I haven't seen the Halloween episode for a long time, but I still have
some thoughts about it that I'd like to think aloud.
I like the idea that the Brain is utilitarian, as Julian9EHP has said,
and wants to take over the world to make it a better place. That also
explains to me why it's a difficult decision for him to give his plan
up to help Pinky. (There are a lot of other people in Hades, perhaps
suffering worse, but I assume Pinky's the only one in the Brain's
power to help.) I like to interpret his pondering as wanting to help
both Pinky and the rest of the world, and trying to decide who needs
it more. If Pinky had no problems, then the Brain might accept his
absence as part of the pain he usually accepts for world domination.
(Just like they've both accepted that it was in Romy's and Maurice's
interest to leave them.)
I'm a bit reminded of a scene in _Mother Courage and Her Children_,
where Courage turns down a suitor who wouldn't take her daughter, and
then tells her daughter she did it for the wagon. I don't remember
where I've read the interpretation that this is simple people's way of
sparing others from the burden of gratitude. Maybe the Brain has such
a motivation, even if he's not a simple person. Perhaps exactly
because of that: he might not want such a burden on _subordinates_. I
can also imagine that his parents, and perhaps some humans, have
caused him to connect love and subordination; and that perhaps his one
subordinate's love has accidentally reinforced that connection in him.
Sorry, I'm just thinking of what Christiane Rochefort's written about
love, power, and Pavlov.
BTW, _Dance of the Vampires_ (at least the Broadway version) is also
set before and on Halloween, and Professor Abronsius and his assistant
remind me a little of Pinky and the Brain, especially of Plato's PE&tB
skit at
http://groups.google.hu/group/alt.tv.animaniacs/msg/053775ef26bacbdb
.. The professor, who "at one point hits a note some sopranos might
have trouble with" (which breaks a window in one recording), even
sings "if I lead their court, they'd kneel down in tears" in the
Hungarian translation.
Julia
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