Life of Pi/YMMV

• Acceptable Religious Targets: Pi respects and admires his strictly atheistic teacher, and devoutly practices Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. However, he heaps all of his scorn on agnostics — something about a lack of faith and decision.
• Complete Monster: The chef in the alternate version of the story. Even by the circumstances of the situation, he comes off as especially barbaric in comparison to his fellow survivors.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: The Japanese Officers' responses to Pi in their Foreign Looking Font (assumed to be Japanese):

Mr. Okamoto: We have no proof they were meerkat bones. Mr. Chiba: Maybe they were banana bones! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Mr. Okamoto: Atsuro, Shut up! Mr. Chiba: I'm very sorry, Okamoto-san. It's the fatigue. Mr. Okamoto: You're bringing our service into disrepute! Mr. Chiba: Very sorry, Okamoto-san.

• • Ravi's reaction to Pi being an Interfaith Smoothie:

Ravi: So, Swami Jesus, will you be making the hajj this year?

• • The Great Lunch Exchange during the interview

Pi: Would you like a cookie for the road?

• • Whaddaya know? Banannas do float!
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The way the hyena disposes of the zebra. Same with the orangutan's fate. Pi's tone of despair is also notable, as he witnesses this feeling powerless, in great, nightmare-inducing detail.
  • Not to mention how Richard Parker kills the blind man.
  • But the man-eating trees take the cake.
  • Being stuck on a lifeboat for the better part of a year with a Bengal tiger.
  • How about the story at the end that replaces all the animals with humans? Reading about how the humans killed each other was far more terrifying than the predatory behavior in a hyena and a tiger.
• You Fail Religious Studies Forever: Agnosticism is not about being unable to choose which "side" to be on. It's a lot more complicated than that.
  • The "moral" doesn't work if you take the situation in the book as a "The Lady Or The Tiger" situation, where the "right" answer depends entirely on what you decide to go with and there is no real "right" or "wrong" answer. Or your answer could be that despite the story "forcing the reader to realize how awful doubt is" and wanting them to pick a side, there really is no way to know which answer is the right one - which is like agnosticism. It's not about doubt or indecisiveness for some, it's deciding that there is no way for you to know which choice is true, and accepting that.