Strip 619: The man behind the myth behind the explanation

[WesDavid]

It's interesting to me, when I do the strips myself.  Normally, Don would be the sanity check on a given idea.  But without him as the safety net, it's possible to come up with things that may not make sense.  And in this case, it wouldn't have mattered, being that Don got this one.

The comic's reference is one related to TNG, The Chain of Command Pt. 2.  To a similar extent, you can start here, as  1984 did the same thing.

It just seems silly to me to convince someone that four is five, simply because that argument can't stand on its own, in any other context.

In the strip, Picard catches Gul Madred in the logic bomb of "there are five lights."  When Madred counts them out, there are two outcomes:

 - He says "1, 2, 3, 4" and then tells Picard that there are 5 lights, which lends itself to obvious logical debate*
 - He says  something like "1, 2, 3, 5" and Picard goes into a discussion about various mathematical equations, as he tries to figure out the new "rule" that was just explained.  "What is the square root of 16?  What is 2+2?  What is 2+3?"

Now, eventually, the guy with the torture device wins.  He could say that the correct answer to the question is "buffalo" and the correct answer would be "There are buffalo lights!"  It doesn't make sense, but Gul Madred (and O'Brien from 1984) are not interested in making sense as much as they are dominating their subject.

In the comic, Picard catches Gul Madred in the aforementioned logic bomb, but offers him a Mentos as a gesture of "No hard feelings."


* Yes, I know he could count out four, turn around and say that there are five lights.  That's what he's implicitly doing in the show.  And the absurdity of the argument is exactly what Madred wants to brainwash into Picard.  I get that. It's a joke.

[don]

Ah, so it's my fault then.  Good to know.

[WesDavid]

I need you to protect me from myself!  There's a thin line between Genius and Crazy. 

It's called "Awesome."

[don]

and all this time I thought it was called 'GEN-ZY"

[Adoration]

He could have just said...

[eneref]

Does it make me a sad and pathetic little man that I knew that episode, leaving no explanation required?

[Macker]

Now with that explanation Wes, I now know that Mentos is indeed The Freshmaker! 

Thanks!

[cshelton]

I just thought it was a parody of how insane all those mentos scenarios are.