Apparently, some children's fantasy novels are not completely accurate. I am as surprised as you; I merely figured I was not yet chosen to be a wizard or kill a dragon or save the kingdom or learn valuable life lessons and the true meaning of baseball from Old Man Shultz. Not so! They in fact require what is called a "suspension of disbelief" (or, alternatively, a suspension of belief, something I have never understood). This is apparently rich comic material. Fantasy novels are not actually possible, and in real life they would have crazy consequences.
I might be more forgiving of this comic if it were the first time Randall had done the "what would a sarcastic person have been like in classic fantasy situation?" joke, but it's not. And it's not something I am going to stay amused by for long. As commenters on the last post pointed out, not only are there series that do deal with this question (what came to my mind was The Number Devil), and further, isn't a better question "why do they need a 12 year old to save them anyway?"
Anyway, in short, yeah, apparently fantasy novels are sometimes not totally accurate.
I might be more forgiving of this comic if it were the first time Randall had done the "what would a sarcastic person have been like in classic fantasy situation?" joke, but it's not. And it's not something I am going to stay amused by for long. As commenters on the last post pointed out, not only are there series that do deal with this question (what came to my mind was The Number Devil), and further, isn't a better question "why do they need a 12 year old to save them anyway?"
Anyway, in short, yeah, apparently fantasy novels are sometimes not totally accurate.
it's funny because the kid doesn't know that he's going to die at the age of 25 so his statement that 'this'll be a fun 70 years' is entirely inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I liked the comic, xy was awesome right now.
ReplyDeleteThe new one is very meh. I don't really get the joke, I guess.
I think the joke is "HA HA Windows XP is old!" with a healthy dose of "Boy I'm sure glad us Mac/Linux users don't get viruses LOL!"
ReplyDeleteI also looked at the forums and that almafuerte guy that Fred linked to in the previous post, he's getting torn apart by some other people in that thread which is pretty funny since he was spouting a bunch of bullshit in his post. "You're a slave to Microsoft if you use Windows! Having to upgrade your computer is exactly like being forced to perform manual labor with a slave driver cracking a whip on your back! VIVA LA REVOLUCION!"
What a tool. People like him who think they're hot shit because they use Linux or whatever and look down on others just because they use Windows are pathetic and annoying.
the last one is a weird unfunny comic.
ReplyDeleteIn general the IT NERDCRED rule is:
The older something is, the geekier it is, the more hardcore you are.
Which roughly equates to old tech/software = nerdcred.
Logic Example:
Using windows 7 is stupid but using NT4.0 to run your home server is awesome and geeky
Using latest Ubuntu makes you a script kiddie, using DOS 6.22 on your cellphone to play prince of persia 1 makes you god.
So either Randal is thinking backwards, or i dont know.
Disclaimer: This post does not endorse or shun any computer platform or OS. The author is completely "meh" about the subject.
Except if it comes to Macs, i fucking hate those fuckers, motherfucking dicks ass shit fuck gayfag ass.
(written on a mac)
The joke is that an experience that is supposed to turn the kid from a loser to a successful individual actually ends up ruining his life. It's actually a neat look at the flip side of these fantasy adventures, and not really a bad comic.
ReplyDeleteLinux is the best OS. If you use Windows, you are literally sucking Bill Gates' shriveled cock.
ReplyDelete"So either Randal is thinking backwards, or i dont know."
ReplyDeleteFollowing the logic of "self-insertion", which works on about 90% of xkcd strips, Randall in this strip is the guy fighting the virus, so the strip is making fun of those omfg morons who think old stuff = uncool. It's the same self-pitying bullshit as always, with no joke, as usual.
Gamer_2k4 got it right! You must be the brightest one in the class because most of these jamooks are commenting on the wrong strip.
ReplyDeleteerrm, it's a bad pun on retrovirus, right?
ReplyDeleteright?
See, I could see that if it wasn't the title. The titles don't usually contain the actual joke of the strip.
