Anagnorises and Peripetia

OK, I'm still in "Poetics," in Aristotle, and I'm thinking -- out of nowhere, two terms come crashing into my head that I haven't heard since my classics professor in college drilled them there. And they are anagnorisis and peripeteia. Anagnorisis and peripeteia. Anagnorisis is the Greek word for discovery. Literally, the transition from ignorance to knowledge is anagnorisis. It's what our network does; it's what "Dirty Jobs" is. And I'm up to my neck in anagnorises every single day. Great. The other word, peripeteia, that's the moment in the great tragedies, you know -- Euripides and Sophocles -- the moment where Oedipus has his moment, where he suddenly realizes that hot chick he's been sleeping with and having babies with is his mother. OK. That's peripety or peripeteia. And this metaphor in my head -- I got anagnorisis and peripetia on my chin. (Laughter)

I got to tell you, it's such a great device though. When you start to look for peripetia, you find it everywhere. I mean, Bruce Willis in "The Sixth Sense," right? Spends the whole movie trying to help the little kid who sees dead people, and then, boom -- "Oh, I'm dead" -- peripetia. You know? It's crushing when the audience sees it the right way. Neo in "The Matrix," you know? "Oh, I'm living in a computer program" -- that's weird.

Two flavors of the concept of discovery.