The Reason For Willy Wonka's Evil Plot Was So Mundane It Ruins Movie's Magic
Getting a Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory was a dream for many children, but there were only five Tickets hidden in five random chocolate bars from the factory.
The five kids who got lucky enough to find them were invited to a tour to the factory accompanied by an adult of their choice and received a lifetime supply of chocolate.
The factory itself was amazing, and Willy Wonka seemed like such a fun man… Up to a certain point, that is.
As it turned out, Wonka set up specific temptations for each of the kids that got them eliminated one by one until there was only Charlie left.
We're pretty sure you know the drill. But have you ever wondered what was Wonka's reasoning behind this elaborated plan? Surely it wasn't about making a random kid his entire enterprise's owner. What could be his real motivation, then?
Reddit user FMyLev suggested quite an interesting theory… Which also makes Willy Wanka incredibly mundane and takes most of the magic out of the movie.
But it sounds reasonable.
According to this theory, what Willy Wonka was really aiming at was… Tax evasion.
Watch closely: what better way is there for a successful entrepreneur to retire and sell his entire business without paying millions in taxes than litigation?
Business-related litigation expenses are tax deductible — but to avoid losing lawsuit expenses, Wonka wanted to make sure he wins all of his cases.
Willy Wonka went the extra mile to ensure winning in court.
His targets were all kids, and kids are likely to cause damage by their actions when they're excited and acting out. Here comes the property damage lawsuit.
He invited adults along to make them liable for their kids' actions. They were present when everything happened, so here comes the negligence lawsuit.
He made all the parties sign waivers and warned everyone against damaging his property in both specific ("Don't drink from the chocolate river") and general ("Behave") ways. Proof of breaking all of these adds additional weight to the lawsuits.
After all of this was set up, there were only a few last steps Willy Wonka had to take to secure his profits: he tempted the kids to do as much damage as possible and incentivized them to commit corporate espionage to prove that they acted out of bad faith.
Wonka himself made a show of attempting to mend the kids to prove his own good faith and magnanimity and gave his entire business to an underprivileged kid which is an act of charity.
All that was left to do was to file the lawsuits. Litigation-related expenses are tax deductible as well as acts of charity, so he'll make all this money back.
The lawsuits will be backed by manipulations and all the measures we described earlier, so he'll win in court, too.
And voila! Willy Wonka can now safely retire without losing millions upon millions.