That's brought up in the text of the first book, though, Slartibartfast tells Arthur paranoia is a normal and expected reaction to the nature of the universe and makes no difference either way
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(If you were actually keeping track, the actual reason for the Vogons' destruction order against the Earth was a conspiracy from Gag Halfrunt and the other psychiatrists to keep the Question from ever being discovered so the full Meaning of Life can never be known)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Czhorat
I think the distinction is partially that HHG takes aim most squarely at things like pride and dignity, as meaningless constructs, whereas R&M sees hope and kindness as equally mockable.
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Replying to @mssilverstein @Czhorat
Mostly Harmless is the one book that gets closest to what I think of as R&M's genuinely bleakest moment, the episode where Morty saves the "Fart" gas being and then finds out he has to kill it because it intends to destroy all solid life forms and it was all for nothing
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It has that same sick feeling where you find out Tricia's act of kindness, to try to give the Grebulons some kind of purpose in life by creating an astrological system for them to follow, dooms her own Earth (because they were all being manipulated by the Vogons)
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That one was interesting because it was Adams coming into his aggressive New Atheist phase Where he gives what he thinks is the best possible argument for astrology to the Kate Schecter character ("The stars and planets don't matter, they're just a tool to explore your desires")
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But then he has the consequences of this be disastrous This well-meaning telling people what they want to hear isn't a game, giving people bullshit to validate how they feel without looking at it objectively is extremely dangerous
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Czhorat
Yeah; I mean, overall, the series really does get steadily bleaker and more aggressive, but I'm not sure that the version people mostly remember and talk about extends past Milliway's.
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Or the endpoint of the old TV movie, that ends with them crash-landing on Earth with a bunch of cast-off chumps from another planet and trying (and failing) to get the ultimate question from scrabble tiles.
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Replying to @mssilverstein @Czhorat
That is, in fact, the original intended ending of HHGG as a franchise, it's the series finale of the original radio show
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A lot of people's memories of the franchise have a lot of stuff mixed in from the later books Life the Universe and Everything is where you get the idea our characters are out to "save the world" at all (the book spends a lot of time lampshading how ill-suited they are for it)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Czhorat
Yeah. Though overall, I think a lot of memories start to peter out by that point, and a few minor points end up mentally retconned into the first two books without actually happening there, or carrying their baggage.
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Also, with LTUAE, I never got as attached because I didn't know how to play cricket, and could only vaguely follow the joke about the Starship Bistromath
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