Silly Childhood Misconceptions on Fantasy Elements?

[Bohandas]

I thought the same thing about the vampire's teeth as well. I agree that it makes more sense, except in the most important case:

DM: As you enter the throne room of the vampire lord, he stares at you dispassionately while holding a glass of a red liquid. He takes another sip from the straw.

Player: Wait, the 1000-year-old vampire uses a straw? Did he need to wash the sippy cup?

We greet you from the deeps (warning- coarse language after relevant scene)

[Bohandas]

Midas's curse always confused me. Does his hand only turn the piece of something that he touches to gold? Clearly not, he ended up with people-statues without touching every inch of the people in question. What about liquids? Can they turn to gold? What happens if he touches something really big, like a tree? A house? The earth? Could Midas have caused a Cat's Cradle-esque apocalypse by turning the earth and the sea to gold?

Liquids were affected, but apparently there was a limit to how much could be affected (and how fast), so he was eventually able to rid himself of he power by standing in a fast moving river for a while

[Belac93]

I never, to this day, understood how the regenerating heads thing ever managed to come into play at all. Unless your enemy is Maximilien Robespierre that doesn't seem to be a thing which is at all likely to come up.

I always wondered why you wouldn't just use a really long spear, or a hammer. If the necks are broken, then new hydras can't appear, right? I also wondered why you couldn't just set up something to slice their heads off until they collapsed under their own weight, and then you could just leave it wherever it was.

[Vrock_Summoner]

And then another thought - if you've been chopping heads and each stump is growing two more, why can't you just cut below where you chopped the first time and get rid of all the new heads? At least starts you back to square one.

Incidentally, the Hydra (I believe that's singular, much like the Minoraur) was originally a unique being of supernatural origin rather than something biological, so I'm going to assume that some explanation which sounds like nonsense for us today was justifying it in the time the myth was created - like maybe the body grows stronger with each new head that's grown so it can never weigh itself down. It was already creating mass from nothing anyway, that actually isn't necessarily a huge stretch.

[Jay R]

I always wondered why you wouldn't just use a really long spear, or a hammer. If the necks are broken, then new hydras can't appear, right? I also wondered why you couldn't just set up something to slice their heads off until they collapsed under their own weight, and then you could just leave it wherever it was.

And then another thought - if you've been chopping heads and each stump is growing two more, why can't you just cut below where you chopped the first time and get rid of all the new heads? At least starts you back to square one.

Because it's not a game module; it's a story. The problem was created for the specific purpose of requiring the old necks to be cauterized, so Heracles couldn't defeat it alone. So Heracles chopped off heads, while Iolaus cauterized the wounds with a torch.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Because it's not a game module; it's a story. The problem was created for the specific purpose of requiring the old necks to be cauterized, so Heracles couldn't defeat it alone. So Heracles chopped off heads, while Iolaus cauterized the wounds with a torch.

Gonna be honest, it's been so long since I read about the myth that I actually forgot Iolaus was there for that. I kinda just remember Heracles doing it all himself. Thanks for the reminder!

[Bohandas]

Technically true, it's just that sometimes the life lesson is "Don't piss me off" or just straight up "**** you."

That was actually the premise of an episode of Adventure Time

By definition, magic doesn't follow scientific principles.

What about in Ghostbusters?

I saw Star Wars in a drive-in theater when I was 7 or 8. I thought stormtroopers were robot's, like 3PO, and was bit confused about how Han and Luke could fit into robot suits.

Though not really a thing in Star Wars this is something done by the protagonist of the Kilroy Was Here concept albim by Styx

Or maybe, some sort of golden tongs would be in order?

That's a hilarious image, (especially since I'm imagining them like salad tongs)

I always wondered why you wouldn't just use a really long spear, or a hammer. If the necks are broken, then new hydras can't appear, right? I also wondered why you couldn't just set up something to slice their heads off until they collapsed under their own weight, and then you could just leave it wherever it was.

Or just stab it in the gut....

And as for hammers, IIRC Hercules normally fought with a club. Why the heck did he choose this battle to use a sword in

[Jay R]

maille then

It probably didn't exist, and certainly wasn't well known if it did. King Midas is a Greek myth, believed to be based on the Midas who founded Gordium, which dates him back more than three thousand years.

[Iamyourking]

Gonna be honest, it's been so long since I read about the myth that I actually forgot Iolaus was there for that. I kinda just remember Heracles doing it all himself. Thanks for the reminder!

In fact, in some versions of the story, he was only supposed to do ten labors; but it was ruled that the hydra and the stables didn't count because he had help.

[Kantaki]

Re Herc vs. the Hydra: Wasn't one problem with killing the Hydra that one of the heads was immortal?
Basically Herc had to separate the heads from the body because as long as the „real” head was still attached it wouldn't stop in thw long run.
Once Herc had chopped all heads (and several replacements) off all he had to do was to find the head that kept twitching and bury it under a huge rock.

