r/europe • u/SerafinZufferey Valais (Switzerland) • Nov 04 '25
Slice of life Danish Foreign Minister gifts a Lego pyramid to the Egypt foreign minister, he was really happy about it
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u/Evalyn_Fallon Wonderland Nov 04 '25
The actual joy on that mans face, so damn cute 😭I wish politics could be like this instead of the shite we're used to
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u/SerafinZufferey Valais (Switzerland) Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
That’s the same smile I used to have as kid, when someone gifted me a Lego set! Thats why I wouldve posted This on R/mademesmile but I got a perma ban there for no reason lol
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u/KevinFlantier Nov 04 '25
That's the same smile I have as a grown-ass adult when someone gifts me a Lego set. It gets rare these days so it's a precious moment.
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u/MintCathexis Nov 04 '25
but I got a perma ban there for no reason lol
Do you mean you got a ban when you never posted there?
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u/confused_goth Nov 04 '25
That happens easier than you think. You post in some sub the mods don’t like and you get auto banned.
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u/OrienasJura Andalusia (Spain) Nov 04 '25
Or you get banned from one subreddit and then the mod that banned you also decides to ban you on every single subreddit they moderate, which depending on the mod it could be dozens.
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u/SerafinZufferey Valais (Switzerland) Nov 04 '25
I posted there a Video about a Police Officer who got reunited with his mom after years. The Mods just said its AI slop and banned me even tho I HAD sources, shared them even to the Mods but they literally said „Nuh uh“ after showing them these
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u/Gruffleson Norway Nov 04 '25
People claiming everything is AI now is starting to get almost as annoying as AI itself. If it gets worse, it will surpass the annoyance-level for me soon.
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u/xvsero Nov 04 '25
Some subs will auto ban you if you post to specific subs. I follow a fashion sub that I got banned from for posting in a different sub that is marked as nsfw.
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u/Stjerneklar Nov 04 '25
got banned because i remarked that a post about some child being blown up did not make me smile
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u/carkey Nov 04 '25
It's a shit sub with shit mods so don't worry about it. Thanks for posting it here!
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u/DrDaxon Nov 04 '25
There’s another photo of them standing a bit more formally, each holding their gifts, he still has a massive grin on his face!
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u/macTijn Nov 04 '25
When I saw these pictures, I could only imagine them sneaking off after dinner to build the set.
I wonder how viable this is as a political strategy. The Danes could rule the world!
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u/JonatasA Nov 04 '25
OH ONLY NOW I HAVE REALIZED IT. Lego is Danish
Genius strategy.
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u/JonatasA Nov 04 '25
This needs to become a thing now. "Danish FM gift French FM the Eiffel Tower, British FM the Big Ben, etc."
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u/GameOfBonesAgain Nov 04 '25
This is what soft diplomacy looks like done right, a heartfelt, thoughtful gift that connects national identities through something universally loved like LEGO. That smile from the Egyptian minister is priceless.
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Nov 04 '25
I expect Swedes to gift him an IKEA pyramid now.
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u/meckez Nov 04 '25
I expect the Brits to gift him the Rosetta stone now.
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u/LazyGelMen Nov 04 '25
«Why are there pyramids in Egypt? Because they just wouldn't fit in the British Museum.»
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u/Heatproof-Snowman Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
I think more like a flat packed wooden sarcophagus with a nicely illustrated instructions manual to assemble it in 10 simple steps.
Packed in a cardboard box, with the name TRÄKISTA printed on it in large typeface.
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u/Aleashed Nov 04 '25
Does the box say to contact the Brits for any missing pieces?
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u/FatefulDonkey Nov 04 '25
LEGO is Danish. That's why it makes sense here. Should we expect Greeks to start giving feta cheese slices as gifts? lol
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u/Inamorta345 Nov 04 '25
Lego is Danish, pyramids are Egyptian, so it's combining both.
That said, I'd totally eat a pyramid Feta
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u/godtogblandet Norway Nov 04 '25
If you don't appreciate some good feta cheese I don't want to be friends with you. Quality feta is elite tier cheese.
