It's a Wonderful Life—Frank Capra’s ode to appreciating what you’ve got—chronicles the life and near-death of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), an all-around good egg who keeps delaying his personal dream of escaping Bedford Falls, the sleepy little hamlet where he was born and raised, in order to help the town's downtrodden denizens. He shoulders their burdens for years—financial and otherwise—until the weight of them sends him to the bottom of a bottle and the top of a very tall bridge.

After watching It’s a Wonderful Life every year for a half-century, America has gotten loopy about what’s really going on in the story. You don’t obsessively watch this thing year in and year out without reaching for the corkboard and red string.

So here are 8 rather dark and twisted interpretations about the saddest happy Christmas movie of all time.

BEDFORD FALLS WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF WITHOUT GEORGE BAILEY.

George’s plea to his guardian angel Clarence (Henry Travers) is to have never been born, and the Scrooge-esque vision Clarence grants him shows the tragedy of his family and the town. But Pottersville—the town that would have been Bedford Falls had George not stood in the way of greedy Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore)—is actually pretty great. It’s got bars and theaters and all the big-city excitement George had been dreaming of his entire life.

That’s why, in 2008, The New York Times writer Wendell Jamieson suggested that maybe things would have been better had George Bailey never been born. Or at the very least, he should have left the town to Mr. Potter's devices.

Wendell Jamieson even talked with an economist to provide real-world proof that a tourist destination like Pottersville would have fared better than an upstate New York manufacturing hub like Bedford Falls. Sorry, George.

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