Report: King Hagan Struggles With Neopian Wisdom

While the local wheel has proven to be a very successful endeavor for the kingdom, generating thousands of Neopoints to invest in the economy daily, an interview with King Hagan has revealed disappointment over the outcome of the “Wise Old King” outreach program.

“I’m unsure if I may just have a personal misunderstanding concerning modern Neopian linguistics, but my studies have proven otherwise,” The King told Neopian Times News. “It is just that... recently, I have been beginning to think that I’m not completely grasping a majority of the ‘words of wisdom’ Neopians are attempting deliver.”

This sense of discontent could be felt in the results of a recent major report issued by Brightvale University regarding the success of the "Wise Old King" project. According to the findings, an excessively large majority of wisdom shared with King Hagan can be described as “unable to be understood by literally anyone on Neopia, period”.

Ninety-seven percent of Neopians, the researchers reported, failed to complete a full sentence for their submissions. Examples of popular “knowledge” given included “A wise friend once told me that” and “The”. Most only spent “under ten seconds” organizing their thoughts.

“What? What did your wise friend once say? Please, I simply ask that Neopians actually attempt to complete their thoughts before walking up to me and requesting a reward for uttering a few words,” King Hagan grieved. “I have been left hanging by their statements, if one can even call them that, countless times. It’s frustrating.”

The remaining three percent—already a sizable decrease from the ten percent expressed in a previous study conducted in Y10—tried to create understandable semblances of knowledge with few grammatical errors.

“It’s always a pleasant surprise, although I cannot always admit that I am met with a newfound or profound sense of enlightenment. For instance, ‘never trust a friend like apple’ is… um… I suppose it’s something I never considered before up until that point, and it’s something I can imagine someone actually saying. That might earn them a fruit.”

In the analysis of the responses, unusually common phrases found included “Abominable Snowball”, “A friend”, and simply “A”. The study was quick to note that all of these began with the letter “A”, but were unable to hypothesize as to why. "There are more Neopian words beginning with the letter 'S' than with any other letter," the researchers proclaimed, "so the trend probably isn't because the first letter of the alphabet is 'A'".

On top of that, many of the most “completed” thoughts appeared identical, following a “sentence” among the lines of “A wise friend once told me that a friend are comparable to the agility of a Christmas Adominable Snowball”. The researchers were unsurprisingly puzzled at this wisdom. This phrase was not included in the three percent of “not usual” responses.

“I know for a fact that hint sheets are a thing for most popular games. They tell hints at the local wheel. I haven’t heard of one for speaking to King Hagan, though, because that’s not really a game,” said student Avery Acarasby. “Or… is it? I think it was a way to reach out to the community to hear interesting tidbits of wisdom from Neopets all over the world… right? That’s correct, right? Hello?”

Avery declined future interviews.

“I can understand these types of responses for King Skarl’s request for jokes. Random humor was proven to be certified ‘very funny’ from Y7 to Y10. Like, just yelling ‘disco’ is pretty humorous, even in today’s standards. Like, there may a weirdly high amount of people talking about some fierce Pheopins to him, but it’s not like it’s intended to be knowledge of any sorts.” Fellow student Chelsea Cybunny chimed in.

The results of the study resulted in increased questioning towards the scoring principle utilized by King Hagan for his judgement of wisdom. Most criticism was directed at the disproportionate amount of prizes awarded by the king in comparison to the low amount of “genuine” wisdom submitted on average by Neopians. The “grade” assigned by the king often had little correlation with how logical the wisdom was, appearing seemingly random. With mood swings being taken in to account, the results seem more reasonable.

“He only takes three one-hour breaks. I hope he’s okay,” a concerned anonymous castle guard told Neopian Times News. “He probably hears… what, over a thousand people a day? Maybe more?”

According to local newspaper Brightvale Bi-Weekly, the city council of Brightvale was considering putting a cardboard cut-out or wax statue of King Hagan in the King’s place on the throne to assist in relieving him of the majority of his listening duties. Members cite that the visitors “seem to be taking a toll” on his health. The proposal was suggested yesterday after a sleep-deprived King Hagan urged the members of council to reduce funding to local fruit orchards, remarking that Neopians should “never trust a friend like apple”.

Further statements by the researchers imply the possibility of the king showing pity towards Neopians who say anything that contains “vague hints of something mentally intriguing in content”. They often point towards Bryan “Bungee” Blumaroo, resident of Terror Mountain and voluntary case study subject in the Brightvale University report, who felt “pleasantly surprised” when he received one-hundred Neopoints in exchange for saying the word “pirate” to the king.

“I’m really glad. It was the first thing that came to my mind, since I had just came from the Forgotten Shore and fired at some squid for a dubloon earlier. He really liked it. I even got a book for saying it. Maybe next time I’ll say something else like sponge or squawking and get another fifty Neopoints to put in my piggy bank. Everything counts!”

Despite all of this, Neopian Times News believes that there’s something to be learned from this situation: “There’s something to be said for kindness are similar to the allure of at Halloween Alkenore.”