Headscratchers / Zap Dramatic

• It is stated that Rolf Klink is dying of prostate cancer, so why does he care so much about the Paxwic deal?
  • Money, Dear Boy. Klink may be dying, but as a generic evil rich guy, he believes he can take it with him.
    • Perhaps he's planning to have himself cryogenically frozen. Man, what a setting for one of these games that would be!
  • For another possible answer, see What Could Have Been in the trivia tab.
  • He does have family, you know, and its implied that for all his evil he does care about them. He could have been planning to leave them a rich inheritance.
• The Ambition series seems to waffle on Ted's mental condition during his turn as a suicide bomber. Was Ted determined to be:
  • Sane by the player, though of a mind to acquire and rig up the dynamite after a "temporary dissociative state" from the shock of seeing blood on the walls when his children were kidnapped?
  • Delusional by Angie, just for trusting in a higher power? Did Angie override the player's judgment with an ulterior motive?
    • Well, episode 3 stated that "not delusional" was the correct answer, but it never said that it was the one the police canonically came to. As for the fact that Angie seemingly declared him insane simply for believing in God...
  • Under the influence of Paxwic, with the bomb planted on him in his sleep? Did Angie cover up the result of the police drug test for a while? If so, why would Angie lie about the presence of a drug she was trying to implicate as dangerous anyway, and why did Ted act as if he came up with the suicide bomb himself when he immediately blamed Bridget for everything else that day? Was Angie aware of the murderous conspiracy and trying to skirt detection for long enough to complete a stronger case against Paxwic? And does Paxwic have the rather specific effect of making one claim responsibility for weapons like the detonator?
    • An old promo for Episode 10 describes Angie's diagnosis thusly: "At Ted's bail hearing, Dr. Raleigh tells the judge that Ted is suffering from delusions brought on by an experimental drug 'Paxwic'." So although episode 4 didn't show it, it would seem that Angie let everyone know about the Paxwic right then and there. Was Ted's judgment so permanently affected by the drug that he never realized the court was determining that he was not entirely responsible for his actions and might be rehabilitated after all? (And this is one more thing Yale may have lied about.)
    • On the other hand, the introduction on Newgrounds mentions that Dr. Raleigh negatively impacted Ted's bail hearing with her assessment such that he was denied bail. Or was it mainly due to Ted's contempt of court? The prosecutor goes on to say that Ted might have been locked up for life if it weren't for Dr. Raleigh...
• If these games do indeed take place within the same continuity, then the timeline makes absolutely no sense. Sir Basil Pike Public School was initially thought to take place after Ambition, but Duke Crabtree appears in Sir Basil Pike as a student, and he looks significantly younger than he did in Ambition. So, it's a prequel, right? Well, not exactly. Ted Hartrup also appears in Sir Basil Pike as a math teacher, and he looks exactly the same as he did in Ambition. Furthermore, it is mentioned in Ambition that Ted was a construction worker. It is possible that Ted simply quit his teaching job to become a construction worker, but if you assume that this all happened within the time it would take Duke to grow into his Ambition appearance, then it would make no sense for Ted to look exactly the same in Ambition as in Sir Basil Pike. Duke looks about ten years younger than his Ambition incarnation, and even if Ted doesn't show aging, he'd still look at least slightly different by the time he threatened to blow Klink International to Hell.
  • The Duke Crabtree in Sir Basil Pike Public School is Duke Junior; he's named after his father, the Duke Crabtree from Ambition.
• Does the Persuasive Power in the Sir Basil Pike game ever factor into anything?
  • Just the music video with Janina. If you don't have enough of it you can't convince the others to leave her alone and it won't cause her to "rock".
    • If your Persuasive Power is too low there and you don't use the Skip button, Janina will notice and offer to boost it to 80 in exchange for being her friend. Then if you get sent back in time for antagonizing Janina into fighting you as a girl, she'll evaluate your Persuasive Power again if you try to use your lack of it as an excuse. The mouse may also have different things to say if your Persuasive Power falls below the threshold before you get sent to the office.
• How does this guy manage to win awards and get money from companies for this despite the bad quality, (even in the early 2000s this stuff was never great looking)?
• Why do people keep saying that Ted is a Creator's Pet? Okay, look, I get it. He does some crazy stuff and gets away with it, and there was that long monologue in Episode 3 that felt like an Author Tract, but for all the people calling him a "discount Hannibal Lecter" they seem to be ignoring that he never comes across as anything other than an idiot! For example, the only way to get him on your side in Episode 10 is to tell him that Satan put a bomb in your car. I'm not saying believing in God or the Devil makes you crazy, but seriously? Telling him people are trying to frame him for murder won't do it, you have to play to his delusions by telling him the DEVIL HIMSELF is behind everything. Oh, and if you try to work with him against the villains then you get shot, by him and apparently by accident, because he's just that incompetent. Zap Dramatic does obviously want us to think of Ted Hartrup as being innocent, but he never comes across as much more than that to me.
  • Having seen a bit more of Zap Dramatic, I guess I'll go ahead and explain this to myself and anyone else who may be wondering. Ted Hartrup doesn't look that much like a Creator's Pet in Ambition, but if you go on to see more of ZD's work it becomes obvious. He becomes much cooler and smarter in Sir Basil Pike Public School, and stars in a number of other Michael Gibson videos, usually to rant about things Gibson dislikes. He basically becomes an Author Avatar, which is why he's called Creator's Pet.
• What's with Rolf's pet mouse in "The Raise"? He doesn't give helpful advice, at all. (Then again, maybe he does, but it doesn't work with the bizarre logic of these games). For example, if you follow his advice and just "get to the point" of why you want to see the boss, you won't progress. Instead, you have to be an intrusive jerk and go down a rabbit hole into your employer's personal life in order to succeed. Anyway, is the mouse just a red herring?
• In "The Suspects", Mr. and Mrs. Tart say that Angie was never the same after her father was killed in a freak accident. In the same episode, Yale says that Angie's father is alive and living in a Florida rest home. Is this seeming discrepancy ever explained?