The Princess Bride (5/12) Movie CLIP - The Battle of Wits (1987) HD

Movieclips · 6.5M views · 2015-02-11 · 4:09

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Overview

The poison goblet scene from The Princess Bride, in which Westley tricks Vizzini in a battle of wits. It is a famous example of nested reasoning.

On Hacker News

Mostly used as a joke or parody reference, and occasionally as the canonical illustration of leveled, second-order thinking.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2022–2025

Topics

Film & TV clips Probability & game theory

What people said

FrustratedMonky · 2025-08 · Joke / meme
I can't argue with any of that, since technically everyone could have been playing everyone else. Maybe Republicans are easily fooled, or maybe Trump is playing 5-d chess and playing both sides. I just think 'playing like a fiddle' typically means a lopsided power dynamic where one person has much more knowledge, or skill. So I'd assume it was implying Democrats were in a superior position. Not, that Democrats just got lucky once. This going back and forth pointing fingers about who was playing , seems like too many layers deep. it feels like this [VIDEO]
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cableshaft · 2023-11 · Joke / meme
It's not assassination. It's a Princess Bride Battle of Wits, that they initiated and put the poison into one of the chalices themselves, and then thought so highly of their intellect they ended up choosing and drinking the chalice that had the poison in it. Corresponding Princess Bride scene: [VIDEO]
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samstave · 2023-08 · Joke / meme
YOU IDIOT! W need the gold to turn the slaves back into carbon,m so we can make more slaves to harvest the gold!!* - [VIDEO] -- I know we hate jokes - but apropos
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Sources

Video by Movieclips, played through YouTube.

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