For those not familiar:
A frog was hopping along the shore of a river looking for a place to cross. He came upon a scorpion sitting on the shore. “Hello, friend frog,” said the scorpion. “It appears you are looking to cross the river. I too want to cross. Would you mind carrying me?”
The frog was taken aback. “Why, if I let you on my back to cross the river, you’d sting me and I would die. I don’t think I’ll do that.”
The scorpion immediately replied, “There is no logic to your concern. If I sting you and you die, I will surely die as well, since I can’t swim. I wouldn’t need a ride if I could swim.”
The frog thought a moment and then said, “Your logic makes sense. Why would you kill me if it would result in your death? Come along and climb on my back and we’ll cross this river.”
The scorpion climbed on the frog’s back and off they went to cross the river.
About halfway across the river, the scorpion raised its tail and stung the frog. The frog was both astounded and disconsolate. “Why did you sting me? Now I will die and you will surely drown and die also.”
The scorpion replied, “I can’t help it. It’s who I am. It’s in my nature.”
I heard this parable for the first time in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, believe it or not.
It was during Fast Forward, one of the less popular later seasons of the 2003 show. They get blown a hundred years into the future, and have to fight the evil clones that their nemesis-of-the-season keeps throwing at them (it’s superhero sci-fi, just go with it).
Leonardo’s clone–who, much like Frankenstein’s monster, never got a real canon name–was captured and the guys tried to take the chance to show him more mercy than he’d shown them. Leo believes that since the clone is, essentially, mostly him, he is capable of change. He delivers the parable, and then asks, ‘Are you a scorpion? Or a turtle?’ Then, like an absolute madlad, deliberately gives him a chance to betray them as a test of his ability to grow. He fails… mostly. There’s a bit at the end that gives it some ambiguity, leaves the question open-ended.
Honestly, one of my all-time favorite moments in turtles, bar none. It’s rare to see such deep questions about nature and nurture asked and explored in a kid’s cartoon.
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Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
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The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
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A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
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Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
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A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
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That story is ridiculous.
Scorpions don’t have lungs so they can’t talk.
It was a telepathic scorpion
You’re overthinking it, the scorpion likely had psychic abilities.
and laser eyes. it just didn’t use them because it wasn’t central to the plot
also scorpions can both swim, fly, and phase through matter and choose which stellar object’s gravity applies to them. i saw it in a dream so it is true
Oh I get it now. Scorpion venom must be hallucinatory to frogs and what really happened is the scorpion stung the frog before the story even started, causing the frog to hallucinate the entire story as the scorpion was eating it.
And OP is a reincarnation of the frog.
Whew was worried for a second that someone was making up lies on the internet, which would open quite the Pandora’s box, so I’m glad it hasn’t happened yet.
That story is ridiculous.
All classic stories are, which makes them great IMO.
All scorpions study morse code and ASL
Very progressive of them
Where did you get this educated in the ways of wisdom ?
I dissect scorpions as a hobby to make sure they haven’t developed lungs yet.
I know one that dresses like a ninja and can breathe fire, tho
Who? Where? Get them over here, right now.
It’s most likely just a flame thrower hidden in its clothing. As mentioned earlier, scorpions don’t have lungs. Not air lungs and not fire lungs either.
Also, I’m fairly certain both lack higher reasoning skills to come up with these logical assessments.
Yeah, has a scorpion ever passed a Turing test!?
The most instructions I’ve ever seen a scorpion follow are “Fight!” and “Finish him!” And I bet that’s what the scorpion wanted to do anyways, so I don’t think we should count that.
They can also survive underwater for a while, from what I remember
My preferred version of the “nature of the Scorpion” tale is a little different. It doesn’t really fit here, but I like to post it whenever this story comes up, because I’m autistic, and it brings me joy to share the story.
One day, a Monk was walking alongside a stream when he saw a Scorpion struggling in the water. Knowing that scorpions cannot swim, he knelt down to scoop it out of the water.
Just before setting it down, the Scorpion turned and stung his hand. The Monk withdrew his hand in pain and the Scorpion fell back into the stream.
When the Monk realized this, he scooped his hands down again to save the Scorpion. And just as before, the Scorpion stung his hand and fell back into the stream. This scene repeated itself several times.
A little boy who was playing near the stream asked the Monk, “Excuse me. Why do you keep trying to save the Scorpion — Don’t you know it will just sting you every time you try to rescue it?”
