Mort. Which Patrician?
Brian Nisbet
In <Pine.OSF.3.91.961021...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> writes:
<First bit snipped on the basis that I'm not going to make reference to it>
>This makes me think that V.'s first appearance is indeed in Sourcery, and
>that in that book he's a fairly young man near the beginning of his
>career as patrician (hence, perhaps, the fact that he misjudges the mood
>of the wizards so badly and ends up as a lizard).
Hmm, I'm not too sure about that. Mort is only book no. 4 and the first
few books were full of inconsistencies etc. The Granny Weatherwax who
appears in Equal Rites has changed by the time she gets to Wyrd Sisters.
And the background characters didn't become solid until later. The Disc
has changed a lot since the Colour of Magic and while the Patrician we
know and love now might be different in some ways to the original
Patrician it doesn't mean they can't be the same person.
Enjoy,
B.
--
Brian Nisbet B.F.
E-mail: Nis...@tcd.ie
Web: http://www2.tcd.ie/~nisbetb/
"Goblins may not be big, cuddly, fluffy or kind, but they are FUN!!!!!"
Victoria Martin
I reread Mort this weekend for the first time in ages and was struck by
how unlikely it is that the Patrician mentioned there is in fact
Vetinari. I know conventional wisdom says he is, but this is based on
Terry's post to the effect that he's always thought of Vetinari as a
party animal, and which is not actually a refutation of the suggestion
that the Patrician in Mort is not Vetinari. There were three things that
particulalrly struck me: (i) the party is described as being given for
500 of the Patrician's friends. It's hard to imagine Vetinari describing
five people in A-M as his friend, let alone 500. (ii) He has a champion
race horse. This seems a little unlikely - it's hard to imagine Vetinari
whiling away his time on race courses, or adding to his personal fortune
by making wagers on his own horse (I know he has a private menagerie, but
that seems different from a race horse). (iii) He has a pet swamp dragon.
In Sourcery he has a different pet, Wuffles, who, we are told, is the only
living
creature he seems genuinely fond of. Wuffles is pretty ancient at this
point, so presumably would have been around at the time Mort takes place.
Wufffles himself is, I'll grant you, a most unlikely companion for
Vetinari but a swamp dragon seems even less likely. Besides, Wuffles
presumably has some sort of history (and he gets mentioned again in G!G!)
whereas the swamp dragon never reappears.
This makes me think that V.'s first appearance is indeed in Sourcery, and
that in that book he's a fairly young man near the beginning of his
career as patrician (hence, perhaps, the fact that he misjudges the mood
of the wizards so badly and ends up as a lizard).
Victoria
Paul Matthews
On 21 Oct 1996 15:52:51 GMT, nis...@tcd.ie (Brian Nisbet) wrote:
>Hmm, I'm not too sure about that. Mort is only book no. 4 and the first
>few books were full of inconsistencies etc. The Granny Weatherwax who
>appears in Equal Rites has changed by the time she gets to Wyrd Sisters.
>And the background characters didn't become solid until later. The Disc
>has changed a lot since the Colour of Magic and while the Patrician we
>know and love now might be different in some ways to the original
>Patrician it doesn't mean they can't be the same person.
>
Could these changes in people be due to the strong magic field on the
disc?
Paul.
Gerd Aasen
I think you're right, Victoria. It does seem odd of Vetinari. In
addition, Ihave found another thing that indicates that he isn't the
Patrician. In "The Clour of Magic" the Patrician is presented eating
candied starfish!! which is pretty strange for a man described as just
eating "a thin slice of dry bread and drinking only boiled water". I
think that Vetinari became Parician after dealing (or rather: not
dealig) with the plague of rats mentioned somewhere.
Terence
Victoria Martin
On 21 Oct 1996, Brian Nisbet wrote:
> Hmm, I'm not too sure about that. Mort is only book no. 4 and the first
> few books were full of inconsistencies etc. The Granny Weatherwax who
> appears in Equal Rites has changed by the time she gets to Wyrd Sisters.
> And the background characters didn't become solid until later. The Disc
> has changed a lot since the Colour of Magic and while the Patrician we
> know and love now might be different in some ways to the original
> Patrician it doesn't mean they can't be the same person.