ReplyDeleteI think you got it a bit wrong. I don't see any hint that this character is the stereotypical sarcastic nerd or anything like that. It's just a normal kid whose dream comes true, and he has a good time in that fantasy world.
ReplyDeleteThe comic also doesn't touch the subject that fantasy novels aren't accurate or wouldn't be possible in reality, or how it's strange that they need a 12 year old kid to save them.
The only point is that for this kid, his dream came true, but after that he can't tell anyone. Obviously he has three choices: Believe it didn't happen at all, know it happened but not tell anyone, and tell the whole world about it (seeing that it is a greater truth mankind should know about).
However, he doesn't even consider the second option, I guess because that's definitely the hardest one (and requires a strong will/a lot of wisdom).
So... I think your post really doesn't hit the mark. "Fantasy novels aren't accurate" has nothing to do with this comic (it's not about a novel anyway). "The part that gets left out by your imagination is how you can deal with the knowledge of there being a cool magic fantasy world after you've returned to your old life" would be more dead-on.
(I'd appreciate it if the response to this wasn't "yeah well the joke is still horrible", because that's not my point.)
Retro Virus' joke isn't "haha windows", it's "Oh man, do you realize all of these things were only a few years ago?", as evidenced by the "Hey, XP's still the most-" line.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a particularly good joke, though. It's basically exactly the same as all of the "Holy shit it's the 21st century" gags.
"Game_2k4 got it right! You must be the brightest one in the class because most of these jamooks are commenting on the wrong strip."
ReplyDeleteYou're right. I don't know why I didn't see it before. We need to move this discussion to the post for comic 694 right fucking now
Oh shit man, the new comic is out and there isn't a post for it yet! This is it man. This is your time...to shine!
ReplyDeleteYou can make this happen. Steal the show with a post. A guest post. A guest COMMENT post!
Get ready for this. Who am I kidding, there isn't enough ready in the world for what's going down. And this is what's going down, in a guest post.
So listen, he's talking about windows that is SO STUPID. wait no he is talking about viruse viru viriii hacking. fuck. Start over.
Randall is a dumb. As. FUck. no.
I blew it man. I blew the guest comment post. It was not my time...to shine.
@Anon 5:10 the problem with saying the joke is 'how you can deal with the knowledge of there being a cool magic fantasy world after you've returned to your old life' is that fantasy novels discuss that idea themselves.
ReplyDeletethere's no twist or addition to the idea that renders it humourous. it's just...the idea. that you already know. there to be read again. in a comic. ok.
'after you leave fantasy land you have to deal with the consequences of no-one believing you' is no more a joke than 'after you get a highscore in a game but lack proof you have to deal with the consequences of no-one believing you'.
and same goes for saying the joke is 'he was a loser, he went to fantasy land, but he came back and was still a loser'. that's not a unique and funny take on fantasy tropes. that's something those stories consider all the time.
I maintain that because of Ravlov's latest, I am going to move back to Windows 98 to spite him and his sycophants (that and I play a shit tonne of games that don't work quite as well on XP as they would on 98 and fuck using emulators, if you can use the real thing, USE IT)
ReplyDeleteWait, I don't get it. The joke was supposed to be "children's fantasy novels are unrealistic?" I saw it as being "children's fantasy novels are formulaic," which is a slightly better joke. Kid has boring and/or miserable life, is one day whisked away to magical world of wonder and excitement, manages to solve this world's central problem/conflict and/or learns some important life lessons, returns to mundane existence with new perspective. I can name like a dozen popular books off the top of my head that follow this exact pattern.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a very clever or original joke, but I think it's a bit more than just "hur hur this doesn't happen."
