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Oedipus is a play that’s all about denial. And who could blame the guy? With a prophecy like the one running his life, it’s no wonder poor Oedipus can’t handle the truth.

Video Transcription:

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

I do.

Please state your name for the court.

Oedipus. Oedipus, King of Thebes.

Do you know what you’re on trial for?

They say I murdered my father.

Where were you on the night in question?

That’s why this doesn’t make sense! I’d just left my father!

Your adopted father.

Yes … wait, what? No. That’s why I’d left. Someone at the banquet said my father wasn’t my real father. So I ran.

He wasn’t your real father.

No! No! I don’t believe it.

What happened that night, Oedipus? What happened on the road away from Corinth?

There was a carriage. A carriage that tried to run me off the road.

And what did you do about it, Oedipus?

We … we argued.

And you killed them, didn’t you. You killed all the travelers in that carriage. You killed your father.

It was self-defense. And he wasn’t my father. He wasn’t!

Your honor, I submit as the People’s Exhibit 3 this DNA test that will prove that the traveler in that carriage, King Laius, was, indeed, this man’s father. And as the defendant has confessed to the killing of all the travelers in the carriage …

No! No! You’ve got it all wrong! You’ve got it all wrong …