So…
I’m sure I’m a little late to this. The hardcover came out a while ago. But I just can’t see the value in paying $20 for a book I know will be $6 in a little while (and I have no aspirations of making a ‘collection’ out of).
So anyway, I just finished (the paperback) of Thud. (Just in case you’ve wandered in here unbeknowingly, Thud is a novel in the Discworld universe by Terry Prattchet. It’s a flat world riding on the back of four elephants who wander around the back of the giant space-turtle. There’s magic galore here, and quite a large number of interesting characters.)
(kk, that should be enough mouse-over filler, donchathink?)
Some things I find unresolved in this latest edition of the life and times of His Grace, the Duke of Anhk-Morpork, Commander of the Watch, Sir Samuel Vimes, Blackboard Monitor.
[ol]
[li]Isn’t it just a little pat that Sybil did a rendition of the painting when she was living in Pseudopolis Yard, and it’s still there?[/li][li]Why does the Summoning Dark need Sam? It was able to wreck a treaty signing by getting armies to fight against each other and make hundreds or thousands of beserkers. Why is Sam’s battle the important one?[/li][li]mustresistmustresistWhere the hell did the Guarding Dark come from? Is Sam the embodiment of the best copper anywhere? [/li][/ol]
If I were the editor, I would have made a couple of suggestions, here:
[ol]
[li]Well, we can’t really do much about this, can we? Kinda needed for the Watch to go to Koom Valley.[/li][li]There was not a lot mentioned about the need for a champion, or why Sam would be the best. (ok, there was one mention about Sam using the dark and staring back at it, but that’s it.) Why a champion? What is its purpose? [/li][li]HiOpal!damn! I would have liked to see a little more on this. Either Sam is the Guarding Dark, or it came from somewhere. Given Sam’s desire to see no magic, I am inclined to believe the latter. But where did it come from? Again, it’s just a little too pat.[/ol][/li]
Lest anyone think I didn’t like this book, there was a lot about it that I quite enjoyed. (“It’s like using an axe…but without the axe.”) But these three points all seemed like they weren’t thought out enough.
Hey, Discworld already exists at the far end of the probability curve. You’re gonna get stuff like this.
The summoning dark must have worked thru a potent agent to get the two armies to fight. It had expected to find such a potent agent in Sam. My WAG, anyway.
I assume that’s just Sam’s unconscious, keeping all of his dark urges (to drink, to wallop the hell out of the unrighteous) in check.
Why? She gave it to the Watch after Treacle Mine burned down, and apart from Carrot they don’t seem as if they’d want to clean out the attic of any house, even their new post.
Partially because Sam Vimes is the Duke of Ankh-Morpork and the Commander of the City Watch; he’s a very powerful guy, and I have to think that it would be easier for the Summoning Dark to control one guy than to sway thousands. Admittedly it didn’t work out that way, but the SD’s narration gave the impression that taking over individual humans hasn’t been hard for it in the past.
Not so much that as that over the past twenty or thirty years, he’s become very good at using his blind rage when it was necessary, and controlling it when it wasn’t. That kind of control created the Guarding Dark. Besides, we’ve previously seen him tapped into “universal policemanhood” in Moving Pictures (?) when he told Colon to shoot off a lock…with a bow and arrow.
The copy of the drawing, frankly, is just the sort of thing I’d expect from a female peer’s education of the vauge time period. So are the attics of storage. Veddy british sort of thing.
I dunno about the second. There was no mention to agents or whatever. I would actually think that the SD was working more through Ardent than Vimes.
I could buy that if there was more mention of others fighting / subcoming to the SD. (ala Ardent). Captain Carrot: I was waiting for ya! Where’s Angua?
Ok, the copies still being there I don’t find hard to believe. It’s just too damn convenient for the story that she made them in the first place.
That’s my point. Why fixate on Sam Vimes? This could have been expanded on.
Actually, I just reread the passage about the fight between the two darks: "He created me. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.* Who watches the watchmen? Me. I watch him. Always. You will not force him to murder for you."*
I now remove question 3. It was explained. ByeOpal!
E-Sabbath: What, was this the only picture they had, or did Sybil copy them all? No, this, I think, is still too pat.
I think for the Summoning Dark it started as just a useful mind to take over, but quickly became a matter of pride. It starts off thinking “Hey, a strange mind, bit tricky, no worries” and ends up in “I will break through! I will not fail!”. It didn’t want to be beaten.
As for the Guarding Dark, it’s been a running thread through pretty much all the Guard books (except maybe the first one) that Vimes is keeping himself in check; he’s prepared to use the rage within himself, but not to let it control him.
Regarding the first point, remember that, a few books ago, Vimes was standing in the rain, comparing the way aristos and the poor regard money and possessions.
The poor spend ten bucks on bad boots that fall apart after a season or two.
The rich spend a hundred bucks on boots so well-made they can be passed on to your grandchildren.
This is how the rich stay rich, they hang on to everything.
In that context, it makes sense that the painting would still be there.
Also, if you know your Jane Austen, women in that social class don’t have much to do with their lives. Especially young women whose education is limited to the social graces, music, art and (eventually) marrying and producing an heir and a spare. So she would have a lot of time to spend on reproducing the painting.
It was a million-to-one chance, and all good Discworld fans know those pop up nine times out of ten.
In a quasi-related vein, I recently re-read The Fifth Elephant, and was pleasantly surprised at the foreshadowing and story elements Terry planted in that novel which were carried forth in Thud! – stuff like the down-under dwarfs, flame weapons to explode underground gas pockets, etc. It really enforces the sense that Terry plans this stuff out far in advance and isn’t just making it up as he goes along.
And it does seem to be the second most famous painting on the Disc, so it’s not that surprising she would have heard of it (even without the Da Vinci Code parody).