>
Ach, who is this person who gains pleasure from puncturing the balloon
of fanciful interpretation with mundane mechanical explanations? Of
*course* you are right. Moreover, I suspect that if Terry does ever get
round to writing the book I'm *really* waiting for, the so-called
prequel, then we will discover that not only is the Patrician in Mort
Vetinari but so is the one in TCOM (judging by his posts on the subject,
Terry was envisaging Rincewind enrolling at UU at about the time Vetinari
was taking over A-M). Then we'll all just have to shrug our shoulders and
say things like "Well, conceptions change over time, those were early
books, nothing was really settled then, characters develop", but it won't
be any *fun*. I thought I'd better get my oar in while I still can. But
if you prefer, I can re-express my original claim in such a manner that it
does not offend against pragmatism:
The identification of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork with Havelock Vetinari
does not appear to take place until Sourcery. Although a Patrician
features in the earlier books the characteristic traits associated with
Vetinari are not developed until Sourcery, where the name is also used
for the first time.
Okay?
Further evidence that TP's conception of the Patrician had not yet
crystallised into the figure of Vetinari is the explicit mention given to
the head torturer in Mort, who otherwise does not feature at all.
Vetinari undoubtedly has members of staff who prepare scorpion pits etc.,
but whoever they are, they do not seem to enjoy particulalrly high status.
Victoria
Geoff Mordock
Brian Nisbet wrote:
>
> In <Pine.OSF.3.91.961021...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>
> <First bit snipped on the basis that I'm not going to make reference to it>
>
> >that in that book he's a fairly young man near the beginning of his
> >career as patrician (hence, perhaps, the fact that he misjudges the mood
> >of the wizards so badly and ends up as a lizard).
>
> few books were full of inconsistencies etc. The Granny Weatherwax who
> appears in Equal Rites has changed by the time she gets to Wyrd Sisters.
> And the background characters didn't become solid until later. The Disc
> has changed a lot since the Colour of Magic and while the Patrician we
> know and love now might be different in some ways to the original
> Patrician it doesn't mean they can't be the same person.
>
> B.
>
> --
> Brian Nisbet B.F.
> E-mail: Nis...@tcd.ie
> Web: http://www2.tcd.ie/~nisbetb/
> "Goblins may not be big, cuddly, fluffy or kind, but they are FUN!!!!!"
I wonder how much time there is in between Mort and Sourcery...I mean,
how much time has passed on the disc. It is plain that Partrician V. is
responsible for making A-M what it is today (like my history teacher
said about Christopher Columbus: He was a great man...this in no way
implies that he was a good man.) If the Partician in Mort is a
different one, would Partician V. had time to make all those changes?
The man is good, but not that good.
Ross Smith
Geoff Mordock wrote:
>
> I wonder how much time there is in between Mort and Sourcery...I mean,
> how much time has passed on the disc.
Well, there's the infamous Missing Fifteen Years ... and we know that at
least seventeen years (Susan's age) (and nine months, presumably) must
have passed between the end of _Mort_ and the beginning of _Soul Music_.
The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
(shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
On a related note, there's _Small Gods_. Terry has said that the
publication order of the books is the same as their chronological order,
but since SG spans just over a hundred years, obviously a slight
exception must be made for it. There's a reference in FOC to the events
of SG as historical, and the Librarian's visit to Ephebe is explicitly
associated with time travel, so I tend to think that the *end* of SG
fits into the series in its nominal place (between WA and L&L), with the
bulk of the book happening a hundred years before the others.
--
Ross Smith (Wellington, New Zealand) ...... <mailto:al...@netlink.co.nz>
......... <http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/3699/> ..........
"The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it
regularly went cuckoo." -- Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)
CyberCat
In one of the earlier messages in this thread[1] somebody said one of
the reasons the patrician in Mort wasn't lord V. was that he couldn't
see V having a racehorse.
However, he has *several*.
M@A, corgi edition, p 76:
"... Lord Vetinari never changed or destroyed anything if there was no
logical reason to do so. He maintained the little zoo and the
racehorse stable, ..."
Michel
[1] I'd already deleted the message before I happened to read that
page of M@A and my provider keeps messages for one or two days only.
--
"Over the years I have made many friends. My enemies made themselves."
Terry Pratchett at the DWCon 96. E-mail: Cybe...@introweb.nl
I don't understand why Merkins always want a rite to bare arms.
