#Thief of Time

[stupidphototricks]

The Way of Mrs. Cosmopilite, as recorded in Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett.

"Is it not written in the sacred text, 'There's a lot goes on that we don't know about, in my opinion'?" said Lu-Tze.

"For it is written: 'I can't be having with that kind of a thing.'"

"For is it not written, 'It does you good to get out in the fresh air'?"

"For it is written, 'There is no time like the present,' which is Mrs. Cosmopilite's most profound understanding."

"For it is written, 'You can't tell a book by its cover.'"

"It is written, 'You've got to learn to walk before you can run,'" said Lu-Tze, putting his broom over his shoulder.

"It is written, 'Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!'" he said.

"Truly it is written, 'You could knock me down with a feather,'" he muttered, as they headed up the sloping passage.

"It is written, 'I've got a feeling in my water,'" said Lu-Tze.

"Hah! It is written, 'I'm not as green as I'm cabbage-looking'!" snapped Lu-Tze.

"For it is written, 'Wrap up warm or you'll catch your death.'"

"Is it not written, 'Every second counts'?"

"Oh, well, in that case," said Lu-Tze, "is it not written, 'If you want a thing done properly you've got to do it yourself'?"

"However, is it not written, 'When you have got to go, you have got to go'?" said Lu-Tze.

"And also that 'You should always wear clean underwear because you never know if you will be knocked down by a cart'?"

"But is it not written, 'If you have another one, you won't have an appetite for dinner'?"

"For is it not written, 'You never know what's going to turn up'?"

[pratchettquotes]

Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and--this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit--it didn't even make you right.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

[smalltownfae]

Don't tell me that only someone whose life contains very little else treasures a cheesy mug that says "to the world's greatest grandad" and then reveal that that someone is Death 😭

[discworldquotes]

It was a mystery to her why Death had started using the place. Of course, he did have many of the qualities of a gentleman: he had a place in the country--a far, dark country--was unfailingly punctual, was courteous to all those he met--and sooner or later he met everyone--was well if soberly dressed, at home in any company and, proverbially, a good horseman.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

[neostellarjpg]

How about a Thief of Time? :)

this freak is loitering around everywhere all over the chronology of the session. abuses the SHIT out of their time powers to mess around and relax and not think about the events of the main timeline. a coplayer can probably look out into the horizon of their planet and spot a few versions of the thief having a chill ass convo with one another a few thousand feet away. "shouldn't you be doing something?" "nah i got time." literally infinite time. they have already taken care of everything important and are just living out a constant beach episode. you can walk up to them and ask them about the future, and if it's safe then they'll just tell you straight up. otherwise they'll laugh at you. "no spoilers bro." they probably have a gay ass name like mars

[alda-rana]

Reread Thief of Time recently, here are Lu-Tze and Lobsang!

[dimity-lawn]

[maddyjones2]

I'm most looking forward to the resolution of the second coming /hell & heaven vs the humans. I've read loads of fan fic that resolve the issues between Crowley and Aziraphale but few that find a successful end to the conflict (few is not none for anyone wondering). I understand terry's views on gods (they are self centred, silly and a little bit power mad) and I think the auditors (from discworld) are very like angels. There are also specific angels (Thief of time), although they don't seem to have the same role as envisaged in Good Omens. Thinking about the end of Small gods, there may be hints there of an accord. Thief of time looks at the auditors' destructive and anti-life role. Last Hero and Interesting Times both look at how the various gods entertain themselves. Discworld is a multi god environment so there isn't the heaven / hell dichotomy. This means there is not anything directly applicable when it's put in a Judaeo-Christian context. Anyway, I'm happy we get something but I want a lot more than 90min of south downs fluff.

[asmuchasidliketo]

Susan Sto-Helit in her classroom, by Marc Simonetti

Source

[petite-ursus]

Most of the overstuffed chairs in the library were occupied by contented lunchers dozing happily under tented copies of the Ankh-Morpork Times. Susan looked around until she found the copy from which projected the bottom half of a black robe and two bony feet. There was also a scythe leaning against the back of the armchair. She raised the paper.

GOOD AFTERNOON, said Death. HAVE YOU HAD LUNCH? IT WAS JAM ROLY- POLY.

'Why do you do this, Grandfather? You know you don't sleep.'

I FIND IT RESTFUL. ARE YOU WELL?

'I was until the rat arrived.'

YOUR CAREER PROGRESSES? YOU KNOW I CARE FOR YOU.

'Thank you,' said Susan shortly. 'Now, why did-

' WOULD A LITTLE SMALL TALK HURT?

Susan sighed. She knew what was behind that, and it wasn't a happy thought. It was a small, sad and wobbly little thought, and it ran: each of them had no one else but the other.

There. It was a thought that sobbed into its own handkerchief, but it was true. Oh, Death had his manservant, Albert, and of course there was the Death of Rats, if you could call that company. And as far as Susan was concerned... Well, she was partly immortal, and that was all there was to it. She could see things that were really there, she could put time on and off like an overcoat. Rules that applied to everyone else, like gravity, applied to her only when she let them. And, however hard you tried, this sort of thing did tend to get in the way of relationships.

