2741: Wish Interpretation - Revision history

Tromag at 16:24, 5 February 2026

2026-02-05T16:24:52Z

108.162.238.57: /* Explanation */

2025-02-13T15:23:35Z

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172.71.234.139: /* Explanation */

2025-01-22T19:49:21Z

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162.158.233.125: /* Explanation */

2024-11-09T17:23:39Z

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162.158.233.124: /* Explanation */

2024-11-09T17:21:22Z

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CalibansCreations: /* Explanation */

2024-10-14T07:43:24Z

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Tromag at 16:35, 2 July 2024

2024-07-02T16:35:06Z

Jkshapiro: /* Explanation */ Omit needless words

2023-12-28T01:28:13Z

‎Explanation: Omit needless words

172.69.70.184: /* Explanation */

2023-09-22T10:33:45Z

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Xurkitree10: /* Explanation */

2023-03-29T17:55:13Z

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 In this comic [[Black Hat]] has found a lamp with a {{w|Genie (Disney)|magical genie}} inside. This genie will only fulfill one wish (not the standard three) and warns that it will twist the wish to teach him a lesson...
-In stories where wishing can come true by magical means, a common cliché is that the wisher will make a wish (for greater or lesser personal gain) but the entity who grants it will {{tvtropes|LiteralGenie|inadvertently}} (or {{tvtropes|JackassGenie|'inadvertently'}}) fulfill the exact wording in such a way that something bad happens which the wisher clearly did not foresee. This may teach the wisher, or at least the reader of the story, an important moral lesson against greed. The wish-granter is not always represented as deliberately obtuse or malicious, but may merely be a naive and uncritical servant of the wish-granting process. A wish for money, for example, might be 'easiest' to accomplish by suddenly being the recipient of a loved-one's {{w|life insurance}} rather than the rather less upsetting{{cn}} scenario of finding that they possess a winning lottery ticket. In the comic, however, this genie is perfectly self-aware of the part he will play in creatively misapplying the wish, and even goes so far as to forewarn the wisher – maybe a deliberate ploy to have wishers take a moment to think and tone down their more spontaneous demands.
+In stories where wishing can come true by magical means, a common cliché is that the wisher will make a wish (for greater or lesser personal gain) but the entity who grants it will {{tvtropes|LiteralGenie|inadvertently}} (or {{tvtropes|JackassGenie|'inadvertently'}}) fulfill the exact wording, either in a way that the wisher did not intend, or carrying consequences they didn't foresee. Such stories are generally intended as morality tales, warning against both greed and the dangers of wielding power without careful consideration. The wish-granter is not always represented as deliberately obtuse or malicious, but may merely be a naive and uncritical servant of the wish-granting process. A wish for money, for example, might be 'easiest' to accomplish by suddenly being the recipient of a loved-one's {{w|life insurance}} rather than the rather less upsetting{{cn}} scenario of finding that they possess a winning lottery ticket. In the comic, however, this genie is perfectly self-aware of the part he will play in creatively misapplying the wish, and even goes so far as to forewarn the wisher – maybe a deliberate ploy to have wishers take a moment to think and tone down their more spontaneous demands.
 However, as is characteristic for him, Black Hat has no concern for the wider negative effects, and immediately wishes for rain to no longer happen, perpetually, for the apparent trivial reason of merely saving him the need to carry an umbrella. The {{w|Water cycle|consequences}} of this drastic change to the weather (no matter by which method it is accomplished) would plainly be very bad, as Black Hat is almost certainly fully aware. The genie realizes that there is very little 'good' idea for him to twist into a bad one, and that Black Hat will be peculiarly unreceptive to being 'taught a moral lesson'. Especially compared to the utter devastation that the granted wish ''will'' cause to the rest of the non-wishing world, which the genie might be reluctant to enact.
-Having persuaded his wisher to retract the original request, the genie now has to deal with two rather ''too'' open-ended, generally pessimistic requests in a similar vein. Exactly what Black Hat "deserves" is presumably subjective. That kind of phrasing sometimes arises as a false reassurance, where a person assumes they deserve something desirable, but are ultimately judged to deserve punishment. In this case, given Black Hat's flagrant immorality, he presumably doesn't deserve anything good. He's likely smart enough to realize this, but demands it anyway, and the genie seems to have enough latent sympathy to be concerned about the trouble being invited.
+When the genie objects, Black Hat agrees to switch his wish to "give me what I deserve". This kind of phrase is very commonly used in such tales as a form of false assurance. Typically, the person making the wish assumes that they deserve everything they want, when it's assumed that what they deserve is punishment. Asking for "what's coming to me" is in the same vein, and sounds even more foreboding. Black Hat, however, is smart and cynical enough to have no illusions about what he deserves, and is presumably fully aware of the potential consequences, and just doesn't care.
-Undaunted, the next version of Black Hat's revised wish uses even more unambiguously perilous wording. The suggestion of "what's coming to" someone is frequently used as a threat (or menacing promise) of violence. Even taken at face value, the wish would either be meaningless (Black Hat would receive whatever fate would have befallen him without the wish, and the genie would have effected no change), or it would be tautologous (whatever is coming to him is whatever the result of the wish is, so how is the genie to decide what that should be?). Regardless of the outcome, Black Hat is wishing for something already negative with no room for a moral twist, or something that is essentially tautological. This disheartens the genie even more, given the genie's apparent obligation to be inconveniently literal and problematic in interpreting wishes.
+This attitude seems to throw the genie for a loop, as openly asking for bad consequences clearly lies outside his experience and expectations, and Black Hat leaning into the bad consequences leaves no room for a twist ending or a moral lesson. Clearly outclassed in his attempt to establish his ability to cause problems, or perhaps out of pity for Black Hat's self-destructive wishes, the genie gets frustrated and and just offers $20 to end the encounter. This is a relatively trivial amount of money (particularly in relation to the kinds of things he ''could'' grant), but is enough to qualify as a good outcome, rather than a punishment. The implication is that the genie just doesn't want to deal with Black Hat and would rather grant him a small victory and leave.
 In the title text, the wisher (possibly still Black Hat) wishes for everything in the world. This is itself a not unknown "bad wish" that would be creatively twisted into a bad consequence for the necessary narrative reasons (for example, ownership of everything in the world might come with inconvenient or even impossible responsibilities). The wish continues, however, and explicitly asks that all of this be put into their house. This is impossible for two reasons: First, everything wouldn't fit in their house unless it was made extremely dense, beyond the point of usefulness (and - depending on density and size of Black Hat's house - could result in said "everything" turning into black hole); second, it causes an infinite recursion, since their house is something in the world, so it would have to be put inside itself. Trying to grant this wish would likely also frustrate the genie, and certainly not allow them their usual scope of a personal (and proportional) educational twist.