Did anyone else feel like comic 694 was basically the Linux version of this:
ReplyDeletehttp://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/photos/uncategorized/mfparodyamericathebook.jpg
Meh, this critique rubbed me the wrong way. Probably because whenever I try to have a serious discussion about any movie with certain people, or object to any aspect of it, I am met with, "Come on, it's a MOVIE. Stop THINKING so much", which is basically what this post amounted to. There's a difference between objecting to a fantasy movie because, "Hey, dragons aren't real!" and objecting to the way characters respond to their extraordinary circumstances.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, this comic should not have been a comic. It's just, "Hey, I've thought of an annoying side effect to a typical wish-fufillment fantasy" and Randall should have just written a blog post about his thoughts on the matter.
Gregor the Overlander is a good example of a series that deals with going to a fantasy world, defeating evil, and dealing with the consequences in the world you came from. It's even FOR kids.
ReplyDeleteYou are a seriously sad person. Wow, a blog criticizing what is essentially another blog, but with less humor, less originality, and less intelligence. I would almost think you're Randall Munroe himself, trying to get some more air time, except nothing he says is as stupid or trite as anything I've read here.
ReplyDeleteI second RustyTankard. I cannot distinguish whether the author of this blog is this sad little man he shows himself to be, or if this is a form of comedy so ironic that's invisible to most folks. Maybe he is angry because Randall shows social sciences the way they really are (i.e., a bunch of nonsensical gibberish*)?
ReplyDeletePS: See Sokal, Lacan'n'Topology, etc.
"I second RustyTankard. I cannot distinguish whether the author of this blog is this sad little man he shows himself to be, or if this is a form of comedy so ironic that's invisible to most folks. Maybe he is angry because Randall shows social sciences the way they really are (i.e., a bunch of nonsensical gibberish*)?
ReplyDeletePS: See Sokal, Lacan'n'Topology, etc."
Wait, when has Randall ever "shown social sciences the way they really are?" He had one comic which made fun of postmodern literary criticism (451), which is pretty much universally derided as ridiculous. Literary criticism is not a social science. The Sokal affair had very little to do with the social sciences at all, and a lot to do with postmodern academia, which, again, is pretty much universally derided as ridiculous.
I mean, I can't actually blame you for never having so much as read about a single thing the social sciences have done (I'd give it even odds that you couldn't even name one)--for that I blame your apparently abysmal education--but you could at least try to do a bit of research before making ridiculous untenable claims.
I like how you think that your comment is as the purest silver sword of truth cleaving through the bucket of slander and such. Also: that it is original. [It is as original as this response]
ReplyDelete[That is to Arby/Rustytankard]
ReplyDeleteI'm a social scientist, I think. By which I mean I study economics. By which I mean I've read an economics textbook. By which I mean I own an economics textbook. By which I mean I own a copy of "The Economist". By which I mean I went to WHSmiths earlier and they had a couple of copies of "The Economist" in. By which I mean I went to Tesco and they had a shelf where the Financial Times is supposed to go.
ReplyDeleteAnyway: new comic sucks, so does the one that this post was about.
"You are a seriously sad person. Wow, a blog criticizing what is essentially another blog, but with less humor, less originality, and less intelligence."
ReplyDeleteAgreed, this site is much funnier than xkcd.
"I would almost think you're Randall Munroe himself, trying to get some more air time, except nothing he says is as stupid or trite as anything I've read here."
Like, for example, your post.
RustyTankard, now that I think about it, it makes sense that Carl is actually Randall! It makes perfect sense and it's so obvious! Why didn't any of us ever think of that before?
ReplyDeleteHey did you guys know that Psychology is considered by some to be a Social Science? I still like to refer to it as an Interdisciplinary Science but whatever floats your boat
ReplyDeleteI like to refer to it as bullshit.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part about anti-psychology backlash is how it usually comes from Hard Science people who think that it is all quoting Freud and have never heard of "psychological research."
ReplyDeleteI like how the fantasy comic brings up the issue of what happens to the protagonist after they return to the real world; I'd never really thought of that angle. I just don't think it's funny. This comic would be better as a "Picto-blog" entry.
