Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

lion

2024-01-11 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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lion
Votey panel for lion
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Explanation

This comic is a short, punchy subversion of the "sleeping with a sexy lion" fantasy -- essentially a furry joke played straight.

A woman asks a anthropomorphized lion if he'd like to go to bed together. The lion initially seems interested, but the comic quickly reveals that "going to bed with a lion" would actually just mean dealing with real lion behavior: the lion says he's just going to fall asleep immediately because he sleeps 18 hours a day, and then demands the woman go get him food.

The joke works by setting up what appears to be a seductive scenario and then deflating it with the mundane reality of actual lion biology. Lions are famously lazy, sleeping the vast majority of the day, and male lions in particular are known for letting the females do all the hunting while they lounge around. The punchline is that the fantasy of a sexy anthropomorphic lion partner would, in practice, just be like having an extremely lazy and demanding roommate. It's a concise and effective subversion of the "beast romance" trope.

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