Discworld

[hamishspence]

In Thief of Time, we learn that the History Monks lump them together with the dungeon dimension creatures, but do consider them the worst of the lot.

GW

If extreme "wipe out all reality" goals are consistently portrayed as Evil (Shar, Tharizdun) then maybe "wipe out all life" should be regarded in a similar fashion.

[lord_khaine]

No, but even in the early books there was enough context to understand that the Agatean Empire was generically oriental and back in the '80s the general stereotype of the Japanese and Chinese tourist was that they took pictures of everything, and probably had a way better camera than you.

Well yes, there were certainly hints toward the culture being oriental, to start from them being an empire and having an emperor. But the actual skin color of people there were newer mentioned. Thats something people have filled in unofficially on their own.

If extreme "wipe out all reality" goals are consistently portrayed as Evil (Shar, Tharizdun) then maybe "wipe out all life" should be regarded in a similar fashion.

I think that they were not evil in the same way that a supernove or an earthquake is not evil. They might certainly lead to an untold number of death and destruction, But they are to alien, and different to be though of as evil. Unlike Shar and Tharizdun who seems to be aware of what result their actions bring.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think that they were not evil in the same way that a supernove or an earthquake is not evil. They might certainly lead to an untold number of death and destruction, But they are to alien, and different to be though of as evil. Unlike Shar and Tharizdun who seems to be aware of what result their actions bring.

But they are aware of the consequences of their actions, and they do very much want those consequences. They lobbed a meteorite at A-tuin that would have destroyed the Disc if it had hit. They bribed humans to kill the Hogfather. They hired a different human to stop time. All with complete understanding of what the consequences would be. They are not comparable to natural disasters. The Auditors have a purpose, and that purpose is the elimination of all creatures with even a hint of will or personality.

Grey Wolf

[lord_khaine]

Yes, the Auditors are as such aware, the question is if they actually have a real choice in the matter, of if they are to alien for such a concept, not being able to process any other way of handling things.

[The_Snark]

Honestly, I think they're less alien than that. As a previous poster said:

"Vicious, unbending malice" is an emotion. They might pretend to be "pure logical" or "emotionless" but they're really deceiving themselves.

I always felt that their hostile reaction to the illogic of living and especially thinking beings is, itself, an example of that illogic. Just by becoming aware of the phenomenon, it's "tainted" them. (Which I'm sure they'd hate if they ever realized/admitted it.) The closer they get to life, the more they become sentient beings rather than impersonal forces - we see this play out a couple of times, ranging from the wolves in Hogfather to Lady LeJean. Taking on physical forms is the extreme end of this, but I think even as faceless disembodied cowls they're affected, just by interacting with and reacting to people.

For that matter, the whole idea of the Auditors is an anthropomorphic personification.

[Kato]

I think with the auditors we need to clearly separate between those who just "do their job", i.e. keep the things running as they are, making physics work, and those who got fed up with humanity and life and clearly have... well, I'd still be hard pressed to say evil intentions, but the wish to destroy it. To them I guess objectively it's no different from digging a mine, since life is just some weird thing that is just... in the way. They don't care about the damage they'd do, they just want to make their work (or "life", hah) easier. Clearly, doing this is already diverging from their purpose, so they are already lost auditors. Those who take this even further, the ones who become aware they have a personality destroy themselves, but those who work against life are just a small step from that and already kind of crazy by auditor standards.

[BiblioRook]

Well yes, there were certainly hints toward the culture being oriental, to start from them being an empire and having an emperor. But the actual skin color of people there were newer mentioned. Thats something people have filled in unofficially on their own.

If you consider Paul Kidby's art to be any sort of official stamp on how certain characters look he did do Twoflower as well.

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[lord_khaine]

If you consider Paul Kidby's art to be any sort of official stamp on how certain characters look he did do Twoflower as well.

I dont, what i considder official is the actual description from TP's pen, as well as any artwork that has been given a official stamp of "this is how he looks"

The rest is just personal interpretation. I mean, i have seen cover art where Twoflower litterally had 4 eyes.

[GloatingSwine]

If you consider Paul Kidby's art to be any sort of official stamp on how certain characters look he did do Twoflower as well.

They're not really how Pterry thought of the characters. He hasn't really said how he imagined most of the characters, though he did say he imagined Vimes as looking like Pete Postlethwaite (which is who he looks like in the illustrations in Where's My Cow).

[Kato]

They're not really how Pterry thought of the characters. He hasn't really said how he imagined most of the characters, though he did say he imagined Vimes as looking like Pete Postlethwaite (which is who he looks like in the illustrations in Where's My Cow).

Hm, kind of fits my old idea of him, too. Though, since GP Charles Dance has superseded that quite dinstinctly. (And I am still sad Tywin and Vetinari are so similar yet so different )

[Friv]

Tywin is a guy who really wants to be Vetinari, but has too much pride and anger.

