In Thief of Time, why did they cut off the yeti’s head? I know it was signifcant later, but was there any reason to do it?
In Hogfather, Susan stops time when she leaves the house to go find out what’s going on. But later she’s talking to the wizards and stuff. At what point does time become un-stopped?
Was Foul Ole Ron’s thinking-brain dog always Gaspode? I was under the impression that there was Ron’s dog, and there was Gaspode, but then in The Truth they were one and the same. That was confusing.
Well, Lobsang is getting a crash course in the finer points of time slicing, etc. on their way the Ankh Morpork. I’m not sure that it serves any further purpose than to show him that particular technique.
Don’t remember.
I think Ron’s dog has always been Gaspode (or vice versa). He just maintains a lower profile in some books than in others. (He first appears in Moving Pictures.)
I agree with #1. It was one of those “inscrutable type” lessons that didn’t make any sense at the time, but when it might later be relevant would become clear.
As for 2, I don’t think it did. Remember what Death said about the Hogfather? He operates in a tangential time that allows him to be everywhere at once, and yet Death could still stop in and interact with various people throughout the night. For Susan it was sort of the same.
I’m pretty sure it was always Gaspode. Remember, Gaspode is an operator. He probably doesn’t always hang with the beggars.
Woof, bloody woof. And growl.
You bet. I’m not Ron’s dog. I’m no one’s dog. I’m essentially on my own.
However, at times, such as when dealing with William de Worde, it suits me to keep a low profile and hang out with the lowlives as part of being, wossname, undercover.
Hey Gaspode. I’ve got a question for you- leggomylegyerfilthymongrel arrgharrgharrgh fine take the hamburger. Jeez.
At the end of Moving Pictures is seems as though Gaspode goes back to being “just a dog,” but that obviously doesn’t happen. Why’d you stay smart while the cats and mice and such didn’t?
Gaspode was smart before the holywood magic made the other animals smart. Gaspode’s story (told a little in Men at Arms) is that he slept near/at the Unseen University and became smart.
Susan is able to basically travel through time. In Thief of Time remember how she was talking to the school master, stopped time, went to see her father (time was running at this point) and then came back to the school master to request time off? She’s not affected by time and is able to jump around in time (to an extent).
The yeti let itself be decapitated as a lesson in time-manipulation for Lobsang. It also sets up Lao-Tze’s escape from death later in the book, when the Auditors-in-human-form cut his head off.
#2 occurred to me only last night while I was re-reading Hogfather, in fact. I only draw your attention to the first line of the book, which is “Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree.” I think Pratchett knows he’s playing the timeline a little fast and loose and he tells us so at the start of the book.
I assumed sleeping on the magic made Gaspode smart after moving pictures. Doesn’t the end of that suggest he ends up a dog again? And in another book doesn’t he say something like “…magic… last time this happened [reference to moving pics]”?
Er, no, badmana. Gaspode becomes smart the first time when the magic from Holy Wood gets loose. Then, once Moving Pictures is over, he goes back to seeing in black and white (this much is made clear by the end of the book). When he showed up in Moving Pictures being The Wonder Dog again, many of us were mightily confused, and it’s explained that some residual magic from the back of Unseen University made him smart again… If I can find the quotation, I’ll post it, because it was funny…