ReplyDeleteHave you never read fantasy? I am having a difficult time thinking of a fantasy story that doesn't in some way deal with the hero's return to the real world.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it is no longer properly his home and he returns to the fantasy world of his own volition or otherwise leaves the real world (see: LotR, Neverwhere). Sometimes the hero returns home and stays there. With the possible exception of Harry Potter, I can't think of any fantasy stories offhand that don't ultimately end with returning home and tying up one's affairs.
Heinlein: Glory Road
ReplyDelete@Justin
ReplyDeleteThat's impossible, Randal starts with an R and... wait... OMG caRl has an R in it! That makes two of us that can't believe this has happened before. It's not like there's any screenshots of one guy chatting with each seperate person to dissprove it. That would just be crazy!
Man, Rob, I was just about to namedrop Harry Potter as the counter-example. The vast majority of White Wolf also qualifies: It's a totally unmitigated "fantasy imagination rules, real life is for shitheads" escapist trip.
ReplyDeleteRecall the Dan Hemmens article I cited!
Rob: Doesn't Harry Potter also involve the main character being forced to return to the "real world", at least temporarily?
ReplyDeleteAnon 7:11: Oh, I'm recalling it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't include roleplaying games because they are usually pretty heavy on the fantastic and not so much on the 'coming home at the end.' Though D&D 4e's Epic Destiny fluff things are always, like: 'after putting your affairs in order, you undergo apotheosis.'
Anon 7:12: I barely remember how HP ends. He does have to go back to the real world for the start of each book, though even that sort of stops at the end.
I'm definitely not saying that all fantasy ends with the hero returning home, but it's pretty standard, and it always deals with how the journey has changed the hero and how those changes affect his home.
I get the feeling Carl missed the joke on #693. Doesn't really seem to have anything to do with suspension of disbelief - just that the fantasy novels frequently omit the "the rest of your life will be incredibly boring and lame by comparison" part of returning home. Though it was touched on a bit at the start of Prince Caspian - all the kids look bored to hell. Arguably Harry Potter too, whenever he has to live with his aunt/uncle, though that's less "this world is boring" and "my caretakers are terrible people" (but J.K.Rowling isn't a great author either).
ReplyDeleteSo, in typical xckd fashion, not sure if it's really funny, or a well-written comic, but I do think that's the intended joke.
Harry Potter is for faggots. Wizard People, Dear Reader is the only good thing to come out of Rowling's wellfare-funded shitfest of a book.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - I've started drinking again. You're welcome, fuckers.
What the hell Anon 7:40, Harry Potter is your example for a fantasy novel doing that? Harry Potter is an exception to the common practice of doing that a hell of a lot more than HP does.
ReplyDeleteAnon 7:40: Well the thing is, the idea of the end of fantasy novels is not that the real world is boring and lame. Generally you are either fighting to save the real world or fighting for something in it (LotR, Stardust), or you are fighting to return to it (Neverwhere, Alice in Wonderland). In good stories where you are trying to escape the real world, usually it ends up being that the fantasy world is actually a horrible, dangerous place. (Those books are seldom The Hero's Journey.)
ReplyDeleteThe real world is always, in some ways, the focus of the story. Returning is desirable. The thing about the end of the story is it's the end. You don't sit and wonder "man, mustn't he be incredibly bored now that he's not dealing with danger and excitement all the time?" You sit and think, "he sure must be glad to be home after all that."
So, no, it doesn't go on to detail the farmer going back to his farm, or the sales clerk going back to work at S-Mart. It shows that they have returned to the regular, and have a different understanding of the world because of their ordeals.
I guess I just disagree with the interpretation that it must necessarily be boring thereafter. It's like someone who is overseas in a war. They don't particularly want to go back. They don't pine for the adventure of it. They're happy to be home.
In the cases where the characters do get bored with it or feel unsatisfied, they leave.
I am not an expert on children's fantasy, but since they tend to be coming-of-age stories, I doubt that the kids generally spend their whole lives being bored and wishing they could talk about this weird thing that happened because of learning all of this valuable shit etc.
I honestly thought this video from the Onion was a waaay better blast-from-the-past piece of comedy.