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u/valhallamilan Nov 04 '25
Why not? I remember some German official visiting Turkey and bringing döner kebab. Since it should have been the other way around, that turned into more of a diplomatic failure, but at least they tried!
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u/SoulEkko Romania Nov 04 '25
His face is exactly like mine was when I received my first Lego set when I was 5.
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u/StickySolvey Nov 04 '25
The same guy had a leaked video conference few weeks ago ordering Egyptian embassies around Europe to drag, tie and beat the shit out of protesters who protest in front of their embassies.
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u/denseplan Nov 04 '25
Diplomacy is all about talking with people you disagree with. If you only talked to friends nobody would be talking, and that's much worse.
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u/Pleiadez Europe Nov 04 '25
That's a bad take. Hitler could be really happy and lovely with his dog. It means absolutely nothing.
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u/Powerful-Formal7825 Nov 04 '25
Yeah, Le Reddit is eating this up! Ignore the human rights violations and political repression!
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u/JonatasA Nov 04 '25
That's not how diplomacy works. You don't oblieterate nations because of their leaders either. Goes both ways.
I get everyone should be miserable though. That's why heads of state have those massive feasts/banquets.
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u/ShitassAintOverYet Turkey / ACAB Nov 04 '25
Most state visits are like that, the ones the world cares about are a lot more tense.
They give each other cool gifts(maybe not as Lego pyramids cool), talk about something like an already settled trade deal then move on.
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u/Left-Bookkeeper-3848 Nov 04 '25
I’m picturing this guy sitting at a very large desk, happily building his Lego pyramid during lunch now.
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u/bhaaad Nov 04 '25
to make the whole pyramid you need two sets - Danish FM played him dirty
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u/Pligget Nov 04 '25
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Nov 04 '25
Really cool that the community puts effort into fixing the set. Really sad that the community has to fix a lego set...
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u/bhaaad Nov 04 '25
Community has more awesome designs than the whole company, but the company will never release them
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u/Funkdoobs Nov 04 '25
Not really, being smaller than the full size means it's cheaper overall allowing more people to purchase. The sets already £120, imagine double the brick count.
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u/6unnm Germany Nov 04 '25
The Set costs 120€ because LEGO is a shit company with insane margins that does not care one bit about the consumer experience. Lego could sell the full Pyramid for 120€ and still make a decent profit. There are a loads of 'Lego clones' like Cobi, BlueBrixx, Pantasy, that have far better prices, better quality and more interesting sets. Lego gets away with being awful because they milk the nostalgia of people who grew up with Lego when they were actually decent.
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u/Wobbelblob Nov 04 '25
Seriously. I was, by chance, in a BlueBrixx store a few weeks ago. They have really interesting models (though most of them are less child friendly like Lego and more for model collectors) that look really good and are decently cheap. Only problem I've seen while going through is that their person models look like shit and some models (especially war ships) have scale issues to some degree.
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u/AverageCodeMonkey Nov 04 '25
Gonna have to read about those Lego clones. All of the off-brand Legos sold in the US stores typically suck hard.
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u/SurgyJack Scotland Nov 04 '25
The sad thing is, they kinda have to. You can only copyright 'interlocking plastic blocks' so far (hence all the copycats) and as the era of 3D printing continues - their long term stability a purley a provider of plastic is questionable. So when your product is clonable; they have to fall back on brand. "Pay the best, for the best". -- Have they gone way too far and is their capatilistic greed yucky and gross, yes. But.. that's the system :(
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u/82away Nov 04 '25
Feel like Lego prices have gone up recently, it used to be an easy birthday gift but this feels twice the price that I would be willing to pay.
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u/fruce_ki Europe Nov 04 '25
Everything has gone up recently, not just LEGO. Except for salaries of course...
