Moist was a long-time con artist who knew he was a con artist and knew that “too good to be true” offers always are. Vetinari’s offer of freedom was ludicrous and had to have a catch involved.
Reacher Gilt was a taker who felt entitled to other people’s stuff and was not used to a life of petty deceit; he didn’t think about whether Vetinari’s offer was suspicious because he saw a chance to get what he wanted (freedom) and took it, not realizing the implications (going splat).
I think there are two important points to consider in understanding Gilt’s decision.
The first is that, whatever he may have claimed, the only ideology he actually believed was that he was always The Smartest Man In The Room, and that he could literally get away with murder. The fact that it never occurred to him to doubt this, even when the room also contained Vetinari, is evidence for the second point.
The second point is that he was quite insane.
Our first clue to this is that he has an Igor. Not definitive, certainly, but a pretty strong suggestion. Moreover, when Gilt explicitly asks Igor whether he thinks he (Gilt) is insane, Igor prevaricates, but clearly thinks he is (and given the Igors’ experience in these matters, I’d say that was a reliable diagnosis). Finally, Igor is shown to be making plans for alternative future employment: which we’ve seen in other books to be a sure indicator that the wheels are about to come off – generally forcibly detached by torch-bearing townsfolk.
So I think that by the time of that final interview with the Patrician, Gilt was at least semi-detached from reality, and when he stepped through that door, it was in the sure and certain belief that he was master of the situation and utterly untouchable.
His first clue that this might not be the case was probably finding himself standing on black sand.
It’s been a while, but I remember thinking he clearly chose to die over the alternative.
It wasn’t a “trap” at all. It was a choice. It was intentionally obvious that there was nothing outside the door, including a floor.
The whole scene was also a direct parallel to Moist’s choice. The natural interpretation is that things went pretty much the same until he made a different choice.
Assuming that he must have closed his eyes, opened the door, and stepped out to his doom without opening his eyes, when we are never told anything that supports this at all, is quite odd.
Nobody has assumed that. Why would you assume that’s anyone’s claim?
It is absolutely within the realm of plausibility that he simply assumed there would be floor beyond the door, because 99.9999999% of the time there usually is, and that he wouldn’t be watching where he was going, because he was foolish enough to believe that Vetinari was honestly letting him leave and so wasn’t looking for traps. Have you never been surprised by an unexpected step or the lack of a step where you expected one?
I’ve always thought that he commuted suicide rather than work for Vetinari. For me the key thing is this exchange with Drumknott:
[Dumknott] “But Mr. Gilt, I notice, is not here…” Vetinari sighed. “You have admire a man who really believes in freedom of choice,” he said, looking at the open doorway. “Sadly, he did not believe in angels.”
To me this says that Glit did not believe Vetinari and refused to be subservient so took the choice to be free even if that freedom meant death.
However, that could be taken to mean that Gilt (rather foolishly) believed he had an actual choice when he went through the door. I’m having trouble reconciling the Gilt character with suicide. If he realised the door was a one way ticket to splatsville, I think he’d have accepted Vetinari’s offer, confident he could weasel out of whatever situation he found himself in.
I’ve been thinking about this scenario way too much.
It’s still ambiguous. There’s two different decisions being presented by Vetinari: the surface level “Accept the job or walk out the door” (job or walk) and the underlying “Accept the job or die” (cake or death).
Most of us consider death to not be an option. If someone tells you “Do X or I’ll kill you,” even though you are literally and objectively being given a choice most people would agree it’s not a real choice at all.
So there’s two ways it could have played out in Gilt’s head: either he believed Vetinari was offering him job or walk, in which case Vetinari was musing on the fact that Gilt falsely believed the tyrant of Ankh-Morpork was actually giving him a choice, which nobody believes cake or death to be, or Gilt did see the cake or death choice but believed so strongly in freedom of choice that he considered death a viable option even though so many people wouldn’t.
I’d say the evidence for both interpretations is really pretty solid, and it’s possible Pratchett intended that. Personally I think this may be one instance where his circumlocutions are creating unintentional confusion.
Maybe part of the reason that I interpret it the way that I do is that do consider death an option if faced with being forced to do something morally or personally reprehensible. Now I’ll admit that someone who say “Do this or die” is not really intending to give you an option, but I can comprehend the mindset of someone who could say “I’d rather die” and mean it.
I could see Glit being that sort of man. I could see him thinking that life in servitude wasn’t really life at all and so he might as well go out on his own terms.
Sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Gilt is that kind of man. I don’t want to go down that road myself, though, as the rest of the book beyond the last scene is mostly a blur.
If its just a trick why have the door at all? It seems odd. Its not like Vetinari needed to trick people in order to kill them and he doesn’t seem like the kind of person that would get a kick out of tricking someone to their death. Now I *could *seem him tricking someone to their death, but only if it was the best and most necessary way and it doesn’t seem like that applies with either Moist or Gilt.
However, I do see how someone could have an alternate interpretation from me.
I think perhaps you’re thinking it through in too rational a way; as I said earlier, Gilt is, in fact, insane.
Aside from how that would affect the two scenarios you’ve suggested, we have to consider the possibility that he might simply have refused to accept the reality that Vetinari had any power over him at all, or that any choice he himself made could turn out wrong.
As he’d said to Igor earlier, he’d conned people while dressed up with long hair, a beard, an eye-patch and a parrot. He’d said to them, “I’m a pirate, give me your money,” and they’d lined up to give it to him, and thought they were being clever. He could do whatever he felt like, and have it succeed.
Maybe he was convinced that if Reacher Gilt chose to walk through that door, there couldn’t fail to be a viable route to freedom on the other side.
There seems to be little distinctive difference between that and Gilt believing Vetinari would just let him walk away. Either way he thought he actually could just walk, when in fact the choice Vetinari was offering him was mere illusion.
I think that’s oversimplifying it, though. Reacher Gilt clearly didn’t think “he could do whatever he felt like, and have it succeed” - otherwise, why even bother with the bearded, eye-patched, parrot-on-the-shoulder getup at all? If he can do whatever he feels like, and succeed, then he should be able to proclaim his piratical nature while wearing a ballroom gown.
No, I think Gilt is very aware that a good con requires that he understand his mark’s expectations. That requires a level of forethought and, well, empathy’s the wrong word, but an understanding of what another person is thinking - and a willingness to spend the time/energy to figure out what that is. That’s how you beat them.
Gilt isn’t insane so much as sociopathic. He doesn’t believe the rules apply to him, but he does know what the rules are - how else could he devise his schemes to get around them?
I’m not convinced my interpretation is the right one, or the authors intent, but I do see it a bit differently from that. Vetinari is not above a bit of theatre to make his points, and would hardly feel he could be blamed if Gilt did not consider his options throughly before making his choice. He does not object when Moist opens the door and drops the spoon. I can imagine Gilt walking through the door understanding his decision would have consequences, but not that they would be so immediate and terminal.
A couple posters have talked about Gilt’s principles being the reason he chose suicide. My impression was that he didn’t have any, they were just a convenience for him. However, it’s been a while since I read it, and it’s quite possible I missed some clues in the text. Interesting discussion anyway, I’ll bear this in mind when I get around to re-reading Going Postal. My discworld books are due another read in the next year or two.
I wouldn’t call them principles so much, as that seems to carry the connotation of right and wrong, but I’d say that I think Gilt was an arrogant and prideful man and that I could see him preferring not to live at all rather than living defeated and subservient.
Also, I could see him thinking that any offer of Vetinari’s was a trick and that he would eventually be done away with anyway and that he’d prefer going out on as much of his own terms as possible.
I’ll have to go reread this, but I didn’t get the impression he was intentionally choosing death. I got the impression he was too busy thinking about what he wanted to listen to what Vetinari was saying. Thus the lines about how he got lost listening to Vetinari drone on about angels. That’s the speech where Vetinari talks about angels giving you second chances, so you have to choose well. Where Vetinari is implying that he is an angel, giving you a second chance, so you’d better choose well. But Reacher wasn’t paying close attention, he was too confident in himself, and so chose to leave, confident that freedom was the better choice. And then so wrapped up in himself he didn’t notice there was no floor.
I also thought the hallway outside the door was rather dark, not well-lit, so it would be easy not to notice the floor was missing. It took Moist a deliberate, conscious pause to see there wasn’t a floor. That’s not something where it’s obvious, that’s something hidden.
And I wouldn’t put it past Vetinari to trick people to their deaths rather than just having them executed. Being executed is easy, but being stubborn and blind is a talent, and Vetinari much more appreciated fools being hoist by their own petard rather than just killing them outright. I mean, he’s a benevolent tyrant. Much easier to be benevolent when you aren’t executing people willy-nilly. They die because of their own poor choices, well, sucks to be them. Should have listened better.