View source for Explain/The Moby Dick Saga

{{Return|Explain}}

This page intends to explain the 1851 novel ''[[Moby-Dick]]; or, The Whale'', its impact on [[the Wiki Camp 2]], and the creation and perpetuation of the term "[[Girl Ishmael]]".

== The book ==

'''''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale''''' (hereafter shortened as '''''Moby-Dick''''') is a novel published by American writer Herman Melville in 1851. The story is told from the perspective of Ishmael, a seasoned sailor. The book describes the voyage of Captain Ahab, of the whaling ship Pequod, in his quest for revenge against Moby Dick, a white sperm whale who bit Ahab's leg off in a previous voyage. While having mixed reviews at released, it has since become a very notable and famous book, and is considered one of the [[:wikipedia:Great American Novel|Great American Novels]].

===Relevant information===

The opening line of the book, "Call me Ishmael", has become a famous and iconic line in literature.

''Moby-Dick'' is a very masculine book at its core. There are few mentions of women at all - the majority of them come in the form of being attached to their husbands. The only two women that show up physically are Mrs. Hussey, a servant at a local inn, and Aunt Charity, a worker on the Pequod and sister of Captain Bildad - which by all means, she seems like a very lovely person from her description in the book<ref group="quote">"Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if SHE could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. [...] Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity--Aunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars." ''Moby-Dick,'' Chapter 20</ref>, but only shows up scantly. Other than that, the only use of feminine pronouns are used mainly for boats.

{{ambox|type=content|text = The following collapsible hides limited descriptions of content in ''Moby-Dick'' that by technicality breaks [[Rules|Rule 4]], but is culturally relevant to ''Moby-Dick'''s impact on the Wiki Camp 2. It has been put into a collapsible for this reason. Viewer discretion is advised.}}

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
'''In summary: Chapter 94 of ''Moby-Dick'' breaks Rule 4. The following collapsible tries to explain why in as little detail as possible.'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">Chapter 94 of Moby-Dick describes the process of breaking up by hand coalescing lumps in sperm oil, harvested from the body of a sperm whale killed by character Stubb and given to the Pequod. While not an inherently sexually related act, as sperm oil is harvested from the spermaceti organ in the skull of the whale, the chapter describes the act of processing the oil in a manner that has sexual undertones. Because of these undertones, the chapter was determined to break Rule 4.</div>
</div>

In addition to Rule 4, ''Moby-Dick'' also breaks Rule 1 by having some casual racism littered throughout the book, because this book was published 14 years before the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. No, I'm serious.<ref>Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1 of the Constitution of United States (1865)</ref>

== Genesis on the Wiki Camp 2 ==
It appears that ''Moby-Dick'' first appeared on the wiki on the [[Sealon Musk]] article. [[User:GopyXP]] wanted to make a joke about how the Tweet template was not restricted by a character limit, unlike actual Tweets, so ''Moby-Dick'' was chosen to serve as the quintessential incredibly long piece of text. However, templates appear to break after enough data is input, so the entirety of ''Moby-Dick'' had to be manually broken up into smaller segments for each template, which flooded [[Special:RecentChanges]] with many edits with large byte counts.<ref>https://twitter.com/WikiCamp2/status/1590043880572956672</ref> Afterwards, however, it appeared that the article would simply stop rendering templates after a while, which necessitated the creation of [[Sealon Musk Returns]].

== Edit War and the "Please do not paste Moby Dick" rule ==
: ''See also: [[Explain/Edit War]]''

In the [[Edit War]], an edit was made that pasted the entirety of ''Moby-Dick'' in part of their edit as "lorum ipsum"-like filler text, without reading any of the text within. After the edit was published, [[User:Misch13vous]] was quick to point out ''Moby-Dick'''s breaking of the rules. Because ''Moby-Dick'' was pasted without knowledge of its violation of the Rules, this created the "Please do not paste Moby Dick" rule.<ref group="quote">"One time, someone pasted all of Moby Dick, without reading the whole thing, and it turned out to contain a chapter that was disgusting and violated the Rules. Basically if you're going to dump a large amount of text onto the wiki, be prepared to be held responsible for all of its content." [[Rules]]</ref>

In the end, [[User:Satomi]] did not have to read Moby Dick. She decreed that, since the contestant that pasted Moby Dick had not read it, she didn't have to either. Even if she attempted to do so, the same edit caused the page to shake harder the more the user scrolled, making the end of the novel essentially unreadable.

