OPTION ONE: The Secret of His Success

1. At a staff meeting, Glass entertains his colleagues with a story about how he posed as a behavioral psychologist to investigate talk radio coverage of a Mike Tyson fight.

First off, in this scene we see how Glass seemed to completely revel in the attention and admiration he got from his co-workers when he told these entertaining story ideas. Even more odd though, is that he was lying and pretending to be a psychologist, which could definitely be foreshadowing for all of his deception in the future. It was a perfect example of the way he created a fantasy world in order to create a good story and get the attention that he wanted.

2. On a visit to his old high school, Glass tells a class of journalism students, "A great editor defends his writers. Against anyone. He stands up and fights for you."

The way that he's so insistent throughout the movie that the editor must ALWAYS stand up for the writer isn't extremely abnormal for a reporter, but given his situation it seems like it could definitely be foreshadowing. Him relying on his editor supporting him against anything is one of the biggest reasons that he thought that he could get away with making up lies. Using this logic was also the way that he gained sympathy from all of his co-workers and turned Chuck into the bad guy. Though an editor should support their writers, if others are skeptical of the merit of the writer's story, he or she should do the proper research to confirm the story's truthfulness no matter what the personal relationship is between the editor and the writer.

3. When a colleague chides Glass for compromising his career by applying to law school, Glass explains that he has to apply to make his parents happy.

This whole scene seemed a bit suspicious, as Glass acted very strangely when being questioned about law school and acted as if the decision was in no way up to him. This was an example of the way that Glass constantly victimized himself and gained sympathy from his co-workers. It was also an example of the way that he seemed to constantly blame other people for things when he was questioned, and turn others into the bad guy of the situation.

4. Glass offers to resign when it is discovered that he misreported a minor detail in a story about a hotel room orgy at a young conservatives convention.

I feel like there are two potential reasons why Glass decided to offer to resign at this point. On one hand, he could've suspected that all of his lies were being discovered and he was going to get caught for everything, so he was trying to avoid all of the trouble by resigning early in the process. I think the more likely scenario is that Glass was trying to pretend that he was extremely moral and had a lot of integrity by getting insanely upset about a potential minor inaccuracy. He probably thought that this kind of behavior would cause his editor to believe that he would be the last person to make up anything in a story.

5. After tearing apart an intern's story for poor reporting, Glass explains, "This is The New Republic, remember? Nothing slides here. If you don't have it cold, you don't turn it in. Ever."

Of course, after knowing about the way that Glass literally made up entire stories, this statement seems incredibly hypocritical. Him treating the intern like this and being so supposedly concerned with the integrity of the story could've been him trying to create a character for himself as a very moral writer.