Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Revenge

2021-08-06 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
Revenge
Votey panel for Revenge
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

This comic satirizes gender stereotypes in how parents discuss violence and revenge with their children.

In the first panel, a father tells his daughter: "I'm not sexist. I only want a son so there's someone available to properly avenge my death." The setup presents a classic gendered assumption -- that only a son could carry out violent revenge.

The daughter (or wife) challenges him: "A girl could do that!" The father responds with a revealing caveat: "But she'd do it in a girl way." He's asked to elaborate: "Just because the avenger is a girl, that doesn't mean she'd use hearts and glitter. Don't be stupid stereotypes."

The comic then subverts expectations. The woman asks what he actually envisions for the revenge, and he describes it: "No, I mean she'd just poison them and set the fire. Done. No open-field battle, no claymore, no riding a missile from a blimp." In other words, his objection isn't that a girl can't do revenge -- it's that she'd do it efficiently and practically, rather than with the over-the-top theatrical violence he fantasizes about.

In the final panel, the woman concedes: "I may have to grant you that."

The humor works by inverting the expected sexism. The father's complaint isn't that women are incapable of violence -- it's that they're too competent and efficient at it. He wants his revenge to involve dramatic, impractical spectacle (riding missiles from blimps), and he fears a daughter would just get the job done quietly and effectively. The comic's absurdly long title -- "for the record, missiles and blimps don't really work from a physics standpoint, but don't let that stop you being true to your bloodlust" -- adds another layer, acknowledging that the father's preferred revenge methods are physically impossible anyway.

View History (1) Original Comic
← Previous Comic Next Comic →