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33 Dark, Obscure Facts About Popular Literature

Would you believe that this Gatsby fellow actually wasn’t so great?

33 Dark, Obscure Facts About Popular Literature

June 19, 2024

The Tin Man actually got pretty violent with that axe of his.

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33

Thor: Ragnarok

MARVEL STUDIOS THOR RAGNAROK IN THE COMIC BOOK THOR: RAGNAROK, THOR GOES CRAZY (NOT IN A FUN WAY). In the movie, he loses one eye. But in the comic, he rips out both his own eyes, then hangs himself from Yggdrasil, the World Tree. Later, he tears off Loki's head and wears it on his belt. In the end, he shatters Yggdrasil, killing everyone in the universe. CRACKED.COM — Source

32

Trains RENTON THE NOVEL TRAINSPOTTING HAS SOME SUPER-CREEPY GRIEVING WIDOW SEX. At Renton's brother's wake, Renton has sex with his very pregnant widow, and thinks about getting so near the baby. Some concept, a shag and a blow-job simultaneously, he's thinking. Oh, and this novel got shortlisted for the very prestigious Man Booker Prize. CRACKED.COM — Source

31

THE REAL JEFF SPICOLI WAS A TOTAL D**K. In the investigative novel Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Spicoli shows up in class one day waving a graphic newspaper article about a car crash that killed the parents of Crowley, another student. Everyone is shocked, and Crowley cries. Nobody talks to Spicoli for a month. GRACKED.COM — Source

30

THE FORREST GUMP MOVIE LEFT OUT FORREST'S MONSTER DONG AND CRAZY SEX LIFE. In the book, Forrest tells us that Jenny's eyes got big when she pulled down his underwear and she said Whooo-lookit what you got there! Then he rattles off all the positions they did it in, saying she showed him s**t I never could of figgered out on CRACKED.COM my own. — Source

29

A Clockwork Orange

THE NOVEL A CLOCKWORK ORANGE HAS A SCENE OF ALEX RAPING PRETEEN GIRLS. When he gets two 10-year-old girls in his room, he makes them submit to the strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large, in his words. They scream, swear, and hit him with teeny fists, but he doesn't stop. In the movie? They're adults, and the sex is consensual. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

Rescuers THE ORPHAN MURDERS WERE DROPPED FROM THE RESCUERS MOVIE. In the movie, the villain kidnaps Penny because she needs her to find a huge diamond. In the book (Miss Bianca), she kidnaps many, many orphans, just to torture them for fun. Eventually, she has her bloodhounds Torture and Torment (seriously) hunt down and eat them. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

I CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN THE CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN BOOK IS REALLY ABOUT NIGHTMARE PARENTING. In the 1948 autobiography that inspired the wacky 2003 Steve Martin comedy, the co-writers talk about their dad using factory management techniques in parenting. This included removing four of his kids' tonsils at home, on a makeshift assembly line. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

Up in the Air

THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THE NOVEL UP IN THE AIR IS A NOBLE, TRAGIC FIGURE. In the movie, Ryan Bingham is a lonely consultant with a life that's all about racking up frequent flier miles just for the hell of it. In the book, we find out at the end that he's dying of cancer and plans to donate his miles to children's hospitals. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

STARDUST THE STARDUST NOVEL INCLUDES UNICORN MUTILATION SCENES. In the movie, a unicorn shows up to save Tristan and Yvaine from the witch Lamia, then disappears. In the book, Lamia kills the unicorn, then reanimates its corpse and makes it walk around, and then hacks its head off. It's all described in uncomfortable detail, too. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

IN THE NOVEL DIE HARD IS BASED ON, GRUBER AND HIS BUDDIES ARE THE GOOD GUYS. In Nothing Lasts Forever, Gruber is trying to steal secret documents, not money, from the big corporation. Why? Не wants to use them to expose the company's illegal arms sales to the fascist Chilean regime. Also, he's planning to open their safe and throw their money out into the street. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

WIZARD OF oz THE OZ BOOKS READ AS IF THEY WERE CREATED TO MAKE PETA MAD. The Wicked Witch sends 40 wolves after the Tin Man, and he cuts them down with an ахе, wolf by wolf, until they lie in a heap in front of him. And the Scarecrow kills 40 crows, twisting each one's neck (the book makes sure to mention that detail). CRACKED.COM — Source

22

RAMBO FIRST BLOOD BOOK RAMBO KILLS DOGS IN COLD BLOOD. In the book First Blood, Rambo shoots a bunch of police dogs without thinking twice, all to distract the cops they're with (so he can kill them). Не leaves one dog to die as its guts spill out, making the cop who kills it out of mercy look like a good guy. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

JURASSIC PARK THE NOVEL JURASSIC PARK HAS A BABY-EATING SCENE. One night, a nurse finds a swarm of lizard-like mini-dinos crowding around a baby in a nursery. She's too far away to do anything, and they devour the baby and run off into the darkness. Somehow, Spielberg never put any part of that into the movie. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

The Pursuit of Happyness

the PURSUIT of HAPPYNESS THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS IS A VERY VIOLENT BOOK. In the memoir, Chris Gardner talks about trying to kill his stepdad (who nearly killed Gardner's mom several times). Then he describes how a guy raped him, and how he killed that guy three years later with a cinder block. Somehow, the inspiring Will Smith movie left all this out. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

Ny T H È NATURAL THE NOVEL THE NATURAL IS THE TOTAL OPPOSITE OF THE MOVIE. In the movie, a star baseball player is offered a bribe to throw the match, but nobly refuses. In the novel, he accepts but changes his mind mid-game and tries to win. Не loses anyway. And after the game, a journalist discovers the truth and ruins him. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

