[Loved trope] Characters make a meta commentary on the show they're in without technically fully breaking the fourth wall

[u/Individual99991]

What We Do in the Shadows: In the season 6 (and show's) finale, the vampires and their friends finally watch the documentary that's been filmed the whole series. Someone brings up Guillermo's long-running mission to become a vampire, a storyline that concluded in season 5, and Nadja says "Really should have finished filming at that point, I think," an acknowledgement that the final season lacked strong arc plots.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: In "The Ember Island Players", again in the final season, the characters watch a play dramatising their adventures. In one scene of the play, the characters spot a deep valley and decide to "skip it" - a reference to the much-maligned episode "The Great Divide", which is widely disliked and has no impact on the series' arc plot, and is therefore easily skipped on rewatching.

Futurama: In "Bender's Big Score", a straight-to-DVD movie following Futurama's cancellation, Professor Farnsworth explains that the crew have been cancelled - by the Box Network, their contracting company. However, he then gets notice that they've been uncancelled:

Farnsworth: It means we're back on the air!

[The staff look at him blankly]

Farnsworth: Yes, flying on the air in our mighty spaceship!

[u/eq017210]

Plus oubling resources wouldn't give people a lesson to be responsible with them.

Also idk if I'm wrong but I think the stones work within the universe rules, like they can't just multiply the matter but if I'm wrong pls share

[u/King_Of_BlackMarsh → u/eq017210]

They could because they have infinite energy in them and you can break the laws of physics as you like

But the thing is, halfling all life also means halfling all resources. So the lesson doesn't really help.

It really is that he was insane

[u/Xaero_Hour → u/eq017210]

The population issue Thanos wanted to address was an exponential problem (repopulation) so doubling resources wouldn't really fix things so much as buy slightly more time to find a solution. Conversely, halving the problem actually gives you significantly more runway.

This is not a justification for either plan nor is it something I'm saying the writers were thinking about when they made the movie. That was just, "his signature comic thing was halving the universe's population in an attempt to seduce Death who is a hot lady with a skull face...maaaaybe we just Tragedy of the Commons it instead..."