I always say "Just roll up your sleeves and be done with it."
Gordon Steemson
Cybe...@introweb.nl (CyberCat) writes:
>In one of the earlier messages in this thread[1] somebody said one of
>the reasons the patrician in Mort wasn't lord V. was that he couldn't
>see V having a racehorse.
>However, he has *several*.
>M@A, corgi edition, p 76:
>"... Lord Vetinari never changed or destroyed anything if there was no
>logical reason to do so. He maintained the little zoo and the
>racehorse stable, ..."
Not only that, but in Sourcery, Conina the Wonder Thief is described as
having stolen, among other things, the 'silver shoes from the Patrician's
best racehorse while it was in the process of winning a race'. So not
only does he have at least two racehorses, at least one of those horses
was shod in silver! (Even if Vetinari was new in S., Conina is described
as being a recent arrival in Ankh-Morpork, and so the theft couldn't have
been carried out much earlier than the story.)
Just my 2c worth.
GtM (gste...@sfu.ca)
--
Unclear on the Concept, No. 1:
When one arranges a death by poisoning, it is not usually necessary to
boil the water first.
Zara Baxter
There should be a relatively easy way to tell that Lord Vetinari is the
Patrician in Mort.
Didn't our beloved Havelock V. install the guild system in Ankh-Morpork?
If we find a guild mentioned in the book, then, it should be sometime
during Veinaris reign..
Anything else is cheating by Pterry ;)
Silky
Victoria Martin
On 23 Oct 1996, Zara Baxter wrote:
>
> There should be a relatively easy way to tell that Lord Vetinari is the
> Patrician in Mort.
>
> Didn't our beloved Havelock V. install the guild system in Ankh-Morpork?
>
> If we find a guild mentioned in the book, then, it should be sometime
> during Veinaris reign..
No, doesn't work. The Guild system wasn't set up by Vetinari, it was just
modified. Even the Thieves Guild led a shadowy illegal existence and the
the Assassins have a rather unclear history, but have certainly been
around for a long time.
Victoria
David Keaveny
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Victoria Martin
<sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote
>
>I reread Mort this weekend for the first time in ages and was struck by
>how unlikely it is that the Patrician mentioned there is in fact
>Vetinari. I know conventional wisdom says he is, but this is based on
>Terry's post to the effect that he's always thought of Vetinari as a
>party animal, and which is not actually a refutation of the suggestion
>that the Patrician in Mort is not Vetinari. There were three things that
>particulalrly struck me: (i) the party is described as being given for
>500 of the Patrician's friends. It's hard to imagine Vetinari describing
>five people in A-M as his friend, let alone 500. (ii) He has a champion
I think anyone in their right sense of mind would want to describe
themselves as a 'friend' of the Patrician. Only a brave (read 'foolish')
man would publicly call himself an enemy.- and if not brave, then with a
long-lasting love of being tied upside down over the scorpion pit.
>race horse. This seems a little unlikely - it's hard to imagine Vetinari
>whiling away his time on race courses, or adding to his personal fortune
>by making wagers on his own horse (I know he has a private menagerie, but
>that seems different from a race horse). (iii) He has a pet swamp dragon.
--
David Keaveny http://www.keaveny.demon.co.uk
\\\
\\\\\\__o "Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on
\\\\\\'/ what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
David Keaveny
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Gerd Aasen
<gera...@online.no> wrote
This one I am certain about. I seem to remember he is described as being
quite a large man (tho' I can't check, as someone as borrowed it and
lives at the other end of the country), so either it is not he, or he
has just released a top-selling diet book.
Geoff Mordock
Was the librarian's visit linked to time travel? I didn't get that. I
thought he used L-Space to travel through space, not necissarily time.
I always assumed that the main part of SG took place at roughly the same
time as the other novels...with FOC maybe happening a few years
afterwards (enough time for Brutha to force the people to calm down.)
Dick Eney
David Keaveny <da...@keaveny.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Gerd Aasen <gera...@online.no> wrote: <snip>
>>Patrician. In "The Clour of Magic" the Patrician is presented eating
>>candied starfish!! which is pretty strange for a man described as just
>>eating "a thin slice of dry bread and drinking only boiled water". I
>>think that Vetinari became Parician after dealing (or rather: not
>>dealig) with the plague of rats mentioned somewhere.
