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Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.

— President Merkin Muffley  ·  Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Painterly row of blue-and-white toy soldiers standing on a dark shelf.
Original artwork
Behind the line May contain spoilers.

Our reading

An editorial interpretation.

The speaker scolds men who are brawling by appealing to the place itself, as though a room devoted to planning war ought to be a model of order. The joke lies in the contradiction: fighting is forbidden precisely where organised conflict is the business of the day.

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