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"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." - Mewtwo
βAnimals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.β β Richard Adams, Watership Down
That book does a really good job of presenting just how shitty humans are pretty much throughout, without coming across as being preachy or sanctimonious, and I like that.
Meanwhile:
Cats: torture their prey to death as a form of play.
Dolphins: you dont want to know.
If a person did half the stuff animals do, no one could look at them the same again.
People do some awful things but we are also probably the only species that has members that sympathise with other species above ourselves.
I once walked past like 20 ducks tearing apart one female to rape her. I'll never feel bad eating meat.
Exactly what defines us is the sitting down and setting our wits to something.
Sometimes it's horror, sometimes it's greatness.
But everytime it's more prominent than anything other animals can do.
Because wits is the trait that succeed in evolution, it's the trait that gives you more agency.
Watership down is PTSD camouflaged as children's media.
Richard Adams wrote it based on his military time. Certain features of the book are clearly informed by his experience, like how they're constantly talking about how fatigued or rested they are, based on the speed they've been traveling or working and how long they've been at it.
He said he based particular characters on particular people he knew. The seagull was a big explosives guy, Bigwig was a tough-as-hell officer that he really liked working with, and so on.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, chapter 10 is pretty rough, particularly this stark line:
"Slowly but surely, everybody in the house began to starve."
I read the book to my daughter a few years back and I'd forgotten quite how bleak things are before all the fun stuff that people remember.
Roald Dahl did not fuck around. He grew up in one of those psychopathic early-20th-century British boarding schools, and then went to Africa once he graduated, and World War 2 broke out and he fought in Egypt and Greece.
He wrote children's literature because kids tend to vibe with how his brain works, but he was not playing games. Read his adult short stories sometime.
Edit: From his autobiography, from early on in his time in Africa:
Suddenly, the voice of a man yelling in Swahili exploded into the quiet of the evening ... He was yelling from somewhere behind the house. "Simba, bwana! Simba! Simba!"
Simba is Swahili for lion. All three of us leapt to our feet, and the next moment Mdisho came tearing round the corner of the house yelling at us in Swahili. "Come quick, bwana! Come quick! Come quick! A huge lion is eating the wife of the cook!"
That sounds pretty funny when you put it on paper back here in England, but to us, standing on a veranda in the middle of East Africa, it was not funny at all.
Robert Sanford flew into the house and came out again in five seconds flat holding a powerful rifle and ramming a cartridge into the breech. "Get those children indoors!" he shouted to his wife as he ran down off the veranda with me behind him.
Yeah, I've read a couple, one about a frozen leg of lamb, I remember. He was a pretty dark character, including holding some deeply offensive views.
Talented guy when he was focusing his work though - there was a great anthology TV series in the UK called Tales of the Unexpected, some episodes of which I think were based on his more adult writing (including the leg of lamb one).
Are you gonna try to tell me the oompa-loompas weren't so much happier moving to England and working in the factory instead of being in their home
But listen to them singing their working-songs
"Do you think God stays in heaven because he too fears what he has created?"
Came here to say this. I was super surprised when I first found out that this came from Spy Kids.
"I like you as you are Exactly and precisely I think you turned out nicely And I like you as you are
I like you as you are Without a doubt or question Or even a suggestion Cause I like you as you are
I like your disposition Your facial composition And with your kind permission Iβll shout it to a star
I like you as you are I wouldnβt want to change you Or even rearrange you Not by far
I like you I-L-I-K-E-Y-O-U I like you, yes I do I like you, Y-O-U I like you, like you as you are"
- Mr. Rogers
"If the world chooses to become my enemy... Then I will fight. Like I always have.",
Shadow, Sonic 06
Ozai: (bitterly) It was to teach you respect.
Zuko: It was cruel! And it was wrong.
Ozai: Then you have learned nothing.
Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I had to learn it on my own.
Avatar: the Last Airbender
"They say suffering brings wisdom. If that is the case, then I intend to make you very wise."
