2012-10-19
Explanation
This comic presents a darkly humorous scenario about love, grief, and trust. A man who is dying soon offers his partner a pill that will alter her brain chemistry so she will believe she never liked him, thus sparing her the pain of loss. The woman initially refuses, arguing that if she doesn'''t remember him as he was, it would be as if he never existed. He counters that he'''ll be dead anyway, so it won'''t matter to him.
The debate escalates as she insists she'''d rather have "sad good memories than easy bad ones," but he argues that their love was so wonderful she'''ll never outrun the grief. She says she can'''t do this to his memory; he claims he'''d take such a pill if he were the one surviving. She accuses him of just saying that, and he passionately pleads with her to promise she'''ll take it, saying he'''s doing it because he loves her.
The twist comes when she reluctantly agrees -- "All right. If... if that'''s what you want" -- and he immediately shouts "AHA!" In the final panel, he'''s telling someone at a bar that "that'''s when she failed the relationship test," revealing the entire emotional scenario was a manipulative loyalty test. His friend responds, "You'''re pretty fucked up, Frank." The joke subverts the serious philosophical premise by revealing the man was never dying at all; he was just a terrible boyfriend testing his partner'''s devotion through psychological manipulation.
The votey shows the woman saying "How can I trust you now?!" -- adding an ironic coda, since Frank is the one who manufactured a fake deathbed scenario to test her trust, yet she is the one whose trustworthiness has supposedly been called into question.