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 Undaunted, the next version of Black Hat's revised wish uses even more unambiguously perilous wording. The suggestion of "what's coming to" someone is frequently used as a threat (or menacing promise) of violence. Even taken at face value, the wish would either be meaningless (Black Hat would receive whatever fate would have befallen him without the wish, and the genie would have effected no change), or it would be tautologous (whatever is coming to him is whatever the result of the wish is, so how is the genie to decide what that should be?). Regardless of the outcome, Black Hat is wishing for something already negative with no room for a moral twist, or something that is essentially tautological. This disheartens the genie even more, given the genie's apparent obligation to be inconveniently literal and problematic in interpreting wishes.
-Clearly outclassed in his attempt to establish his ability to cause problems, or perhaps out of pity for Black Hat's self-destructive wishes, the genie gets frustrated and backtracks rapidly. He offers just $20 (a token amount of money, possibly out of his own pocket in order to completely avoid using his potentially dangerous magical abilities) to get himself out of the original formulaic deal and permanently away from having to be under Black Hat's influence.
+Clearly outclassed in his attempt to establish his ability to cause problems, or perhaps out of pity for Black Hat's self-destructive wishes, the genie gets frustrated and backtracks rapidly. He offers just $20 (a token amount of money, especially relative to the potential gains from using a supernatural wish) to get himself out of the original formulaic deal and permanently away from having to be under Black Hat's influence.
 In the title text, the wisher (possibly still Black Hat) wishes for everything in the world. This is itself a not unknown "bad wish" that would be creatively twisted into a bad consequence for the necessary narrative reasons (for example, ownership of everything in the world might come with inconvenient or even impossible responsibilities). The wish continues, however, and explicitly asks that all of this be put into their house. This is impossible for two reasons: First, everything wouldn't fit in their house unless it was made extremely dense, beyond the point of usefulness (and - depending on density and size of Black Hat's house - could result in said "everything" turning into black hole); second, it causes an infinite recursion, since their house is something in the world, so it would have to be put inside itself. Trying to grant this wish would likely also frustrate the genie, and certainly not allow them their usual scope of a personal (and proportional) educational twist.