>
>This one I am certain about. I seem to remember he is described as being
>quite a large man (tho' I can't check, as someone as borrowed it and
>lives at the other end of the country), so either it is not he, or he
>has just released a top-selling diet book.
I'm not sure his body is described; he is described as having thick
fingers with a lot of rings on them, so either his hands got thinner and
he gave up the rings, or he just isn't the same man. Since he also
doesn't know Rincewind or the Luggage later on (IT), presumably the
current Patrician came into power after Rincewind's time in Ankh-Morpork.
=Tamar (sharing account dick...@access.digex.net)
Victoria Martin
On 23 Oct 1996, Gordon Steemson wrote:
> Cybe...@introweb.nl (CyberCat) writes:
>
> >In one of the earlier messages in this thread[1] somebody said one of
> >the reasons the patrician in Mort wasn't lord V. was that he couldn't
> >see V having a racehorse.
>
> >However, he has *several*.
>
> >M@A, corgi edition, p 76:
> >"... Lord Vetinari never changed or destroyed anything if there was no
> >logical reason to do so. He maintained the little zoo and the
> >racehorse stable, ..."
Good point. Okay, I withdraw the racehorse part of the objection.
>
> Not only that, but in Sourcery, Conina the Wonder Thief is described as
> having stolen, among other things, the 'silver shoes from the Patrician's
> best racehorse while it was in the process of winning a race'. So not
> only does he have at least two racehorses, at least one of those horses
> was shod in silver! (Even if Vetinari was new in S., Conina is described
> as being a recent arrival in Ankh-Morpork, and so the theft couldn't have
> been carried out much earlier than the story.)
Gosh, either I'm going to have to back down completely or wriggle my way
out of this somehow. The whole racehorse business still doesn't seem very
Vetinari-like to me, but he obviously did have not just one but several.
How to explain this? The only thing I can think of is the reference to
Bloody Stupid Johnson's landscaped gardens in IT, where it says somethng
to the effect that the Patrician didn't believe in destroying things
unnecessarily, so he kept them, even though he wasn't really a garden
sort of person ( I 'spect Helen has the exact reference...). Perhaps he
felt the same about racehorses (and their shoes). Yes, I like this,
because it still suggests that he's relatively new in Sourcery, otherwise
the racehorses would all have got too old to race and been retired.
Victoria
Andrew Tubb
>Well, there's the infamous Missing Fifteen Years ... and we know that at
>least seventeen years (Susan's age) (and nine months, presumably) must
>have passed between the end of _Mort_ and the beginning of _Soul Music_.
>The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
>(shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
>
around the dungeon dimensions for an indeterminate length of time before
Eric!
Adrian Hurt
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.961021...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> writes:
>
>I reread Mort this weekend for the first time in ages and was struck by
>how unlikely it is that the Patrician mentioned there is in fact
>Vetinari. I know conventional wisdom says he is, but this is based on
>Terry's post to the effect that he's always thought of Vetinari as a
>party animal, and which is not actually a refutation of the suggestion
>that the Patrician in Mort is not Vetinari. There were three things that
>particulalrly struck me: (i) the party is described as being given for
>500 of the Patrician's friends. It's hard to imagine Vetinari describing
>five people in A-M as his friend, let alone 500. (ii) He has a champion
>whiling away his time on race courses, or adding to his personal fortune
>by making wagers on his own horse (I know he has a private menagerie, but
>that seems different from a race horse). (iii) He has a pet swamp dragon.
>living
>creature he seems genuinely fond of.
(i) Put it like this. If you were one of the 500 people who received an
invitation, would *you* class yourself as one of the people of A-M who
were not among Vetinari's friends? Besides, in other books you only
see the Patrician while he's at work. I don't know about you, but my
behaviour at work is not the same as my behaviour at parties.
(ii) He's not a rider, he's an owner. He probably doesn't encourage racing
for his own personal benefit, but as a form of entertainment for the citizens.
Bread and circuses, etc.
(iii) By the time of Sourcery, Wuffles may very well be the only living
creature he is fond of, bearing in mind that during Mort, the swamp dragon
showed every intention of running away. The point is that Vetinari is
capable of being fond of a pet; by the time of Sourcery, it's a different
pet. And who says Vetinari got Wuffles as a puppy?
