[S.T.O.R.Y. 5/27/02] Things best left unsaid

[Chaos Priest]

http://www.egscomics.com/d/20020527.html

Mr. Verres may be good at convincing people the truth ain't out there, but he sure does a lousy job of dealing with teenagers. Really, he knows his son. Why in the world did he think it would be a good idea to mention that? Maybe he assumed that Tedd would think that as Grace isn't actually human there wasn't any chance of something like pregnancy if they had sex, and Mr. Verres was trying to specifically point out that such a thing was not the case but chose his words poorly. After that I can only assume his instincts as an endless barrel of exposition took over.

[Tarvok]

It happens. First, you're trying to explain something. But for some (like me and, I suspect, Mr. Verres) thinking and talking at the same time is very difficult. This means that, if our speech is too long, if we run out of immediately buffered prepared speech, yet we need the speech to continue, we begin to pipe thoughts directly to speech without intervening judgment. Some time can pass before we realize we went off topic some time ago, and don't even remember what our original point was.

Text is much easier. I get to read it before I click "send."

[The Old Hack]

Never underestimate the powers of an endless barrel of exposition. I find it rather curious that such a one would be in charge of concealing secrets of the world... but mysterious government agencies work in mysterious ways.

Text is much easier. I get to read it before I click "send."

Yes, and sometimes I even remember to do so.

[Darekun]

Mr. Verres may be good at convincing people the truth ain't out there, but he sure does a lousy job of dealing with teenagers. Really, he knows his son. Why in the world did he think it would be a good idea to mention that?

I often answer questions asked of me without worrying about what the asker's going to do with the information, or even what question they wanted the answer to. It might be an autistic thing. At any rate, I immediately recognized his response in this comic as a similar response.

And putting someone with that trait in charge of keeping secrets is just comedic irony

[Nightranger]

He he, my warped mind has conjured up an image of Mr. Verres lying on the floor shaking and generally in withdrawal symptoms from not being allowed to explain things to someone.

[nitpicking]

I'm in the mood for wild speculation.

I've already speculated that Mr. Verres' ability to cloud men's (women's, aliens') minds is magical in nature. Perhaps as a side-effect of his (immortal-granted?) power to have people believe his most ludicrous lies, he is sometimes compelled to tell people what he knows, truthfully, even when it isn't what he would otherwise do. Thus the "barrel of exposition", telling Tedd about Grace's fertility, and perhaps telling a couple of random aliens all about his son's emotional problems.

Might be related to the Reaper's "Oath of Truth", even.

[ChronosCat]

== Spring, 2006 ==

Chronos: Loophole! Heck, I bet Tedd would prefer "fooling around" with her in furry form to human (I know I would).

== Jan, 2009 ==

http://www.egscomics.com/d/20020527.html

Mr. Verres may be good at convincing people the truth ain't out there, but he sure does a lousy job of dealing with teenagers. Really, he knows his son. Why in the world did he think it would be a good idea to mention that? Maybe he assumed that Tedd would think that as Grace isn't actually human there wasn't any chance of something like pregnancy if they had sex, and Mr. Verres was trying to specifically point out that such a thing was not the case but chose his words poorly. After that I can only assume his instincts as an endless barrel of exposition took over.

Crystal: I figure he hadn't planned out what he was going to say about why Tedd shouldn't "fool around" with Grace. When he needed to come up with something, he said the first thing that came to mind, not thinking about what the "in human form" qualifier would mean to Tedd. After the cat was out of the bag, there was little point in denying it - though judging by his expressions, it didn't occur to him until the final panel.