Desecration
by Jeff
Image text: It gets worse! You know that wizened old monk with the gypsy wife whose voodoo shop we smash up every every day after school?
This comic is a play on the standard movie set up of a house or a hotel being built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Being built over an Indian burial ground is generally a bad thing and leads to the house being haunted at the very least. The goal of the haunting is to get the people to move out of the house or dwelling so that the ancient Indians can rest in peace. The Indians in this case are referred to the Native Americans and not the people of the country of India.
This comic is a play on that because Rob and Cutie in this comic have dug up Indian bones and made puppets out of them, which the title of the comic says is certainly desecration of the ancient Indian's tombs and definitely way worse than accidentally building a house over an ancient burial ground. But since this comic is a play on the typical movie set up, Rob and Cutie think nothing of playing with ancient bones, but the fact that those bones were buried over another ancient burial ground scares them.
I'm not sure what movie the image text refers to. Anyone have an idea?
August 20th, 2010
No movie refrence in the comment I don’t think, just messing with some people who have a lot of supernatural power
August 20th, 2010
Just as it’s a standard movie trope that disturbing ancient Indian burial grounds, wizened old monks, gypsies, and voodoo shop owners are all, individually, standard movie tropes of folks you mess with at your own peril.
August 20th, 2010
I believe the irony and humour of the strip comes from the fact that the bones themselves are what make the place a burial ground, but that they paid no attention to the bones they desecrated, but rather were fearful of the fact they did it on top of the burial ground.
The image text is probably the same; as Blaise Pascal mentioned, it is a massive string of bad omen tropes, but the speaker probably paid no attention to that, but is about to mention something “worse”, much like how desecrating the bones in the strip was “okay”, but doing it on top of the burial ground was not.
August 20th, 2010
2000th comment on explainxkcd.com. =]
August 20th, 2010
KayDat, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your explanation. The joke lies with the fact that the two characters are oblivious to the seemingly obvious fact that burried indian bones are by definition burried in an indian burial ground.
Similarly the image text implies that she ‘discovered’ that the monk and gypsy who own a vodoo store are actually practicioners of voodoo (or black magic). I am certain there is a story somewhere where a voodoo shopkeeper puts a curse on some rude/mean clients.
Congrats on # 2000
August 20th, 2010
This was a tricky one to explain, since it’s a bit of circular logic.
August 20th, 2010
This is likely incidental but I’ll mention it anyway. I think I’ll list each item and then – separate with a hyphen and devil’s advocate why this was just a coincidence.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series – This is about every possible spooky thing.
All the main cast are either in high school or college – What better way to demonstrate people are unprepared to deal with everyday occurrences than to depict them as teenagers?
Jenny Calendar, a gypsy witch responsible for watching over the vampire Angel’s soul – The Ritual of Restoration is your stereotypical spooky thing that even uses animal bones!
The Magic Box, a wicca magic shop that seems to be completely destroyed every other episode – So does Buffy’s house, the school, multiple construction sites, they fire a bazooka in a mall… what doesn’t get destroyed?
Old Monks are both the antagonists of the entire last season (the bringers) and the original source of the slayer’s power (or maybe the shadow men were actually shamans..) – The only thing creepier than creepy old people are creepy young children IMO, and that doesn’t really make sense.. blinded (but omniscient) monks wearing the classic robes murdering girls in the night just feels religious/ritualistic/foreboading, and the series (thankfully for my sake) always depicts children as innocent.
The only thing in the comment that isn’t any of BtVS TV is “wife,” much to Anya’s downfall (oh why did you leave her Xander?)
…
And if any of you accuse me of not being a nerd or cool, it’s Joss Whedon! People like Joss!!! And it’s not like I _liked_ watching it or anything, my girlfriend made me. I don’t really like it or anything!
… she does pretty well with fiends from hell but lately we can tell that she’s just…
August 21st, 2010
The last one is referencing the Don’t mess with the Gypsy plot of movies like thinner, drag me to hell and the like. the wise old monk is a similar convention, with both having the ability to curse or use magic
August 21st, 2010
And then there’s my favorite curse, the one of Sergio…
http://www.hulu.com/watch/124875/saturday-night-live-digital-short-the-curse
September 28th, 2010
The movie reffered to in this strip is Poltergeist
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084516/
October 10th, 2011
This remound me of the Family Guy episode (”Petergeist”) in which Peter dug up an Indian skull from the ancient Indian burial ground under their house, and used it as a hand puppet, jock strap, urinal, etc.