--
"Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott
Adrian Hurt | JANET: adr...@cee.hw.ac.uk
UUCP: ..!uknet!cee.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: adr...@cee.hw.ac.uk
Colm Buckley
> == Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz>
> Well, there's the infamous Missing Fifteen Years ... and we know that at
> least seventeen years (Susan's age) (and nine months, presumably) must
> have passed between the end of _Mort_ and the beginning of _Soul Music_.
> The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
> (shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
Not nesse-celery. Rincewind spent an unspecified amount of time in the
Dungeon Dimensions, and a short time in Hell... who knows how quickly
time passes in these alternate planes?
Colm
--
Colm Buckley B.F. | EMail : Colm.B...@tcd.ie or co...@lspace.org
Computer Science | WWW : http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/cbuckley/
Trinity College | Phone : +353 87 469146 (087-469146 within Ireland)
Dublin 2, Ireland | "Microsoft : Where do you want to crash today?"
Clem
In article <tWGKBIAZ...@keaveny.demon.co.uk>, David Keaveny
<da...@keaveny.demon.co.uk> writes:
> A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Gerd Aasen
> <gera...@online.no> wrote
>>In "The Colour of Magic" the Patrician is presented eating
>>candied starfish!! which is pretty strange for a man described as just
>>eating "a thin slice of dry bread and drinking only boiled water".
>
> This one I am certain about. I seem to remember he is described as being
> quite a large man (tho' I can't check, as someone as borrowed it and
> lives at the other end of the country), so either it is not he, or he
> has just released a top-selling diet book.
Rather like Nigel Lawson then? I was quite astonished to see him on
TV the other day loooking so gaunt and thin. I can't really say though
that he looks any healthier - more like some kind of ancient exhumed
corpse.
Clem
Brian Nisbet
>Ach, who is this person who gains pleasure from puncturing the balloon
>of fanciful interpretation with mundane mechanical explanations? Of
>*course* you are right. Moreover, I suspect that if Terry does ever get
>round to writing the book I'm *really* waiting for, the so-called
>prequel, then we will discover that not only is the Patrician in Mort
>Vetinari but so is the one in TCOM (judging by his posts on the subject,
>Terry was envisaging Rincewind enrolling at UU at about the time Vetinari
>was taking over A-M). Then we'll all just have to shrug our shoulders and
>say things like "Well, conceptions change over time, those were early
>books, nothing was really settled then, characters develop", but it won't
>be any *fun*. I thought I'd better get my oar in while I still can. But
>if you prefer, I can re-express my original claim in such a manner that it
>does not offend against pragmatism:
>The identification of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork with Havelock Vetinari
>does not appear to take place until Sourcery. Although a Patrician
>features in the earlier books the characteristic traits associated with
>Vetinari are not developed until Sourcery, where the name is also used
>for the first time.
>Okay?
Yeah, of course OK. I didn't set out to puncture any of your ballons but
you posted a theory and I responded. I don't really apologise for my
statements but I do think you slightly overreacted to my answer.
>Further evidence that TP's conception of the Patrician had not yet
>crystallised into the figure of Vetinari is the explicit mention given to
>the head torturer in Mort, who otherwise does not feature at all.
>Vetinari undoubtedly has members of staff who prepare scorpion pits etc.,
>but whoever they are, they do not seem to enjoy particulalrly high status.
The DiscWorld books are full of hidden people and people who change.
Every so often a character pops out of nowhere and then returns to that
dark place. I'm terribly sorry if this smacks of pragmatism or literary
criticism, but there you go.
Boylard
>
> I wonder how much time there is in between Mort and Sourcery...I mean,
> how much time has passed on the disc. It is plain that Partrician V. is
> responsible for making A-M what it is today (like my history teacher
> said about Christopher Columbus: He was a great man...this in no way
> implies that he was a good man.) If the Partician in Mort is a
> different one, would Partician V. had time to make all those changes?
> The man is good, but not that good.
>
I have no proof of this but weren't there guilds in the books before Mort?
If there were than this means Vetinari must have been the patrician because
he was the one who set up the guilds wasn't he?
