Beethoven took the worst, most stupid, irrelevant, trivial, badly composed, unmusical piece of tripe and turned it into the World's greatest keyboard masterpiece of all time (according to some authorities). A neat party trick that took him four years (on and off) to accomplish.
Subtext 2 - I can turn the worst into the best.
There is a lot of humour in the music. Both 'good humour' and actual amusing moments (I have already mentioned the Mozart quote).
As early as Variation 1 (a kind of manic triumphant march), Beethoven is saying (subtext 3) 'ignore the theme you've just had the misfortune to hear, you're about to listen to some echt Beethoven now.'
Some of the later variations (29, 30 and 31 in particular) are among the most sublime and contemplative inventions of Beethoven's canon. We move into the realms of Romanticism which some scholars claim Beethoven always avoided only ever taking Classicism to its most extreme parameters.
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