Question of the day!!!!
YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS
I wanna see you defending your answer.
Wedding or Callback???
Wedding
Callback
alright let's chat
I know, I KNOW the obvious answer is "he literally could have just communicated ONCE that he couldn't go" and that's true.
However, the problem presented in the episode was overly-exacerbated by Janus, by insinuating that the only way he can go to the callback is by making up an excuse as to why he can't come. And we know that Roman latched onto that because of his monologue at the end.
And then Patton made it worse with Roman's hypothetical scenario, making the thing that Liza Minnelli is missing the wedding for *not* a giant once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but instead to party. That isn't reflective of Thomas' situation at all.
Additionally, Roman's "compromise" of "Thomas can skip their next major life event if he wants to" is completely meaningless in any scheme of things. The argument of "Thomas missed the wedding, but theyre allowed to miss Thomas' wedding" is better than the other one! And that one's still really bad and missing the point!
On top of that, Roman is already under the impression that Thomas is "forced to go", yet even though Liza Minnelli is allowed to be here own person, Thomas isn't?? Make that part of the argument make sense?
Literally, the examples the sides discussed were hypothetical at best, and factually wrong in the course of discussion at worst!
If he said "hey, I have bad news, I have to un-rsvp, I've been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I'm so sorry, I hope I can make it up to you" then it would've been fine! Because *that's* the truth! He literally never had to "lie" about anything! And that's an easier truth than even the first lying episode presented, which was about pleasure and not opportunity. Sure, both things would've benefited Thomas, but Thomas is still lying to Lee and Mary Lee by omitting the fact he had a callback the entire time and instead suffering for it. Would be have regretted not going to the wedding? Probably! Especially if he didn't get cast in the movie. But saying that "thomas has to go to the wedding because Lee and Mary Lee care about him so much that they'd let him skip their wedding and it isn't fair to them" is disingenuous. The whole situation is disingenuous. Janus wins, because Thomas was honest with himself, but with literally nobody else. He is still a liar. If he wanted to be a more honest person, he would've gone to the callback.
Yes, morally, Thomas gave his word, so there is that layer of guilt, but saying that life circumstances have changed is not going back on your word!!!! Going back on you word is like saying you'll go to the wedding, and then calling and saying "actually, i don't want to go anymore. Sorry". Good or bad, talking about changes is not lying! It's just changes!
And we shouldn't be acting like, if Aunt Patty were actually in the hospital, Thomas wouldn't be standing in that hospital room freaking out about missing the wedding the whole time! Let the man go to his callback. He could've still bought them a wedding gift.
If the Sides didn't make it worse, we wouldn't have a show. But if they didn't make it worse, Thomas would have still come to a conclusion that he could communicate, HONESTLY, that a genuine important conflict has come up. He never would have had to lie to them if they had any common sense, but they literally forced the common sense to the back of the courtroom.
Full of agreeing, but I also wanted to highlight a few bits:
He literally never had to "lie" about anything!
and
Janus wins, because Thomas was honest with himself, but with literally nobody else. He is still a liar. If he wanted to be a more honest person, he would've gone to the callback.
Because here's the point I think a lot of people tend to get wrong. Janus was never there because he was invested in having Thomas lie to excuse himself. He doesn't arrive when they're discussing excuses. He shows up when Patton insists that Thomas was looking forward to the wedding:
Patton: And you were really excited to go, too. Thomas: ...Yeah. *"Logan" arrives* "Logan": Eh... Speaking for someone is a disagreeable practice, Patton. If Thomas would rather go to the wedding, then I, the brilliant Logan, think we should hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Thomas, the floor is yours. Wedding or callback?
He was there because Thomas was already lying to himself. So he set up the trial with the purpose to prove that, because in his mind having Thomas admit his actual desires would necessarily lead to following through on them, especially having set up the scenario with Roman in the position to deliver the sentence. He simply underestimated how much of an impact that guilt (and wanting to be seen and known as a "good person") would have on Roman as Thomas's ego. And as an embodiment of self-serving desires, he had a blind spot to the possibility of Roman/Thomas actively choosing the wedding as a punishment.
Also, to bring what I said before out of the comments, people tend to gloss over the fact that the callback wasn't the only reason Thomas didn't want to go to the wedding.
"I was planning on playing Word Crush on my phone during the wedding ceremony to keep my mind off the fact that I'm single. I don't want to go! I'm afraid to go. And on top of that, a dream come true fell into my lap scheduled on the same day."
He already knew that just going to the wedding was going to make him miserable, that's why he let himself "forget" about the date in the first place. So in the end we get whole mental health crisis because his misery was only compounded further by allowing himself to miss out on an important opportunity in order to literally punish himself.
Emotional self-harm is a thing, making yourself suffer for the temporary self-image boost of seeing yourself as someone who sacrifices for others is a very damaging habit, and that's more or less what Thomas was doing to himself. The confrontation between Janus and Patton at the end of POF was getting him to realize that.