[Kato]

Tywin is a guy who really wants to be Vetinari, but has too much pride and anger.

Good description. Th win needs more restraint and he could have really fixed Kings Landing.

Having (re)read MM now, I can see the complaint about poor antagonists. Though, I'll say both Cosmo and Cribbins could have been effective.. the problem on the one hand was their respective faults (Cosmos obsession and Cribbins... teeth) but booth are basically threatening in their own way... not sure why Pratchett decided to turn them more into jokes.

[GAZ]

Ohhh! Discworld thread! I love these books and have ever since I first read Hogfather back in middle school. After the fact, I decided that book is actually a really solid entry to the series. It's got Susan, Death, Ridcully and the Unseen University staff, and has bits with Fred Colon and Nobby Nobs, the Assassin's Guild, and pretty much explains how magic and belief and stories work on the Disc as well as being quite funny.

My favorite book of all time is Small Gods, though. I have bought five copies of this book because I will loan it to people who never give it back!

I think the quality started to trend downwards with Monstrous Regiment and hit bottom with Snuff. Going Postal was the last Disc novel that I really liked. Raising Steam wasn't great but it did feel a little bit like closure, so that's okay.

[An Enemy Spy]

I just got the joke that the continent where gold is so common it's almost worthless is called the "Aurient".

[The_Snark]

I just got the joke that the continent where gold is so common it's almost worthless is called the "Aurient".

That happens to me a lot. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize what the climactic scene of Moving Pictures was parodying.

And I'm sure there are obscure jokes in Soul Music that I'm missing, I don't know that much about rock.

[The New Bruceski]

And I'm sure there are obscure jokes in Soul Music that I'm missing, I don't know that much about rock.

Everything in Soul Music is a reference to something or other. I know some folks miss We're Definitely Dwarfs and Trollz and I'm not sure how.

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They Might be Giants and Gorillaz

My favorite reference has to be from Night Watch, the feuding families of the Selachiis and the Venturis.

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Sharks and Jets.

[The_Snark]

Well, I didn't get the Trollz one, so I can answer that: never heard of the band in question.

(Edit: Gorillaz looks to have started in 1998, while Soul Music was written in 1994, so that probably isn't it. I can see why you'd think that, though, names like Noodle and 2D wouldn't be at all out of place among the amateur Musicians With Rocks In...)

The one that convinced me there were probably obscure references I was missing (in addition to the obvious ones I didn't get on account of not being very musical) was the bit about Brother Charnel, the felonious monk.

[StarvingGamer]

I've been sitting on Raising Steam because once I read it, that's it, no more new Terry Pratchett books for me to read.

Ugh.

Now I'm sad.

[hamishspence]

I've been sitting on Raising Steam because once I read it, that's it, no more new Terry Pratchett books for me to read.

Ugh.

Don't forget The Shepherd's Crown.

[Eldan]

I've been sitting on Raising Steam because once I read it, that's it, no more new Terry Pratchett books for me to read.

Ugh.

Now I'm sad.

What's really sad is that it's the worst discworld book by far and retroactively ruined others.

If I can make a suggestion? Put it on a shelf somewhere and never read it. That way, you will always have some unread Discworld.

If you haven't, look into some of the Discworld shortstories instead. I can strongly recommend Troll Bridge and The Sea and Little Fishes. The first is Cohen the Barbarian at his saddest, the second is Granny Weatherwax at her Weatherwaxiest.

[The_Snark]

Don't forget The Shepherd's Crown.

I thought The Shepherd's Crown made a pretty good last book. It definitely wasn't his strongest book, but

Spoiler: spoilers for Shepherd's Crown

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the subject seems almost tailored to be a last book. Granny Weatherwax (one of the most iconic characters in the series) dies, everyone grieves, but life goes on; eventually everyone settles into a Lancre without her, and the people and things that fill the space where she used to be aren't so bad in their own right. It's about closure. Not just letting go of a beloved character, but letting go of the series and author.

(The bit with Elves is a mostly-irrelevant subplot, to me. It might have become something more if Pratchett had more time to refine it, but sadly he didn't. Nightshade's redemption arc doesn't get enough screen time to be compelling, and it cuts off sharply with no sense of closure; Peaseblossom is forgettable as antagonists go, he's just another typical elf.)

Non-spoilery summary: kind of unpolished, but saved for last I think it gives a nice sense of closure.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I thought The Shepherd's Crown made a pretty good last book. It definitely wasn't his strongest book, but

Spoiler: spoilers for Shepherd's Crown

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the subject seems almost tailored to be a last book. Granny Weatherwax (one of the most iconic characters in the series) dies, everyone grieves, but life goes on; eventually everyone settles into a Lancre without her, and the people and things that fill the space where she used to be aren't so bad in their own right. It's about closure. Not just letting go of a beloved character, but letting go of the series and author.

