# Discworld Latecomers Ongoing Discussion (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [January 12, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979 "2017-01-12T18:35:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/381 "2022-01-13T01:26:35Z")
33 sounds like the number that had been published when I first started reading them. (If not 33, then close enough.) I binged them all in about two months. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/382 "2022-01-13T02:01:16Z")
I obviously take my time. Right now, I 'm doing another re-read of Lord of the Rings and that will take some time. I just kind of meander my way through. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/383 "2022-01-13T09:36:36Z")
I re-read UA over Christmas and liked it a lot more than I did first time. All the stuff about class, the crab bucket, the tension between the crowd and the authorities is excellent; the running gag about the rivalrly between UU and Quirm is fun, Glenda is a great character in her own right and well placed to voice/observe the streets vs authority theme. The apparently pre-ordained linkage between the star footballer and the glamorous model felt a bit of it’s time - there was a point where WAGS were a thing, and you hadn’t made it as a footballer till you had a model/pop-star partner, but that seems to have faded now. The clunky bit that put me off on my first read was Nutt. He’s fine in himself and I didn’t feel the same frustration this time round but there had been a lot of Discworld books structured around: “Here’s a new mythological species, observe how they are downtrodden by society, yet rise above this to display the values of secular humanism”. And I liked this structure! It’s what makes Pratchett so great. But eventually it begins to feel a bit mechanical and well trodden, and in all honesty Nutt didn’t do anything that Dorfl didn’t. The “aha, these monsters were built from humans, the true monsters” reveal at the end was a bit ho-hum. But with the advantage of time, that feeling of retreading old ground wasn’t so prevalent, and I could enjoy the good bits more. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/384 "2022-01-13T11:05:01Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > in all honesty Nutt didn’t do anything that Dorfl didn’t I think I disagree - Dorfl wasn’t solitary and pulled out of his isolation by human relationships, the way Nutt was. They’re fundamentally different stories to me in that way. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/385 "2022-01-13T15:38:22Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > All the stuff about class, the crab bucket, the tension between the crowd and the authorities is excellent; I’m not sure if you are implying that TP invented the crab bucket metaphor, but it predates his use. > **[Crab mentality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality)** > > Crab mentality, also known as crab theory, crabs in a bucket\[a\] mentality, or the crab-bucket effect, is a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can't have it, neither can you". It is a term coined by Filipino journalist and writer Ninotchka Rosca in a 1987 interview published in the Philippine News; Rosca coined the term to describe how in her view the generally collectivist Filipino culture disapproves of individual success as arrogant and deplorable. > The metaphor is derived fro... ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/386 "2022-01-13T18:17:48Z")
OK, that is a distinction, but for me not enough to make the difference. But I’ve been thinking about it and my main issue is that the whole Nutt plot could be excised from UA and still leave you with a really good story about class and the tension of social mobility and What Football Really Means. Whereas you couldn’t take the golems out of Feet of Clay or women out of Monstrous Regiment\*. By contrast, the whole Black Ribbon piece is never more than a subplot in The Truth, and that works fine too. But Nutt takes up a lot of space to deliver nothing very new. The best bit with Nutt is the scene where he flees AM pursued by the Furies and the ordinary AM folk talk him down from despair and give him hope of fitting in. But that’s because the focus is on the functioning of prejudice among ordinary folk - it’s really striking that in the same scene everyone takes against the Furies, who are themselves exactly the kind of monster who Pratchett could have put at the centre of the monster plot, which I thought showed just how arbitrary the decision to accept outsiders into the in-group could be. But again, that’s not very different to what we’ve already seen with Vimes acceptance of trolls/dwarves/werewolves etc. into the Watch while barring vampires, or Colon’s revelation about Klatchians in Jingo. \*Incidentally, using the whole “oppressed creature rises above oppressive society” template but making the oppressed creature “women” was a brilliant example of an author subverting his own work. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/387 "2022-01-13T18:18:47Z")
No, wasn’t trying to imply that. I’d heard it before too. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/388 "2022-01-13T18:31:02Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > But I’ve been thinking about it and my main issue is that the whole Nutt plot could be excised from UA and still leave you with a really good story about class and the tension of social mobility and What Football Really Means. I was with you until you said “very good story.” The Nutt plot was repetitive, redundant and stupid, and anything involving football in any form can be excised from existence for all I care. Which is why I rank this book even below _Eric_. YMMV, which is what makes Pterry such a great author. Something to argue about for everybody! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/389 "2022-01-13T22:37:43Z")
