Transcript
Two explorers pore over a map.
Rae: As you and I both know, Bob, the planet’s surface has hundreds of magical zones that –
Bob: I didn’t know that.
Rae: You didn’t? Well, you do now. In any case, we know from The Sacred Book that magical zones contain enchantium –
Bob: You don’t know that.
Rae: How could I not know?! I just said it.
Bob: You’re assuming The Book is accurate, but you haven’t verified it.
Rae: Could I continue please?
Bob: If you must.
Rae: As I was saying, you and I both know that this enchantium is the best storage medium for soul essence, so –
Bob: Neither of us know that. How would we even measure soul essence? And what qualities mean “best”?
Rae, storming off: Fine! I’m done. I hope no one asks what the hell is happening!
Bob: Especially since we don’t know.
P.S. Our bills are paid by our wonderful patrons. Could you chip in?
I love Bob.
Great one again, Bunny and Chris!
All valid points.
I always laugh when they introduce a one-episode-character like:
-“Whe are gonna met Mr Money McMoreMoney.”
+”McMoreMoney? The billionary that owns half the city?”
-“Yep, that one” (Of course not the other McMoreMoney that have a stand of tacos or something).
Expositions, like introductions, are hard. I’ve just make my main character to stop introducing himself as i (as him) feel boring to constantly answer the question of “Who are you?”
It made sense though as he is a special operative poking holes on an international smuggling operation for personal reasons, hence noone knows what he is going about.
Awkward exposition monster attack, anyone? We gotta send someone out to deal with this monster. Otherwise, our beloved Story City will die.
Ironically, this sort of meeting would be realistic in the scenario you show in the pictures.
In field geology (and other types of field work) it’s routine to have meetings where you re-hash stuff that everyone knows. I’ve typically seen them called readiness reviews. “We know that the contamination is in this area, and exceeds 1,000 ppm in some locations” and the like are commonplace statements. Occasionally someone will add “Based on sampling over the past year…” to the line, but if they don’t we all assume it’s there, because we’ve read the report in preparation for the meeting. If it sounds redundant, it is–ideally the meeting is a complete waste of everyone’s time. Most of the time, though, there are questions and differences of opinions or new people rotating into roles that haven’t had time to dig into the weeds on the issue.
Someone questioning the statements made by the meeting leader would be super annoying, because it’s assumed everyone in the meeting has sufficient background knowledge to know how we know this stuff. The person would probably be kicked out, or at minimum their boss would pull them aside and have a stern conversation about coming to meetings prepared.
That said, outside of Chricton novels I haven’t seen anyone bother to put a readiness review into a story–mostly they just skip over that part. It would take a certain style of writing to capture a realistic readiness review without breaking the flow and tone of the story.
Ahahaha! I love it! As you know, clunky exposition always drives me nuts, but the specific ‘as you know’ kind in particular. :P
>As you know
I see what you did there
I really loved this one! His remarks are so on point, considering a lot of the time people assume stuff based on hearsay or something they read somewhere.
Meet Rae the Protagonist and Bob the Scientifically Literate Sidekick!
Come see them… Wait, where’s Rae going?
Hey folks: Unfortunately, there won’t be a comic this week on account of Bunny being locked in mortal combat with an Essay Lich. We can only hope she emerges victorious!
Best wishes to Bunny beating the Essay Lich! Those are pretty vicious.