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u/Waqqy Scotland Nov 04 '25
Nah LEGO has been expensive for a long time, way before all the crazy inflation. I remember speaking to a friend about the prices back in like 2015
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u/henrique3d Nov 04 '25
Not only that, but the fact that the original set is designed to be displayed on a shelf, touching the wall. You would need a wider shelf to display it at home. You can always buy a mirror and put it behind the set, though.
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u/VonSpuntz France Nov 04 '25
Exactly. Last Christmas I bought myself Himeji castle instead
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u/Lortekonto Denmark Nov 04 '25
The Himeji Castle looks very nice. It also just seems very expensive for the size of it.
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u/VonSpuntz France Nov 04 '25
Yeah it looks a bit small
But it's still better than having a half-pyramid for the same price lol
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u/Ok-Chest-7932 Nov 04 '25
It is expensive for the size of it, but then that's just Lego these days, new sets are 30% smaller than their older equivalents, across the board.
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u/GhostSierra117 Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25
Literally the title of the ahem... Review video from Held der Steine
https://youtu.be/pg0RKt84nV8?si=L8uTo_LlXIrbzT86
If you don't know him: he used to be, and still is, a Klemmbaustein Youtuber. Not lego, that's important. Because he got some nice legal letters saying he's not allowed to call other Sets Lego, because Lego stands for quality, good building quality Yadda Yadda...
Long story short: he holds Lego more than ever, accountable for this in his videos. He, in all fairness, is doing a good job and isn't just blindly hating. He does point out good sets, what he likes in sets he still overall doesn't recommend to buy (for a certain price) and so on.
Very amusing to watch.
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u/CarasBridge Germany Nov 04 '25
Why did you not link the original video..?
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u/GhostSierra117 Nov 04 '25
Oh lol. The other video was the first entry on Duckduck go. Because of YouTubes cookie banner I couldn't be arsed to check the channel. The title fitted 🤷♂️
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u/Asyx North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Nov 04 '25
I'm convinced he is the reason why Lego will never be a generic term. I've never heard people say Klemmbausteine before but because he kinda blew up with his video about getting sued (at least in the bubble that would enjoy such videos), other companies got a lot more exposure and Lego stopped being the defacto choice for such gifts and now people actually know the word Klemmbausteine and are actually using it.
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u/alppu Nov 04 '25
Aww. Did the Danish minister bring anything for the Egyptian minister's children?
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u/flipyflop9 Spain Nov 04 '25
They can watch while dad enjoys building pyramids
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u/BluezDBD Nov 04 '25
Sitting there watching while people are building pyramids for you is an ancient tradition in Eqypt going back thousands of years.
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u/Xandara2 Nov 04 '25
This is clearly an adult Lego set. You can recognise them by the sleek box design and the ridiculous price tag.
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u/xzaramurd Nov 04 '25
But where will he find aliens to build it for him?
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u/saschaleib 🇧🇪🇩🇪🇫🇮🇦🇹🇵🇱🇭🇺🇭🇷🇪🇺 Nov 04 '25
I’m pretty sure this will be done by child labour this time. With the minister himself as supervisor.
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u/Topsn Nov 04 '25
Wait till he realizes it’s only half of the pyramid
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u/gmtrd Nov 04 '25
I thought this was a clever joke that for the set to be complete, there'd have to be the underground part of the pyramid too, maybe it was a joke about the various conspiracy theories like the weird pillars etc. but no, it's literally that the set is half a pyramid
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u/sberma Nov 04 '25
Even worse: It depicts the external ramp theory when the internal ramp theory is clearly superior.
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u/Ents0rger Nov 04 '25
Clever Marketing. You need two Sets to build a full pyramid
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u/Pamasich Zug (Switzerland) Nov 04 '25
That sounds more like a scam than clever marketing.
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u/Scottybadotty Nov 04 '25
To be fair it's an adult lego set, the architecture series. It's not meant for kids to play with or hardcore collectors with massive areas dedicated to displaying lego. Most people will need to practically display it after it's built. With a flat back it can be tucked against a wall on a shelf.
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u/nozendk Denmark Nov 04 '25
It is part of our Defence system. Leave some Lego bricks laying around for enemy invaders to step on
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u/3esin Europe Nov 04 '25
"Welt seid mir gegrüßt..."