--
Boylard
dan...@white.prestel.co.uk
Sarah Bonnett
nis...@tcd.ie (Brian Nisbet) wrote:
>In <Pine.OSF.3.91.961021...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> writes:
><First bit snipped on the basis that I'm not going to make reference to it>
<second bit snipped as well, because I can't be arsed>
The Disc >has changed a lot since the Colour of Magic and while the
Patrician we
>know and love now might be different in some ways to the original
>Patrician it doesn't mean they can't be the same person.
>Enjoy,
>B.
This is one of the things I like very much about Pterry's books. His
characters evolve, as do the people reading them. His writing style
evolves with them, banana, lemon tree, pint of lager, waffle.
YKWIM??
Sarah
Victoria Martin
On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, David Keaveny wrote:
> A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Victoria Martin
> <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote
> >
(i) the party is described as being given for
> >500 of the Patrician's friends. It's hard to imagine Vetinari describing
> >five people in A-M as his friend, let alone 500.
>
> I think anyone in their right sense of mind would want to describe
> themselves as a 'friend' of the Patrician. Only a brave (read 'foolish')
> man would publicly call himself an enemy.
Sure, but since it was described as 'a party for 500 of the Patrician's
friends' and not 'for 500 of the Patrician's "friends"' this suggests to me
that they are friends from his point of view, not from theirs. There
doesn't seem to be any irony in the use of the term 'friends' here.
victoria
Your Name Here
In article <01bbc108$4ff0c960$LocalHost@prsncpcr>, "Boylard" <dan...@white.prestel.co.uk> says:
Mort takes place after The Colour of Magic, and the Patrician is in
The COlour of Magic.
mabb
Tony Finch
On the other hand, the Guilds of TCOM are not quite the fully formed
guilds that the citizens know and are ripped off by in the later
books. They are mentioned, yes, but they seem to be a lot less
manipulated than they are under HV.
FTony.
Victoria Martin
On 24 Oct 1996, Colm Buckley wrote:
> > == Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz>
>
> > The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
> > (shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
>
> Not nesse-celery. Rincewind spent an unspecified amount of time in the
> Dungeon Dimensions, and a short time in Hell... who knows how quickly
> time passes in these alternate planes?
Even if it's the same as Disc time, that needn't matter much. IIRC we
learn in IT that Rincewind never actually graduated, so he could well be
student age in TCOM - say about 20 - which would make him in his forties
in IT. I don't remember anything
about his behaviour in either of those books which is inconsistent with
those ages (or, for that matter, with any age in between - he's not as
old as Cohen nor as young as Coin, but apart from that his age seems
largely immaterial).
Victoria
Geoff Mordock
Maybe I am wrong with this, but I can see the Partrician liking race
horses...I mean, they go in one direction, as fast as they can, and
never even consider turing back or looking around at the other lanes
Geoff Mordock
But I think the question here is if it is the same Patrician...it has
been said that there were other Partricians before V.
Kedamono
> Ross Smith wrote:
> >
> > Geoff Mordock wrote:
> > >
> > > I wonder how much time there is in between Mort and Sourcery...I mean,
> > > how much time has passed on the disc.
> >
> > Well, there's the infamous Missing Fifteen Years ... and we know that at
> > least seventeen years (Susan's age) (and nine months, presumably) must
> > have passed between the end of _Mort_ and the beginning of _Soul Music_.
> > The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
> > (shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
>
> Was the librarian's visit linked to time travel? I didn't get that. I
> thought he used L-Space to travel through space, not necissarily time.
> I always assumed that the main part of SG took place at roughly the same
> time as the other novels...with FOC maybe happening a few years
> afterwards (enough time for Brutha to force the people to calm down.)
Speaking of the Librarian...If the above timeline is more or less correct,
then how old is the Librarian? In human form, I don't see a spring chicken
in charge of UU's dangerous library, in fact a wizard of some skill would
be needed. So let's put the Librarian's human age at 40 or 50 at most.[1]
So, if we take the 15 years add them to Susan's 17, toss in about 3 or 4
more years for post SM stories, and we get a mon...orangutang of about 75
to 85 years of age! The Librarian shows no signs of slowing down, and is
still in full vigor as seen in Maskerade. What of the Librarian?
[1]If he's too old he ends up as an interesting appendix to
_Thorton's_Guide_to_meta-stable_Thaumatic_compounds_.
--
Kedamono
I'm now on Concentric as well as on AOL
Two for the price of One!
