The Mystery of the Strong Herbie

While the Smedleys are searching for Herbie in Legend, they bring along with them a picture of Herbie to show people. Makes sense, right? But let's take a closer look at this picture:



Compare that with this other picture of Herbie:



I think you'll agree that the Smedley's photo does not quite match reality. So what's happened? The casual viewer might dismiss this as a gag, a joke. But we POGheads know that everything means something, even if it doesn't. Two possibilities present themselves:


 * 1) The Smedleys can alter reality with their minds.
 * While some people may think this goes a bit far, supernatural powers abound in the Trilogy (Psychic Stella, the vortex, prevalence of English throughout spacetime), and I say it's no big leap to say the Smedleys are more than meets the eye. (They are twins, afterall!)


 * 2) The Smedleys carry a creepy, altered picture of Herbie with them.
 * Honestly, this one seems a but far fetched to me. If you're trying to find someone, would you bring along a picture that doesn't look like that person?  I think not.  To paraphrase Seth Gecko, the Smedleys may be stupid, but they're not fucking stupid.

So let's stick to the first possibility: the Smedleys can alter reality with their minds. But if the Smedleys have these powers, why don't they use them to help them find Herbie? Well, I never said they did it consciously. I think that they're unintentionally projecting their subconscious mental image of Herbie over the reality of the paper. (I'm confident that if we ever get a third Video, this power will be dealt with more fully.) Being in love with Herbie, they imagine him as a bit... let's say more than he really is.

But I noticed something about later appearances of this paper&mdash;it changes. Check out this other shot of Strong Herbie from later in Legend, and compare it to the original:



Notice that the mouth is now closed, and the hair is different. In fact, this is not even a picture of Herbie any longer! So what happened? Has the picture changed? Or has the Smedlys' mental image of Herbie changed? Think about this: At the diner, the Smedleys are completely consumed by their search for Herbie. (They don't even stay for the food they ordered!) But by the time of the second Strong "Herbie", they've been seduced by the lavish Hawaiian lifestyle. Epicurean indulgences-of-the-moment have replaced the search for Herbie in the forefront of their consciousness, and Herbie's image is beginning to blur in their memory. You'll no doubt recall that only seconds after the appearance of the second Strong Herbie, Sandy is completely distracted by some random guy walking down the street! Did she mistake him for Herbie, or did she just not care anymore?

Perhaps, then, the images they carry with them are metaphors for the mental images we all carry with us through life. They are helpful in relating to others, but they are not reality, and can sometimes vary greatly from what others (the viewers?) see. ("The map is not the territory.") When we lose sight of reality and place our faith in our memories and our "maps", we will be lead astray, represented by the Smedleys' hedonistic tour of Hawaii, never getting any closer to Herbie.

But wait. In true POG fashion, just when you think you've got it figured out, somebody throws a slammer and flips your pile of ideas over. Later, in their hotel room, the Smedleys see this (strong) man on TV:



Does he look familiar to you? Let's compare him with the second Strong Herbie.



Is this the same man? I'm not sure, but if it is, then perhaps the sisters' changing photographs were actually leading them in the right direction, albeit along a strange path! And since the sisters have no way of knowing about the Special Report before it happens, the changing picture can't have been their doing, so who did it? Could it be Stella, the psychic waitress? (She is the last one to see the "proper" photo.) Could it be Tor's mysterious and omniscient "Granddaugh Tor"? Could it be further trickery by the Man Giving Directions? Could the Excuser have switched the pictures as he quickly passed the Smedleys in the airport? Unfortunately, as of this writing, the answer to all of these questions is a tentative "yes".

Current status: UNSOLVED.