The Monk, picking up a leaf and rescuing the scorpion successfully this time, replied, “Dear boy, just as it is a Scorpion’s nature to sting, and Water’s nature to make things wet, so it is my nature — a Monk’s nature — to save.”
That’s not the exact version I was told originally, but close enough.
I like your version much better.
Instead of just focusing on the negative, it not only includes an example of a positive state of being but highlights the resilience of that good nature even when faced with the negative/harmful nature of another.
That’s what I like about it, too :)
How do we stop the Monk from letting those scorpions loose in the village? He is undermining the village, and must be stopped!
no he’s not scorpions are crumchy and delicioso. a little honey, your favorite bbq rub and a little forgetting that they are alive and click click yum.
imagine you did not have chippos but you needed chippos. nature will provide in the form of scorpions. people think there are only 5 flavors but textures are flavors too. if you don’t get your crunchy often enough you will be sad and unsatisfied. cook for the whole damn palate.
It’d be funny if what ended up killing the scorpion was repeated impact trauma of its body slapping against the water
Or the little boy throws the scorpion back into the water and says: “I’m a little boy and I don’t like scorpions”
TLDR I'm a little boy! I wonder if scorpions can fly!
so, there’s a kid who grew up in my town. i can talk about him now because multiple kids from my town have grown up to play ball for the MLB. this kid, when he was growing up he came out front one day about four years old. we were just hanging out not thinking and suddenly he just chucks his older brother’s hamster as hard as can be across the street. kid grew up to pitch. at 4 he could throw better than i can now at [forty-mumble]. we gathered around him like “woah, what the fuck are you thinking dude” and he very innocently said “i wanted to see if it could fly”. So like, there were a ton of kids on the block [we had enough for two whole teams and that’s even if someone was staying in sick] and from that moment on, we all kept an eye on this 4 year old, from the 5-year-olds on up because we all knew how serious what just happened was. Only person to follow the hamster was his brother whose former pet had recently flown a few houses down the road and everyone else was focused on “is this 4-year-old showing early signs of being a serial killer or what the fuck why would he throw a hamster”. Like, that kind of focus and attention from everyone, and specifically in his family it may have been the cause of his not getting involved in gangs and his older brothers doing so because of disproportionate parental attention anyways i’m getting real armchair psychologist now but aside from his oldest brother being like, wholehearted fascist they’re all doing alright so i warned you with a tldr
but i gotta say it’s real fun being in neighborhood games and demoralizing them when your pitcher is a 4-year-old and you’re striking them out.
I feel like I just sat down next to you in a seedy bar. Thanks for sharing
it’s been a year and i’m gonna be decompressing for a while. I think i’ll be making liberal use of the spoiler tags if y’all want some fun probably traumatic memories.
The rare instance of irony being conflated with humor.
It’s easy to want to help. It’s difficult to take stings.
I like this, thank you
What a twist. The guy who owns a boat knows how to swim. I do enjoy the abject stupidity of the elf’s hatred for humans in this comic.
elf racism seems to be a theme in any movie/show/ card game they have been in.
If you, an obviously barbaric and backwards race, don’t want to be hated by us elves (models of perfection), why are you so comically inferior? That doesn’t make sense.
yah, it always felt weird. tho to be fair real racism works similarly irl
Fantasy racism is tight!
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
I don’t know.
I always though it was “common knowledge” that most sailors in the medieval times didn’t know how to swim. It might be an urban legend though.
I’ve heard that it was based on a reasoning that if you end up in the water at sea, you’re going to drown anyway, so it’s better to not be able to swim and just get it over with.
However, knowing that most sailors came from coastal communities, it’s probably pretty unlikely that learning to swim wasn’t a natural part of growing up. Kids have always enjoyed playing in the water.
Rowing>>>swimming
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How is an elf like a scorpion?
If you’ve ever played dwarf fortress you will know.
This one has 6 “legs”.
You never got hammerstung by a river elf? You must’ve lived a sheltered life.
Is there lore that I’m unfamiliar with that elves can’t swim?
No, most elves can swim just fine. But not that elf.
I hate how relevant this appears to be to daily life.
Attempted murder and a suicide.
The elf couldn’t swim? Sounds like a skill issue
They believed their own hype and thought they could walk on water.
It is my nature