[Jay R]

Re Herc vs. the Hydra: Wasn't one problem with killing the Hydra that one of the heads was immortal?
Basically Herc had to separate the heads from the body because as long as the „real” head was still attached it wouldn't stop in thw long run.
Once Herc had chopped all heads (and several replacements) off all he had to do was to find the head that kept twitching and bury it under a huge rock.

There are lots of versions of the myth, and that is certainly one of them.

Originally heads didn't come back.
One author decided it was really one snake with all her offspring.

Greek myths don't have a single set form. Aristotle said that the way to write was to choose your plot (mythos) first, and then decide what elements you want to include. This approach guarantees that re-tellings will be different. Similarly, some modern Musketeers movies have Richelieu plotting to become king, which Dumas never wrote and would be impossible in 17th century France anyway.

[nyjastul69]

...Though not really a thing in Star Wars this is something done by the protagonist of the Kilroy Was Here concept albim by Styx...

Actually, it's funny you should mention 'Kiljoy Wasn't Here'. In 8th grade me and a buddy got 3 tickets to see that tour in Providence. It was me and my friends second concert ever (1st was The Kinks), and my first gf's first concert. It was my first really big date. We were all psyched. I got to school that morning, and my friend informed that the show had been cancelled. I. Was. Devastated. They obviously ended up breaking up.

Thanks for making me relive that. ;)

[JeenLeen]

I remembered something somewhat related to this topic.

As a child, I was told drinking orange juice helped you heal faster (due to vitamin C, but I focused on orange juice.)
I watched the X-Men cartoon, with Wolverine's super-healing.
I concluded that if one drank enough orange juice, they should be able to regenerate instantly like he did.

My 'kid logic' included being stickler on taking things to logical extremes. If a few glasses helped scrapes and having a cold heal better, then a few (or hundreds of) gallons should let you regrow an arm.

---

A professor of mine told me that he didn't believe space was a vacuum when he was taught it in science class. He knew about the idea of space as full of ether. It wasn't until he did replicated some experiments that were done to disprove the theory of ether that he accepted a vacuum.

[Vrock_Summoner]

This isn't quite fantasy, but here's another fun one that was common in my fantasies; I assumed you could survive falling at any speed as long as you were on something, because you just had to jump off the thing at the last second and you'd immediately transition to the upward speed you experience when jumping off of something that wasn't hurtling downwards.

Needless to say, even if I had been right, changing speeds that quickly would just kill you before you even hit the ground, but the thought that I could do that really made my first few plane flights easier.

[Jay R]

This isn't quite fantasy, but here's another fun one that was common in my fantasies; I assumed you could survive falling at any speed as long as you were on something, because you just had to jump off the thing at the last second and you'd immediately transition to the upward speed you experience when jumping off of something that wasn't hurtling downwards.

Needless to say, even if I had been right, changing speeds that quickly would just kill you before you even hit the ground, but the thought that I could do that really made my first few plane flights easier.

As a child, I was told that if I was ever in a falling elevator, I should start jumping up and down so I wouldn't be standing on it when it crashed into the ground.

At age eight, I could tell that wouldn't work. I'd just crash a tenth of a second later, at roughly the same speed.

[Bohandas]

I only just this week got the joke with regard to one of the running gags on the Earthworm Jim cartoon show, some 20 or so years after it went off the air. Clearly the repeated references to Dune were meant as a gag ambout how both franchises are extremely worm-centric.

[Chimera245]

I just remembered this, but at age 5-ish, I believed that superheroes had powers because of their costumes.

I once stayed over at a friend's house as part of a birthday party, and my mom got me Spiderman pajamas for the occasion. I was convinced that when I put them on, I would be able to climb on walls and shoot webs. Nighttime came, and everyone got changed, and I, in my new "superhero suit" went up to a wall, and put my hands on it. When they didn't stick, I had the most epic moment of dissappointment I had ever known...

[Jay R]

I'd never heard of the word "plunder", but the word "blunder" was fairly common in Superman comics. I knew it meant to make a mistake.

So I misheard a line in the Underdog theme song as:
"Speed of lightning, roar of thunder,
Fighting all who rob or blunder..."

It seemed to me that a superhero who fought people for making mistakes was unnecessarily harsh.

[Vogonjeltz]

Not really a fantasy thing (though it happened to be a fantasy movie) and I was much younger (3-5ish) - so what I remember may only be a memory of a memory.

