Editing 1391: Darkness

[[Ponytail]] as a [[:Category:News anchor|news anchor]] describes the {{w|sunset}} as though it were an unprecedented, newsworthy event, rather than {{tvtropes|MundaneMadeAwesome| something mundane}} that happens every day. They even have a reporter ([[Cueball]]) on the spot reporting from where the ''darkness'' has spread so far.

The sunset is a common event. {{w|Isaac Asimov}} based his short story {{w|Nightfall (Asimov short story and novel)|Nightfall}} on a fictional civilization that doesn't know darkness because the planet is always illuminated by the six stars surrounding it. The story describes how people would react (mass insanity, fall of civilization) when the orbital motion of the planet eventually leads to five of the suns setting, plus one in eclipse.

Describing mundane occurrences in unusual detail, to show off how odd they really are, is something [[Randall]] has done before (for instance about dreaming in [[203: Hallucinations]]). But the caption below the main panel adds another twist to the joke by showing that the news report wasn't a mere imagine spot, but something actually happening due to the interference of Randall's final wish to his {{w|genie}}, which caused all news reporters to forget the day–night cycle.

Another possible meaning is that this comic is a reference to the way the media often talk about {{w|global warming}} as if each weather occurrence had meaning outside of its context like in [[1321: Cold]]. That take on the weather and the day–night cycle being denied because of a skewed point of view was also used on the {{w|Daily Show}}. The segment "[http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/18l8gy/unusually-large-snowstorm Unusually Large Snowstorm]" from February 10, 2010 used the same trope. Several Daily Show correspondents have different views on the weather based on where they are, ending with a correspondent who equates nighttime with everlasting darkness.

The caption references the fact that there is a limit to the number of wishes. It is a common rule, often used in fiction, that you get {{tvtropes|ThreeWishes|three wishes}} from a {{tvtropes|GenieInABottle|genie in a bottle}}. There usually is an added stipulation that no wish may be used to acquire more wishes. In the title text, however, it is stated that Randall has managed to bypass the three wish limit rule. This was accomplished by using his second wish to simply make the genie unable to remember granting the speaker any wishes. He have thus used the same trick on the genie as he used here on the media. The media wish turns out '''not''' to have been his last (i.e. third), but rather wish number 406. This shows just how far, "make someone forget something", can go by applying it to the genie.

It is interesting that it was his second wish that gave him unlimited wishes. What did he wish for on wish #1? Maybe he wasted the first wish, because he did not believe the genie was able to grant wishes – a common error{{Citation needed}}. On the other hand, he may have used the first wish to learn a way where his second wish could circumvent the three rule limit. Maybe his first wish was to genie's memory determine if more wishes are possible, because if it is determined of something else: second wish wouldn't work. He did not wish for more wishes (a clear rule), but since the genie now always think the next wish is his first, it is not Randall who asks for more wishes, but the genie that forgets to stop at the limit.

There seem to be a conflict with the title text, and where the caption says ''Genie, for my last wish...'' because the genie does not know it isn't his first, and would otherwise think it could be, and not his last. It could, however, be to shock the reader, that he makes a point of him wasting a final wish on something this silly. Or he is just mocking the Genie because he won't remember the not-first-wish-thing. Then in the title text, he makes it clear that it was only a wish he used, because he had an unlimited number of wishes at hand. And to the genie he would simply have said, ''...for my first wish...''

*To have three wishes from a genie, but really only need one, was the joke in [[152: Hamster Ball]]. Perhaps this genie is the same, and the first wish was for a human-sized hamster ball. Much later - inspired by the hamster ball? - he breaks the genie rules to get access to unlimited (not limited to the normal three) genie wishes.