- Last week, we talked about Two-Face
and how his coin flips might not be exactly as fair
as he thinks they are.
And also how Batman: Rebirth paints Batman
as a villain of sorts.
Let's see what you guys had to say.
(horn music)
First off, let's address some of your guys' comments
from the Two-Face video.
At the very end of the video,
I put up a poll and asked you guys
to flip a coin and tell me if it lands on heads or tails,
and 33% of you guys said it landed on the edge,
you filthy, filthy liars.
If I'm remembering correctly, and apologies,
I don't have the research in front of me right now,
but I think the odds of a coin landing on its edge
were somewhere like 1 in 6,000, depending on the coin.
I think that was like, I think that was like a nickel.
So, that was like the best-case scenario.
But the thing that I'm more interested in
is that 22% of you guys said tails,
and almost double that, 43% said heads,
which is really interesting to me.
If you haven't voted on that,
I would love you to do so.
Flip a coin, go over to that video,
vote on heads or tails, tell me what it landed on.
Don't say edge, you guys, unless it did land on the edge,
in which case, hey.
Screenshot or it didn't happen.
But moving on from that,
I think the number one comment that I need to address
came from people like Acrimonious Mirth
and a whole bunch of other people
who where talking about my analysis
of Two-Face's coin-flipping rig machine thing
that he had in the animated series.
So, the conclusion that I came to is that
that machine is 100% rigged,
it will flip the exact same way every single time.
There's a cat going crazy back there.
Now, the reason I came to that conclusion,
I guess I didn't word properly
because there was a lot of confusion around it,
so I'm gonna try to clear that up.
So, let's go ahead and assume that Harvey Dent
did not test the rig before Batman got there.
Would it still be random?
Would it still be fair even though
he has no idea which side the coin's gonna land on?
I say, no.
I compared it to the real-life coin flipping rig
that researchers built in that paper
that I cited throughout the whole episode.
And I said that it needed careful adjustment
in order to start heads up, and also end up heads up.
And a lot of you guys pointed out, again, that,
well, you know Two-Face's coin-flipping machine
probably didn't have a lot of careful adjustments.
It looked like it was pretty much thrown together.
So, that's that, end of discussion.
But here's the thing, Two-Face's rig
does not need those careful adjustments.
Again, those careful adjustments,
sorry for using that term a million times right now,
was only specifically to get a coin
that starts heads up to also land heads up.
That's what the adjustments were used for,
but in Two-Face's case, it doesn't matter.
He's not actually trying to have an end goal in mind
where it starts one way and ends one way.
In his mind, it's random, but since it is still powered
by a machine that will likely flip it
the same way every time regardless,
it's still not random.
At the end of the day,
the point I'm trying to make here is that
it doesn't matter if Two-Face never tested it,
it doesn't really matter that he doesn't know
which side it's gonna land on.
And I don't even think the machine
needs careful adjustments,
it's still gonna flip it the same way every time.
If we get a dozen Batmans strapped to a dozen coins
and flip them in the air,
it's likely that they're all gonna land the same way.
Even if 100% of them don't land the same way,
maybe there's an outlier,
Batman wiggles a little bit and it throws the coin off.
It's not gonna be 50/50.
And if the giant coin toss isn't 50/50,
then that is far from the fairness
that Two-Face likes to promote.
Professor Persona, on this same comment thread,
brings up the idea that,
well, you know, because Two-Face never tested it,
it's still kind of fair
because he doesn't know how it's gonna land.
But, again, I say that it doesn't really matter
if he doesn't know which way it's going to land.
The way that I see it, anyway, is that
the coin is probably still gonna
land the same way every time,
which is far from a random 50/50 chance
that Two-Face is going after.
I guess it'd kind of be seen as a perspective thing.
If Two-Face only launches it once
and he doesn't know which side it's gonna land on
before he launches it,
then, to him, it's random, but,
in the grand scheme of things,
It's not, it's not really random.
Jon Causith says, if you really want something random,
you should just use a random number generator.
Now, I actually thought about this on the video.
I wanted to know how to actually generate a random number.
So, I looked into some random number generators
and I found that most random number generators
are actually not random at all.
They're just pseudo-random.
They're still based on a deterministic system
that you could theoretically pick apart,
and find out exactly what number or what value
it's gonna land on.
