Being a detective isn't all about torture and murder and monsters. Sometimes it gets truly unpleasant...The fate of the world may depend on whether or not you can bring yourself to visit your relatives.

The line plays on the genre expectation that a detective’s work is defined by spectacular horrors—violence, monsters, apocalyptic stakes—only to undercut it with a mundane social dread: visiting relatives. Landy’s humor relies on bathos, dropping from the grandiose (“the fate of the world”) to the petty-but-relatable (“bring yourself to visit your relatives”). The joke also sharpens character: it suggests a narrator who can face supernatural threats with composure yet finds family obligations uniquely taxing. More broadly, it satirizes hero narratives by implying that ordinary discomforts can feel more “unpleasant” than extraordinary dangers, and that personal relationships can be as challenging as any external enemy.