Optimus Prime, Transformers Comics
"Man, don't you know? The law ain't made to help earthy cats like us. Here on our planet, back in the old days - back in the real old days - it was just every man for himself, scrooblin' and scrat-scroblin' for the good stuff, the greenest valleys. And the strongest, meanest men got the best stuff. They got the green valleys and were like 'The rest of you, y'all scrats get sand.' And that's when they made the laws, you see? Once the strong guys got it how they liked it, they said 'This is fair now, this is the law.' Once they were winning, they changed the rules up." βJake the Dog, Adventure Time, "Ocarina"
Winnie the Pooh
"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
I think that this captures so much of the human condition.
Lots of good answers for ATLA, but I'm partial to the "Do the tides command this ship?" scene.
Maybe the best introductory scene for a villain that I've ever seen.
There was no specific quote, but watching Azula have a bona fide nervous breakdown after all her friends abandoned her was something else even as an adult.
The Avatar finale has two climaxes.
The final showdown between Aang and Ozai is the action-packed climax for the kids who want to watch a cool anime superhero fight.
The Agni-Ki between Zuko and Azula is the emotional climax for the adults watching.
Avatar Legend of Kora, Varick says:
'If you can't make money during a war, you just flat-out cannot make money.'
Pretty much the entirety of the Animorphs book series, but I guess there was a reason for it. But for some kids books, holy hell.
"See, win or lose, right or wrong, the memory of violence sits inside your head. It sits there, like some lump you can't quite swallow. It sits there, a black hole that darkens hope, and eats away at everyday happiness like a cancer. It's the shadow you take into your own heart and try to live with."
The land before time. Littlefoot sees his shadow and thinks its his mother, realizes its not and that hes very very alone.
There's an argument to be made that Rocko's Modern Life was not for children, but it aired on Nickelodeon in the afternoon, so we watched it. And this is poignant as hell-
R-E-C-Y-C-L-E Recycle!
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-E Conserve!
Don't you P-O-L-L-U-T-E.
Pollute the rivers, sky, or sea.
Or else you're gonna get what you deserve
...I still sing it to myself sadly when I read the news sometimes.
"Fraggles don't have any bosses [...] We each lead ourselves and we all lead each other." - Wembley Fraggle, Fraggle Rock
"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss. But when it looked back at us... you blinked."
--Batman, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010)
Batman gives you so many options.
βIt doesn't mean I don't care anymore. I don't want to let you down, honest, but... but it just doesn't hurt so bad anymore. You can understand that, can't you? Look, I can give money to the city - they can hire more cops. Let someone else take the risk, but it's different now! Please! I need it to be different now. I know I made a promise, but I didn't see this coming. I didn't count on being happy. Please! Tell me that it's okay.β
β Bruce Wayne at his parentsβ grave in Mask of the Phantasm
βThink about it - a world where there's no crime, no victims, no pain.β
βAnd no choice. Who elected you, anyway?β
βWho elected you? The problem with democracy is, it doesn't keep you very safe.β
βIt has other virtues. But you seem to have forgotten them.β
βI didn't forget! I just chose peace and security instead.β
βYou grabbed power!β
βAnd with that power, we've made a world where no eight-year-old boy will ever lose his parents because of some punk with a gun!β
*Batman drops his batarang; it clatters to the ground*
βYou win.β
β Batman loosing a debate with Alternate Universe Totalitarian Batman in the Justice League episode βA Better Worldβ
"Life is pain, Princess."
"Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell."
- David Xanatos, Gargoyles
"If you'll excuse me, I have some children to turn into corpses!" -Bill Cypher, Gravity Falls
"I demand a favor"
"I grant but one boon, mortal. And it will be given to you as it is given to everyone - when your time has come."
Gargoyles, Guy summons Anubis to bring back his son. YT Link for the amazing delivery.
"Death is always pointless - that is the point"
Is punctuation an illusion on your planet too?
βEveryone dies, some now some laterβ from Princess Mononoke
Great quote, but this isn't really a children's movie
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