Even a website like random.org,
which you can use to generate random numbers,
uses atmospheric noise, I think,
which, I mean, is trickier to pick apart.
But it's still theoretically possible.
Which is why, in that video, I kind of concluded that
as far as we know right now,
the only true randomness in the universe
exists on the quantum level.
I'm gonna go ahead and switch gears now
to the comicona video about Batman: Rebirth.
If you remember, in this video Hass talked about how
the use of framing and lighting and colors
makes certain characters appear as more heroic than others.
Even painting Batman kind of as a villain in this issue.
Whereas it frames the characters of
Gotham and Gotham Girl, as the heroes.
What's really interesting about this, though,
is hearing the comments from some of you guys
who are saying you felt the exact opposite.
Like Akiva Daphydd, or even Drambo,
who even goes on to point out something kind of interesting,
which is, perspective is all about perspective.
So, to break that down, we're talking literal perspective,
the way that the camera is angled acts with characters
and how you perceive them is actually all about
the perspective that you come with.
So, Drambo goes on to talk about how
they felt that Gotham and Gotham Girl were villains,
even though, if you put Superman in a similar pose,
you go, "Ah, hero! He's definitely, absolutely a hero."
But because you're viewing Gotham and Gotham Girl
in a book titled Batman,
it almost makes you feel like things are a bit off.
You know, you don't have the perspective
of these characters as heroes yet,
especially in a book about, you know,
it's supposed to be about Batman.
So, if Batman is the one lurking in the shadows,
all hunched over and maybe painted
as a traditional villain might be,
but we know him to be the hero,
then having these characters painted
as the heroes in this book
is almost like reversing the perspective on that, even,
by saying, "No, no, no. They look like
"we put them in the poses of superheroes,
"but they're really villains."
That's not a spoiler, by the way,
that's just me reading more into it.
So, if Batman is the one that's lurking
in the shadows and in the darkness,
and it's a book about Batman and we know him to be the hero,
then maybe, when you have these characters
who are presented in a classic superhero pose,
but in a book about Batman,
where, you know, that perspective is switched,
it makes you bring the perspective of,
"Well, these guys must be villains, then."
And to go even further down this rabbit hole
of perspective being all about perspective,
Ben Meade talks about how he also thought that
Gotham and Gotham Girl were villains
because of the way their position
has them looking down on Batman.
And looking down on Gordon,
as if they think themselves superior to everyone else.
And to that, I say again,
we could put Superman in that same pose,
and now, what we have instead,
is not Superman looking down on everyone,
but everyone looking up to Superman,
as the hero he is.
See, it's still all about perspective.
Hoo-boy, visual storytelling is super interesting.
So, you know what, I'm gonna give everyone involved
in this conversation about perspective
a NerdSync no-prize.
I'm gonna give it to Drambo, I'm gonna give it to Ben Meade,
and other people who I'm forgetting.
You get this week's NerdSync no-prize.
Congratulations, a couple of you did.
A couple of you did, so you're gonna have to split it.
I guess.
I'm kidding, I'm not gonna do that.
I think that's gonna do it for comments this week, guys.
But a couple quick housekeeping notes,
we have a brand-new episode of the NerdSync podcast
out right now.
We're talking about legacy heroes,
you know, heroes who have passed down the title
to different characters.
Super interesting conversation,
and it went a little bit longer than I expected,
and we went on a ton of tangents.
I also throw in a bunch of Hamilton references.
Legacy!
What is a legacy?
You can, of course, find that on iTunes
and SoundCloud and Stitcher and wherever else RSS feeds go.
We'll have a bunch of links down in the description below.
That's gonna do it for this week.
Make sure you join us on Wednesday
for another episode of Comic Misconceptions,
continuing our month of Batman-themed videos, Batober.
The long Halloween.
We're talking about the bat signal this week,
so get hyped for that.
It's actually crazy interesting.
In the meantime, though,
if you missed out on last week's videos,
you can click right here to watch the one about Two-Face
and his coin flippies.
We can also right here to watch the comicona
about Batman: Rebirth.
Plenty of great stuff for your eyes to look at.
And, of course, make sure you
hit that big, sexy subscribe button.
My name is Scott, reminding you to read between the panels
and grow smarter through comics, see ya.