Editing 2869: Puzzles

{{comic
| number    = 2869
| date      = December 18, 2023
| title     = Puzzles
| image     = puzzles_2x.png
| imagesize = 328x455px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Why couldn't the amulet have been hidden by Aunt Alice, who understands modern key exchange algorithms?
}}

==Explanation==

Many children's books, especially those read by Randall's generation, feature in-story puzzles. Some of these hold up pretty well decades later, like the ones in {{w|Ellen Raskin}}'s award-winning mystery books for kids. Others, however, are…a lot less impressive. Randall doesn't specify which children's books have "terrible" puzzles, but the ''{{w|Hardy Boys}}'' series by Franklin W. Dixon, the ''{{w|Boxcar Children}}'' series by Gertrude Chandler Warner, and the ''{{w|Encyclopedia Brown}}'' series by Donald J. Sobol are all strong possibilities. (The Riddler in the 1960s ''{{w|Batman (TV series)|Batman}}'' TV series famously played the trope for laughs.)

In the panel, characters from one such book (presumably a made-up example) are contemplating a puzzle involving somebody's Aunt Gertrude. The characters guess Gertrude's amulet must be hidden in the Ground, because that starts with a G, like Gertrude, and that they should diG a hole. These guesses are not very practical; it seems unlikely that Aunt Gertrude either (A) chose to be known indefinitely by a G-name purely as a clue about where she hid an amulet, or (B) was inspired by her own name to choose a vaguely relevant hiding place. Even if she ''did'', there are many other words that begin with G, such as Gulf, or Gull, or Go-Get-a-plane-and-fly-to-Greenland, and any of these would be just as plausible "clues."

Moreover, once deciding, even more implausibly, that this "clue" is telling them to dig a hole in the ground, because 'dig' ends with a G, the search is not significantly narrowed as the world is a big place and "underground, somewhere" leaves a huge range of possible locations. You may need {{tvtropes|XMarksTheSpot|at least one more letter}} to narrow the options down. All this leads us to Randall's point — that these connections made by the characters are tenuous at best and are unreasonable to make, especially as part of a riddle.

Aunt Gertrude is probably named after a supporting character in the ''Hardy Boys'' series; the Aunt Gertrude in that series didn't set puzzles, but main characters Frank and Joe Hardy frequently had to decipher clues to find hidden objects. The name may also be a nod to Gertrude Chandler Warner, whose Boxcar Children are an adventurous group of mystery-solving kids like those in the comic.

The title text references {{w|Alice and Bob|Alice}}, a fictional character commonly used in discussions about cryptography. In those discussions, Alice is often sending and receiving encrypted messages, and she would be expected to be able to make a better puzzle than the one shown in the comic. Alice and Bob and other characters from the same set have been mentioned previously in xkcd, like in [[177: Alice and Bob]]. Using modern cryptography in lieu of riddles in children's stories was also mentioned in [[370: Redwall]].

==Transcript==
:[Possibly teenage versions of Hairy, Jill, Ponytail, and Cueball, listed from left to right, are standing in a line. Hairy is in a thinking pose, Jill faces Hairy, and Ponytail and Cueball are walking to the right; Cueball is pointing off-panel.]
:Hairy: Aunt Gertrude must have left a clue to the amulet's location.
:Jill: Hmm. Wait a minute.
:Jill: '''G'''ertrude. '''G'''.
:Hairy: As in "'''G'''round!"
:Jill: And "di'''G''' a hole!"
:Ponytail: I'll get a shovel!
:Cueball: To the yard!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:Some of the authors of books I read as a kid were '''''terrible''''' at designing puzzles.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring Jill]] 
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category:Cryptography]]
[[Category:Kids]]