It’s like the modern version of the fairy tale trope where they make a traitor think they’ve wrongly convicted someone else and ask the traitor what his sentence should be. The traitor (not knowing they’ve figured him out) suggests a grisly punishment, only for them to reveal that they knew it was him all along and give him the punishment he just advocated.
![Deeper study has now convinced me [...] the English working class will never achieve anything [etc.]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/9c75f145-54a6-4925-beab-87d071daea76.jpeg){kind=link}
It’s like the modern version of the fairy tale trope where they make a traitor think they’ve wrongly convicted someone else and ask the traitor what his sentence should be. The traitor (not knowing they’ve figured him out) suggests a grisly punishment, only for them to reveal that they knew it was him all along and give him the punishment he just advocated.
it’s not quite the same thing, but it reminds me of the a Chinese saying (成语) that goes “Invite the gentleman to enter the urn”.
GOOD chengyu