What Did It Cost? Meme Template

A success comes with an uncomfortable price. Use the four panels to ask whether the task is done, confirm it, ask what it cost, and reveal the sacrifice in the final reply.

The achievement sounds good until the last panel. The format gives a small task the weight of a terrible bargain, making an ordinary lost weekend or mountain of washing-up feel dramatic.

The cost should follow from the achievement. Finishing a series might consume a weekend; baking a cake might use every bowl in the kitchen. The connection makes the final answer satisfying.

The exchange comes from Avengers: Infinity War, released on April 27, 2018. Thanos encounters a young Gamora, who asks whether he succeeded and what the achievement cost. His final answer is “Everything.” [1] [2]

Know Your Meme documents a Fire Emblem Heroes version posted to Reddit on May 3, 2018, soon after the film opened. Other gaming and everyday variations followed, using the final reply to name a different kind of sacrifice. [2]

Read this version left to right across each row. Put the achievement question at the bottom of the top-left panel and the confirmation at the bottom of the top-right.

Use the lower-left panel to ask about the cost. Put the specific sacrifice in the lower-right, leaving the characters’ eyes and expressions visible.

The achievement question

Along the bottom of the upper-left panel.

The confirmation

Along the bottom of the upper-right panel.

The question about the cost

Along the bottom of the lower-left panel.

The sacrifice

Along the bottom of the lower-right panel.

• Keep the four replies in reading order.
• Establish a specific achievement first.
• Make the cost follow from that achievement.
• Keep the final answer short enough to land immediately.