Oh boy, ILX! That's where I'm a viking!..?

lol I wanted to bring that up but felt it would only do harm xp

I think my favorite part about this is how this debate is that this is the closest we've come so far to proving that brain viruses can exist a la neal stephenson's snow crash the rampaging effects of syphilis.

I don't think cow tools could ever be as divisive as sleep Viking, it's just vague, there aren't two definite interpretations that would divide folks like here.

of course part of being a fundamentalist "B" grouper means u think that there is only one worthwhile interpretation so

I know two things; the literalist reading of the Bible is the correct one and Ralph is dreaming of being a Viking in his sleep.

Yeah, maybe. I'm definitely a Viking of Sleep man, but I'm not saying I don't see any point in Viking in Sleep crew's argument, I just feel it doesn't work as well.

(x-post)

Jesus I can't believe this thread hit like 850+. I go to class for one fucking afternoon and come home to this

yeah laugh now but when the vikings are at your doorstep and all you have to defend yourself is a throw pillow you'll be wishing you had listened now

http://financialmarketer.com/files/capital_one.jpg

^ ralph, being a viking at making responsible credit decisions

Jesus I can't believe this thread hit like 850+. I go to class for one fucking afternoon and come home to this

― Oh boy, sleep! That's where I'm Ann Reinking! (Stevie D), Wednesday, April 28, 2010 8:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

tbf half this thread is ppl going 'cant believe we're arguing about this'

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/53/130039976_3c633b7276.jpg

^viking ralphing at this whole argument

http://www.3simplerules.com/images/digging.jpg

^ deej arguing

Option-"A"-ers worse than anti-vaccinators

Ralph: I'm a brick!

Ralph: I'm happy and angry

Ralph: I look like cable TV!

Ralph: I'm a unitard!

Ralph: I'm Idaho!

Ralph is Idaho, or as its postal abbreviation state to the delight of bearded Viennese at the turn of the last century, the ID. Makes you think.

lol Abbott

under my government the right to give a Viking the business end of your rifle if he removes his helmet in a lady's presence will not be abridged

― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, April 28, 2010 7:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

XD

if you wait 2 hours or so between coming back to this thread, it becomes a kind of random topic generator

deej sounds literally insane and i worry about him

um I think that everyone who posted to this thread sounds pretty fucking insane tbh. I showed snippets to my friend and she was dumbfounded that somebody was trying to argue about Ralph Wiggum with postmotherfuckingmodernism. Seriously, guys. What the fuck.

stevie d, bad news--you are insane

This thread makes me regret the fact that later today I will be in NYC.

argument #4316 against A: if you're making the joke that Ralph excels at sleeping, you don't muck it up by piling on a joke that the majority of the audience will not even register about Ralph inventing slang.

#4317: the emphasis would be on *I'm* in Ralph's delivery of the line. but it ain't.

xxp dude I figured that out when I was like 9 and watching QVC as much as Nickelodeon.

I don't know the "bum / lips" thing though, so, y'know, English.

http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/UK_shipping_forecast_zones.png/400px-UK_shipping_forecast_zones.png

Maybe Ralph is referring to the Shipping Forecast, where, of course, 'Viking' is a metaphor for "moderate or good, occasionally poor".

omg you fucking ppl

and I mean that (mostly) with love, of course

This thread:

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2433/neverland3ko1.jpg

how many of Team A are trolling?

does ILX have 9/11 truthers too?

lol @ the backpatting abt how much smarter ilx is than other message boards bcuz so many of our loudest are "B" evangelicals

This thread makes me regret the fact that later today I will be in NYC.

― No, YOU'RE a disgusting savage (Scik Mouthy)

loooooool

lol @ the backpatting abt how much smarter ilx is than other message boards bcuz so many of our loudest are "B" evangelicals

― Gifted Unlimited Display Names Universal (deej), Thursday, April 29, 2010 4:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

No the backpatting is because we only have a handful of people who would ever troll/honestly defend A.

thats exactly what im saying? minus your backpatting

http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/52516825/544703

thats exactly what im saying? minus your backpatting

― Gifted Unlimited Display Names Universal (deej), Thursday, April 29, 2010 5:25 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

Our two statements are totally different; are you high?

argument #4316 against A: if you're making the joke that Ralph excels at sleeping, you don't muck it up by piling on a joke that the majority of the audience will not even register about Ralph inventing slang.

But the joke is not just that he excels at sleep, it's also that he thinks a "Viking of sleep" is a proper way to describe oneself. The humor comes both from the form and the content. And The Simpsons isn't really famous for it's straightforward and pleasing-the-majority humor, is it? There are many Simpsons jokes that the "majority" probably doesn't get immediately. For example, when Mr. Burns first answered the telephone "A-hoy hoy!", I'm pretty sure the majority of viewers only thought he has a funny way of answering the phone, and didn't get that it was a historical joke.

Also, many people (including me) in this thread have noted that they immediately interpreted Ralph's line as "excelling in sleep". And in the poll linked to above, 35% of the answerers thought so too. So it's not like it was some super-complicated gag that only a handful of people got.

#4317: the emphasis would be on *I'm* in Ralph's delivery of the line. but it ain't.

No, the emphasis is on the word "Viking", but that doesn't prove it either way. When he says "That's where I'm a Viking!", it could be the same as saying "That's where I'm the best!". He just wants to emphasize the "best" part, it's perfectly common.

idgtt

There are many reasons to ephasize words in a sentence other than to indicate that you.think you're the best.

No the backpatting is because we only have a handful of people who would ever troll/honestly defend A.

Why is it that the Viking of Sleep people are willing to accept that the Viking in Sleep crew interpreted the line differently, but so many of the Viking in Sleep folks accuse us of being trolls? Makes you guys look kinda bad.

There are many reasons to ephasize words in a sentence other than to indicate that you.think you're the best.

Of course there are. But Granny Dainger's argument was that because Ralph put the emphasis on the word "Viking" and not the word "I'm", that would automatically be a proof against the "Viking of sleep" interpretation. And I just wanted to point out that it isn't necessarily so: there are many ways to interpret Ralph's emphasis.

Why is it that the Viking of Sleep people are willing to accept that the Viking in Sleep crew interpreted the line differently, but so many of the Viking in Sleep folks accuse us of being trolls? Makes you guys look kinda bad.

It's because there's a wrong answer to this, and it's your one.

Makes you guys look kinda bad.

We're all cool with that

sometimes it's better to be a little rude than wrong

always, it's always better

u jerk

And Wiggum doesn't care if he doesn't make the sense
He's got a worm in his mouth, he's doin' alright
He can raid Scotland like anything
Savin' it up for after lunch
With the Vikings...with the Vikings of Sleep

In sleep I will shew them
My thews are girt, my blade sharp
I shall be Wodin's own warrior.

This worm has turned.

When I first saw the episode years ago I just assumed it was option A, though I can see why the more literal-minded could just as easily see the joke as option B (which really isn't as nearly as funny). But when someone posted the youtube clip of the line itself even option A didn't seem completely adequate. The more I watched the clip the more it seemed like there was something hidden in this stupid joke. So I downloaded the clip and ran the audio backwards and a new message started to emerge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cazDvV0XKjQ

The first few syllables are untranslatable (perhaps they recite Ralph's viking name), but the meat of the message lies in the clearly discernible phrase "a(ff)irms the key was silver".

In his short story, The Silver Key, Lovecraft writes about a "silver key" which allows the protagonist to re-enter the fantastic world of dreams that he lost along the way when growing up. Wiki says that he believes:

his dreams to reveal truths missing from man's waking ideas, regarding the purpose of humans and the universe, primary among these being the truth of beauty as perceived and invented by humans in times past. As he ages, though, he finds that his daily waking exposure to the more "practical", scientific ideas of man, has eventually eroded his ability to dream as he once did, and has made him regretfully subscribe more and more to the mundane beliefs of everyday, waking "real life".

So whether or not Ralph becomes Leif Eriksson in his dreams is besides the point. What's important is that his state of arrested development allows him to really be a viking at sleep (since he'll never be able to rationalize away his Leprechaun fantasies, etc.) and see the greater truth in things. By the end of the short story the protagonist has found the silver key and used it to re-enter the world of dreams and the narrator writes:

that he expects to meet Randolph soon, in one of his own dreams, "in a certain dream-city we both used to haunt", reigning there as a new (vi)king, where the narrator may look at Randolph's key, whose symbols he hopes will tell him the mysteries of the cosmos.

I have the suspicion that Ralph (I know, he's only the "mouthpiece" of the writer, but in the world of fiction and dreams characters over time begin to adopt a spirit or animating force of their own) anticipated this endless quibbling over the significance of his emphasis/his possible dream-reality disconnect/etc. and he's trying to send us the message that all of this rationalizing and over-interpretation only brings us further from the world of dreams (important to note that as a fictional character, this is where Ralph has always existed), where the real answers to life lie. He's inviting us to join him in the magical world of dreams and perhaps there we will find the right answer to what he means by "viking", along with the answers to more important questions, like whether or not that was a Predator ship at the beginning of Aliens.