THE STORY THAT INSPIRED NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION IS ABOUT VIOLENT CRIME. In Vacation '58, the Griswolds go to Disneyland but find it closed, so Clark Griswold forces his way in with a gun. Later, he shoots Walt Disney in the thigh. He's arrested and goes to jail. His family leaves him there and flies back home. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

IN THE BOOK GONE WITH THE WIND, THE KKK ARE THE GOOD GUYS. In the movie, the guy who attacks Scarlett in Shantytown is white. In the novel, he's black, and the KKK show up. They're called a tragic necessity. But Rhett Butler kills the guy first anyway and later cops to it, saying, What else could a Southern gentleman do? CRACKED.COM — Source

16

IN BAMBI, A LIFE IN THE WOODS, BAMBI SEES ENOUGH HORROR TO DEVELOP PTSD. Не watches stuff like a squirrel running around with a bloody gash in its neck before falling over dead, crows killing a sick baby hare, a pheasant being torn apart, and so on. In other words, the novel is basically Heart of Darkness with animals. CRACKED.COM — Source

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15

Fight Club Likewise, Fight Club was an absurd satire that punched holes in the idea of the American dream, but that message got a little lost in a sea of washboard abs. Ide- ally, each person would leave Fight Club and go on to live whatever their dream was, ور author Chuck Palahniuk has said. It wasn't about perpetuating Fight Club itself. The people who did--like Tyler Durden, who everyone seems to forget is a villain, and his alter alter ego, who ends up institutionalized --didn't get very happy endings, but they did make do- mestic terrorism look super cool. — Source

14

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald's magnum opus is a cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream that intensely criticizes the 20th-century class system and ends with a bunch of murder, but the main thing people seemed to take away from it is parties in the '20s ruled. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

13

Frankenstein

Frankenstein Mary Shelley was certainly inspired by the creepy scientific develop- ments of the 19th century in the creation of her monster, but she was also a teenager and probably less concerned with the conse- quences of playing God than the responsibilities of parents to their children. Yes, the book that invent- ed science-fiction was largely a temper tantrum. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

12

Into the Wild Like Kerouac before him, Chris McCand- less went off into the great unknown to find the meaning of life and completely failed, although in his case, it wasn't just spiritually. Не died a horrible death thanks to his undue focus on escaping the trappings of modern life and not enough research on how to actually do that, but that hasn't stopped tons of fans from embarking on their own jour- neys to the place where, it cannot be overstated, nature murdered his ass cold. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

11

The Jungle Upton Sinclair's behind-the-scenes peek at how the actual sausage is made was supposed to illustrate the horrors of American factory work under capi- talism, but instead of converting the country to socialism, it only led to spe- cific reforms of the meatpacking indus- try. Teddy Roosevelt, who was presi- dent at the time, dismissed Sinclair as a crackpot even as he enacted those re- forms. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

10

Venus in Furs Leopold von Sacher-Masoch ended his spicy novella by explicitly declaring the moral of the story, that the modern woman of the 19th century could only be slave or his despot, but never his companion, which could only be achieved when she has the same rights as he and is his equal in educa- tion and work, but people were so busy furiously jerking it that they com- pletely missed his message about equality and named the concept of pain as sexual pleasure after him. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

9

The Shining

The Shining Sure, Stephen King's ode to how much Colorado sucks in the winter is about ghosts and furries, but that's really all just set dressing for a story about the dangers of alcoholism. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

8

On the Road

On the Road The whole point of On the Road was that Kerouac never found what he was looking for out there, but he made it sound so fun that he inspired a group of people he com- pletely hated as a traditional Catholic to drift similarly aimlessly. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

7

A Clockwork Orange The American publishers of A Clockwork Orange initially omit- ted the final chapter in which the unrepentant protagonist simply gets bored of rape and murder and starts considering settling down and having a family as the ultimate ultraviolence, meaning English and American audiences were reading completely different books. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

6

Lolita

Lolita Vladimir Nabokov's exploration of the unreliable narrator was never supposed to be a book you couldn't read on the bus without everyone getting ideas about you. In fact, Nabokov wrote the narrator as a sexual predator specifically to show the audience what a horrifying guy he is. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

5

The Works of George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four was more about the power of language than censorship or surveillance, Animal Farm was more about the pitfalls of violent revolution than any particular political be- lief, Orwell himself was a staunch socialist, and no one on Twitter knows how to read. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

4

Alice in Wonderland The favorite book of every high school senior with more than one lava lamp in the year of our lord 2022 was actually written by a huge dork who was mad about math. Although originally just a silly story told to a little girl he was maybe a little too friendly with, it even- tually became a satire of what Lewis Carroll, a mathematician by trade, saw as the introduction of nonsense rules and abstraction into the field. Basically, it's a book about how much algebra sucks. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

3

The Prince Dictators have long been fans of Machiavelli, particu- larly The Prince, which would have no doubt tickled him senseless because he was very obviously making fun of them. Не was actually a big believer in democracy. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

2

Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 Thinking a story about actual book burning is about censorship is an easy mistake to make, but it turns out Brad- bury was thinking way more literally. According to him, Fahrenheit 451 is about the '50s television boom de- stroying interest in literature, but the misinterpretation is so pervasive that he was driven out of a UCLA lecture by people who kept telling him he was wrong about his own book. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

1

Thus Spake Zarathustra It's similarly easy to read about some great king daddy and master races of blond beasts of prey and think that's some Nazi shit right there, and that's not entirely unintention- al, but it wasn't Nietzsche who intended it. It was his sister, who edited his work after his death and happened to be a big fat Nazi. Her brother hated her and all her Nazi friends, and his idea of the ubermensch had more to do with individual moral determination than any particular skin color. In fact, he described the Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanese nobility, the — Source

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