2175: Flag Interpretation

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Flag Interpretation

Title text: When Salvador Dalí died, it took months to get all the flagpoles sufficiently melted.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by an IMPORTANT CLONE. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In many countries including the United States (whose flag is depicted in the comic), it is customary to lower the flag to half staff when important public figures die. In the US, regulations regarding flying the flag at half staff only specify the length of time for the flag to be flown at half staff, and are based on the importance of the person who has died. There are no regulations where the flag would be flown at any height other than full height or half staff, and there are no regulations where multiple flags would be flown.

Randall, as usual, makes a humorous list of fictional additional traditions.

Flying the US flag upside down is widely considered a distress signal, and would not be intended to indicate an important figure has died. Since on average someone dies every few seconds, it would indeed be extremely unlikely that no one would die for weeks in a row. Although not having anyone die seems good on the surface, it would trigger alarm about why this was happening; what mysterious force could possibly cause cessation of all deaths? And will it continue into the future, triggering an overpopulation crisis in short order?

The second-to-last panel is a reference to the Trolley problem, a well-known thought experiment in ethics: An out-of-control trolley is running toward five people who are on the tracks. If you do nothing, these five will be killed. However, you can trigger a switch that will divert the trolley onto a side track, where there is one person on the tracks who would be killed. Which is the more ethical option?

The title text is a reference to The Persistence of Memory and other paintings and sculptures by Salvador Dalí which include watches and other objects that are melting.

Table

Flag Position	Randall's Interpretation	Explanation
Flag at half mast	Someone important died.
Flag at three-quarter mast.	Someone died but we're not sure how we feel about them.
Flag at base of the mast.	Everyone important died.
Two flags at full mast.	Someone important was successfully cloned.
Two flags at half mast.	An important person died battling their evil clone.
Flag at half mast and upside-down.	Nobody has died for weeks and that seems good but statistically it's very alarming.
One normal-sized flag at half mast and five tiny flags at full mast.	Someone diverted a trolley to save five people by killing one important person.
No flag on the pole.	The person who knows where the flag is stored at night died.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[8 panels in 2 rows, 4 panels per row - each panel shows a flagpole in a different state of flying flag(s) with a caption at the bottom of the panel below the flagpole.]

[The US flag at half mast.]

Caption: Someone important died

[The same flag at three-quarter mast.]

Caption: Someone died but we're not sure how we feel about them

[The flag at the base of the mast.]

Caption: Everyone important died

[Two identical flags at full mast.]

Caption: Someone important was successfully cloned

[Two identical flags at half mast.]

Caption: An important person died battling their evil clone

[An upside-down flag at half mast.]

Caption: Nobody has died for weeks and that seems good but statistically it's very alarming.

[A normal-sized flag at half mast and five tiny flags at full mast.]

Caption: Someone diverted a trolley to save five people by killing one important person

[A flagpole with no flag.]

Caption: The person who knows where the flag is stored at night died.

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Discussion

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate that Randall drew each US flag by hand? He could have just copy-pasted the same one 14 times, but he didn't. 172.68.34.118 16:27, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Something about a Dali-esque melting flagpole set at half-mast seems very suggestive to me... -- ProphetZarquon (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Flying the US flag upside down would be considered a distress signal by many. Should this be in the main description or a "trivia" section? Cgrimes85 (talk) 15:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I had the same thought (before I saw your comment) and put it in the main description, since it seems necessary to understand the joke. --Aquillion (talk) 05:51, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Half mast or half staff? In the US (which appears to be the flag shown in the comic), the popular usage is half-staff, although half-mast is more common elsewhere. Cgrimes85 (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Half-mast should be for naval connotations and half-staff for non-naval connotations, at least in the USA.

Definitely half-mast in the UK. To the point that someone showing a lot of sock has historically drawn comments of "Who's died?" or "Your cat died?" which is then clarified by explaining that their trousers appear to be at half-mast. YorkshirePudding (talk) 21:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

In Northern Ireland, a flag half way up a lamp post usually just illustrates that the ladder was too short. Not strictly relevant, but it feels like an XKCD style punchline.

Where I live in the US (Northern California), everyone says "half-mast". We don't use "half-staff". Trogdor147 (talk) 01:42, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

The no one dying for a while was done in the TV Show Torchwood: Miracle Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood:_Miracle_Day 172.69.160.152 19:01, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Also the premise of a SCP End of Death hub. 162.158.6.118 10:11, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Terry Pratchett also did this in one of his books, 'Reaper Man'. 162.158.118.28 02:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Note that a flag may traditionally not fly outside at night, to the point that a flag which hangs after dusk should be burned. 141.101.105.240 13:32, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

" a flag which hangs after dusk should be burned." Uhhh, no. Burning is the respectful way to destroy a worn-out US flag, but just having had the flag fly at night does not mean that that flag should be burned. ( Where DID that idea come from?? )162.158.214.136 20:59, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

It's actually acceptable to fly a flag 24 hours a day, provided there is appropriate lighting on it. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 14:02, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Related trolley problem link I am not adding to the explanation lol. 172.68.189.85 22:26, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't know about the US, but in Sweden when you're flying at half-mast the flag is actually at 2/3 up the mast. The 3/4 mast looks almost like that. Also, the explanation for the double flag half-mast says that both clones died, but this is not necessarily the case. It's just that the flag line doesn't have multiple spots to attach a flag to so if you want two flags you have to attach them to each other. The explanation for the upside down half-mast talks about risk of overpopulation and worry about the cause for the lack of deaths, but the text in the comic says that it's statistically worrisome, which to me seems like this is more about gambler's logic; if no one has died for weeks then very soon a whole lot of people are going to die at once. Kapten-N (talk) 07:31, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

I understood the statistical thing, that it is highly unlikely that it happens just coincidally for weeks, that noone dies, so it must be having a reason. Only one I can imagine is either some "death on vacation" thing, which never ends well in fiction, or that there was a mass-dying before this period. --Lupo (talk) 07:35, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

The Chinese version of this comic unfortunately has a footnote stuck in it. ConscriptGlossary (talk) 02:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

What is this Chinese version? 172.70.86.206 03:07, 24 October 2024 (UTC)