71 Comments on “Athena Offers Her Take on the Greatest Existential Question of Our Time”

1. Cake or Death!

2. Yes, yes. But which will you have?

3. Death…no, wait! Cake. I meant cake!

4. The cake is a lie, John. The cake is a lie.

5. Wil FTW in 4 comments or less!

   We’re out of cake anyway, you can have a sandwich.

6. We only had three bits and didn’t expect such a rush!

7. ME want CAKE……

   Wil ??? #4

   you just had TT now you want CAKE….

8. No, thanks, you don’t need to cut it for me, Athena. I’ll take the whole thing.

9. That’s one big knife Athena has in her hand. What kind of cake is it?

   How can I decide without knowing that important fact?

10. “You call that a knife? That’s not a knife? This is a knife!” “No, it’s a piece of cake.”

11. I don’t get it. I just want the cake.

12. so wait, then the only option left is ‘or death?’

    well i’ll just have the chicken then thanks.

13. Wil @ 4: The cake isn’t a lie. The cake is a horrible, horrible truth.

    And yes, if the cake’s gone, I think I’ll have the chicken.

14. Cake, please.

15. Ha! Someone’s been watching the Izzard.

    That image made me laugh. Good way to start the morning.

16. Is there any pie left?

17. The cake is a fallacy.

    And I’ll have the chicken as well, please.

18. John, you of course traded Athena a fork for that knife right after this picture was taken, right?

    Right?!?!

19. Obviously, with the knife extended out towards the camera and the cake pulled back towards her, she’s saying “My cake, your death.” Best answer I’ve seen yet!

20. Is she trying to eat her cake and have it too?

21. Shouldn’t it be the other way ’round?

22. She’s decided it’s better to eat her cake than have it.

23. She’s decided to eat her cake instead of have it.

24. Agh, sorry about the double post; got an error the first time and thought it didn’t go through. >_<

25. Huh. Have to admit I’m rather baffled. My guess:

    “Q: Will John Scalzi’s daughter stab you in the face if you try to take her cake? Mmm. Come to think of it, that cake looks…”

    “A: OH GOD MY FACE MY BEAUTIFUL FACE”

    Am I close?

26. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Unless of course, it’s eggless cake, in which case the question would be, Is it any good?

27. Funny, I never noticed before how much your daughter resembles a Tarot card.

28. “Good thing we’re Church of England.”

29. Wil@4

    “There was even going to be a party for you, a big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend, the companion cube. Of course, he couldn’t come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn’t come either because you don’t have any other friends because of how unlikeable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file. ‘Unlikeable. Liked by no one. A bitter unlikeable loner whose passing shall not be mourned. SHALL NOT BE MOURNED.’ That’s exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says that you were adopted. So that’s very funny too.”

30. I can haz cheezecake…

31. Looks to me like she’s finally had enough of your crumb-snatching ways, Daddy-O…

32. Cake, please!

    John @24:
    Here’s the Lego version…
    

33. It’s actually a post-modernist take on Marie Antoinette, isn’t it? Historical photographic still life, translated into modern commentary on the enduring class struggle between rich and poor.

    The utilization of repetitive color — the deep royal blue — set against the neutral beige and earth tone are indicative of the deep delineation between the entitled classes and the common folk. That Athena sits in such a way as to block the door, itself marked by the same rich blue, suggests there is only one way out — and that only the wealthy have access to the exit.

    The placement of the delicious and rich looking cake on a black plate further symbolizes the fate of of Marie Antoinette for being so careless and offhand about the poor — for her, death was indirectly related to the cake just as it was directly related to the guillotine (the knife).

    There’s so much texture here, so many levels..it’s a brilliant composition, Scalzi, and Athena, with her resolute, yet innocent face, is the perfect stand-in for both the spectre of fate and the incomprehensible Marie.

