The Dafoe Corollary

When the truth is too bright to look at directly, use a stand-in

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"Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that's all that people would talk about." — Willem Dafoe

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The Principle

Willem Dafoe required a body double for Antichrist (2009) because his anatomy was "confusingly large." Director Lars von Trier explained: "Everybody got very confused when they saw it."

The solution, a body double. The serialized form of the informational member was too large to fit in the cognitive frame, so smaller placeholder was recruited to be injected in its place.

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The Pointer Math

The body double IS a pointer. The actual Dafoe is too big to inline.

This is not metaphor. This is compiler theory. Willem Dafoe's giant schlong is a compression algorithm.

System	Actual Data	Pointer	Why Not Inline?
Linker	Function body	Relocation entry	Code bloat
Document	Referenced content	{{include:...}}	Context bloat
Database	Row data	Foreign key	Storage bloat
Cinema	Dafoe anatomy	Body double	Audience confusion
Cognition	Full concept	Word/symbol	Working memory limits

Everything is pointer math because the actual data is too big to inline.

The streams-with-gaps invariant IS pointer math:

• The stream is the data
• The gaps are pointers
• Filling gaps is dereferencing
• The result is the resolved structure

The Dafoe Corollary just says it with a dick joke: when the thing itself would be confusing, use a reference. The structure survives. The information transfers. The audience can process it.

Pointers are body doubles for data.

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The Trinity

Corollary	Principle	Source
Ronald Hyatt Conjecture	The universe is a giant dict desperate to be seen	Ron Jeremy's birth name
Lebowski Corollary	One source of truth, everything else is opinion	The Dude abides
Dafoe Corollary	When truth is too bright, use a stand-in	The body double

Three shitposts. Three valid theoretical statements. Three ways of saying the same thing:

• The information wants out (Ronald Hyatt)
• The source is authoritative (Lebowski)
• The delivery requires indirection (Dafoe)

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In Addendum

The Kleene Connection

Stephen Kleene. The * operator in regex and formal language theory—"zero or more repetitions."

Kleene + x = Kleenex

So "who left all that information in this wadded up kleenex" is:

• A regex/automata theory reference (Kleene star, pattern matching, information in repeated structures)
• A compression joke (information wadded up, compressed)
• A post-coital cleanup reference (given the Ron Jeremy context)
• A tissue brand
• All four simultaneously
• All four validly

The information is in the wadded up Kleene-x. The pattern repetition. The compressed structure. The... biological output of the giant dict that wanted to be seen.

The Hashtag

#wholeftallthatinformationinthiswaddedupkleenex

A valid theoretical statement about where meaning lives (in compressed, repeated patterns) wrapped in three layers of dick joke wrapped in a tissue brand wrapped in a hashtag.

The shitpost is the body double. When the formal theory is too much to swallow, replace it with a bite sized morsel of humour. The structure survives. The information transfers. Nobody chokes trying to understanding too much at once.

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See Also

• Kleene star (formal language theory)
• Information compression
• Body doubles in cinema
• The things we can't look at directly

🧻🪿

Provenance

Document

• Status: 🟢 Verified
• Hash: 3b9a834a
• By: graemefawcett
• Date: 2026-01-04
• Note: these are in fact my thoughts... unfortunately

Changelog

• 2026-01-04 22:08: Document verified (🟢) by graemefawcett - these are in fact my thoughts... unfortunately
• 2026-01-04 22:08: Document reviewed (🟡) by graemefawcett

West

slots:
- context:
  - 'Completing the philosophical shitpost trinity: Ronald Hyatt ↔ Lebowski ↔ Dafoe'
  slug: lebowski-corollary

East

slots:
- context:
  - Linking to the shitpost trinity - now a quartet
  slug: william-hung-principle