I happened to catch a scene of a movie that my dad was watching where someone died (a pirate killed by a swamp monster? I don't remember details) Anyway, my dad told me something along the lines of "Don't worry, they're actors. They get paid to do that." I then went weeks if not months thinking what idiots those actors were. I mean, after they were dead, no one would have to pay them anyway! I was young enough that I wasn't even horrified by the prospect, just intrigued.

The Lost Continent?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_...nt_(1968_film)

It had all these shipwrecked Spanish conquistadors and there was a sea monster in a pit in the ship.

I also used to think of vampire fangs as acting like reverse snake fangs, drawing blood up instead of injecting venom. Probably because the old vampire movies made the bites look very precise and clean.

[halfeye]

There was an old TV detective series where one episode was about a body being found drained of blood with two syringe holes in the neck. I don't remember much more except that it wasn't a vampire wot did it.

[Knaight]

There was an old TV detective series where one episode was about a body being found drained of blood with two syringe holes in the neck. I don't remember much more except that it wasn't a vampire wot did it.

This was the pilot of X-files.

[hymer]

This was the pilot of X-files.

The X-files pilot is the one where a guy in a coma comes awake secretly, and brings people into the woods to be abducted by aliens. I'm fairly certain you're mistaken about any dual puncture and blood drain.

On topic: I remember one of my then quite young friends having trouble wrapping his mind around the concept of searching for secret doors. Since you rolled every time you searched, what would happen if you succeeded in finding a secret door where there wasn't one?

[Airk]

Another vote for "I still kinda think vampires have hollow teeth".

The pirate eyepatch thing sounds like crap though. It falls into the category of "too clever by half" for me. First of all, most belowdecks work wasn't so important and urgent that giving your eyes a couple of seconds to adjust would be a problem. It's even more ridiculous because you don't magically go from the brightly lit sunny deck to some very, very dark "below decks" space - you're using hatches and ladders. Some light filters in to the first deck, and it only gradually gets really dark... and in the areas where it IS really dark, you're going to need some sort of light for any kind of useful task anyway. And the most urgent task being done belowdecks? Firing cannon. Where you have gunports open. Which let in light. And which you need to look out of to line up your shots. Making having an eye adjusted to darkness a liability. Also, if the eyepatch thing were such a clever idea, you'd expect it not to have been limited to pirates.

Honestly, I would expect that most pirates probably didn't wear eyepatches at all and that it's just another ridiculous part of modern pirate imagery, probably stemming from the same place as, yes, the hook hand and the peg leg - the expectation that these guys have seen a lot of violence and been marred by it.

[Bohandas]

Not really a fantasy thing (though it happened to be a fantasy movie) and I was much younger (3-5ish) - so what I remember may only be a memory of a memory.

I happened to catch a scene of a movie that my dad was watching where someone died (a pirate killed by a swamp monster? I don't remember details) Anyway, my dad told me something along the lines of "Don't worry, they're actors. They get paid to do that." I then went weeks if not months thinking what idiots those actors were. I mean, after they were dead, no one would have to pay them anyway! I was young enough that I wasn't even horrified by the prospect, just intrigued.

That kind of makes me think of that reality show about fishermen dying at sea

[Bohandas]

I just remembered this, but at age 5-ish, I believed that superheroes had powers because of their costumes.

To be fair this is the case for Batman and Iron Man.

[Winter_Wolf]

The X-files pilot is the one where a guy in a coma comes awake secretly, and brings people into the woods to be abducted by aliens. I'm fairly certain you're mistaken about any dual puncture and blood drain.:

It wasn't the pilot but it was an ep of X-Files. The one about a failed eugenics experiment where all the "Eve" clones were psychotic murderers. The word "exsanguinated" featured so much you could make it into a drinking game and be three sheets to the wind before the end of the episode. Or blacked out.

[TripleD]

Since you rolled every time you searched, what would happen if you succeeded in finding a secret door where there wasn't one?

I have a feeling this was or will be the plot of a Neil Gaiman story.

[Rockphed]

I have a feeling this was or will be the plot of a Neil Gaiman story.

That sounds like the plot of a CS Lewis story. It is kinda famous, but I cannot think of the name. It had some big cat, a clothing box, and a hag.

[Vrock_Summoner]

That sounds like the plot of a CS Lewis story. It is kinda famous, but I cannot think of the name. It had some big cat, a clothing box, and a hag.

Y'know, I realized that I was misremembering my author names after a couple of minutes, but I admit my initial reaction to reading this was to wonder where there was a clothing box in Alice in Wonderland.

[hymer]

It wasn't the pilot but it was an ep of X-Files. The one about a failed eugenics experiment where all the "Eve" clones were psychotic murderers. The word "exsanguinated" featured so much you could make it into a drinking game and be three sheets to the wind before the end of the episode. Or blacked out.

That would probably be the episode 'Eve' in the first season. You can guess yourself how I cleverly deduced that.