(The bit with Elves is a mostly-irrelevant subplot, to me. It might have become something more if Pratchett had more time to refine it, but sadly he didn't. Nightshade's redemption arc doesn't get enough screen time to be compelling, and it cuts off sharply with no sense of closure; Peaseblossom is forgettable as antagonists go, he's just another typical elf.)

Non-spoilery summary: kind of unpolished, but saved for last I think it gives a nice sense of closure.

Spoiler: The Shepherd's Crown and Raising Steam

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My problem with The Shepherd's Crown was not that it was a poor book in itself, but that it was poor Pratchett. The thing is that poor Pratchett is still good in terms of the genre.

The Shepherd's Crown is more on the level of Strata and Dark Side of the Sun. These are two early Pratchetts that are not - strictly - Discworld, so don't get quite so much publicity. While Dark Side of the Sun is quite good, Strata is a rather clumsy attempt to mesh sci-fi and fantasy with a discworld-like world. I don't often re-read it.

After the announcement of his illness was made, I picked up each new book with the thought "Is this going to be the one that ruins his work for me?". Raising Steam was heading towards that line, and The Shepherd's Crown was almost touching it.

I understand that there was still some work to do on The Shepherd's Crown (it is described as "it was, still, not quite finished as he would have liked when he died"), but they decided to print it as is rather than making further changes. I am still torn on whether that was the right decision.

[hamishspence]

What's really sad is that it's the worst discworld book by far and retroactively ruined others.

Which books are "retroactively ruined"? All the ones involving dwarf gender politics and how dwarf society has dwarf women and dwarf men do their best to act as alike as possible (to the point that dwarf women never admit their gender, until Cheri Littlebottom started the process of moving away from this?)

I think it's a case of Pratchett having decided as early as The Fifth Elephant that the basic concept was problematic - and choosing to show how they finally come to reject that concept wholesale.

[huttj509]

On the topic of getting jokes years later...

For context, I grew up in the Southwest US. I've recently been watching Midsomer Murders on Netflix, and one of the things that shows up in rural England village celebrations is Morris dancers.

Yeah, I did feel like I got those jokes in the Lancre books, but now I *get* those jokes in the Lancre books. There's something about actually seeing people dancing around with bells on their ankles hitting sticks against each other's sticks that makes the combination of "fine ol' tradition," "WTF," and "you'll put someone's eye out" click.

[Silfir]

How Raising Steam could "retroactively ruin" anything is incomprehensible to me. His choices after the diagnosis were to either stop writing, or keep writing and accept that his illness was going to accept the quality of his work as time went on. I'm glad he kept writing; I enjoyed his post-diagnosis work a lot.

Life is taking the good with the bad.

That said, we all mourn differently. Shepherd's Crown was a kind of bittersweet experience for me; I'm not going to be rereading it. Raising Steam I enjoyed, and appreciated. I didn't, perhaps, admire it, which is how I react to Pratchett at his best.

Read the book when you feel ready to do so. It's not going to grow feet and walk away.

[Bohandas]

Which books are "retroactively ruined"? All the ones involving dwarf gender politics and how dwarf society has dwarf women and dwarf men do their best to act as alike as possible (to the point that dwarf women never admit their gender, until Cheri Littlebottom started the process of moving away from this?)

I think it's a case of Pratchett having decided as early as The Fifth Elephant that the basic concept was problematic - and choosing to show how they finally come to reject that concept wholesale.

Personally I think the direction that Pratchett took the Dwarves in the later books was a negative and reactionary one.

[Kato]

Personally I think the direction that Pratchett took the Dwarves in the later books was a negative and reactionary one.

...why? Because they happen to be? So, some people are reactionary and how you treat such people is a relevant issue. And a trademark of Pratchett's is him writing not only fluff but stories with meaning behind them, mostly.
Yes, dwarves are displayed, in part, negatively, but not all people are nice. There have been many, many humans with massive character faults.

[Bohandas]

No I mean what was a change to the dwarves - the society they end up with at the end of the series - corresponds to what is negative and reactionary in the real world and it starts to look like Pratchett is endorsing that.

Like, I hope this changed dwarven society was intended as something akin to the way H.P.Lovecraft used gods as an ironic metaphor for atheism (EDIT: or the way Pratchett himself used the persecution of Didactylos' concept of the world as flat and sitting on the back of a turtle as a metaphor for real life persecution of models of the real world as round and orbiting the sun) but I can't be sure.

[Kato]

No I mean what was a change to the dwarves - the society they end up with at the end of the series - corresponds to what is negative and reactionary in the real world and it starts to look like Pratchett is endorsing that.

Am I misremembering the last novels? Weren't the dwarves on the way to adopting a more open and free culture?

[lord_khaine]

The more reasonable ones certainly were. There were just several different fractions of them, some rather fanatical.