- Designated Villain: Dick Deadeye is treated as a knave and rapscallion mostly due to his looks and his Unfortunate Name. The rest of the crew shout him down even when he's agreeing with them.
- Seinfeld Is Unfunny: This play may seem like a stream of cliches to some of us these days but when it premiered in 1878 nobody had ever seen anything like it. Unlike Seinfeld, Pinafore is still pretty funny, and a lot of the satire still works very well.
- Values Dissonance
- The fact that we're supposed to think Dick Deadeye is the villain is a bit hard for most modern audiences to swallow. Especially since most of his evil consists of siding with his commanding officer and being hunchbacked.
- It's explained in-story that the sailors essentially regard him as the Designated Villain due to his Unfortunate Name.
- Sir Joseph's marriage to his cousin Hebe is removed from a fair number of contemporary productions, due to cousin marriages becoming less acceptable.
- The fact that we're supposed to think Dick Deadeye is the villain is a bit hard for most modern audiences to swallow. Especially since most of his evil consists of siding with his commanding officer and being hunchbacked.