Ok ok but, consider:
Aliens reactions to our folktales and legends and myths, mistaking them for reality instead of fiction.
Like, human 1: "I don't trust Dave with this, he's flying way too close to the sun."
Alien: "Ah, yes. Did Dave fly his metal bird too close to your fiery star and fail the mechanical engines?"
Human 1: "No, I mean like, you know, Icarus, from the ancient greek legends? Stuck in a prison, dad made him wax wings to escape, dude flew too close to the sun and melted those new kicks, ended up dead."
Alien: "You mean to say you had wings during the ancient times?? You breached the atmosphere and flew to you Sun????"
Human 1: "Well... No, but to be fair Leonardo da Vinci did give the whole wings thing his best shot back in the renaissance."
Alien: "Is there ANYTHING you won't try?"
Or like...
Human 2: "This is a statue of Perseus defeating the gorgon Medusa."
Alien: "Y'all are beheading snake headed women now?? No, wait, a better question, why does your planet have snake haired women??? Are SNAKES not enough????"
Human 3: "That's mild. Ever heard the story of the Minotaur?"
Alien: "What's a minotaur?"
Human 3: "Half bull, half man."
Alien, genuinely scared: "Dear stars, they're even more dangerous than we thought."
Human 4: "Achilles and Patroclus, the greatest love story in all of human history."
Alien: "Sounds wonderful, tell me about this great human love."
Human 4: "Oh, well one of them got impaled because Apollo, ya know the sun God, yeah, he was being a bitch, and the other went to war for it. Ended up dead too, but hey, now at least they're together."
Alien:
Human:
Alien:
Alien: "Xena, where is our memory wiping device? I wish to unlearn this knowledge, my heart is doing funny human acrobats and I want to cry."
And fairytale references?
Human 5: "What, you expect me to just bippoty boppity boo this situation and turn this wreck into a golden gilded space carriage?? Cinderella may have had a fairy god mother, but we won't get this ship fixed unless we put in some goddamn work!"
Alien: "Bippoty boppity... is that... a formula? Who is this legendary Cinderella??"
Human 6, while ripping out a part of the ship with a crowbar: "Cinderella, she had glass slippers. And a pumpkin that was turned to a carriage. Y'know, fairy god mothers and all that. First world privelages I guess."
Alien: "How do I request a fairy god mother, I would like some glass slippers thank you."
And the cultural differences:
Human 5, recounting childhood stories: "Ma never let me go into the woods behind our house. Too many stories of children being stolen by fairies there."
Alien: "?????? I thought fairies were NICE!! Human 3 introduced me to Tinkerbell?? What do you mean they steal children???"
And and and, nursery rhymes. Do you realise how DARK our nursery rhymes are? Imagine an Alien hearing one, and then learning we use these to rock our children to sleep at night.
Exhibit A: "All the kings horses and all the kings men, couldnt put Humpty together again."
Exhibit B: "Jack fell down and broke his crown and jill came tumbling after"
Exhibit C: "Down will come baby, cradle and all."
Alien: "You're feeding these infants stories about death!! No wonder you humans grow up to be such stupidly fearless creatures!"
Even stories like Hansel and Gretel or the original Red Riding Hood, are so violent, definitely not very child friendly.
"What do you MEAN she shoved her in the OVEN?"
Aliens just mistaking our literature, even just fictional stories, as truth, or being shocked by the dark undertones.
We have superheroes and historical fictional legends and ancient stories and tales about Kings and sorcerers (yes I'm looking at you, BBC Merlin), time travelling Doctors and magical schools, all written as if they were autobiographical. And who's to say they're not?
Just aliens and human literature man, imagine the potential.
