Knowing is 49.9% of the battle

Full disclosure: After plans fell apart, I saw the second Transformers movie by myself on a Tuesday night while my family slept is their beds with blankets and flat frog stuffed animals. It stunk out loud on ice in a hot tub.

Also, my wife is seeing (500) Days of Summer by herself AS WE SPEAK! Or at least AS I WRITE THIS! It is our way seeing as we are scary loners.




The G’s been badgering me about my intentions on seeing the GI Joe movie. There are none. First, it’s got a Wayans in it. Second, Cobra Commander’s mask is Tampa Bay Buccaneers-throwback-jersey dumb.

But the real reason is this line muttered by Stormshadow toward Snake Eyes: "You took a vow of silence... Now you will die without a word." I don’t know if that verse appears in the film but I do know it appears in the novelization of the movie. And I am aware of this because I tracked the book down at a Borders and read almost the whole damnable thing. The chore came about after the G alerted me to this io9 article that indicated that not only has Snake-Eyes taken a vow of silence but he also sends a text message, for some reason.

Who cares asks 50.1% of the population Well it matters to the other half of this country because whatever floating wisp of teeth and cat dander that wrote this twaddle of a script erased the coolest thing about Snake Eyes in its entirety. Snake Eyes doesn’t speak because he chooses not to. Snake-Eyes can’t talk because he’s bad-ass.

A quick IM poll of knowledgeable individuals responded to the question “why doesn’t Snake Eyes speak?”


DG: he's mute
his face is disfigured or something

JL: A helicopter crash destroyed his voice box

TL: As far as I can recall something bad happened to his face, which either was so physically traumatic that he can't speak any more or so emotionally traumatic that he's just too sad to talk

CY: he hurt his throat somehow - I think in an explosion

JW: i prefer to think his voice sounded like Bobcat Goldthwaite, so he just went silent as to not spoil his image
me: thats probably right


It turns out no really knows why he doesn’t talk. Ret-cons have rendered even the Wiki entry incomprehensible. But he sure the hell didn’t opt to be mute for some lame ass vow of silence. Snake Eyes was doing something really awesome, probably saving a really hot girl or possibly a dog from a helicopter explosion. Vows of silence are unacceptable.


But this does raise another question. Actually several. If Snake Eyes has taken a vow of silence how is he then permitted to send a text message?


Again, the internet is incredibly unhelpful in this regard.

• Can you text during a vow of silence? Maybe.
• Can you blog during a vow of silence? Unfortunately, yes. And people have for some reason.
• Can you tweet during a vow of silence? Unclear.
• Can you sext during a vow of silence? Unclear.

I hoped this cleared some things up for ya.