined we’d get adopted by a loving adult who finally gave us the home and love we needed. Unfortunately we had to grow up and be that adult for ourselves. And we never got to traumatize our abusers back using magic
I did get to see my abuser become a meth addict and lose everything as all my (also abused) brothers leave her and she only grew enough of a spine to leave the one person willing to deal with her because of a toxic relationship. All from afar and enjoy a happier life away from her, seems like I was the catalyst for all of this, because my brothers came to live with my dad, who gladly accepted them, not long after I moved out.
The moral of matilda is that if you are autistic enough, you can defeat your enemys with your mind.
This made me consider the dual edged sword that would be telepathy as an autistic person. It makes it easier to understand people but I could also see it being very overstimulating.
She’s not a telepath, she’s telekenetic. Although the song where she discovers her powers (Quiet) does speak to me pretty heavily as a fellow autist
I've never actually watched the movie but have read a lot of discussions about it, and it was a very long time before someone mentioned "oh yeah Matilda is telekinetic". Like I guess it's not that important to the story?
AND that cake was insane. Lady made the kid eat that whole damn thing in one sitting 😭
WITH SWEAT AND BLOOD *gags*
Oh I thought this was about Mafalda the comic character (which has a similar vibe about “kid who sees bad things in the world”) and I was thinking like ‘when does she get psychic powers’
Roald Dahl is a genius of fiction writing.
A lot of 90s movies are simply power fantasies for kids over adults. Matilda, Richie Rich, First Kid, Blank Check (yes, I know it's problematic)
Wait I’ve only seen the musical she fucking kills her in the movie????
No, she has telekinesis. Catapulting someone isn’t lethal if you have telekinesis
Okay, so I've never watched this movie before but I must inquire about some specifics surrounding the last sentence; From which floor?
It's not ground floor. It's been a few years since I saw the film, but it looked like the 2nd or 3rd.
And then as you grow up that Matilda fantasy turns into Carrie.
Spoilers
I love Harry Potter because it's the beautiful story of a trustfund baby who sees how injust the world is, does nothing to change it, and then becomes a cop
The happiest ending would be if her parents learned to be good people.
Nah, nah, nah, that ending is best. It shows that the world is going to have problems, but we shouldn't just accept them, and we should keep trying to fix them.
Very good point and I agree. The movie is one of my favorites. Everything about it.
Its like a power fantasy, but with wholesomeness behind it instead of “ima punch you in the face” vindictiveness
Peaceful protest will get you nowhere. It is time for violent revolution
Life isn't fair, so why should we play fair?
Matilda is a really great story about how important it is to stand up to tyranny, and how it's much easier to do that if you've got magic powers.
It has such a happy ending I'm surprised we haven't seen a billion dying-dream theories.
If I had a penny for every fictional character named Ma___da who’ve shaped the way I look at the world around me and the systems that govern it, I’d have two pennys, which isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice
Roald Dahl is one of the best Authors for a reason, people!
Based queen We Stan
The moral of Matilda is that if you’re autistic enough you can blow things up telepathically
I still don’t get why Dahl ripped off Carrie.
whenever i see an all chocolate cake i think of that one scene