3288: Archery Feat

explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Archery Feat
Update: I would not have embarked on this powerscaling venture if I'd known how thoroughly Mark Twain was going to roast me.
Title text: Update: I would not have embarked on this powerscaling venture if I'd known how thoroughly Mark Twain was going to roast me.

Explanation[edit]

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It is a common trope in fiction, especially historical or fantasy genres, for a protagonist to demonstrate their skill by performing an incredible feat of archery, such as shooting an apple off a person's head, or splitting an arrow already on the target.

Here, Randall posits a new protagonist that he has created, and wants to demonstrate that this protagonist is better at archery than other fictional protagonists, and to do so the protagonist is performing many famous archery feats strung together in a deliberately-ridiculous chain.

The line of axes is from the 2026 movie The Odyssey, which was released in the month before this comic and perhaps inspired Randall to make the comic, the apple on the head is from the William Tell legend, and the split arrow is originally from the legend of Robin Hood.

The alt-text may refer to Mark Twain's critique of James Fenimore Cooper.

Transcript[edit]

This is one of 33 incomplete transcripts:
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[Cueball aims a drawn bow through a line of 12 axes, over a boy with an apple on his head, and at a target where an arrow has been split by two bullseyes.]

[Caption below the panel:] I want to prove that my new protagonist is a better shot than all those other protagonists.


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