Blackadder/Headscratchers

• So, at the end of Blackadder II, how did Prince Ludwig survive? I mean, he was fatally stabbed twice.
  • That's what he wanted you to think.
  • On a related note, how the hell did he get back into the castle and murder everyone?
  • He got better.
  • Or, if you want to go a different route, it was his Dying Dream.
  • He refers to himself as "Ludwig the Indestructible". The final gag is partly to show us that it wasn't just a boast.
  • He's a master of disguise as he says and how it is shown. I think it reasonable that he was able to disguise himself as a corpse so elegantly and take action when everyone's guards were down.
• How come Ebeneezer Blackadder be such an arsehole to Baldrick? I can understand him doing that to other people, since they always took advantages of his kindness. But Baldrick is the only one who truly cares about him, his only fault is being stupid.
  • Because he's decided to embrace his Blackadder-ness to the fullest. That mean he'll be an asshole to anybody, even for something small like being an idiot. Plus, after seeing that dismal vision of the future, he may have been also felt like putting Baldrick in his place.
  • As a rule, the Blackadders are not the types to suffer fools gladly. Baldrick is the fool to end all fools and the Blackadders throughout history cannot help pointing it out at every opportunity.
  • Also, lets remember that Ebenezer is getting back at everyone who ever got on his nerves. Baldrick gets on his nerves regularly, even though he's not doing it out of malice.
• Why did Edmund try to escape Dr. Johnson's wrath when all was lost? The supposed destruction of the dictionary was not exactly his fault to begin with, but we understand he tried to make things smooth anyway for the hope that Dr. Johnson will help publish his novel. And then when Monday came he tried to escape; why? Why not just point the blame to Baldrick, say?
  • I always thought he was worried that everyone would assume he'd done it because he'd been criticising the dictionary so much, making himself the most likely suspect.
  • It's an issue of responsibility. Baldrick is only Blackadder's dogsbody, remember, so Blackadder is going to take the blame for anything he does wrong. Dr Johnson had left the dictionary at the Prince Regent's palace and Blackadder, as the head butler, was responsible for what happened to it.
  • Didn't Dr. Johnson and his friends threaten Edmund's life at some point?
  • They did indeed tell Edmund of what they would do to whomever had burnt Dr Johnson's life's work. Coupled with the abovementioned Baldrick being Edmund's only dogsbody and its no wonder.
• In the very first episode, Edmund proclaims himself "the Black Adder", implying that he's first in the dynasty. If that's the case, why is Robin Hood (who was around long before the Wars of the Roses) familiar with a Lord Blackadder in Blackadder Goes Forth?
  • There's also the Roman Blackaddicus. Let's say Edmund was naming himself, most likely unawares, after his slimy predecessors.
  • I think it's Blackadder: Back & Forth instead, which has a lot of plotholes anyway. It's an unplanned plothole, plain and simple. Perhaps they retconned it. If we want to do Wild Mass Guessing, perhaps the the original Baldrick knew of his master's Blackadder roots and leaped to the chance when the latter christened himself a Black Vegetable.
• Why did George suddenly change his early attitude and declared his love for Amy Hardwood near the end of "Amy and Amiability"?
  • Because Prince George is a) shallow and b) an idiot.
  • Just watched the show again, he said "yuck" to her mannerisms, but was instantly pretty impressed once he saw her.
• Jons of The Seventh Seal looks an awful lot like the original Baldrick. Makes me giggle in the film in parts where I probably shouldn't.
• Why does nobody but me seem to actually think the first season was better, or even as good as the others?
  • Because it was a flop in the eyes of the BBC: It was rather expensive. The latter ones were done in a studio, whereas the others were shot in castles, featured horseriding, large amounts of extras with plentiful design...
  • And the first series Edmund and Baldrick were almost completely swapped around if you view the first series after the others. Edmund's a cowardly, slimy schmuck whilst Baldrick, whilst still filthy, is a damn sight smarter.
  • Conventional wisdom has it that the addition of Ben Elton to the scriptwriting team improved the series immensely. I'd disagree with it, after all some of the lines in the first series are as good as anything as anything in the later series. ('So what you're telling me is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else you have never seen', 'Curses are pretty much the same really. I brought this one for half an egg 'Dear Enemy, I cures you and hope that something quite unpleasant happens to you, like an onion falling on your head'"). But the big change is that Rowan Atkinson horribly overracts and gurns in the first series...and turning him into a Deadpan Snarker improves him immensely.
  • It's quite different in feel, approach and tone in many ways than the three seasons that followed it, when a successful formula was hit on and worked with; it's probably just an example of the age-old phenomenon of something not really finding it's feet for most people until it's worked out the initial errors.
• In "Ink and Incapability": Edmund: "No copy? [...] But what if the book got lost!?" That... applies to him too. It Just Bugs Me.
  • First, the hypocrisy might well be part of the point. Secondly, it wasn't the only copy of the book, it was the only copy with the signature that could prove his authorship. Big difference.
    • Where does it say that? And besides, if he had another copy couldn't he have tried to prove the handwriting in the manuscript was the same as his?
    • None of those in either the actual show or the scripts available. Also, he did say it's seven years of work up in smoke. It's not that hard to prove his authorship anyway. It's called Edmund: A Butler's Tale.
  • He might simply be hoping that Dr. Johnson, a well-respected and notable professional man of words with a ton of publications under his belt even before his magnum opus, might be a wee bit more careful and might have more time to devote to making copies of his work than a butler who's writing on the side of a very busy and chaotic day-job.
• Why did the Infanta ask the Queen on "how is Edmund in bed?" What was she expecting? That she knew?
  • She possibly meant if he had a reputation for it.
  • I thought the Infanta was just so sex obsessed that she didn't care who she asked about it.
• How does the Blackadder line continue, since Edmund dies at the end of three out of four series without (apparently) having children? The only time he DOES survive, he's masquerading as Prince George, so any children wouldn't be Blackadders anyway, and in the other finales he ends up dead!
  • The answer to the first three is probably illegitimate children who became aware of their father's name and adopted it. And with the first Blackadder, Leia was - according to Wikipedia - fourteen when he died, which would technically be old enough to have a child, so there's another possibility for that one. And Captain Blackadder either got someone pregnant before going to war, or survived the end of the series (since they were never actually shown dying) and had children after.
    • Nieces and nephews? He could easily have brothers in the 2nd, 3rd or 4th series.
• What the hell happens in the first series with the Witchsmeller Pursuivant? For a start, there's that black, hooded, cloaked thing which no one seems to see. Secondly, as I recall, Blackadder, Percy, and Baldrick all crouch down, leap up, and then are on another floor of the castle. That's how they escape. WTF??
  • Magic. Literally.
    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7e0777z7AY&feature=related
  • In order: The black hooded thing is the Witchsmeller's disguise. The fact that no one notices how creepy he is is the joke. When Edmund, Percy, and Baldrick jump up and appear in another room Edmund says something to the effect of "In all my years I'll never know how you managed that, Baldrick!" The fact that you can't figure out how they did it is the joke.
• Who the hell reproduced with the various Baldricks?
  • A woman equally as pathetic and repulsive? My mind rebels at the attempt to contemplate the possibility that there are two people alive at the same time as pathetic and repulsive as Baldrick.
    • Alcohol and pity?