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Messy warm-up sketch of Vetinari
Oh, I love this so much!
When the books mentioned The Brass Bridge over The Ankh, I just imagined some insignificant and decrepit arch over a measly little creek, the notion that is was a large heavy bridge over a genuine river genuinely never occurred to me.
Stuff that helps you better visualise a world you're already so invested in is my favourite aspect of fan communities, you'd never get this kind of shared experience from just reading alone.
Sights of Ankh-Morpork: The Brass Bridge
(by mari.o)
You know who I always thought could've made a great Captain Vimes in live action? Hugh Laurie.
What with Blackadder and Fry & Laurie he's got plenty of experience with silly comedy, but he can also manage the gruff, stone-faced seriousness that the character needs.
I dunno, maybe people think he's a bit too old now, but honestly?
I still think he could pull it off.
Have you ever drawn turtles?
I know Om is technically (in the form of) a tortoise but close enough
Who are you? said Om. The small god stirred. There was a city once, said the small god. Not just a city. An empire of cities. I, I, I remember there were canals, and gardens. There was a lake. They had floating gardens on the lake, I recall. I, I. And there were temples. Such temples as you may dream of. Great pyramid temples that reached to the sky. Thousands were sacrificed. To the greater glory. Om felt sick. This wasn’t just a small god. This was a small god who hadn’t always been small… Who were you? And there were temples. I, I, me. Such temples as you may dream of. Great pyramid temples that reached to the sky. The glory of. Thousands were sacrificed. Me. To the greater glory. And there were temples. Me, me, me. Greater glory. Such glory temples as you may dream of. Great pyramid dream temples that reached to the sky. Me, me. Sacrificed. Dream. Thousands were sacrificed. To me the greater sky glory. You were their God? Om managed. Thousands were sacrificed. To the greater glory. Can you hear me? Thousands sacrificed greater glory. Me, me, me. What was your name? shouted Om. Name? A hot wind blew over the desert, shifting a few grains of sand. The echo of a lost god blew away, tumbling over and over, until it vanished among the rocks. Who were you? There was no answer.
- Small Gods
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Read this book. Read all the Discworld books. Don’t let the number of them put you off. You don’t have to read them in order. Just pick any one book and read it.
The Discworld Adventures for PC
I learned about the “Discworld” universe over a Videogame magazine called “Bravo Screenfun”. I read in one of the issues about the second Discworld Adventure with Rincewind the sorcerer, the worst wizard who ever lived. I later read the walkthrough of that game named “Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!?” in the another issue of “Bravo Screenfun”, reading about the weird adventures of Rincewind and how he was able to solve many riddles and overcame obstacles. I played the two Discworld games with Rincewind and played “Discworld Noir” too.
Those games made me interested in the books. It was surprising how different the books were. I figured out over time that the games took several of the Discworld Characters and plots and sprinkled them anywhere into the narrative and the gameplay. The first game was a adaption of “Guards! Guards!” and has elements from “Moving pictures” with Rincewind being the main protagonist and not the Vimes, Carrot and Co. Rincewind has to find a summoned dragon and stop that dragon from destroying Ankh-Morpork.
The second one is a adaption of “Reaper Man” AND “Moving Picutres” in which Death decides to stop working and going on vacation because his job is stressing him out and he doesn’t feel appreciated.
“Discworld Noir” on the other hand was about the private detective Lewton, ex-member of the watch. It was like a Noir-Movie, very atmospheric and grim, yet still a parody of the noir-genre at the same time. No pre-existent book-plot was used but many of the characters from the books were.
Because of those games I started to read the books. It was surprising how different the game interpretations of those characters were. Especially of Havelock Vetinari who ordered a hit on Death for becoming too popular. A rather absurd action of the Patrician when considering how he acts otherwise.
Those games I love so much guided me to the books I love so much.
Thank you Terry Pratchett, thank you for those games and your books. Nothing is like them; nothing I know is like them and will ever be.
R.I.P.
How do they rise up, rise up, rise up? How do they rise up, rise up high?
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around Men at Arms.
