1256: Questions
Questions |
Title text: To whoever typed 'why is arwen dying': GOOD. FUCKING. QUESTION. |
Explanation
Google, a rather popular internet search engine, has a feature known as autocomplete that guesses at search queries before they are fully typed out. These guesses are generally made based on popular searches by other people. From time to time, a particularly strange or hilarious one may be found, as is evidenced in this comic.
All of the questions in the comic are "why" questions, so many of them are predicated on false assumptions, such as "Why are there pyramids on the moon".
Regarding the title text: in the Peter Jackson films of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Arwen becomes sickly for unspecified reasons as the plot advances, apparently giving Aragorn a more personal reason to fight. The only explanation given is by Elrond, who says "As Sauron's power grows, her [Arwen's] strength wanes." (This subplot is entirely absent from the original novels.)
From IMDB:Arwen, like her father (and brothers) is considered to be a Half-Elf, the result of a union between an Elf and a mortal human. The Half-Elven of Middle-earth get a choice, to remain immortal and return to the West (Valinor) or to become mortal and to die as humans do. Elrond chose to remain an Elf. Arwen (like her uncle Elros) chooses to become mortal in order to wed and remain with Aragorn. Elrond senses this; this is what he means when he says that Arwen is dying. It is the same as in The Last Unicorn, when the unicorn is given the form of a human woman and can feel that she is no longer immortal ("I can feel this body dying all around me"). According to Tolkien, though, after Aragorn dies in the year 120 (Fourth Age), Arwen returns to Lórien, where she dies by choice the following winter.
- Selected answers
- Please help to expand this section
Question | Answer | ||
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Why are ducks called ducks? | According to Wiktionary, the noun duck can be traced back to the Proto-Germanic word dūkaną ("to dive, bend down"), and, in turn, the Proto-Indi-European dʰewb- ("deep, hollow"), which also gives us the verb to duck. The link between the noun and the verb comes from ducks' tendency to dive under water for short periods of time.
Transcript
Section one
Section two
Section three
Section four
Section four
Section five
Section six
Section eight
Section nine
Vertical questions
DiscussionAnother reason Poseidon is angry with Odysseus - early in the Odyssey, Odysseus blinds a cyclops who happens to be Poseidon's son. Why did I just type the following in, when doubtless someone else has already done this..? ...a former great post just went to the main page. They probably need error-checking/rearranging/something. And feel free to delete this entire comment if it becomes superfluous. 178.104.103.140 10:19, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Although I appreciate the LOTR reference, is this really the intent? What is Randall's wife's name? Delete if this is a bridge too far into personal life. --131.70.204.120 16:29, 26 August 2013 (UTC) I answered all the questions, for my amusement. Feel free to use any answers you deem appropriate or accurate enough for the wiki. 213.66.207.152 20:06, 26 August 2013 (UTC) I'm confused that answers are being presented in different formats. Is the hyperlinked transcript a temporary state before answers are transferred to the table? Or is the transcript just a cleaner and more desirable alternative? 98.166.43.28 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~) All answers here: http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/comments/1l3na7/questions/cbvigrd -- (Some signature that looks like spamlink) Today's XKCD is good but it looks like the omitted the first Google suggestion when you begin to type "Why does " Go to google and begin to search that... Dont' see it in today's comic. -- Glitch (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Why doesn't Queen Anne count as a "woman who reigned as queen in her own right"? --Nick Douglas (talk) 21:50, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Today's Comic was brought to you by the grep "why"! 98.195.202.130 18:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC) It seems that Randall is confused about the meaning of life. All the questions he asked begin with why. I like what happens when you type "where is"... I got "where is chuck norris". --97.87.12.114 11:41, 30 August 2013 (UTC) The term "King Consort" may not have been used in the UK, but i believe it was used before in pre Act of Unification England. When Mary Tudor married Philip II of Spain, he was accepted by Parliament and the court as King of England, but was not granted any power. It may not have been elevated to an official title yet, but he was king consort. Dr Pepper (talk) Dr Pepper My question is "Why do we need to answer all the questions, when the answers have nothing to do with the comic?". The answers are fun and interesting, but they should be in the trivia section. The comic is explained well without them. 108.162.217.125 21:36, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
The dinosaur ghost question was duplicated in the answer boxes so I deleted the extra one. Also been filling out a ton of fields.4jonah (talk) 01:35, 22 December 2014 (UTC) Why is there an incomplete tag? What questions are unanswered? Djbrasier (talk) 19:10, 11 March 2015 (UTC) I answered the last 2 remaining questions in section six. Can this be closed now?4jonah (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2015 (UTC) Under "Why is outer space so cold?" it says "space is not cold", but then for "Why is there ice in space?" it begins with "space is cold". This is somewhat confusing. Please clarify. Is space cold or isn't it? 162.158.255.120 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~) No idea how to edit the actual article, but it might be worth mentioning that the succession laws of the UK are no longer male-preference, and are now absolute cognatic primogenture/ absolute primogeniture. 141.101.106.107 12:45, 7 February 2016 (UTC) Something's fishy. One question has the answer "Space is Cold." and another has the answer "Space is not cold." 108.162.212.92 00:24, 11 September 2016 (UTC) Using a search filter, "why" appears 301 times, to date. Klyxm (talk) 3:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC) Just a random guy passing through. For the question "Why are there psychics?" the example answer seems very confusing. Perhaps someone thought the word was "physics" instead of "psychics"? (Timestamp 20:14 21 March 2019) Histamines are not injected into the skin in a spider's saliva. 1. It's injecting venom, not saliva. 2. Histamines are generated by the body as part of its immune response. --172.69.63.69 15:19, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
About "Why are there two slashes after http?", and Sir Tim Berners-Lee admits the forward slashes in every web address 'were a mistake' - it turns out that those two slashes are quite useful to create so called "scheme relative" or "protocol relative" URI by having an URI that starts with two slashes. -- JakubNarebski (talk) 10:31, 23 July 2023 (please sign your comments with ~~~~) best parts: why are there physics, why is there a red line through https, why is there so many svchost.exe running, why aren't there guns in harry potter and why do trees die An user who has no account yet (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC) Does not explain the juxtaposition jokesI feel like this article is a little overly literal and fails to explain the actual recurring joke of the comic, which is the juxtaposition of related searches in specific orders for a humorous implication. The best example may be the series of spider-related searches capped with, "Why are spiderbites itchy?", implying that the person who was distressed about all the spiders has been bitten. Simply including the answers to the questions doesn't actually explain the source of humor. I'm pretty new here, so maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't think this article can be considered complete if the main joke isn't explained. |