#nihi reads discworld

[theliteraryluggage]

* Vimes had never got on with any game much more complex than darts. Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks round, the whole board could've been a republic in a dozen moves.

Thud!, Terry Pratchett

Vimes and his zero-tolerance policy towards kings

[theliteraryluggage]

In a world where we all move in curves he proceeds in a straight line. And going straight in a world of curves makes things happen.

- Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

[theliteraryluggage]

And then, just when you thought it was as bad as it could be, up popped Grag Hamcrusher and his chums. Deep-downers, they were called, dwarfs as fundamental as the bedrock. […] Vimes knew just enough dwarfish to know that grag meant 'renowned master of dwarfish lore'. Hamcrusher, however, had mastered it in his own special way. He preached the superiority of dwarf over troll, and that the duty of every dwarf was to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers and remove trollkind from the face of the world. It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory. 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. It was heady stuff, except that brains weren't involved. Malign idiots like him were the reason you saw dwarfs walking around not just with the 'cultural' battle-axe but heavy mail, chains, morningstars, broadswords … all the dumb, in-your-face swaggering that was known as 'clang'. Trolls listened too. You saw more lichen, more clan graffiti, more body-carving and much, much bigger clubs being dragged around. It hadn't always been like this. Things had loosened up a lot in the last ten years or so. Dwarfs and trolls as races would never be chums, but the city stirred them together and it had seemed to Vimes that they had managed to get along with no more than surface abrasions. Now the melting pot was full of lumps again.

Thud!, Terry Pratchett

Feel like we've got some Hamcrushers of our own around currently, putting lumps in our melting pot.

[theliteraryluggage]

Vimes could see how much the admission that abduction and torture and conspiracy to criminalize honest citizens might not be acceptable government policy was costing the old man. Tilden hadn't been brought up to think like that. [...] Tilden had grown up knowing that the people at the top were right. That was why they were at the top. He didn't have the mental vocabulary to think like a traitor, because only traitors thought like that.

- Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

[theliteraryluggage]

I just know how things work. I just follow the money. Winder is a madman, and that's not good for business. His cronies are criminals, and that's not good for business. A new Patrician will need new friends, far-sighted people who want to be part of a wonderful future. One that's good for business. That's how it goes. Meetings in rooms. A little diplomacy, a little give and take, a promise here, an understanding there. That's how real revolutions happen.

- Terry Pratchett, Night Watch