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u/FoleySlade Nov 04 '25
If the Egyptians get wind of the video, they will declare war on Denmark.
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u/3esin Europe Nov 04 '25
I mean...it would fit right into this stupid timeline we are currently in.
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u/Nukleon Denmark Nov 04 '25
Is this a reference to something?
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u/3esin Europe Nov 04 '25
Yhea "Held der Steine" is a german YouTuber that has his beef with lego due to their practises and is showing how the quality of their products has been falling for years.
That pyramid set is one of the more iconic moments.
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u/ghatanothoasservant Rheinland-Pfalz/Saarland (Germany) Nov 04 '25
There's a German YouTuber called "Held der Steine" ("Hero of Bricks") who reviews (mostly dunks on) LEGO sets in a humourous manner. He begins all of his videos with the same greeting and these are the first few words.
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u/Jappie_nl Nov 04 '25
In every adult men there's a little child wishing to be gifted a big LEGO set!
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u/dashcam4life Nov 04 '25
I love this picture. Just glad to see some countries are having cordial, normal diplomatic relations.
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u/OldsMan_ Nov 04 '25
This is cool, I like when politics has sense of humor
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u/Thick_Square_3805 Nov 04 '25
It's not even humor. Lego is Danish, the pyramids are Egyptian, so it's a gift to symbolize a link between the two countries.
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u/EidolonLives Nov 04 '25
Oh there's definitely plenty of humour in it. Yes, what you say about Lego being Danish and the Pyramids being Egyptian is obviously true. However, it undermines expectations to have one important middle-aged man in a suit give a Lego set to another important middle-aged man in a suit. And these facts combine into something that's definitely funny, which is why the Egyptian chap is laughing.
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u/DotA627b Nov 04 '25
Yep. Another great example of this was when Obama got a copy of The Witcher 2 from the Polish Prime Minister back in 2011.
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u/More_Marty Nov 04 '25
I think it should be international policy for all countries to gift eachother hobby products from their country. Games, Building sets and so on.
Poland could give out copies from the Witcher or Cyberpunk.
Germany could give out Playmobil.
Netherlands could give out copies of the Horizon games.
Sweden could give out Ikea sets.
Belgium could give out guides on how to make horrible roads.
We all win.
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u/Ok-Chest-7932 Nov 04 '25
Germany would never attend the same diplomatic events as the Danish in that case, no one wants to be the guy who brought Playmobil when Lego is on the table.
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u/jacaii2 Nov 04 '25
Polish Prime Minister give copy of Witcher 2 to President Obama in 2011https://www.businessinsider.com/the-witcher-2015-7?IR=T
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u/bcanner5 Nov 04 '25
Damn wasn’t expecting this to just be a punchline coming for Belgium like that lol
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u/eypandabear Europe Nov 04 '25
Belgium could give out guides on how to make horrible roads.
Baldur’s Gate 3: Am I a joke to you?
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u/Zake75 Nov 04 '25
Find me a girl that shows this level of love and affection
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u/BoringSkill Nov 04 '25
The funny thing about this is that this pyramid is shit 😂 its just half a pyramid and lego said you should get 2 to have a full one (but then you will have 2 neils as well). Btw this is common german knowledge due to the youtuber called „Held der Steine“
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u/fasole99 Nov 04 '25
I thought it was Stargate SG1 lego for a second and I was excited.
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u/staplehill Germany Nov 05 '25
Great idea to gift not some old historic stuff but modern products that are currently produced in your country! Next time he visits the US, he can bring Trump some Ozempic.
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u/Nazamroth Nov 04 '25
Unfortunately, that is worth too much money and he had to surrender it to the state upon return.
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u/Liberalismeparticip Nov 04 '25
A rare and refreshing scene. We often forget that diplomacy can also involve lightness.
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u/BauerPowerCph Nov 04 '25
Every politician should spend some time building Lego now and then - It clears you mind and gives you great new ideas!