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 However, as is characteristic for him, Black Hat has no concern for the wider negative effects, and immediately wishes for rain to no longer happen, perpetually, for the apparent trivial reason of merely saving him the need to carry an umbrella. The {{w|Water cycle|consequences}} of this drastic change to the weather (no matter by which method it is accomplished) would plainly be very bad, as Black Hat is almost certainly fully aware. The genie realizes that there is very little 'good' idea for him to twist into a bad one, and that Black Hat will be peculiarly unreceptive to being 'taught a moral lesson'. Especially compared to the utter devastation that the granted wish ''will'' cause to the rest of the non-wishing world, which the genie might be reluctant to enact.
-Having persuaded his wisher to retract the original request, the genie now has to deal with two rather ''too'' open-ended, generally pessimistic requests in a similar vein. Exactly what Black Hat "deserves" is presumably subjective. That kind of phrasing sometimes arises as a false reassurance, where a person assumes they deserve something desirable, but are ultimately judged to deserve punishment. In this case, give Black Hat's flagrant immorality, he presumably doesn't deserve anything good. He's likely smart enough to realize this, but demands it anyway, and the genie seems to have enough latent sympathy to be concerned about the trouble being invited.
+Having persuaded his wisher to retract the original request, the genie now has to deal with two rather ''too'' open-ended, generally pessimistic requests in a similar vein. Exactly what Black Hat "deserves" is presumably subjective. That kind of phrasing sometimes arises as a false reassurance, where a person assumes they deserve something desirable, but are ultimately judged to deserve punishment. In this case, given Black Hat's flagrant immorality, he presumably doesn't deserve anything good. He's likely smart enough to realize this, but demands it anyway, and the genie seems to have enough latent sympathy to be concerned about the trouble being invited.
 Undaunted, the next version of Black Hat's revised wish uses even more unambiguously perilous wording. The suggestion of "what's coming to" someone is frequently used as a threat (or menacing promise) of violence. Even taken at face value, the wish would either be meaningless (Black Hat would receive whatever fate would have befallen him without the wish, and the genie would have effected no change), or it would be tautologous (whatever is coming to him is whatever the result of the wish is, so how is the genie to decide what that should be?). Regardless of the outcome, Black Hat is wishing for something already negative with no room for a moral twist, or something that is essentially tautological. This disheartens the genie even more, given the genie's apparent obligation to be inconveniently literal and problematic in interpreting wishes.

