Harrison Bergeron/WMG
Harrison's intelligence comes from Hazel, not George.
- And Hazel's overblown ditziness is just a way to avoid being handicapped.
- Alternatively, she was a genius, and a schoolfriend of Diana Moon Glampers. Then Hazel came to grips with the fact that Diana's vision of a world with absolute equality was wrong. She told Diana, "If you want to handicap anyone, you'll have to Go Through Me first." Diana responded, "Works for me!" and bashed Hazel's head against the wall so as to inflict permanent brain damage.
Diana's reason for her equality-crazed dystopia: Her own cripplingly handicapping guilt at having been a child prodigy, while her sister was mentally retarded. Her sister's name: Hazel Glampers-Bergeron.
- Well, it is mentioned that Hazel looks a lot like Diana.
- Except Hazel isn't mentally disabled. Just...well, dull-normal. Utterly unexceptional.
The original short story is a Future Imperfect retelling of the film.
The hyper-equality of the world eventually breaks down, due to a generation of people growing up with the legend of Harrison Bergeron. The constant praise of his actions lead to his becoming an immense Memetic Badass to the point where the fable of Harrison Bergeron more resembles the fantastic events of the story than the (relatively) mundane events of the movie.
Harrison Bergeron is not a Stealth Parody
Vonnegut was actually very right-wing. Everything else he ever wrote, said, or did was a Stealth Parody.
This is the same universe as The Screwtape Letters
Screwtape Proposes a Toast to a trend that looks to end with the scenario in HB.
Harrison is so strong because he's had to carry those weights all the time
That's it, really.