Original artwork, not a still
We've been sitting here since Christmas, 1914, during which millions of men have died, and we've advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping.
— Blackadder · 1983
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The ant is already tiny; breathlessness and heavy shopping make its imagined progress smaller still. Blackadder's elaborate comic measurement is set against deaths on a scale it cannot make funny. That collision gives the sentence its force: the familiar insult machinery is now aimed at the war rather than at Baldrick.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for BlackadderShow the scene
Early in ‘Goodbyeee’, the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), the prospect of another attack brings Blackadder back to the war's lack of progress. He describes years of enormous losses against an almost imperceptible change in position. The asthmatic ant is his measure of how little has been gained. His efforts to avoid the coming advance grow more desperate as the episode moves towards the trench ladders.
Sources (2)
- Goodbyeee — episode subtitle transcriptBlackadder Goes Forth — Goodbyeee; quoted conversationReference checked
- Blackadder Goes Forth — WikiquoteGoodbyeeeReference checked
Context reviewed
