3098: Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

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Title text: Ultimately, history would imperfectly record the story of the Foal of Troy.

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a BABY BOT INSIDE A BOT. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic presents a brief retelling of the Trojan horse story, the climactic event of the legendary 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 (supposedly) 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 (who had sailed back under the cover of darkness), with disastrous consequences for Troy, transmuting (for the purpose of a pun) the "Foal of Troy" to the "Fall of Troy". Fall (πτώση) and Foal (πουλάρι) begin with the same letter in Greek and are spelled even more similarly in English. This would suggest that what actually happened was that the foal opened the gates, but it is unclear how and why a foal that hadn't even been born yet when its dam was given to Troy would have opened the gates of Troy or otherwise accounted for other aspects of the story of the Fall of Troy.

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. This is the etymology that caused the story to lend its name to malware hidden as something innocuous.

It is unlikely that citizens of Asia Minor (modern Anatolia/Asiatic 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. The Trojans incorrectly assume the foal being hungry is an attack on the food supply because it wants to eat oats, but in reality, babies of any form need nourishment in order to grow.^{[citation needed]} This indicates that the foal has been alive for long enough for its teeth to develop, so it will gradually wean itself off of its mother's milk, which is indicated by the fact that the foal has only begun to show an interest in Troy's oats. It is unclear why the people in the comic would only be suspicious of the foal's hunger, considering that its dam (mother) would also need to eat, just not as much, and they do not seem to be concerned with this. Also, it should be noted that some people are willing to spend money to buy horses even though they are aware that the horses need to eat. It is also unclear how Troy is unaware that this is normal thing for mares to do, considering that horses were common in much of Asia by this time, especially cities with militaries because cavalries were widespread at one point, and this is how all horses (and, for that matter, all members of most mammal species) are created. The people of Troy might just not know much about horses, considering that they also consider the foal to be a secret payload even though pregnant mares show externally visible signs of pregnancy (such as abdominal drooping) five months before foaling (giving birth) on average. However, as mentioned before, this raises the question of why Troy either does not use horses for things such as cavalry and plow-pulling or why its people do not know how horses are formed in spite of this. Even if they were unaware of horses specifically, smaller animals coming out of bigger animals is usual for mammals, including humans, so a small horse coming out of a big horse shouldn't have surprised them.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[A horse is facing Cueball and Ponytail, who are standing in front of an entrance below a tower.]

[In an inset panel, Cueball is talking to Megan and Hairy.]

Cueball: When the Greeks departed, they left behind a horse as a gift.

[Hairbun is standing behind a horse, with Cueball standing in front.]

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

[A smaller horse is standing behind the horse from previous panel, which is looking behind at it.]

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

[Close-up on Cueball.]

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

Off-panel voice 1: An attack on Troy's food supply!

Off-panel voice 2: How dare they!?

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Discussion

i want the second revision of this page to be framed on my wall somewhere 2601:647:8500:1E09:D00F:A8A5:D9DB:2886 03:13, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

This version? :-D --Kynde (talk) 12:38, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if it's worth mentioning that days prior, Ukraine pulled off a massive real life Trojan Horse type attack with disguised shipping containers and drones to destroy Russia's bomber fleets. 2A00:23C5:186:6501:C5ED:C715:4B8E:A315 06:11, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

xkcd doesn't really reference current events unless it's science related or a massive deal 2601:647:8500:1E09:EF7:48CC:294B:D785 06:13, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

this page might be too wordy tbh 2601:647:8500:1E09:EF7:48CC:294B:D785 06:13, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Might!?82.13.184.33 08:59, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

One person's "trim" is another's "missing a lot of vital and interesting subtext". And even if I thought I fully understood the comic on first glance, others may have intuited some meaning that I missed, just as they could seemingly be unaware of what I thought was important to describe.

The fight between loquacious verbosity and laconic simplicity is rarely clear-cut, but I'd err on there being too much ('obvious' bits can be skimmed) rather than too little (unanswered questions, or even unasked questions...). Even that 'sweet spot' of "slightly too much, but at least it isn't less" is arguable, of course. 82.132.234.190 13:59, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

There's verbosity, and then there's an entirely tangential essay on the history of the horse.82.13.184.33 14:10, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm with 82.132.234.190. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Or more trim: better to be looking at it than looking for it. In other news I'm glad the site is back, I couldn't reach it at all yesterday and I had started mourning. --DW 2607:FB91:1B37:9970:5459:BE42:2A5B:3D54 14:49, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

But they were all of them deceived, for another horse was made … — SapphireHarmony 16:08 5 June 2025 (UTC)
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