Subject: On Winfrey & Noman being idiots and mission targets
Author:
Posted on: 2022-06-03 01:37:16 UTC

Before I begin, I must say that comedy is a lot like a frog: it stops living when you dissect it to understand how it functions. However, I'll flash my scalpel and explain this joke.

The joke there is that Winfrey is wrong and her erroneous hypothesis literally blew up in her face. It was intentionally incorrect to set the stage for "it's going to do something stupid." Winfrey was wrong for the sake of setting up a gag and Noman was wrong because he's stupid and it's in character for him to be wrong on multiverse physics. Noman says he's the "most Agent-y there is" because he's a cocksure, zealous moron and his name is Agent, not because he's actually the most competent. He's not competent and having him be competent doesn't comedically work as well as the gag around him: He's an idiot but he's 150% sure he's right. So when he messes up: that is the joke. Winfrey is also gullible so when she believes him and then does something that immediately results in her suffering, that is the joke.

They were wrong and saying half-right things because Winfrey is inexperienced and Noman is stupid. I needed to establish them as incompetent now so it would make sense if I pull up their incompetence later. So I made them wrong. I imagined this scene almost like a spirited argument between two men, one who is saying 2 + 2 = 3 and one who is saying 2 + 2 = 5.

It would be out of character for them to be correct, it would be unfunny for them to be correct, so they are not correct. This is why I have so many gags of them suffering on Missions: because they are operating on wrong ideas and get hurt because of it. Their knowledge isn't my knowledge and their opinions aren't my opinions. They are characters and have license to be wrong, especially when it's setting up for a joke.

I'll look through my notes for something milder to mock if the target is objectionable, it's no big deal. I've discarded another Mission already, it only takes me about a week to make a finished first draft (although that's changing). I wanted some highly extreme scenarios for the sake of making some gags around Winfrey freaking out.

I'd swapped targets before, I think I saw the remark on that first target being unacceptable, but not the second one. I'll fish a bit more, and make a new draft. Honestly? I think I might look for something in the Madness Combat department... that would be very funny.

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