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Discworld - Blog Posts
This is where the dragons went ...
And although the space they occupy isn’t like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. Not a cubic inch there but is filled by a claw, a talon, a scale, the tip of a tail, so the effect is like one of those trick drawings and your eyeballs eventually realize that the space between each dragon is, in fact, another dragon.
They could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly and proud and arrogant.
-Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Discworld Politics
10 years on...
This photo is so him. He was my author. He was my friend. Like all of you, I miss him everyday. Thank you for keeping the ripples going.
Discworld is an interesting beast in the age of ACAB. Like, the city watch books are a story about police and the way in which a good police force can help and protect people. Which would make it copoganda. And I'm not going to say that the City Watch books are completely free of copoganda, but they also do something interesting that fairly few stories about heroic police officers do, and I think it has a lot to do with Samuel Vimes. A lot of copoganda stories like, say, Brooklyn 99, are perfectly capable of portraying cops as cruel, bigoted, and greedy, but our central cast of characters are portrayed as good people who want to help their communities. The result is that the bad cops are portrayed as an aberration, while most cops can be assumed to be good people doing a tough job because they want to help protect people from the nebulous evil forces of "Crime". The police are considered to be naturally heroic. Pratchett does something very interesting, which is provide us with Vimes' perspective, and present us with an Unnaturally heroic police force. In Ahnk-Morpork, the natural state of the watch is a gang with extra paperwork. It's the place for people who, at best, just want a steady paycheck and at worst want an excuse to hit people with a truncheon. Rather than be an army defending people from the forces of Crime, the Watch is described as a sort of sleight-of-hand, big burly watchmen in shiny uniforms don't stand around in-case a Crime happens in their vicinity, they stand around to remind people that The Law exists and has teeth. The Watchmen are people, when danger rears it's head, their instinct is to hide and get out of the way. When faced with authority, their instinct is to bow to it out of fear of what it might do to them if they don't. Carrot is a genuine Hero, but his natural heroism is presented as an aberration. Normal Cops don't act like Carrot does. The fact that the Watch ends up acting like a Heroic Police Force is largely due to the leadership of Sam Vimes, but Vimes himself is a microcosm of the Watch. The base state of Sam Vimes would be an alchoholic bully of an officer, one who beats people until they confess to anything because that makes his job easier. Vimes The Hero is a homunculous, an artificial being created by Sam Vimes fighting back all those instincts and FORCING himself to behave as his conscience dictates. Vimes doesn't take bribes or let his officers do the same because, damnit, that sort of thing shouldn't happen, even if doing so would make things a lot easier. Vimes doesn't run towards sounds of screaming because he WANTS to, he forces himself to do so because somebody needs to. It's best summed up in Thud “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Your Grace.” “I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.” “Ah, but who watches you, Your Grace?” said the inspector with a brief little smile. “I do that, too. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.”
In the hands of another writer, or another series, this exchange would be weirdly dismissive. To whom should the police be accountable to? Themselves, shut up and trust us. But from Vimes, it's a different story. Vimes DOES constantly watch himself, and he doesn't trust that bastard, he's known him his entire life. The Heroic Police are not a natural state, they're an ideal, and ahnk-morpork only gets anywhere close. Vimes is constantly struggling against his own instincts to take shortcuts, to let things slide, but he forces himself to live up to that ideal and the Watch follows his example. Discworld doesn't propose any solutions to the problems with policing in the real world. We don't have a Sam Vimes to run the NYPD and force them to behave. We don't have a Carrot Ironfounderson. But it's at least a story about detectives and police that I can read without feeling like I'm being sold propaganda about the Thin Blue Line.
Pros and cons of being in the Discworld fandom
Pros:
Discworld is amazing
It’s like Tolkien but modern
You will chuckle so hard you’ll have to have to have little breaks to breathe
Small fandom so it’s easy to make friends & discuss things
Really awesome if you like series because there are 40 books
But there are actually 5+ series within that & several stand alone books so you don’t have to read all of them (although by the time you finish one series you might want to read all the rest)
The world is flat & sits on four elephants who are for some reason standing on a giant turtle and I don’t think anyone is really sure why
Easy to find a cool Discworld-related url
Range of female characters (so you know the Joss Whedon Marvel/Steven Moffat syndrome of all the main females being kickass, skinny, kickass, perfect in everyway, kickass & pretty much the same character? that syndrome is stomped into the ground, cut up into tiny pieces & mocked)
Canon lesbian characters
Some super cute tv adaptions with cameos from sir pterry himself
Deep shit reflecting on life the universe and everything, the rise and fall of political systems, the power of words, the prevalence of evil, the nature of humankind, human relationships and beliefs, and so, so much more
Super silly bits where you’re like ye gods pratchett did you really just make that pun
Ships ranging from teenage fluff to middle-aged fluff to damn hot af
Characters who oppose their society’s gender binary & nice friendly badass werewolf woman lends them dresses
Badass moments which make your insides do hoola hoops
The fucking puns
Really awesome large characters who either just don’t give a flying fuck or have to deal with fat shaming and prove that they are infinitely better, kinder, cleverer people than the fat shamers and often use their size to help them as they save lives/fight evil etc.