ReplyDeleteI can't figure out if wednesday's xkcd is Randall mocking windows users or Randall mocking the people who jumped on the ubuntu/apple bandwagon just so they can mock windows.
ReplyDeleteRob, I don't think Randall's point is that the real world will be incredibly boring, it's that having a formative experience that nobody else even thinks is possible would be a major curse in a lot of ways. As for the persistent picto blog criticism, who says that a comic has to be funny all the time? Or even most of the time? This is like getting bent out of shape at comic books that aren't geared for children or at newspapers that tell mock news instead of real news. Doing something new with a medium is innovative! And most of the reason that this blog sucks is posts like this, where Carl either misses the point of the comic completely or comes in with total non sequitor attacks like saying that a joke isn't any better than another joke with the same punchline but a slightly different setup. Mocking a harmless webcomic is fine, but making flaccid, limpwristed swats at somebody else's creation is a lot of assholishness without a lot of justifying value.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have said I missed the joke by saying that this comic is in essence about fantasy being unrealistic. So I'll elaborate.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean "in fantasy novels, people go on adventures that could never take place in the real world." I meant, "In fantasy novels, the author sometimes doesn't think of the real-world, post-story consequences that would happen if this story actually took place." Which I think we can all agree on. And which makes the stories unrealistic - perhaps you don't think that word is appropriate, but I mean that it doesn't take into account reality; it does not portray events as they might actually happen.
you know anon 9:40, maybe he's trying to be ambiguous and take digs at both parties
ReplyDeleteDoing something new with a medium is innovative
ReplyDeleteRandall isn't being innovative. "What if I made something funny...but never told jokes?" isn't innovative, it's puerile. It's like the idea that, just as Dizzy Gillepsie finds the notes you don't play of supreme importance, so are the jokes Randall Munroe doesn't tell. Him, and Carlos Mencia, and Dane Cook. Seriously: Being an unfunny hack is somehow "innovative" now?
Hopefully "Comics don't always have to be funny!" is a rant that Rob will tackle in the future.
ReplyDeleteAlso what exactly is Randall doing that's new in the medium of webcomics? I would say "Making an unfunny comic with shitty art" but Sluggy Freelance has him on that by a good 8 years.
Finally, innovative does not mean "good." There are plenty of terrible ideas that are innovative. Innovative just means it is something different and new. The Nintendo Power Glove was totally innovative but it sucked. Rob Liefeld's art was innovative but it was horrendous.
I can admit xkcd may be innovative in the sense of "It was the first comic to really be about math and science" which, while I don't know if there's a way to verify that, could potentially be true that it is innovative. However, as I said before, innovative != good, and actually xkcd WAS good when it was that. Then it devolved into "Guys I know about internet memes" and "SEX amirite?" with a touch of "Creepy guys are really just nice people who are shy and women should go out with them." And none of those are innovative in the least; in fact, those are pretty standard in the webcomics world these days.
I don't... understand. Is he saying that viruses don't exist anymore?
ReplyDeletehttp://pottersues.livejournal.com/602775.html#cutid1
ReplyDeletesaving this link for later, shit's glorious
I was going to make some joke about Carl rehashing the same observations in a satirical way that he mocks XKCD for doing the same but then I got bored and didn't...
ReplyDeleteSo. How's everyone?
"Rob, I don't think Randall's point is that the real world will be incredibly boring, it's that having a formative experience that nobody else even thinks is possible would be a major curse in a lot of ways. As for the persistent picto blog criticism, who says that a comic has to be funny all the time? Or even most of the time?"
ReplyDeleteWay to go, dick, now I'm going to have to put off my objectivity in art rant for next week.
OH NO! Don't put off the objectivity in art. I'm interested in reading how you argue for it because whenever I try to people usually roll their eyes.
ReplyDeleteOf course they don't have any compelling reasons as to why it is 100% subjective, either, but they don't feel like they need to defend that point. They just state it like it is automatically true.