It's a fantastic book, but it is also so different from Guards! Guards! in tone. And maybe that's where the key is. It's not that the villain of the story is perhaps one of the most proficient killers in all of Discworld (all two and a half of them... D'Eath, Cruces, and The Gonne) and their goal is to actually kill. It's not even that the crimes that the watch are investigating are murder, because even though paid assassinations are legal death and murder are part of the setting. Death is literally a character here, though much more briefly than G!G!. Frankly, I don't even think it's because of the racial allegories.
The tone in Men at Arms is different because the first one to die is a clown. Because Pratchett literally killed the joke (the entire thing and all of its subsets). There's nothing funny about a clown funeral, the dogs are the biggest allegory for racial issues, a gun really is evil, Cuddy literally draws the short straw. It's all literal. Everything is extremely literal. For once, Ankh Morpork isn't a joke. For once, the city feels like a city. And it's the book where Carrot, the most literal character there is, becomes a man (literally and in every sense) and takes his mantle of leadership.
Everything in Men at Arms is literal. Because the villain killed the joke to death and it was the shining moment for Carrot to step up.
There's also an extensive running bit that even the silly construction of the silly, courtesy of Bloody Stupid Johnson, is actually stupid. Within the narrative itself, the book is calling itself out. It is saying that this absurd veneer that we have found ourselves on is just that. This city was built on itself, on its own bones, on the the bones of empires--fueled with the blood of many. The architecture beneath Johnson's flawed works, the aqueducts and sewer systems below the city, are vast and strong and powerful--maybe even beautiful. But they're dangerous. The past is incredibly dangerous. Even Carrot, whose potential is very much rooted in the past of the city, is dangerous. His victory is not one I expected in the moment it came. The line about how you must hope that whoever is looking at you from the other end of their weapon is an evil man... Was harsh and true and honestly a little frightening for a story which also contains a scene where a sentient rock man chucks a dwarf through the skylight of Schrodinger's pork warehouse to save both of their lives.
Perhaps this puts the rest of the book in context as well. Especially the things that made me cringe when I read them. Like everything about Coalface, Angua being included in the story because she was a woman and every book needs at least one (preferably one that can leap over a building or deadlift a draft horse), the high school clique-ificarion of all the guilds, Vimes talkin to the nobles after dinner and almost letting himself believe he could be like that (even though he ends up laying into them with some excellent biting sarcasm), Vetinari not being in control and not realizing it. It's all very real, but real like a real serial killer in real life and not a crime drama. Maybe even real like a normal guy in a costume with their mask off.
Maybe not.
It's not a perfect book (which bites, because G!G! was nearly there), but it remains a very intentional book. I feel like less people have read it than G!G!, and I can see why. It's messier, it's not as funny, there's a lot more allegory and it's a lot more blunt.
But it's still extremely topical (sadly). I retain my opinion that it may be one of the most important books I've ever read. And I'm beginning to understand, finally, why.
Just finished listening to Guards! Guards! again and the scene with the Watch asking for compensation really hit me this time around. Vetinari does his big speech about the absolute evil and darkness in humanity and then Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs, who we know are not heroes, are not particularly nice people, are not, in short, “good” and they ask for barely any money and a new kettle and a dartboard and they worry that they’re asking for too much.
And Vimes just laughs and laughs at all the upper crust diplomats and Vetinari who can’t understand it. Can’t understand ten dollars a month raise. Can’t understand a kettle. Can’t understand a dart board.
I forgot how much I loved these books.
Honestly, same.
reading terry prattchet is so crazy, cause you'll be reading about a character called something like plinko plonko and their zany exploits, and then he'll just drop a paragraph that goes so insanely hard like -
and then I just have to stare at the wall for a bit.
Reading a Terry Pratchett book is literally just: Here's a funny little joke Here's something that you can tell is a joke but don't get and will only figure out five years later Here's a surprisingly cool fantasy concept Here's a unique and well written simile Here's a lil guy Here's something that has aged depressingly well into the modern day Here's something that has aged remarkably queer into the modern day Here's a character that you can barely understand what he's saying Here is the most terrifying and deeply disturbing concept you have ever heard, casually mentioned Here is the dumbest fucking pun you've ever heard but in the best way Here is a quote so profound that it makes you view morality and the world in a different way Here is a plot twist that you can't tell if it's genius or stupid Congratulations! You've finished the book! It has fundamentally changed you as a person and you will never be the same!
