3098: Trojan Horse

2025-06-05T05:34:51Z

2605:59C8:160:DB08:619B:870D:6856:4B3D:

{{comic
| number = 3098
| date = June 4, 2025
| title = Trojan Horse
| image = trojan_horse_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x196px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Ultimately, history would imperfectly record the story of the Foal of Troy.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by a BABY BOT INSIDE A BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
This comic present a brief retelling of the {{w|Trojan_Horse|Trojan horse}} story, the climactic event of the legendary {{w|Trojan_War|Trojan war}}, one of the best-known epics of ancient Greece and Rome.

The joke, spelled out in the title text, is that the Trojan Horse story's origin is mundane. The gift to the Trojans by the departing Greek army, we are told, was a normal-sized, living, pregnant mare, which promptly dropped a foal. "History" expanded the tale until the live, normal-sized, pregnant mare became a colossal wooden statue that "dropped" a commando unit of some 40 Greek soldiers, who opened the gates of Troy to the main Greek force, with disastrous consequences for Troy - transmuting, in a crushing pun, the "Foal of Troy" to the "Fall of Troy". Fall (πτώση) and Foal (πουλάρι) are similar in Greek as well as English.

The debate in the comic, about the mission of the "Foal of Troy" and its impact on the city, reflects the debate in the Trojan Horse legend about the purpose of the horse statue and whether it was safe to accept it. The consequence of accepting the "Foal of Troy", a minor assault on the city's oat store, is accepted with indignation in the comic. In the legend, the potential consequences of accepting the horse statue were rejected or ignored until after it was too late.

It is unlikely that citizens of Asia Minor (modern Turkey, where Troy is located) in the second millennium BCE would have been as ignorant about basic horse biology as they are shown to be in the comic. Their reputations are sacrificed for the sake of the joke.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}
When the Greeks departed, they left behind a horse as a gift.

We took it as a gesture of peace, but it carried a secret payload.

One night, from within the horse, '''''another, smaller horse emerged!'''''

Our guards have been unable to determine the inner horse's objective, but it has begun to show an interest in our oats.

An attack on Troy's food supply!

How ''dare they!?''

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

3098: Trojan Horse