Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Selector of the Dead

2015-03-16 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
Selector of the Dead
Votey panel for Selector of the Dead
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

A Valkyrie on horseback is selecting which warrior will die in battle, as is her mythological duty. She begins dramatically: "Annnd... the next warrior I select to die in battle is... u... that guy who just got stabbed in the neck!" The caption reads: "Valkyries are bullshit."

The Humor

In Norse mythology, Valkyries are divine figures who choose which warriors will die in battle and bring the worthy to Valhalla. The joke deflates their mythological grandeur by pointing out that "selecting" someone who has already been fatally wounded is not exactly a display of divine power -- it is just stating the obvious after the fact. The Valkyrie is essentially taking credit for deaths that were already happening, like a sports commentator "predicting" a goal after the ball is already in the net. The blunt caption ("Valkyries are bullshit") delivers the final punch, reducing an entire mythological tradition to a one-line dismissal.

References

In Norse mythology, Valkyries ("choosers of the slain") are female figures who serve Odin by selecting which warriors die in battle and escorting their souls to Valhalla, Odin's hall of the slain, where they prepare for Ragnarok. The comic questions the causality: do Valkyries actually determine who dies, or do they merely select the already-dying?

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