I wouldn't call Pratchett's writing unhorny. He's just a tease. He absolutely loves to imply that horny things are happening just offstage where you can't see. Discworld is soaked in love and sex, but the books are about one guy trying to solve a dwarf murder.
I think one of my favorite jokes he ever makes is the timeskip where it's implied that Carrot learns what sex is.
Дочитал "Цвет Волшебства" и сел за рисование. Персонаж уж слишком похож на Ринсвинда, но это не он(всё таки в моей голове он несколько помоложе).
Прикрепляю два фото ибо на втором красиво падает свет ✨
Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. And it is not even a little close.
What other Witch could so shrewdly bend the very story she was in to her will? To take the tropes and clichés and to weaponize them against those who were wrong in defense of those who could not defend themselves?
What other Witch, when faced with the Good Fairy Godmother, would rip the story from her very fingers and set things to right?
What other Witch, under vampiric assault, could turn the famous bite around and, instead of becoming a vampire herself, through force of sheer will Weatherwax the vampire? What does that even mean?
What other Witch could give a child a gift so powerful it would override narrative convention and let the long lost prince refuse to take his rightful crown in favor of pursuing his dreams?
Indeed, what other Witch would resist the crown when it fell into her lap?
There have been untold millions of Witches in literature, but not a one of them could sit demurely at a social gathering, doing absolutely nothing, and drive everyone around her to near insanity through sheer nervousness?
No one else could be so proficient at both Magic and People that she would barely need or want to use the former because of how effective and predictable the latter could be.
And all of this, ALL of this, while going against her own narrative nature as 'The Bad Witch'. To resist your own role in the story so completely that you transcend expectations and settle into legend as one of the ultimate forces of righteousness on the Disc? That requires more power, more cunning, and more skill than any, every other Witch. Combined.
And she did it by knowing people. By watching them and knowing things and by understanding, better than their own mothers, how to talk to everyone and precisely pass along knowledge. How to command respect, even if they don't like you very much. How to be indispensable, while dispensing with the pleasantries.
She didn't do it alone, but she wouldn't admit that within earshot of Gytha or any of her numerous brood (So, she would never admit it). She benefitted by her associations with Nanny Ogg, with Magrat, with Agnes, with Tiffany, with Ridcully (allegedly), and even with Death.
Who else would earn time for her candle to flicker in the wind, and a warning by the Grim Reaper himself, for the right she had done in the world.
Right. Not good. Not nice. Right.
She was the vessel Pratchett poured his every indignant thought at the inherent injustice in the world into, and she brandished those white hot notions against every part of the stories that tried to make her into something she did not want to be.
Esmerelda Weatherwax is literature's greatest Witch. What more could possibly be said?
smoke break at an event at the patricians palace, with the golem inspector, the duke of ankh, the arch chancellor of unseen university, and the king of the golden river
Big werwolf girlfriend and small vampire girlfriend 🥰
Sally x Angua cause I miss them
Today would have been his 77th birthday, so
Hogfather A’tuin Pyramids Ponder Ynci’s helmet
Brutha Igor Rincewind Thud! Hex Death Ankh-Morpork Yeti
Terry Pratchett!
Nanny Ogg and Moist von Lipwig
Characters that never met but would get along like a house on fire
Do you guys ever think about how Vetinari believes that all people are inherently evil, but then he does things like:
Giving people others would deem irredeemable second chances (Lipwig, the other thief too, he even regretted the death of Lupine Wonse, the guy who summoned a dragon and tried to kill him); spends time with ppl who see only the good in everything (Carrot, Leonard); treats and values ppl like individuals and actually cares about them (that scene in Jingo where he tells Vimes that it’s good that people didn’t get killed in the war).
So I thought,
What if he doesn’t want to believe that everyone is evil. What if he had arrived to that conclusion just from his actual life experience with the assassins and guild leaders, because that’s all he had seen other people do. But he tries to spend time with good people and give criminals second chances because he wants to be proven wrong. To be proven that his philosophy is actually wrong and “there is some good in the world and it’s worth fighting for.”