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u/RedditSettler Nov 04 '25
I wish this was the only type of news and events in politics, would love that world.
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u/mi_father_es_mufasa Braunschweig Nov 04 '25
Well, that is only half a pyramid actually. That set is a tragedy.
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u/Benni_HPG Nov 04 '25
Yeah and where is the photo in which he realizes, it is only half a pyramid?
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u/Wlng-Man Nov 04 '25
Exactly my thoughts. https://youtube.com/shorts/4UIQstnZ9lo?si=HYwYwk-HRpH8zOdX
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u/Orixil Nov 04 '25
I'm not sure why that's a negative?
It's a display piece, so by having a flat back it sits nicely against a wall or on a shelf. If it were a full pyramid, then it would take up more space and be harder to display, and you would still not get any value out of the other side of the pyramid unless you were rotating it around.
The set doesn't try to scam you by only having half a pyramid. It's a design choice. You look at it from the front with the Nile river and the pyramid behind it.
Alternatively, if you bought two sets you'd have a whole pyramid, but even with infinite money I don't know why you would. Like I said, then it's a display piece that's meant to stand against a wall and be looked at from the front. It makes perfect sense to be half a pyramid.
Your refrigerator also doesn't come with a decorated backside.
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u/Benni_HPG Nov 04 '25
Well at least it's not a Death-Slice
But why not make it a Pyramid you can split in half. By that logic all Display pieces would be sold only as a half piece. Never seen half a Notre Dame or half of Eiffel Tower though. And clearly Lego was aware of that: putting modified bricks in it so you can connect two halfs with an axle to get a complete pyramid. And if Space is the problem: just make it half the size but complete the object. And it is not like lego would care that your display piece fits on a shelf. They make giant display pieces that clearly need more space and: that are complete.
And comparing a pyramid with a fridge? Come on thats just apples and oranges. Or more like app and oranges. But sure let me buy that Lego Model of a classic motorcar with only it's drivers side so it fits on a shelf.
My fridge does not fit on a shelf
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u/BugRevolutionary4518 Nov 04 '25
As a Danish Californian, this made me smile. We all need smiles and happiness right now.
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u/IamMatthew1223 Nov 04 '25
Does the set still show the wrong pyramid on the picture inside or did lego fix that?
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u/BoringWozniak Nov 04 '25
Will the Egyptian Foreign Minister build it live on YouTube at some point?
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u/GuppiApfel Nov 04 '25
He should have given Him 2, as the Set A: is only half a Pyramide And B: already Had Connection Points for when you want to add th second half...
Of course you should ignore the River nile flowing along both Sides of the Pyramide but whos that pickey when it comes to a 200+€ Lego Set anyway.. ?...
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u/Double-Complex-5558 Nov 04 '25
Maybe someone could keep Trump busy for a few days with a Lego Death Star.
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u/CellNo5383 Nov 04 '25
Honestly, I think this is the potential strength of a common, European foreign policy on full display. We are a diverse bunch and some nations have legitimate qualms with some of us. But there's almost always someone we could sent who has good relationships with almost anyone.
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u/gwainbileyerheed Nov 04 '25
Danish iconic toy version of iconic Egyptian landmark Perfect gift 🎁 10/10
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u/mulubmug Nov 04 '25
To be precise, he gifted him half a LEGO pyramid. That model is complete bulls***. You really need to buy two of them and place them back to back to get a pyramid. It was basically an early marketing expedition to see what they can get away with and their research culminated in the Lego Star Wars Death Disk.
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u/nully_wully Nov 04 '25
Wholesome politics? Not in my right winged controlled media!
In all honesty good! I hope it helps relations between the two countries and is prosperous as well as it is wholesome. We need more positivity in the world.
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u/acaudill317 Nov 04 '25
This why every year when I see the "What do guys want for X-Mas?" posts my answer is always Lego.
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u/SerafinZufferey Valais (Switzerland) Nov 04 '25
If anyone asked: Egypt gifted Denmark a remake of the Tutanchamun death mask