It was hard to deal with people when a tiny part of you saw them as a temporary collection of atoms that would not be around in another few decades. And there she met the tiny part of Death that found it hard to deal with people when it thought of them as real.

Not a day went past but she regretted her curious ancestry. And then she'd wonder what it could possibly be like to walk the world unaware at every step of the rocks beneath your feet and the stars overhead, to have a mere five senses, to be almost blind and nearly deaf...

THE CHILDREN ARE WELL? I LIKED THEIR PAINTINGS OF ME.

'Yes. How is Albert?'

HE IS WELL.

... and not really have any small talk, Susan added to herself. There wasn't room for small talk in a big universe.

THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END.

Well, that was big talk.

[stupidphototricks]

The main thing that struck me about Thief of TIme is how it (more than any other Discworld book, I think, which is saying something) just casually tosses out clumps of the most fantastically unhinged worldbuilding physics*, and you're just supposed to accept them.

And you do! Because they make sense! More or less! Somehow they fit neatly into the parts of your brain that agree that this is how things should work, that even though officially you know better, on some level you still believe they could be true.

A lot of science fiction could take a lesson or two from the fantasy of Discworld in general and Thief of Time in particular. Don't overexplain, don't overcomplicate, just present your world as a given and make it easy to swallow. Harder than it sounds, of course, but Sir Terry was an expert at it.

Anyway, people have been messing around with time ever since they were people. Wasting it, killing it, sparing it, making it up. And they do it. People's heads were made to play with time.

-- Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

*As evidenced by the title, most of the unhinged physics in this book has to do with time. Some of my favorites below the cut (spoilers):

Portable "spinners" allow you to carry time on your back, like a diver carrying an air tank, in case you're in a situation where time could stop (you never know!).

Once, a major time catastrophe unmoored the fastenings that connect the past to the present, and the History Monks had to stitch it back together however they could, so that's why history doesn't always make sense if you look closely. But generally people don't notice (we're pretty unobservant).

The Monks can move time around, pulling it from somewhere that it isn't being used efficiently and putting it somewhere that extra time is needed, or if there's a time leak they can dump surplus time over the ocean or somewhere that it won't make a big difference (not a lot happens in the ocean that people notice).

Yetis can save their own lives like a video game before going into a dangerous situation, and restart from the saved point if anything happens to them (useful!).

[pratchettquotes]

"What's happening?" said Lobsang, as the last of the monks surged past.

"I daresay we shall soon be told," said Lu-Tze, starting to roll himself a cigarette.

"Hadn't we better hurry? Everyone's going!" The sound of flapping sandals died away in the distance.

"Nothing seems to be on fire," said Lu-Tze calmly. "Besides, if we wait a little then by the time we get there everyone will have stopped shouting and perhaps they will be making some sense."

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

[smalltownfae]

I love Pratchett so much. I might like Thief of Time better than Soul Music (we will see).

[ancientannoyance]

the one good thing about my bus home being delayed by five hours is that i had time to reread both Thief of Time and Hogfather, and they're still two of the all-time Discworld bangers

Bonus:

[unseenwizzard]

Finished thief of time so spoilers for that book (also queued a bunch of stuff)

There were a lot of great parts and characters in the book but my favorite has to be the fifth horseman. Literal chaos personified and he delivers milk products. Wonderful. Enlightened.

Kaos was the start of the universe. It created space for the rules to be challenged, changed. It's something so human that even after being written out of history, Ronnie still had enough power of belief to fight the auditors. It's a force so strong it can ruin a city. Or one can run on it.

Its no wonder he settled in Ankh, a city that's in a constant state of barely controlled chaos.

Not good, not bad, just. Kaos.

But something from the beginning of the book stuck in my head because of the whimsical image it gave me and when I went back and read it with context-

ARRIVED WITH THE MORNING MILK?? ANCIENT FORM OF CHARITY!!

HAS HE BEEN OUT THERE DELIVERING BABIES TO GUILD HALLS??!

HES ANKH MORPORKS STORK

HER #1 FOSTER PARENT

LOST CHILDRENS FIRST GUARDIAN

Ok. Im good

But am I wrong or reading into this? Because it absolutely reads like the anthropomorphic personification of chaos keeps getting handed babies? for some reason? and just has to complete a job placement interview with them on the spot

Do you want to steal or catch rats? Mix chemicals or make clocks? Biikitt?Alright then, assassins it is!

And to take it even further than that, I might go so far as to say that Lu Tze was one of the children Kaos delivered. Surely abbotts need dairy products? and a being that can enter their perfect moment in time?

Even if he isn't, he read the fifth horseman like a picture book and played him like a fiddle (thats being played by someone that's good at playing fiddles)

I wish there was more on here about this book though. The ronnie tag is almost as sad as the jeremy one

[dimity-lawn]