Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

eat-my-body

2016-11-23 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
eat-my-body
Votey panel for eat-my-body
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

The Joke

Two men, Steve and Ted, appear to be stranded in a snowstorm after a plane crash. Steve dramatically tells Ted that he does not think they are going to make it and makes Ted swear that if Steve dies, Ted will eat his body to survive. Ted reluctantly swears to do it.

Then the reveal: "Got you! The whole plane crash? The snow? It was special effects! We're in California, not Tibet!" Steve has elaborately pranked Ted, spending millions on special effects to trick him into swearing an oath to eat Steve's body. Steve gleefully points out that now Ted has to eat his body whenever Steve eventually dies. Ted refuses, saying "I'm obviously not going to do it. That is so childish, Steve."

The Humor

The comic takes the classic survival-horror trope of cannibalism pacts in extreme situations and subverts it entirely. The absurdity escalates at every step: the massive investment of millions of dollars in special effects just for a prank, the childlike glee Steve takes in the "gotcha," and the fundamental flaw in the prank -- that a promise extracted through deception is obviously not binding. Ted's deadpan refusal and calling it "childish" is the perfect deflation of Steve's elaborate scheme. The humor lies in the contrast between the enormous effort Steve put into this prank and how trivially easy it is for Ted to simply refuse to honor a coerced oath.

View History (1) Original Comic
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