Talk:549: Westley's a Dick

The Princess Bride wasn't "written" by William Goldman but originally by S. Morgenstern. William Goldman "abridged" the book (I've read it) changing NO WORD but leaving out big boring passages (shortening the book).

This is a bit too much story... --NeatNit (talk) 05:52, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Not really: if you don't know The Princess Bride story, but want to understand this comic, it is the right amount of information. Mark Hurd (talk) 11:39, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

You mean there are people who read XKCD and dont know the story of The Princess Bride?? But yeah, Westley has been a merciless murderer for the last few years, and they kind of gloss over it. 173.245.62.210 04:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

You committed one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is Never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well know, Never give too long an explanation of a movie! 108.162.216.32 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Reply to both the above comments: I have seen the movie, but I'm sure many xkcd readers have not. Also I could hardly remember any details from the movie, and certainly not the one about rolling down a cliff or the "as you wish" reply. And since it is important to know about the Dread Pirate and the prince as well as the Spaniard to understand the comic, it is almost impossible to explain less of the movie and still get all this info into the explanation. I would not even have know it was from that film based on the comic. --Kynde (talk) 13:12, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I presume he was just taking the opportunity to make a joke using dialogue from the film. I think your explanation is spot on, FWIW.Mattdevney (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I presume that fans have discussed the option that Westley was lying about the whole Dread Pirate Roberts story to cover up something he doesn't want Buttercup to worry about? I always thought the comment "I'd hardly be a dread pirate if I didn't." was kind of an admission, rather than a boast. Everything following it could be seen as an attempt to keep the secret. See the trope Keeping Secrets Sucks although, in this case, it obviously didn't end up in The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating LifeMattdevney (talk) 15:39, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Another thing to keep in mind is that he was help captive for several years ("Good night, Westley. I'll probably kill you in the morning."). The movie indicates that this went on for a while, but doesn't indicate when exactly the original DPR retired, from what I recall. Hence this could be a case of reading too much into a detail of the film—though done for humorous effect, of course. 108.162.237.193 10:41, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

As someone who has never seen the movie nor read the book, I can concur that there is FAR too much movie explanation here. I used to confuse it with Princess Diaries and had no interest in rectifying this omission as I dismised it as girly movie fluff, no hurry. It was only when an episode of The Goldbergs clarified it for me that I discovered the confusion - and that there's some My Name Is/father killing line - as I know Princess Diaries is far too recent to be mentioned in The Goldbergs. I stopped reading at the line that offers a movie synopsis "here", and felt I understood the comic well enough, and in fact there was already too much about the movie by this point. Since I skipped the entire sections titled for (presumably) character names from Princess Bride, they are clearly not required in order to understand the comic. Call me NiceGuy1 :) 108.162.218.166 04:09, 1 January 2016 (UTC)