Talk:1471: Gut Fauna

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I think this comic also contains a pun on macrobiotics. Esp. the wording "out of balance" seems to be a reference to esoteric speech. Knob creek (talk) 09:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

In fairy tales (most notably in little red riding hood), the wolf swallows whole its (human) victims. The comic depics an inversion of roles. Do you think it's worth adding this observation in the explanation? 188.114.99.18 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

That's what I took it to mean too, the two options being he swallows the wolf or the wolf swallows him. 141.101.98.159 12:35, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Another pun might be on the name of a restaurant in Seattle: [How to Cook a Wolf] Araucaria (talk) 15:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

That's so extremely obscure that thinking it intended is difficult. - Equinox 199.27.128.117 16:59, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Is a citation really needed?

I think that requiring a citation for the lethality of administering a wolf via the mouth or rectum may be going just a bit too far? Reference in the Change history Pmw57 (talk) 10:25, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I assume that this is a humorous comment, similar to the citation needed tags in the What-if articles. 141.101.98.237 12:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Good point, could be a joking reference to xkcd #285 173.245.52.138 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I know an old lady who swallowed a... 108.162.249.237 13:45, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiESiO6tLM8 --RenniePet (talk) 19:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
The strange thing is, I am absolutely certain their is an old Chinese fairy tale but I can't google it at all! It's about a man who swallows a fly and then he has to swallow a frog and then a snake and eventually a (human) hunter. But the latter doesn't kick up a fuss so there the problem ends. What's weird is that I couldn't google that fairy tale at all.141.101.64.5 10:21, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Is Ponytail actually a Doctor? If you take the lessone from what can be done in 699 - Trimester, and buy a labcoat... RedHillian (talk) 01:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

"animals are never found in the human digestive system; all known cases of animals in a human digestive system are causes of disease.)" Technically, couldn't it also be the result of one's choice of food? Admittedly a temporary state of affairs, but there are certainly dishes involving live food. Squornshellous Beta (talk) 07:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Or for pleasure? 108.162.238.191 17:35, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
Point(s) taken. I'll make a minor change to fix Djbrasier (talk) 00:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Actually, I can't get the wording right. Happy to have someone rewrite it to include temporary residence of live organisms in the case of some foods and (apocryphal) tales of gerbilling, etc. Djbrasier (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Poor dog. 108.162.246.231 06:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm having a really, really hard time imagining what kind of discussion Randall was involved in that led to his thought processes ending up producing the result we see here. --RenniePet (talk) 02:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Funny nickname in this context, RenniePet. (btw. Does "inwolved" make any sense here?) 141.101.104.22 10:44, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
...My take is that the lycan (spelled this way: a werewolf) would probably also eat fawns (deer) - helping to balance forest overpopulation. If we take "gut" and "fawna" back through German/English, we might have "good" and "to make or be glad" another sense of fawning (perhaps alluding here to self-care, but also especially when applied to dogs). The werewolf is historically described as a shapeshifter so it seems appropriate to shift then to lichen (same pronunciation) which is a symbiotic organism (yet another thematic connection) consisting of an alga and fungus; blue-green algae is often taken to balance out the gut. A dry lichen (the etymology of this word means 'to lick', appropriate for the canine, which is also likely to be dry) will absorb many, many times its weight in water, and lichens (which are often found in forests) are important for soil (a word sometimes used to refer to fecal matter). A final connection is in a medical condition known as "guttate" (having drops, as in a glass of water) lichen"...though I might have chased this rabbit a bit far. Elvenivle (talk)

“However, either way would prove both physically impossible and potentially lethal.” ... Potentially lethal? You mean, there is actually a chance to survive swallowing a wolf? --108.162.215.94 22:42, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

According to the research of the Grimm Brothers, Randall has it all wrong. Wolves do not live in the stomach of people, people live in the stomachs of Wolves. For example, a big bad wolf might told to take two humans and call the doctor in the morning. ((Dan Loeb - 9:24pm ET, 11 January 2015))

how about "hungry like a wolf" and a reference to him missing a good appetite ? transfer of the wolf could thus mean re-vigorating his appetite.((SK - 16:01 CET, Jan 16 January 2015))

"normal humans shouldn't have large animals living inside them with the exception of some parasites such as Helminths or Cestoda" -- was that intended to mean what it says? Normal humans shouldn't have helminths or cestoda in them either! I know people can become infected with parasites, and there are anecdotes of jockeys swallowing a tapeworm egg in order to lose weight for an important race, but I would not have thought you should be recommending the practice. 162.158.38.154 22:11, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

On a similar note, "all known cases of [...] are causes of disease" isn't completely true if you take into account experimental helminthic therapy. The gist is that there are worms that don't cause significant disease, and you get them intentionally to, uh, (hand wringing) calm down the immune system. --172.71.210.206 16:35, 24 January 2023 (UTC)