Main Page
Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3280 xkcd comics, and only 41 (1.3%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!
Latest comic
| The Princess and the Pea |
 Title text: Once we've fully explored this space, we can start varying the number of princesses. |
Explanation
This comic references the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Princess and the Pea, in which a princess' claim to royal blood is tested by having her sleep atop twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds, with a single pea hidden underneath them. If she feels the pea through the stack of bedding, this somehow proves that she is a true princess, and she will be permitted to marry the prince. Randall imagines extending the story into a franchise, adding many sequels and reimaginings by varying the number of mattresses and peas. Randall has previously shown his dislike of movie sequels.
The scenarios depicted range from a high mattress:pea ratio on the left to a high pea:mattress ratio on the right. In the middle, the princess (here portrayed by a version of Jill in a pink princess dress) sleeps on a single mattress concealing a single pea. This might be considered a slightly more reasonable test of sensitivity than that in the original story. On the far left there is a mountain of mattresses with a single pea concealed amongst them, which would not be a particularly effective test since there's no guarantee that the princess is sleeping anywhere near the pea, never mind on top of it. On the far right, she has a single mattress on a sea of peas, which would, again, be fairly useless, since the peas would be clearly visible. This would defeat the purpose of the test as the princess would know the peas are there and could just claim to have felt them even if she didn't. In the second right image, the princess has a normal bed with a single mattress, and has a bowl of peas, which she is eating. Since the pea(s) in the story are dried peas, this suggests that, with enough peas, the princess would cook them, and would therefore not continue feeling them under her, subverting the test entirely. Not only that, but obtaining the sea of mattresses and peas shown on the furthest ends of the graph would be a very difficult task (not to mention clearing up them), and would be rather a lot of effort for a - fairly useless anyway - task.
The title text takes things a step further by having different numbers of princesses sleeping in the bed (whether together or separately is unclear). This could provide a storyline where the real princess is discovered from a set of false princesses. Alternatively, it could result in multiple real princesses being discovered, leading to a polygamous marriage for the prince, which would be unusual for a European fairy tale.[citation needed] Or the princesses might get along famously and decide to do without the prince.
Transcript
- [At the top of the panel is a gradated line with arrows at both ends indicating that it extends indefinitely. The middle gradation is a thick line labelled:] 1:1 mattress-to-pea ratio
- [Label at the left of the line:] Many mattresses per pea
- [Label at the right of the line:] Many peas per mattress
- [Below the line are five pictures, showing various images, each with a Jill-like princess in a pink dress. From left to right, they are:
- The princess on top of a mountain of mattresses with an arrow indicating a green pea being inserted somewhere in the distance
- The princess waving at the top of a pile of several dozen mattresses on a bed with an arrow indicating a pea being inserted at the bottom of the pile
- The princess on one bed with an arrow indicating a pea being inserted under the mattress
- The princess eating a bowl of peas on the same bed:
- The princess on a bed on a mountain of peas which are spilling on to the top of the mattress.]
- [The second image, with the princess sitting on top of many mattresses with one pea is circled.]
- [Label pointing to the second image:] Existing Hans Christian Andersen story
- [Arrows point to the other four images, with the following label:] Potential sequels/reboots
View comic discussionNew here?
You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.
- If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.
- Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.
- You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.
- The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!
Rules
Don't be a jerk!
There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.
If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.
Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.
If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.