== Girl Ishmael ==
{{mbox
| class = nutshell
| image = [[File:Walnut.png|30px|link=|alt=]]
| text = [[In a Nutshell|'''In a nutshell''']]: '''Girl Ishmael''' was a non-sequitur phrase combining Moby-Dick lacking any notable female characters and the joke of appending "girl" to the front of characters to indicate their gender. Later, [[User:Arllyhautegoth]] discovered there was coincidentally a Limbus Company character named and based on Ishmael from Moby-Dick, who happened to be female. She became a prominent character because of this coincidence.}}

=== The Girl prefix and "Girl 9150625" ===

Adding Girl as a prefix to nouns is a byproduct of the [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TertiarySexualCharacteristics Tertiary Sexual Characteristics trope], where character designers, assuming that viewers will automatically assume that every character is a guy unless specified otherwise, convey femininity in stereotypical design choices, such as side bows or pronounced eyelashes. Adding "Girl" as a prefix to nouns stems as a satire of this trope.

This trope had existed on the Wiki Camp prior (see [[Girl Niko]]) but relevant is the concept of [[Girl 9150625]]<ref>[[File:Girl915.png]]</ref> created by [[User:QWillow]]<ref>{{discord link|https://discord.com/channels/1011458414892814428/1011461393259704401/1029266920291184660}}</ref>, which brought the concept of adding Girl as a prefix into the cultural [[zeitgeist]]. Coincidentally, 055 was later [[9150625/Journal|revealed to be female]], completing the cycle of the joke.

=== Lesbian Moby-Dick and "Girl Ishmael" ===

In response to being threatened to read Moby-Dick in judging the Edit War, [[User:Satomi]] asked if Moby-Dick "[had] a cool girl in it".<ref>{{discord link|https://discord.com/channels/1011458414892814428/1011461527200600124/1045567425204207636}}</ref> Remember that Moby-Dick is a masculine book with two female characters in the entire book. In response to this quote, [[User:Misch13vous]], one of the few people commenting on ''Moby-Dick'' to have actually read it, started considering the concept of a female-oriented ''Moby-Dick''<ref>{{discord link|https://discord.com/channels/1011458414892814428/1011458415337418814/1047222691314270225}}</ref>.

On December 6th, as the concept of a female-oriented Moby-Dick was discussed in voice chat, [[User:BobTheTacocat]] threw out the quote permutation of "Call me Girl Ishmael," which started the joke of Girl Moby-Dick, in which Girl Ishmael tells the story of Captain Girl Ahab on the Girl Pequod seeing revenge against Girl Moby Dick (#girlbossing). The quote "Call me Girl Ishmael" was used as shorthand to denote the concept's ridiculousness.

The term "Girl Ishmael" can be seen on page [[Girl Ishmael 2.0]].

=== Limbus Company ===
'''''Limbus Company''''' is a turn-based RPG created by Project Moon, known for ''Lobotomy Corporation'' and ''Library of Ruina''. ''Limbus Company'' has 12 controllable characters (known as "Sinners") based off of the names and stories of famous literature. One of these characters is [[Ishmael]], a female sinner based off of the plight of the ''Moby-Dick'' character of the same name.<ref group="quote">"However, you mustn't forget: this sinner has survived an absurd voyage in a far and wide body of water. Her patience may run deep, but once you take a wrong turn with her, it will be a difficult task to regain her trust." ''Limbus Company'' official website</ref> She even says "call me Ishmael" in her character promo!

<youtube>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc9VZdlOfRc</youtube>

[[User:Arllyhautegoth]] brought this up to the Wiki Camp 2 Discord<ref>{{discord link|https://discord.com/channels/1011458414892814428/1011461527200600124/1049879219263504485}}</ref>, and the coincidence that a Girl Ishmael actually existed was not lost on us. She has since become a prominently mentioned character in The Wiki Camp 2 Discord.

While Ishmael from ''Limbus Company'' was discovered during the post-Challenge 3 lockdown (and because of that does not make many appearances on the wiki so far), Ishmael from ''Limbus Company'' can be seen on Wiki Camp 2 page [[Ishmael]], and is an official emote in the Wiki Camp 2 Discord server<ref>https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1054251559237730304.webp, emote :girl_ishmael: on The Wiki Camp 2 Discord</ref>. [[:File:DiaGirlIshmael.png]] is a reupload of emote :girl_Ishmael: for use in the [[Template:Dia|5b Dialogue box template]].

So that's where Girl Ishmael came from. She's pretty neat

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, ''Moby-Dick'' is a book 
==Quotes==
<references group="quote" />

==References==
* Melville, Herman (1851). ''[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm Moby-Dick; or, The Whale]'', sourced from Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 28 December 2022.
* https://limbuscompany.com/, Limbus Company official website. Retrieved 28 December 2022.
[[Category:Explain]]