site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2328 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I don't like engaging in generational whining but...what's with the trend of reverse-oedipal complexes in media these days? Mrs. FiveHour wanted me to watch The Hawk with her because she liked the first episode she watched. And it's fine for the most part, an inoffensive zany comedy with a solid cast of "Oh look it's Dr. Spaceman from 30 Rock?" in every role. But I'm confounded by the plot: at the opening of the pilot Ferrell is a kind of cross between Tin Cup and Jon Daly, a washed up drunken slob former pga star trying to find his way back to the tour, while his son is a tour pro on the rise. Within five or six episodes, dad has fought his way back to the tour (with a direct Tin Cup homage along the way), and son is frustrated that his dad is better than him and can't handle the competition.

And look I get it, Ferrell is the star people like and tune in for. But how did we get to the point where being just literally irrevocably better than your son was something we celebrated in media? Sure, you have some of the later John Wayne movies where the old timers were still tough, but taking McClintock as our example piece, it is implied and directly written into the script that he expects his heirs (his daughter and the college boy turned ranch-hand he wants her to marry) to grow into their greatness. It's a genuinely weird plot orientation, I have trouble thinking of past examples. Are there a lot of classic "Father is just literally better than his idiot Son at the same task they are both trying" plots that I am not thinking of?

I’m…fairly sure that’s neither oedipal nor reverse-oedipal.

Anyway, it’s common enough in crime stories. “You shot John Wick’s dog?”

History is littered with famous aristocrats whose 10 offspring never amount to anything. As such, there’s no shortage of succession subplots in historical drama (The Tudors, Braveheart) or fantasy (Game of Thrones).

For a more mild version, try Awkward Father Son bonding.

History is littered with famous aristocrats whose 10 offspring never amount to anything.

History consists of utterly exceptional men. Whose sons simply regress to the mean and are unable to replicate, sustain or exceed the prodigious accomplishments and/or rotten, overextended edifices of their fathers.

A Philip being followed by an Alexander is a rare occurrence.

Alternatively: when the son does surpass the father, we are more likely to hear about the son.

I’m…fairly sure that’s neither oedipal nor reverse-oedipal.

I'm, like, dead sure you're wrong. The Oedipal plotline is one in which the father is surpassed by his son, the psychological tension of "killing" the father metaphorically by defeating him is the source of the psychological drama of the plot. It does not literally require that the son fuck his mother (though this is a joke within the show we're talking about, that's kind of irrelevant actually).

The John Wick villains, and something like Succession, are examples. But a) they're recent examples, so would support my point that it's a weird modern Boomer affectation and a corruption of historic plots. But also it's distinguishable because, b) these are clearly examples of failed bad villainous fathers, whose failsons are the anchor around the neck of their legacies. Longshanks in Braveheart, the elder Roy in Succession, whatever his name was in John Wick, they're all evil. And part of their evil selfishness is that they raised shitty sons who will not be able to carry on their legacy, because they were too focused on things like conquering Scotland or the American news market. Having a failson ultimately undermines all your achievements as a man, rather than defeating your failson crowning those achievements.

What distinguishes the new "Old guy is just better than the young guy" plot in something like The Hawk or the Top Gun sequel is that it's presented as good that the old guy is better, that the old guy is still in touch with some cthonic way of being that makes him permanently superior, but that he can't pass on to his son.

But Oedipus’ only conflict with his father was completely unintentional! There’s no incompatibility of ideals, no revenge, nothing to make Oedipus choose to surpass/replace him. I’m not sure what drives the characters in The Hawk but presumably they actually know each other is present.

Though I can’t imagine they’re supposed to work together like Maverick or, uh, Crystal Skull. That has to change the calculus.

But Oedipus’ only conflict with his father was completely unintentional!

Onan didn't practice what we now call onanism either.

…and that’s terrible.

Is the show over? Or could it be setting up a later season where the son surpasses his father, and there's a reconciling/passing of the torch?

It’s a palliative to ease old man boomer’s passing and convince him to hate his children while malevolent forces clean out the till. The younger generations then get the opposite message about how they should do nothing and just seethe in impotent rage at old man boomer because it’s all his fault (it isn’t).

The Odyssey sort of. It's obviously not the main plot point. But father seems way better than son at kicking suitor but.

Ages are funny among the Homeric Greeks, it's implied that Telemachus is not yet at full manhood though the timeline suggests he has to be about 21, while Odysseus is implied to be in his prime though he must be somewhere in his mid-forties to early 50s at least.

To some extent I suspect that the rise of firearms and peasant armies has permanently altered the perception of ages to modern men. Heroic-era warfare required a combination of physical strength, experience, and skill that peaks in the 30s; not at 18, which is the peak of the combination of endurance, stupidity, and raw courage that is ideal for firearms. Ancients thought of 20 year olds as barely fit for military service, in much the same way that only rare 20 year olds are physically mature enough for combat sports or the NFL, and thought that 35-40 year olds were still plenty fit to fight. While today we place 20 year olds as the ideal military recruits, and 35 is just barely legal to enlist.

The Odyssey does play into this trope somewhat, I agree, but it's pretty heavily implied throughout the Telemachy in the first four books that Telemachus is coming into his own, and will someday be a hero equal to his father. This is addressed in ancient days in the lost Telegony, in which Odysseus is killed by his bastard child of Circe, who then marries Telemachus. ((As a personal aside, reading Madeleine Miller's Circe there were a bunch of details, like Circe marrying Telemachus, that I thought had to be modern flights of fancy but were actually part of the mythological corpus))

Zulus were pressed into military service as older teens to 30 or 35 years old. That's approximately spending their 20s fighting in spear formations.

The Greeks held full manhood to be at the age when a young man could grow a full beard- not any particular age(as the Romans and, later, Christian Europeans did). It’s entirely plausible that Telemachus could be in his early twenties and not able to grow a full beard yet.

The Romans usually drafted young men in their early twenties, rarely late teens, and sometimes late twenties or even thirties, but considered full manhood to be at 30- with 20-something men being under legal disabilities equivalent to teenagers today, not 18-20 year old Americans. I suspect that ancient views on full manhood had more to do with property division and economic role than combat prowess- Odysseus is basically a fantasy hero.

With the Romans we knew that they explicitly sorted soldiers based on experience. The Triarii were probably generally in their thirties, and while they were spared some of the scut-work they were kept in reserve precisely because their experience was valuable and potentially decisive.

The Romans usually drafted young men in their early twenties, rarely late teens, and sometimes late twenties or even thirties

The Roman legions typically assumed that the youngest recruits would suck, and were expected mainly to serve as skirmishers and slow down the enemy lines, before the prime age formations moved in and fought, and if that didn't work the thirty-something men nearing the end of their primes were the reliable cleanup hitters.

We see pretty similar age ranges in, say, NFL offensive linemen. Who have a pretty similar job description, really, though obviously a different selection process and physique.

I think there’s a real case to be made that the new ubiquity of TRT among men of a certain age and class has changed the vibe for 45-65 year old men over the last decade. To psychologize, these are largely who is writing, producing and starring in these kinds of shows.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats