CHICKIE REDUX

Blog number 326 **** 15 August 2009

Blog number 325 visited the dinosaurs' disappearance in Chick Publications. I commented then on the weirdness of Chick's pulling facts out of the air. Today I ran into another one.

A character is telling the story of Thanksgiving because one of the children at a Thanksgiving dinner, asked, "Hey Uncle Mort...what is Thanksgiving? I've never heard of it," while another child says, "We can't say 'Thanksgiving' in our school."

So Uncle Mort tells the story of Thanksgiving. It seems the Pilgrims were starving at Plymouth Rock until "God let them find corn that had been buried by the Indians." By winter's end, half of the survivors were dead and the other half, sick. Just when all seemed lost, two Indians stepped out from the trees, one of whom spoke perfect English.

Now why did Chick add that last little tidbit? Does it add to the plot or does it kinda make the story a little less believable? Why say that? For what purpose?

I think what is happening in Chick's brain is that he accepts everything in the Bible as God's truth, and he believes that that is all that is important. Anything else he might say about ancient history, true or not, doesn't really matter. It's beside the point. "Just get the story told" kinda thing. That's why he can say humans killed all the dinosaurs for food and the first time an Indian is seen, he speaks perfect English.

I myself have been guilty of this type of reasoning. I sometimes do it when the listener seems to have missed the point and gotten stuck on some minor detail that doesn't matter. I'll just say whatever will shut them up. I think that is what Chick is doing.