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 Clearly outclassed in his attempt to establish his ability to cause problems, or perhaps out of pity for Black Hat's self-destructive wishes, the genie gets frustrated and backtracks rapidly. He offers just $20 (a token amount of money, possibly out of his own pocket in order to completely avoid using his potentially dangerous magical abilities) to get himself out of the original formulaic deal and permanently away from having to be under Black Hat's influence.
-In the title text, the wisher (possibly still Black Hat) wishes for everything in the world. This is itself a not unknown "bad wish" that would be creatively twisted into a bad consequence for the necessary narrative reasons (for example, ownership of everything in the world might come with inconvenient or even impossible responsibilities). The wish continues, however, and explicitly asks that all of this be put into their house. This is impossible for two reasons: First, everything wouldn't fit in their house unless it was made extremely dense, beyond the point of usefulness (and, depending on density, could result in said "everything" turning into black hole); second, it causes an infinite recursion, since their house is something in the world, so it would have to be put inside itself. Trying to grant this wish would likely also frustrate the genie, and certainly not allow them their usual scope of a personal (and proportional) educational twist.
+In the title text, the wisher (possibly still Black Hat) wishes for everything in the world. This is itself a not unknown "bad wish" that would be creatively twisted into a bad consequence for the necessary narrative reasons (for example, ownership of everything in the world might come with inconvenient or even impossible responsibilities). The wish continues, however, and explicitly asks that all of this be put into their house. This is impossible for two reasons: First, everything wouldn't fit in their house unless it was made extremely dense, beyond the point of usefulness (and - depending on density and size of Black Hat's house - could result in said "everything" turning into black hole); second, it causes an infinite recursion, since their house is something in the world, so it would have to be put inside itself. Trying to grant this wish would likely also frustrate the genie, and certainly not allow them their usual scope of a personal (and proportional) educational twist.
 Black Hat has been seen experimenting with the rules for wishing before, in [[1086: Eyelash Wish Log]].

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 Clearly outclassed in his attempt to establish his ability to cause problems, or perhaps out of pity for Black Hat's self-destructive wishes, the genie gets frustrated and backtracks rapidly. He offers just $20 (a token amount of money, possibly out of his own pocket in order to completely avoid using his potentially dangerous magical abilities) to get himself out of the original formulaic deal and permanently away from having to be under Black Hat's influence.
-In the title text, the wisher (possibly still Black Hat) wishes for everything in the world. This is itself a not unknown "bad wish" that would be creatively twisted into a bad consequence for the necessary narrative reasons (for example, ownership of everything in the world might come with inconvenient or even impossible responsibilities). The wish continues, however, and explicitly asks that all of this be put into their house. This is impossible for two reasons: First, everything wouldn't fit in their house unless it was made extremely dense, beyond the point of usefulness; second, it causes an infinite recursion, since their house is something in the world, so it would have to be put inside itself. Trying to grant this wish would likely also frustrate the genie, and certainly not allow them their usual scope of a personal (and proportional) educational twist.
+In the title text, the wisher (possibly still Black Hat) wishes for everything in the world. This is itself a not unknown "bad wish" that would be creatively twisted into a bad consequence for the necessary narrative reasons (for example, ownership of everything in the world might come with inconvenient or even impossible responsibilities). The wish continues, however, and explicitly asks that all of this be put into their house. This is impossible for two reasons: First, everything wouldn't fit in their house unless it was made extremely dense, beyond the point of usefulness (and, depending on density, could result in said "everything" turning into black hole); second, it causes an infinite recursion, since their house is something in the world, so it would have to be put inside itself. Trying to grant this wish would likely also frustrate the genie, and certainly not allow them their usual scope of a personal (and proportional) educational twist.
 Black Hat has been seen experimenting with the rules for wishing before, in [[1086: Eyelash Wish Log]].

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:55, 29 March 2023
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	==Explanation==		==Explanation==
−	~~{{incomplete\|Created by Rain, Rain, Stay - Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}~~
	In this comic [[Black Hat]] has found a lamp with a {{w\|Genie (Disney)\|magical genie}} inside. This genie will only fulfill one wish (not the standard three) and warns that it will twist the wish to teach him a lesson...		In this comic [[Black Hat]] has found a lamp with a {{w\|Genie (Disney)\|magical genie}} inside. This genie will only fulfill one wish (not the standard three) and warns that it will twist the wish to teach him a lesson...