quote-3
Explanation
This comic has two panels. The top panel offers an ostensibly helpful tip: "You can make your boss's speech more memorable by replacing their motivational quotes with Richard II's speech to the peasants at Waltham, 1381."
The bottom panel shows a man at a podium presenting a slide that reads: "You wretches, detestable on land and sea; you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your fellows: rustics you are and rustics you will remain in bondage, not as before but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity." The quote is attributed to "-- Wayne Gretzky."
In the audience, one person whispers to another: "Wait... why are you starring? Is something wrong?" and the other replies: "Something wrong with Gretzky's quote?"
The humor operates on multiple levels. First, the historical reference: Richard II's speech at Waltham in 1381 was his brutal address to the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt, essentially telling the common people they would be crushed and enslaved even more harshly than before. The joke is that this speech, dripping with aristocratic contempt for the working class, could plausibly be swapped into a corporate motivational context -- a sly commentary on how corporate hierarchies sometimes echo feudal power structures.
Second, the misattribution to Wayne Gretzky is a reference to the famous Internet meme where inspirational quotes are attributed to the hockey legend (itself often a riff on the Michael Scott/Wayne Gretzky quote from The Office). The additional layer is that someone in the audience is confused not by the horrifying content of the quote, but only by the attribution -- suggesting that the feudal contempt for workers passes without notice in a corporate setting.
The comic satirizes both corporate culture's love of empty motivational rhetoric and people's willingness to accept authoritarian sentiments as long as they come packaged as inspiration.