Unseen Academicals is my least-favorite of the Discworld books, but for me, it’s because it felt like it came out of nowhere. In UA, the whole theme is that football is the center of everyone’s existence in Ankh-Morpork… but it’s barely even mentioned, ever, in any of the other books. It’d have worked a lot better if we had previously consistently seen Colon and Nobby ducking out of work early to catch the Big Game, and Carrot volunteering as a coach in a youth league, and Vetinari giving a big speech before the start of a game to guarantee a large audience, and so on… but we didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/390 "2022-01-13T22:56:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Carrot volunteering as a coach in a youth league _Jingo_. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2022, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/391 "2022-01-13T22:57:25Z")
That wasn’t so much a “league” as it was a couple of street gangs. Your point still stands, however. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/392 "2022-01-14T06:17:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In UA, the whole theme is that football is the center of everyone’s existence in Ankh-Morpork… but it’s barely even mentioned, ever, in any of the other books. It’s not the centre of everyone’s existence, it’s the centre of the common working people’s, who we don’t really see as viewpoint characters in A-M up to now\* - which was… kind of one of the main points of _UA_. Think of it as a “Lower Decks” for Discworld. \*No, the Watch don’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/393 "2022-01-31T15:37:40Z")
**The Fifth Elephant** ending question: It’s not significant enough to warrant its own thread, and I respect youse people’s opinion, so here goes (the question contains spoilers regarding some of the early acts and ending, so obscuring where necessary): In the end there seems to have been no repercussions, no impact at all of Carrot essentially abandoning his job & position, resigning with no notice, and of Colon becoming first a dictator, then a dysfunctional schizophrenic mess. When Carrot returns, HE resets everything (not Vimes or Vetinari), despite the fact that Carrot no longer is employed (having resigned) and Colon having been promoted by Vetinari himself. Did I miss a page or nuance somewhere? If not, it seems a very poor way to wrap-up that subplot (granted, we all know it was likely to end up resolved that way, but there should have been some official voice to it, some Vetinari commentary or something). ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/394 "2022-01-31T16:36:06Z")
It had to reset, otherwise (in the words of Nobby) “Mr. Vimes will go spare!” I figure it all shook down off-page, and what with Carrot being The One True King and all , nobody was going to make a big deal of things. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/395 "2022-01-31T17:01:58Z")
I think the bit that Silenus blurred is the nuance that you’re missing. Everybody in Discworld who’d be in a position to object knows that. And they’ve all quietly decided that the thing to do about it is to never say it out loud; but nevertheless Carrot’s authority is accepted in practice – if only for fear that if it isn’t, somebody (probably not Carrot) will say it out loud. Especially since he’s doing what they’d have in any case wanted done. Which is itself another reason. Veterinari likes things to Work. He’s a whole lot less likely to object to anything that Works. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/396 "2022-01-31T17:20:10Z")
Thanks. I meant to write in my note that I enjoyed the book very much, but that subplot didn’t really go anywhere, except to explain how that character came to be available for the main plot. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2022, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/397 "2022-02-01T06:26:34Z")
> [@Raza](#): > > Did I miss a page or nuance somewhere? Did you miss the _several previous books_ where both those officers were instrumental, in their own ways, in saving the entire city/Vetinari personally? “They’ve earned a little leniency” covers it, AFAIAC. Also, if you think Vetinari didn’t know _exactly_ what the effects of that promotion would be, you don’t know Vetinari. Why would the Patrician discipline his own tool when it behaves as intended? Look at some of their interactions in _Jingo_ for more of the same. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/398 "2022-02-01T15:17:50Z")
Yes, I know all of that. What I am saying is that none of that was put to the page. We’re just left assuming…assuming a whole helluva lot. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2022, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/399 "2022-02-01T15:46:27Z")
> [@Raza](#): > > What I am saying is that none of that was put to the page. I think it wasn’t put to the page because _most_ Discworld readers would be saying “Yes, I know all of that”. By the time _T5E_ comes along, the characters and their interactions should be like old friends. No need to cover every detail there. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2022, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979/400 "2022-02-01T16:03:03Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#): > > To me, it seemed that Raising Steam was written mainly by Someone Else using Terry’s ideas. The writing style is just so different. Not a Discworld newcomer, but bringing some context here. “Raising Steam” was mostly dictated. It was written several year’s after his early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and he was no longer capable of using a typewriter. His style was certainly affected. “Raising Steam” was his last more or less completed solo novel. “Shepherd’s Crown” was very far advanced but he still thought there were bits that needed work when he passed. Of course, far advanced for Pratchett is better than you get from most authors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-latecomers-ongoing-discussion-open-spoilers/776979.md?page=21)