#discworld thud

[mendedrum]

Beating people up in little rooms, he knew were that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. You couldn't say "we are the good guys," and do bad guy things.

Terry Pratchett, Thud (via Samuel Vimes)

........

Terry Pratchett's social commentary is impeccable as always. I love these lines. They're so simple yet so raw.

[thesustainedworldatransverse]

I am loving the localised onomatopoeia in these international editions of Thud!

While the Chinese go for the triple-whammy of Peng! Peng! Peng!

[cosmicrhetoric]

can these guys quit it.

[dimity-lawn]

[alyona11]

Reading book to young Sam vs READING BOOK TO YOUNG SAM 💀

[ggenggar]

[reluctanttree]

as a friend said to this description of Corporal Nobby Nobbs,

"i want to be an open book that’s banned in some countries

peak gender"

[pratchettquotes]

"It's strange that they don't seem to mind you, Otto," he said, calming down a little.

"Vell, I am not official," said Otto. "I do not haf zer sword und zer badge. I do not threaten. I am just a vorking stiff. And I make zem laff."

Vimes stared at the man. He'd never thought about that before. But yes...little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black dress shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on whom he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people. Make them laugh, and they're not afraid.

Terry Pratchett, Thud!

[mushroom-punk]

???

they are flirting with each other.

[sundancefemme]

obsessed with the summoning dark’s sections of thud. vimes’s subconscious took one look at the quasidemonic eldritch god in his head and said im not trapped in here with you, youre trapped in here with me. and it WAS.

[the-wine-dark-sea]

I love their dynamic lol

[mendedrum]

Young dwarfs listened to him because he talked about history and destiny and all the other words that always got trotted out to put a gloss on slaughter.

Terry Pratchett, Thud

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the way this line was delivered was brilliant. drew a good chuckle out of me. it's so raw and relevant especially when discussing topics such as ultranationalism and well, fascism.

[magpiesketchins]

I'm sorry I didn't sign up to be emotionally eviscerated by Sam Vimes reading to his son.

[thestuffedalligator]

So there’s this bit at the end of Thud! where they’re in the king’s cave, and Bashfullson explains the nature of the Summoning Dark, and Angua says she believes him, and Sam is presented with proof of the dark and he starts. Rationalizing.

…his mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what had happened hadn’t really happened and, if it had happened, hadn’t happened much.

It was all mystic, that’s what it was. Oh, it might all be true, but how could you ever tell? You had to stick to the things you can see. And you had to keep reminding yourself of that, too.

Yeah, that was it. What had really happened, eh? A few signs? Well, anything can look like you want it to if you’re wound up enough, yes? A sheep can look like a cow, right? Ha!

And I laughed when I first read this because it’s very Sam Vimes, but now that I’m thinking about it. I think this is the only time we ever see a Discworld protagonist do this.

Other characters get to see the squiddy, weird underbelly of the universe, the invisible magic and the world of the supernatural and acknowledge it. Moist hears the whispers of the words, Tiffany can see the Nac Mac Feegle and so on but Sam never does. Carrot and Nobby and Fred have all seen Death enough to greet him in public, but in I think? Fifth Elephant? Sam says he’s never seen Death before, and in that case only saw him because he was fighting for his life.

It’s like the opposite of First Sight. Sam has Second Sight so hard that he can look into First Sight, close the door, and block the way with huge bricks of rationalization. The only character who comes close to that is Susan, who tries to ignore the supernatural but knows she never can.

[dimity-lawn]

[stickandthorn]

The way Terry Pratchett handled police in the Discworld continues to be one of the many, many things I love about his works. I certainly don’t have time to describe all the details of why he wrote such good policing, but I think the best summation of it is the arc that Sam Vimes had in many of the books.

I haven’t read all the watch books, but in the ones I have, there’s often a similar plot structure. We meet a truly detestable criminal Vimes is chasing down (think the Deep Downers in Thud, or Carcer in Night Watch). They show themselves to be truly awful people who do awful things, and they’re also just plain jackasses. They’re characters you hate to read about, the grind the audience’s gears. They also grind Sam Vimes’s gears. 

Throughout the story, they commit more and more crimes. Horrible crimes, like torturing and killing innocent people, or practicing violent religious extremism. They do things that personally target our protagonist, like go after his wife and son, or relentlessly taunt him and try to kill him and his past self. They consistently do bad things, and even as Vimes is chasing them, they do more bad things. You want them to be punished.  Finally, at the climax, we get some sort of final confrontation between the villain(s) and Vimes. In a different book, Vimes might kill the people who sent people to hurt his infant son, or tortured and killed innocent people, and the audience would probably cheer. In fact, Vimes wants to kill them. 

But he doesn’t. Every time, he suppresses the urge to enact his own justice, and he doesn’t kill them. He arrests them. Because, as he says many times, if you’ll do something for a good reason, you’ll do it for a bad. Even when there’s every excuse as to why this particular villain doesn’t deserve to live, he just arrests them. It’s not his job to decide how they should be punished for their crimes.

I think this is a masterful takedown of police brutality and Punisher style characters. Vimes isn’t a perfect person, it’s not that he could never dream of killing the bad guy. He can, and he does, often. But he never follows through, he understands why he can’t do that, so no matter how tempting it is, he doesn’t.

Because in this story, the hard boiled cynical cop truly believes in following the law. The message is always that law enforcement killing a criminal is never ok, even if they’re undeniably guilty of something truly dreadful. Hell, police brutality is personified as a millennia old demonic quasi-deity possessing Vimes, one that’s never been beaten before, but he beats it and doesn’t give in. I think that’s a really unique message in cop stories, and another reason as to why Pratchett was such a good author.