Honest-Abe-kun might have fallen for the trap of the obvious, and approached the sphinges to bet his life on being able to solve their riddle…but, fortunately, Mihashi is a master of evasion and shows him a better (roundabout) way. You don’t have to used the front door if the side walls are missing.
And then Mihashi reveals not only his thinking, but also the traumatic childhood experience that gave him a life-long, deep-seated phobia of sphinges. Trauma never is fun, of course, but if you have to have one life-long, deep-seated phobia, sphinges are one of the better choices, actually – they are remarkably easy to avoid, especially if you don’t live in Egypt. Lesson: if you can, never live in Egypt.
Of course, in revealing that trauma, Mihashi fell victim to one of the classic blunders: mentioning one traumatic scene from that movie will likely cause your mind to wander to that other, maximally traumatic scene, no matter how much your mind has tried to suppress any memory of it. At least Honest-Abe-kun has also watched the movie, so they can share their trauma for a moment. Who knows, perhaps that’ll help them form a better battery, even if they end up never finding the Pitch of the Gods.
More on Thursday.