The Great Big Joke stands as a symbol of the absurdity of the human condition, which places humanity between the "Big Bang" that created the universe and a second Big Bang, synonymous with terrestrial nuclear holocaust, which is the certain outcome of all human endeavors since the species evolved into final form. The implications of the Great Big Joke had been understood in a general sense long before the coming of Harry, but obsolete habits of thought precluded the formulation of an appropriate human response when the Great Big Joke ceased to be an abstraction, and became a specific, imminent fact in real terms.