Keda...@concentric.net or Keda...@aol.com
----------------------
Take a look at the Alternate History Travel Guides!
http://users.aol.com/kedamono/sliders/alterguides.html
Midnight Tree Bandit
In the last episode, we saw Victoria Martin say:
>No, doesn't work. The Guild system wasn't set up by Vetinari, it was just
>modified. Even the Thieves Guild led a shadowy illegal existence and the
>the Assassins have a rather unclear history, but have certainly been
>around for a long time.
And don't forget that it is strongly hinted in FoC that Vetinari was a student
of the Assassassassassassassins Guild, which supports the statement to that
effect in the DwC Which makes me wonder... did Pterry add that to satisfy
those wondering about the entry in the DwC, or had it already been planned?
Or did he snag a copy of FoC through L-Space while working on the DwC so that
he would know?
-=><=-
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Midnight Tree Bandit | happy tune in time with irresponsibility
mtba...@mindspring.com | i'm dancing on the muddy slope of financial security
100000 Driuds have been | and squandering cheerfully my nicey-nice conformity
known to get it wrong! | i've fallen out the window of opportunity (m cadell)
Peter Bleackley
In the guildhouse, (Tony Finch) writes:
|>
|> On the other hand, the Guilds of TCOM are not quite the fully formed
|> guilds that the citizens know and are ripped off by in the later
|> books. They are mentioned, yes, but they seem to be a lot less
|> manipulated than they are under HV.
|>
cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic. In
Pyramids, they claim to have a long and noble history. I considered
that this might be an outright lie, but M@A seems to back it up.
Possibly there was a period of Chaos and Anarchy in Ankh-Morpork under
the rule of the Fat Patrician, during which undesirable elements
gained control over the Guild, and lowered the tone of things. (Note
that this is written from the Assassins' point of view. From the point
of view of the Watch, say, and most normal people, the Assassins are
still a band of cutthroats, but highly paid cutthroats with good
manners and impeccable dress sense).
I personally think that the Fat Patrician died in the great fire of
Ankh-Morpork. It seems like a logical way of disposing of him, and it
explains why Rincewind and Twoflower weren't wanted men when they
returned to Ankh-Morpork.
--
~PETE "QUANTUM" BLEACKLEY~
Daleks! Repent of your evil ways, and live in peace as plumbers!
X-Ray Astronomy Group University of Leicester
p...@star.le.ac.uk ~ Website coming soon
Peter Bleackley
In Ephebe, Ross Smith writes:
|>
|> On a related note, there's _Small Gods_. Terry has said that the
|> publication order of the books is the same as their chronological order,
|> but since SG spans just over a hundred years, obviously a slight
|> exception must be made for it. There's a reference in FOC to the events
|> of SG as historical, and the Librarian's visit to Ephebe is explicitly
|> associated with time travel, so I tend to think that the *end* of SG
|> fits into the series in its nominal place (between WA and L&L), with the
|> bulk of the book happening a hundred years before the others.
If the events of Small Gods are contempory with the rest of the series,
and Brutha's death happens 100 years later (Cause of death: prophesy
overdose), then the Librarian doesn't need to travel in time, only in
space. There are two ways that he could have known about the fire.
1) He works in the Unseen University. He probably has a few friends with
advanced precognitive abilities.
2) He was working in a remote part of the library at the time and smelt
smoke.
As for the rescued books turning up later, well, in the UU library, it
would be a while before anybody else found them (the UU library probably
being designed to facilitate the process of picking up something
interesting while you were looking for something else- a very wizardly way
of working.).
Mark Syddall
Victoria Martin wrote:
>
> On 25 Oct 1996, Peter Bleackley wrote:
>
> > The Assassins' Guild, in particular, is nothing but a band of
> > cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic.
>
>
> Victoria
What about the scene in the Broken Drum, just before the great
fire of A-M breaks out? The head thief and the head assassin are
discussing Twoflower, yesno? So, perhaps there was some kind of
organisation at that point. Though it is hard to imagine Dr Cruces
being quite so civil with a mere thief.
Mark
Jane Hodson
Victoria Martin spake thus:
>
>On 25 Oct 1996, Peter Bleackley wrote:
>
>> The Assassins' Guild, in particular, is nothing but a band of
>> cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic.
>
>And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
>
>> Pyramids, they claim to have a long and noble history. I considered
>> that this might be an outright lie, but M@A seems to back it up.
