So what's in the Allagan Tomestones of Comedy?

The first live letter of a patch usually isn't very juicy, and today's wasn't really an exception even if it was pretty good as far as those letters go, but I feel like everyone perked up at the Allagan Tomestones of Comedy, just because it brings up the notion that Allag had comedies! However, the biggest nerds in the community already knew that, so I thought I'd make a thread both underlining that evidence, and then just lettign us speculate on what exactly Allagan comedy would've looked like.

Specifically, the one instance is from an Azys Lla fish description for the Ceti, a larger version of the Oliphant's Trunk fish:

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Modern naturalist circles were positively abuzz following the discovery of an Allagan tomestone which contained an article on an oliphant's trunk with a maw so sensitive, that it was believed the wavekin could detect activity in the very heavens. Further study of the work however led to the conclusion that the piece was satire.

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This actually brings my thought of what might be in the Allagan Tomestones of Comedy: jokes and satire that have aged so badly that we have no context for why they were funny! You might be familiar with the Sumerian Dog Joke that's recently cropped up on the internet, which roughly translates to "a dog walks into a bar and says 'I can't see anything in here, I'll open this one'." Nobody has any idea what this joke means, because all context has been lost; we don't even know if it's a pun or some kind of lost cultural reference. I think that sort of thing's what's in the tomestones.

But that brings on the follow-up question: what do people think Allagan humor would be in the first place?

And personally, my guess: extremely mean-spirited! Our other clue for 'what Allagans find funny' after all is that one guy in Amon's memories cracking up at turning a man into a minotaur. That doesn't sound like a very kind sense of humor, but it's in keeping with Allagan culture actually seeming very cruel and supremacist, conquering places merely because they're there and cruelly experimenting on the people they defeat. Yeah, that civilization finding bullying absolutely hilarious tracks pretty well for me.

But I'm only one person looking at a VERY niche subject from one angle!

I don't know. That memory is/was of a member of the upper crust and it was late in their reign. Though we do have a book with teeth that has a type of humor that sort of does align with said example. Then there's the various nodes on Azys La and other places we find Allagan ruins where there's a myriad of "Oh hey, thanks for signing that waiver cause there is a higher chance than you think you might die. Also if you do die thanks for your service to the Empire." warnings they give us at times.

Allagan Tomestones of Comedy could also be political humour making fun of the royal family or ruling class or somesuch. We have records of subversive elements in Allagan society and stuff like that could have potentially survived within encrypted tomestones after the fall of the Empire.

Or these tomestones could simply contain copies of non tragic plays.

Personally I think the closest equivelant modern Hydaelyn has to the Allagan Empire is Garlemald, and we know under 'Solus' arts and culture flourished in the Garlean Empire such as live theatre, and as both empires were founded by Emet, I'm liable to presume that ancient Allag probably had something similar.

Although what we saw of Emet pre-Sundering was his form of humour was dry and sarcastic in the extreme, so it would make sense he probably even thousands of years later encouraged indulgement in the production and promotion of satirical works, especially satire about key authority figures, including that aimed at himself (or rather the identity of what body he was inhabiting at the time, like Solus). Accordingly, tomestones cheaply dissemenating such works of satire to the masses of the Allag make perfect sense.

Of course the fact that these new tomestones were announced on none other than April Fools Day could not have been a coincidence either. ;)

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

Or these tomestones could simply contain copies of non tragic plays.

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I think this one is the more likely, especially if you look back at the previous tomestones we've gotten. The contemporary use of the word 'Comedy' evolved out of the classical (Greco-Roman) use of the word, but there are differences. Comedies are plays which have a happy ending, and the subject is usually of lower birth or character and manages to reverse that fortune, in contrast with Tragedies which outline a fall from grace. There are also Tragicomedies, which are inconsistently defined but attempt to break the rules separating the two play structures. If 6.5 introduces Allagan Tomestones of Tragedy, then you'll have your answer.

My guess is that its the odd knock knock joke, and a whole bunch of "Yo emperor"-style jokes. For instance, "Yo emperor's hair is so bad that his stylist died of shame before he could be put to death." And if the jokes didnt make the emperor laugh, the person telling them got put to death.

Like Poetics and other such similar tomestones, Tomestones of Comedy are a reference to ancient Greek cultural writings and plays.

Without seeing what's contained in any of the tomestones, we can only guess, but it's most likely that they contain Allagan stage plays revolving around satire, generally with a happy ending.

What that entails exactly for Allagans probably depends on what era the tomestones come from. Do we even have a definitive era that the tomestones come from? Are all Allagan tomestones pre-Amon or Post-Amon?

In Ancient Greece they had what's described as Old, Middle, and New Comedy. Generally said to be different eras and writers of comedy. These tomestones probably don't have one definitive style of comedy. The Allagan Empire spanned quite a while, so it's likely that they also had a wide array of what was found humorous and it differed amongst social strata as well.

I'd hazard a guess at it being writings or plays portraying enemies of the empire in a negative light and the empire or a representative/hero of the empire in a positive one with success over the enemy. Maybe some portrayals of dragons as being less intelligent than they are. Maybe some stories about traitors doing lewd and ridiculous things to highlight that they are in all ways depraved while the empire is upright. Perhaps plays about political factions within the empire itself.

Like as not, the game world is just a reflection of ours, and comedy takes on all forms in our world. The rich and powerful in our world do all sorts of depraved activities while finding humor in things common folk do not, in spite of being in the same nation.

All we can really say is that these are probably the most diverse tomestones we'll get.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Like Poetics and other such similar tomestones, Tomestones of Comedy are a reference to ancient Greek cultural writings and plays.

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The Japanese name is 神曲, which refers to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.

(It also takes on the meaning of "an absolute banger of a song" online... and now I can't help thinking about Allagan earworms.)

I mean, given that Amon's researchers finds the idea of mutating someone else's head into an animal and watching them cry and bray in agony by trying to enunciate words hilarious, I don't know if Allagan comedy would tickle the fancy of someone in the present.

I am inclined to believe the names are meant in a Greek/Possibly Shakespeare way. That is to say, Tragedies really just mean a lotta people die, whereas comedy just means a wedding.

It actually brings me back to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Spoilers for a 30 year old movie and 40 year old book, but the main conflict arises from the discovery of the (fictional) second part of Aristotle's Poetics: Comedy. The Poetics was a book ABOUT writing, basically it was literary theory from way back in 330 BCE.

As mentioned by Lyth, the difference between "Comedy" and "Tragedy" wasn't so much "one is funny" and "one is sad", classically they were just "this one has a happy ending" and "this one has a sad ending" (note: this is also why Dante's poem is named the Divine Comedy, it doesn't have a sad ending, and Dante never called it that himself, but it was later named such because it has a happy ending. Hell, originally it was just named "Commedia" until Bocaccio added the "Divine" part late in the 15th century! And it was solely named "Comedy" because it wasn't a tragedy! /rant)

So basically, my interpretation is that the tomestones aren't compilations of jokes: but instead treatises into what makes an Allagan literary work a comedy.