AAaA Syr’Nj 1
I was mildly surprised at the number of readers who didn’t get this, which made me realize other pun-names were likewise going past them. “Frigg?” “Payet Best?” Every other member of the ‘Nj family, and every other wood elf? Ah, well, you never know what’s gonna land, or with whom.
One reported that they took Byron’s early line “I know it rhymes with ‘orange'” a little too seriously. (Man, it still cracks me up that at one point our #1 power couple was on a “WHAT was your name again?” basis.)
Speaking of Byron, he and Gravedust are likely the best audience for this revelation of Syr’Nj’s, because they’d be gentle and understanding about it. Everyone else would tease her except E-Merl, who’d be convinced that she was actually playing some kind of joke on him.
Fascinating.
Dark humour is like food. Not everyone gets it.
But yeah. Same goes with pretty much all jokes, gags or jests. You can be sure there is always at least one who does not get it for variety of reasons. Many a time language.
And we are not even talking about who all think the jokes are funny… (first wrote “who all think they are funny”, but even that could be taken as “they think themselves funny” instead of “they” referring to the before-mentioned jokes…) XD
I’ve read the whole GA a few times and never realized Payet Best was a reference.
I was puzzling through possibilities just now in a draft comment, then I realized it would make some sense if there was a link to a classic rock performer or someone in the name, then I realized, oh, wasn’t Pete Best someone? And yeah, with a little prompting that makes sense (possibly it had been at the back of my mind nudging me in the right direction). But he’s one of a long list of people who don’t come to mind at all readily for me.
Ditto.
Is that really it? I’m surprised that it is a music reference instead of wordplay like all the others, but I can’t tell what else it could be.
We referenced Pete Best for two reasons. One, his name was beautifully appropriate for someone who literally advertised himself to be the best at everything, and two, he was known as “the fifth Beatle,” the one who could have joined the group and achieved the fame of Ringo Starr, but it just didn’t work out that way. That latter joke didn’t make as much sense as we thought it would: our early plans did not include Best joining the group in the last few chapters. But it still works as a general statement about expectation and prediction versus reality.
I didn’t get basically all the references. I am checking this comment section to see which pun names I’ve missed. I understood that the elf names are puns, but had read this comic through several times before I was able to figure out the pun on this page. Payet Best I absolutely didn’t get. Frigg is just…frigg I imagine. These puns are very well hidden I think.
Yeah…I get Payet (Pete) Best–that’s a pretty good one.
Frigg…I just don’t get.
Frigg is the only goddess of which I’m aware whose name is a pun on an angry exclamation. Even though it’s a gentler word than Frigg herself would normally use, that combination (divinity and censorable dialogue) was way too much for us to resist.
Oh wow … I thought it was just her player’s attempt to get around the word filter when picking a name. Same for Best — I thought it was “only” a play on words (Paid best, pay it best, play it best … something), not also an allegory to some other name.