I've noticed these posts act like a social catalyst, lowering barriers in a way that's genuinely clever. Everyone has those burning, slightly ridiculous questions about a fictional person's motives or backstory that feel too petty for a serious analysis post. Framing it as something you'd ask if they were drunk, and you were a bit tipsy too, gives everyone permission to be silly and nitpicky. It's a shared inside joke about the intensity of fandom itself.
What works is the formula: it forces specificity. You can't just say 'what would this character think?' You have to imagine a scenario, often mundane or deeply weird, and their hypothetical drunken, unfiltered response. That specificity sparks immediate debate. One person's take on a drunk, confessional monologue from a stoic character will be wildly different from another's, and suddenly you've got a thread with fifty different headcanons bouncing around.
It also democratizes discussion. You don't need to have a PhD in the character's lore to play. The humor comes from juxtaposition—taking a grand, epic figure and wondering if they'd drunkenly complain about their armor chafing. That relatability pulls in lurkers. They see a hilarious thread, throw in their own two cents, and suddenly they're part of the conversation in a low-stakes, high-reward way. It's pure fandom glue.