#Thief of Time

[cirrus-grey]

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.

[discworldquotes]

'They're going to do something to Time? I thought they weren't allowed to do things like that.' NO. BUT HUMANS CAN. IT HAS BEEN DONE ONCE BEFORE. 'No one would be that stu-' Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.

Terry Pratchett, 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 😭

[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

[maddyjones2]

Listening to Night watch for the millionth time. Only just realised that the event that sent Sam back 30 years was Jeremy and Igor starting the crystal clock.

Once again I am struck by how brilliant Terry Pratchett was at plotting. I wish he had lived long enough to tell us who followed Veninari as Patrician. My money is on Carrot. I can't see Sam every accepting it. But then who heads the Watch? There is so much else that he might have told us. Not just what happens to Princess (Alice) after she grows up.

This means that Lu-Tze was living twice in that time period. He was having one life in Ankh Morpork sweeping and waiting for Sam to turn up (ten years), and other in the Monastery of Oi-Dong waiting for Lobsang Ludd.

[alda-rana]

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

[dimity-lawn]

[creativenicocorner]

...lately I've been thinking a lot about Susan Sto Helit. Specifically her introduction and farewell in the Discworld series.

About how her introduction in Soul Music is through the eyes of Miss Butts who goes on describing this recently orphaned girl as:

"something frankly unloveable about the child. Academically brilliant in the things she liked doing, of course. But that was just it. She was brilliant in the same way that a diamond is brilliant, all edges and chilliness." *

And then the very last we see of Susan within the Discworld series, is in Thief of Time, ending with... well no matter one's personal opinion of Susan and Lobsang Ludd... the Death series ends with love. ( I could go on a tangent about how each Death book is about some version of Love but thats for another time)

ANYWAY the last we read of Susan is:

"She put the chocolate in her mouth, and shut her eyes. A faint cardboard-y sound made her open them. The lids were lifting on the boxes of stars. They spilled out, and whirled up into the shadows of the cupboard, brilliant against the darkness, a galaxy in miniature. Susan watched them for a while, and then said: "Alright, you have my full attention, whoever you are." At least, that is what she meant to say. The peculiar stickiness of the nougat caused it to come out as: "au-rite ou av my full at-em-ntion." Damn. The stars spiraled around her head, and the cupboard's interior darkened into interstellar black. "If this is you Death of Rats," she began. "It's me," said Lobsang. Tick! Even with nougat, you can have a perfect moment."

It ends with love!! Love for a girl who was described as "something frankly unlovable" we bid farewell to Susan in the series with a Perfect Moment!!

Does this mean anything? Do you see the glimpses of what I'm feeling and barely managing to articulate?!

*Please forgive me if the quotes aren't entirely accurate in terms of punctuation etc, I only have the audio form and transcribed it while listening.

[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.

[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

[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]

Death was never quite sure why he allowed the Death of Rats to have an independent existence. After all, being Death meant being the Death of everything, including rodents of all descriptions. But perhaps everyone needs a tiny part of themselves that can, metaphorically, be allowed to run naked in the rain,* to think the unthinkable thoughts, to hide in corners and spy on the world, to do the forbidden but enjoyable deeds.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

*Quite an overrated activity.

[smalltownfae]

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