A glossy red apple sits in a small wire wastebasket lined with blue cloth.

Original artwork, not a still

Kryten

This is the inquisitor. He prunes away the wastrels, expunges the wretched, and deletes the worthless.

— Red Dwarf · 1988

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker introduces a figure whose job is to cull the undesirable, using three verbs that grow steadily more clinical. Pruning, expunging and deleting reduce people to clutter to be removed. The tidy bureaucratic language makes the ruthlessness sound brisk and routine.

Context reviewed

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