    I do think that it might be better served, however, if Athena were looking askance, perhaps to her left, as if contemplating the unseen but inevitable future, with the knife pointed along the tracking of her gaze…just a little more left…little more…

    *steals cake — runs*

34. Presenting false dichotomies simply shows she is a helpless product of our crappy school system. She has solid career prospects in talk show punditry though.

35. The picture looks like she’s cut her hand off and replaced it with a plate, to more efficiently carry cake around.

36. I can’t believe no one’s seen it yet. Some came close.

    It’s obvious.

    She’s going to halve her cake, then eat it too. (Probably both halves.)

37. “I’ll have the chicken.”

38. Wil@#4:

    With Athena armed like that, do you think we’d have to assume the party escort submission position, and wait for escort to go get the cake?

39. Huey @20: Clearly, you haven’t been watching enough Doctor Who. If you were keeping up, you’d have seen The Doctor explain that anyone can have their cake, then eat it. The real trick is to eat your cake and still have it afterward.

    Well, you know, to still have it in cake-form.

40. @Kate Baker: “Would you like a white wine with that?”

41. Cake, please.

42. Could it be the re-make of Lunch Money?

43. Ooh, Lunch Money!

44. Thank you for flying Church of England Cake or Death.

45. “….oh, that’s right; I had the lasagna.”

46. Heh. Cake. The day after dental work.

47. Dammit, it’s like an earworm for comedy. Now I have to go and watch Dress to Kill. If I’m lucky that will appease the worms.

    I suppose it just serves me right.

48. Annalee @ 39: actually, if you use a TARDIS to power a paradox machine, I’ll bet you could eat your cake and have it in cake form afterwards. Okay, so that’s probably bad for the universe in some cosmic way, but what has the universe done for you lately? It’s probably making fun of you right now with that incessant padapa-pum, padapa-pum that it does just to irritate you.

49. So, if the cake is a lie, then I guess the only choice left is:

    ..or death?

50. Oh, thanks very much. It’s very nice!

51. IT does not look like chocolate cake. Why bother?

52. Cake, please!

53. The cake will never threaten to stab you, and in fact cannot speak. Athena, on the other hand….

54. Hmmmm…cake looks a little dry. Don’t we get milk with that as well?

55. Remember, he who holds the knife, cuts the cake!

56. This reminds me of the Onionhead Monster comic:

    Do I Feel Like Evil….Or Pie?

57. What, you mean my choice is *or death*?

58. I refuse to live in a world where pie is not an option!

    Death!

59. Thanks to you, I realized Eddie Izzard is on tour. Thanks to the Husband of Wonderfulness (i.e., MINE) I now have tickets to go see him in D.C.

    I am filled with glee.

    Did she get the cake from the Death Star Canteen?

60. This seems like a trick question. How do I know that the cake isn’t laced with arsenic?

    Alternatively, we have not established whose death we are bargaining for in this arrangement.

61. Athena really looks like Kristi in this pic. Your genes must be pretty feeble.

62. Come on people. This is Scalzi’s daughter. I can’t believe no one has gotten the obvious Shakespear reference…

    “Is this a Kitchen Dagger I see before me?”

63. Chicken, please!

64. Don’t try to eat the cake. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.

65. Who needs teeth coated in corn syrup with a hunk of cake like that?

    Remember to floss!

66. Looks like Athena can have her cake and eat it too.

67. This would have been a harder one if you hadn’t so recently squee’d about yer Izzard tix, ya know. Context is everything.

    Well, as a writer, you probably know that. So never mind.

    But I’m going to post this anyway. Can’t force myself to take the “or silence” option. The posting is just too tasty.

68. “I divide AND I choose!”

69. Shouldn’t it be the other way round?

    Cake or death… Now in Hebrew!

    This seems like a trick question. How do I know that the cake isn’t laced with arsenic?

    Um, sorry, but the question isn’t “cake XOR death.”

    And thanks to comment #4, I finally, viscerally understand why Wil Wheaton is awesome.

70. Thank you for flying Church of England, Cake or Death?

71. Cake with the plate lol