There’s this book called Monstrous Regiment and it’s basically 400 pages of fucking up sexism, xenophobia and gender binary
There’s a character named Adora Belle Dearheart and her partner (to clarify: she’s not his wife, he’s her husband) is called Moist what more do you want
A Christmas/winter festival book which will leave you warm and happy and philosophically questioning
Do you like funny footnotes?? So many funny footnotes
Characters getting over & challenging internalised prejudices & beliefs
Destruction of racial stereotypes
Characters call even the protagonist out on their assumption of roles which fit a white supremic system
Really good model of police/civilian relationship where the commander of police force fundamentally does not agree with the police/civilian model because “what was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? once policemen stopped being civilians, the only other thing they could be was soldiers.” - or put more simply “a watchman is a civilian, you inbred streak of piss”
young teenage witches coming to terms with their own strength & power, middle-aged witches who write cooking sex books and are as kind as can be, old witches who are canonically ace/aro spectrum and never regret that for a moment and just so fucking smart
so many witches
and there are wizards, and female wizards too
Death is a character and he’s adorable and he really really likes cats and he has a granddaughter who looks after children and hits monsters with pokers and has amazing hair
Super talented fandom who do art and fics which break your heart
Very good realistic characters and protagonists which are far from perfect aka recovering alcoholic picked up out the gutter by a (6 foot) dwarf and a woman who is large and kind but perfectly capable of looking after herself and the recovering alcoholic and a garden full of swamp dragons - and the old witch? she is only a goodie because everyone else is too busy being bad - and there’s an ex con artist who spent his life ruining others’ bc he found it fun and is only now a ‘goodie’ because he’s being blackmailed - and the person in charge is a tyrant but he’s really a very reasonable one - and there’s a guy who literally just runs away from things the entire time I’m not even exaggerating that’s like the entire plot of his books he just runs away from things
Have I mentioned the puns
Cons:
There are no cons
Discworld is amazing
I will lend you the books
Cheery and Nobby! I wonder what they’re talking about
The outfit looks like it’s her version from Soul Music, pretty cool
Susan Sto Helit
It's Death favourite daughter and interleaver! Got around to thinking about Discworld again recently. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett!
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No one is doing it like Sybil Ramkin. She's one of the most rich and powerful women in the city. She married a skrunkly little commoner nightwatchman. She raises dragons in her free time. She's canonically both tall and fat. She's a fierce advocate for the oppressed. She created a free hospital. She can fuck you up. She's childhood friends with the tyrant of the city. She is compared to empires and dreadnoughts. Icon.
When Nutt's upset he shrinks and I'm obsessed with that
I like how in Night Watch Vimes has to face his younger self and has the universal experience of cringing at his younger self but realizes you need to start somewhere. You start out naive and ignorant then life bites you in the ass and you learn, unless you're Vetinari then you've always been cool.
The Auditors: We just need everyone to stop moving so we can get on with the paperwork! How are we meant to get the filing done when humans are running around all the time causing fresh chaos?
Rufus Drumknott: Skill issue.
So plain and simple yet so recognisable and adorable
the night watch and friends
apropos of nothing here's every discworld fanart i've done for inktober since i started doing inktober in 2016
Conclusion: someone at the UU ships toxic yaoi. Probably the Senior Wrangler.
(From what we know about wizards, any possible couple that might find themselves under mistletoe will inevitably be toxic)
"Tell me, Senior Wrangler, we never invited any women to the Hogswatchnight Feast, did we?"
"Of course not, Archchancellor," said the Senior Wrangler. He looked up in the dust-covered rafters, wondering what had caught Ridcully's eye. "Good heavens, no, they'd spoil everything, I've always said so."
"So why, every year, do we hang a damn great bunch of mistletoe up there?"
"well, er... it's... well, it's... it's symbolic, Archchancellor."
(scenes from Hogfather feat. the Senior Wrangler NOT beating the allegations)
I love this, I want this to be true
I like to imagine that Sam Vimes, instead of dying properly, instead got minor godhood. All watchmen at some point thank him for his actions, his actions a ripple across the Disc. There's precedent in the Duchess of Borogravia, and in his arc. He keeps getting promotions, and hates each one. What higher status could he be unwillingly raised to than divinity, eternally watching the watchman?
Anyways, that's just a headcanon i've got
Nothing will ever be as horrifying to me as Sam Vimes organizer rattling down the timeline of the fall of Ankh-Morpork and the death of the guard members, one by one, including the typically unkillable protagonists Vimes and Carrot. I can still remember the deep existential dread of then
When I was reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (and sequels), I felt that something about it was oddly similar to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Something about the bizarre character ideas, the new takes on philosophical concepts like time or reincarnation or our place in the universe, and the witty satire on Earth (Roundworld) bureaucracy…
Am I the only one who feels like this?
Iconic cop duos from my fandoms, from okay to best Anderson & Donovan (BBC Sherlock): 🤨❔👌
Hank & Gomie (Breaking Bad): 🤷🏻♀️🆒👍
Fred & Nobby (Discworld): 👏🤪😂
Ryan & Esposito (ABC Castle): ☺️💕🤗🫂✨👑
This is exactly why I keep telling people:
Read. Terry. Pratchett. Books.
And if you already have… well, reread them after a good while to have a new understanding of them.
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!
the only reason I remember the formula for the volume of a cone is that Susan Sto Helit used it to count baby teeth in a big pile in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather
finally figured out the unofficial homestuck collection. time to reread that wretched comic!!! oh and i also have to read worm. after all these years. come on, me! get on it!! i also have to play outer wilds, finish hylics, read more discworld, reread hitchhikers guide, watch more star trek, work on my own writing,,, among other things. you'd think that i'm a busy guy, right? Nope. im just the master procrastinator.
when i first read the colour of magic and the light fantastic, i had a dream about Twoflower. all innocent. nothing weird. just hung out. extremely joyous. freakin love that guy. however i post this because the dream took a SHARP TURN!!!! by that i mean we got hit by a airstrike and he exploded. so naturally, in my rational dream state, i turn into a hamster and go to the nearest elementary school. then i woke up.