WTF does that even mean?

[poshu]

In the Endless Waltz movie... and in the manga, Dorothy Catalonia is quoted speaking to the general public [while watching a large TV screen of 'Miss Relena' speaking].... "You are not the dogs that wag their tails in front of their masters... in fact you are the tail that gets wagged."I have wracked my brain trying to find a meaning to this.

Any insight from anyone?

The best I can come up with is it being her comment on how clueless the general populace is.

[nakitsura]

Hrrrrmmm...
Perhaps she means that instead of them consciously doing something to please their 'master' they are allowing themselves to led around...?

Well, damn, now I'm confused. Just wait, sometime around 3 in the morning after consuming way too much caffeine and engaging in too many random battlegrounds in WoW I will have a good explanation for you. That's how I figured out what Donnie Darko was about! And then I forgot again when I woke up from the insomnia crash...

[nakitsura]

Oh and BTW, your icon makes me ROFLMAO. Srs.

[windwraith]

tail wagging the dog is an idom i've heard it before i think there was even a movie by that name back in 1997 starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman.

what it referrs to is a situation where a small part is controlling the whole of something. i think of it like a tiny rudder controls a very large ship guiding its course but this is more about society and what or who sets the trends and influences popular behavior.

The Phrase Finder Says that The earliest citation they could find was from The Daily Republican, April 1872:

"Calling to mind Lord Dundreary's conundrum, the Baltimore American thinks that for the Cincinnati Convention to control the Democratic party would be the tail wagging the dog."
Dundreary is a character of Tom Taylor's play Our American Cousin. He was an amiable but dim nobleman, who frequently coined nonsensical riddles and twisted metaphors." I think this qualifies as one.

this has been a public service announcement from the mistress of inconsequential knowledge.... BEEEEEEEEP

[nakitsura]

But this does not refer to that, it refers to the inverse. Which is really hard to decipher, even using that explanation.

[koschei]

It basically says that they are being (or have been) used.
If a dog wags it's tail, then the dog holds the position of action - impressing it's master, and the tail is the 'object' being used to do so.

[nakitsura]

This is true, however she seems to be saying that they are not aware that they are being used; they believe that they are the ones in control when in fact they are being used and are merely pawns in someone (the dog) else's plan.

[poshu]

That's kind of what I thought, though everyone else puts it so much more eloquently. Windwraith, that was an awesome citation! I think that does help quite a bit.

I always had a problem with the civilians in the series, they were the last to know or take action in the whole war and consequently the warn itself was played out by leaders/generals/vigilantes alone. But we all know that was a theme of the show anyway....

I assume then that Dorothy is calling them out for being slow on the uptake, and considering themselves educated and up-to-date on what is happening when really their reaction is a ripple effect of the government... they have no control.

[poshu]

Mar 24, 2010 14:08:59 GMT -5 nakitsura said:

Oh and BTW, your icon makes me ROFLMAO. Srs.

Glad you like it.

[Lunah]

It means you get pooped on.

[impiousimp]

It's kind of a poetic way of saying that they're even farther below the pecking order than the people who grovel at the master's feet.