Maybe I will do a double-feature. I've wanted to to Objectivity In Art for a while but this whole "COMICS DON'T HAVE TO BE FUNNY" thing has got to stop. (Spoiler alert: they have to be funny when they are trying to be funny, which XKCD is about 95% of the time.)
ReplyDeleteAs much as I'd like that I think you should just do one at a time. Two at once would probably be too long for most people or one would get more attention than the other.
ReplyDeleteThe 'comics don't have to be funny' one is a good one, too. Especially because the given layout of XKCD DEMANDS it be humorous. No story and no REAL characters do not lend themselves well to serious works.
I have the hope that randall can make better comics if he wanted to, but now he just scribbles something down that might almost pass as 'mildly amusing.'
ReplyDeleteAlso, can you classify this blog as humor? What is... funny about it? All I see is people bitching about a declining webcomic. Wooo my stomach is cramping up with the laughter. Every post now is just xkcd sucks. I know how you guys say RAndall should drop xkcd, you guys should drop xkcd sucks. It's the same story.
Anon 12:23: We'll see what comes out this weekend. I have a plane ride and I will be extra bored.
ReplyDeleteAnon 2:39: It's like this. Have you ever been to a bad movie night? Most of the fun is in making fun of the movie as a group. You aren't necessarily making observations that are terribly funny on their own, but there is a combination of tone and context which makes it funny.
Similarly, there is such a creature as a review which is funny. It's not saying anything which is by its nature funny--it's usually "this album is good" or "this movie is bad"--bit there's a matter of tone and word choice which makes people read it and go "that is funny!"
Anon 2:39 - you are also not familiar with the olden days, when Amanda and I were more active and I would get drunk and amuse everyone. It was much funnier then. Or I was much drunker and it just seemed funnier.
ReplyDeleteEither way, I am awesome.
Rob, your comment made me think of the scene in this episode of The Office, where Andy says how he's not insightful enough to be a movie critic, and says "I could be a food critic. 'These muffins are bad.'" ...File that one under Random Fleeting Thoughts, Volume 7.
ReplyDeleteI might be more forgiving of this post if you hadn't done the "Randall always does the same joke. Here is another, very tenuously related comic that falls under this broad title I just made up to describe these two comics." thing before.
ReplyDelete(Randomly click any post ever made in this blog to see an example)
No but really. What was wrong with the joke other than "Similar jokes have been told before." Is that one fact alone enough to ruin a joke? Especially with such a broad definition of "similar". I mean, there are plenty Yo Momma jokes that are funny, even though Yo Momma jokes have been done to death. In fact, I'm sure you could take any joke from any of your favorite webcomics and find similar jokes elsewhere.
I just don't think you did very well critiquing this comic. I mean, you didn't state any problems with the comic itself. So...yeah.
Also, the latest comic is about how one day linux will overtake windows as the most popular OS. And Linux doesn't get viruses.* So viruses will be a thing of the past. It'd be an interesting spectacle to see someone cleaning Win32 viruses just like it'd be interesting to see someone with one of those gigantic cell phones from the 80's/90's.
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining that, Rioghasarig. I'm not exactly what you call "target audience" so obviously I didn't understand the comic.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it is a tired, boring, unoriginal, unfunny piece of shit is something that's wrong with the comic. You area fucktard for not understanding that, you shit-eating testicle farmer. nobody gives a shit about your supposedly interesting or insightful comments, because they are neither. You area faceless mass of self-serving shit who believes disagreeing with the majority of a given group makes you cool, and for that your a pretentious ass-stain of the underpants of existence. Die in a fire, you cock-guzzling thundercunt.
ReplyDeleteRandall is LATE!
ReplyDeleteUgh...you really don't get it.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because of what happens if you think about it for longer than the novel itself requires. Its like the Narinia probe one a little while back. You really don't like to think about it, do you.
@Justin
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome? Though, I wasn't targeting you. I was targeting some guy that had no idea what this comic meant.