In a good absurdist comedy all the characters are typically awful people. Examples: Alice in Wonderland, Hitchhikers Guide. There are no admirable people. But it’s funny because they’re all usually powerless as well in the face of the arbitrariness of the universe.
Conversation
Replying to
The tragedy of human life is that it plays out on a small enough canvas that sometimes some of the awful people have meaningful power for a while. Long enough to do real damage to the whole known world.
1
1
13
Imagine Alice in Wonderland but with the Queen of Hearts having actual “off with their heads” power. Or even Alice herself, the viewpoint character but a pretty awful character, with full power. Or HHG with Zaphod or Arthur in charge of the galaxy. Comedies —> tragedies.
2
7
In HHG, the Vogons have earth-destroying power and do destroy Earth, but it’s a comedy because the galaxy is the canvas and the earth is a rounding error.
1
3
In a way being an awful honor society person is our default state. It takes facing you to vast arbitrariness of the universe to actually enjoy learning things without feeling like you’re losing face. In a vast, arbitrary universe nobody is looking at you.
Quote Tweet
There’s people who seem to feel humiliated by having to reveal that they learned something they. Ie they feel humiliated to say “I learned this” not just “I don’t know”
When they do learn something they go to great lengths to pretend they never didn’t know it 
Show this thread
1
1
10
This is the opposite of the honor society axiom zero: the universe is small enough that the gods are taking a personal interest in you and the universe is conspiring to promote you to their ranks.
1
1
6
Replying to
I heard you say that on Scorpio Season but Lisa on the Simpsons is good and reasonable. When is she not good? (I have watched vastly fewer episodes than you no doubt but still)
1
1
Replying to
Alice or Lisa? Alice is basically a female Eric Cartman if you read closely lite. Lisa Simpson is never not nice that I can recall. She fails sometimes but always learns and grows from it.
2
2
Show replies
Replying to
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders is a perfect mix of absurdist comedy (complete with awful characters) and tragedy. Highly recommend if you haven't read it.
Replying to
Humor of the arbitrary cuts both ways. Nearly every character in The Naked Gun (for example) is guilelessly good.
2



