John Dies At The End - Riddle @JohnPearapple

JohnPearapple Since over the years people keep bringing up the differences between the movie and the book in regards to this riddle, here is the exact way it's presented in the book:

Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming
you do not go utterly mad in the attempt. If you already happen to know the awful secret
behind the universe, feel free to skip ahead.
Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter
day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you
should worry, because you’re the one who shot him.
He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo
of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs, you know the type. And you’re
chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s
about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.

On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray
of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump
the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store,
explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk
out with a brand new handle for your ax.

The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the next spring when, on one
rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a
bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little
effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow,
however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right
in the middle of the blade.

Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you
a brand new head for your ax. As soon as you get home with your newly-headed ax, though,
you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded last year. He’s also got a new head,
stitched on with what looks like plastic weed trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life.

You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that slayed me!”

Is he right?

I do not own John Dies at The End, nor do I wish to claim so.
But I wish I did. It's a damn awesome movie.
And you should buy it. It deserves your money, people.

updated 11 years ago

John Dies At The End - Riddle

JohnPearapple 2013-04-19 | Since over the years people keep bringing up the differences between the movie and the book in regards to this riddle, here is the exact way it's presented in the book:

Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming
you do not go utterly mad in the attempt. If you already happen to know the awful secret
behind the universe, feel free to skip ahead.
Let’s say you have an ax. Just a cheap one, from Home Depot. On one bitter winter
day, you use said ax to behead a man. Don’t worry, the man was already dead. Or maybe you
should worry, because you’re the one who shot him.
He had been a big, twitchy guy with veiny skin stretched over swollen biceps, a tattoo
of a swastika on his tongue. Teeth filed into razor-sharp fangs, you know the type. And you’re
chopping off his head because, even with eight bullet holes in him, you’re pretty sure he’s
about to spring back to his feet and eat the look of terror right off your face.

On the follow-through of the last swing, though, the handle of the ax snaps in a spray
of splinters. You now have a broken ax. So, after a long night of looking for a place to dump
the man and his head, you take a trip into town with your ax. You go to the hardware store,
explaining away the dark reddish stains on the broken handle as barbecue sauce. You walk
out with a brand new handle for your ax.

The repaired ax sits undisturbed in your garage until the next spring when, on one
rainy morning, you find in your kitchen a creature that appears to be a foot-long slug with a
bulging egg sac on its tail. Its jaws bite one of your forks in half with what seems like very little
effort. You grab your trusty ax and chop the thing into several pieces. On the last blow,
however, the ax strikes a metal leg of the overturned kitchen table and chips out a notch right
in the middle of the blade.

Of course, a chipped head means yet another trip to the hardware store. They sell you
a brand new head for your ax. As soon as you get home with your newly-headed ax, though,
you meet the reanimated body of the guy you beheaded last year. He’s also got a new head,
stitched on with what looks like plastic weed trimmer line, and it’s wearing that unique expression of “you’re the man who killed me last winter” resentment that one so rarely encounters in everyday life.

You brandish your ax. The guy takes a long look at the weapon with his squishy, rotting eyes and in a gargly voice he screams, “That’s the same ax that slayed me!”

Is he right?

I do not own John Dies at The End, nor do I wish to claim so.
But I wish I did. It's a damn awesome movie.
And you should buy it. It deserves your money, people.

an honest opinion

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