>>
>Guild. It might have existed but been illegal (rather like the Freemasons
>at various periods of time). On the other hand, if Vetinari was sent to
>the Assassins' School, then it must have been in legal existence during
>his youth and probably for quite a while before that.
>
How about this:
The Assassins' Guild has indeed existed for a very long time. It is the ideal
profession for younger sons of the nobility, and is based upon earning large
sums of money. Furthermore, the Assassins' guild is self-limiting in that only
the very rich can afford to use it. Hence, it doesn't threaten the fabric of
society, and has an acceptable patina of nobility and money to it. Vetinari's
real stroke of genius was that, having attended the Assassins' school, he
applied the same principles to thieves. Thieving is lower class and is all
about those with no money taking it from those who do. Lots of lower class
oiks, threat to the fabric of society, no respect for the upper classes etc.
However, by setting an acceptable level of crime and making the Thieves' Guild
responsible for it, Vetinari succeeded in making the Thieves' Guild all about
aspiring to a respectable place in society, as well as self-regulating.
Vetinari did not create the Guild System he just made it work in new and
interesting ways.
Jane Hodson
Victoria Martin
On 25 Oct 1996, Peter Bleackley wrote:
> The Assassins' Guild, in particular, is nothing but a band of
> cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic.
And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
> In
> Pyramids, they claim to have a long and noble history. I considered
> that this might be an outright lie, but M@A seems to back it up.
>
Again, i suppose this could depend on how one views the status of the
Guild. It might have existed but been illegal (rather like the Freemasons
at various periods of time). On the other hand, if Vetinari was sent to
the Assassins' School, then it must have been in legal existence during
his youth and probably for quite a while before that.
> I personally think that the Fat Patrician died in the great fire of
> Ankh-Morpork. It seems like a logical way of disposing of him, and it
> explains why Rincewind and Twoflower weren't wanted men when they
> returned to Ankh-Morpork.
>
Or he could have been done in by the Star People. That was certainly a
period of chaos and anarchy when many things might have changed.
Victoria
Dick Eney
In article <54q2i1$a...@falcon.le.ac.uk>,
Peter Bleackley <p...@ltsun6.star.le.ac.uk> wrote:
>In Ephebe, Ross Smith writes:
>|>
>|> On a related note, there's _Small Gods_. Terry has said that the
>|> publication order of the books is the same as their chronological order,
>|> but since SG spans just over a hundred years, obviously a slight
>|> exception must be made for it. There's a reference in FOC to the events
>|> of SG as historical, and the Librarian's visit to Ephebe is explicitly
>|> associated with time travel, so I tend to think that the *end* of SG
>|> fits into the series in its nominal place (between WA and L&L), with the
>|> bulk of the book happening a hundred years before the others.
>
>If the events of Small Gods are contempory with the rest of the series,
>and Brutha's death happens 100 years later (Cause of death: prophesy
>overdose), then the Librarian doesn't need to travel in time, only in
>space. There are two ways that he could have known about the fire.
>1) He works in the Unseen University. He probably has a few friends with
>advanced precognitive abilities.
>2) He was working in a remote part of the library at the time and smelt
>smoke.
>As for the rescued books turning up later, well, in the UU library, it
>would be a while before anybody else found them (the UU library probably
>being designed to facilitate the process of picking up something
>interesting while you were looking for something else- a very wizardly way
>of working.).
Could the events of SG _bridge_ the rest of the series? That is, during
FoC the missionaries are at work, but Brutha might still be alive. He
doesn't travel, after all, and he never actually visited Ankh-Morpork.
The fire would then have been as little as 20 or as much as 80 years ago,
and the Librarian would have had time to hear about it normally and still
have to go back in time to rescue books.
Though I dislike the thought that Brutha would have sent out missionaries,
he was actually quite strong in his faith. Maybe he couldn't stop them
going and just required that they be nonviolent.
=Tamar (sharing account dick...@access.digex.net)
Terry Pratchett
Here's what I think, for what it's worth:
Rincewind has been bounced around Time and Space for so long that
there's no knowing how he has aged, if he has physically aged at all
(although he's clearly a bit more mature in IT).
The age of the Librarian. Well, orangutans have been known to live to
about 30, and humans to c. 114. But wizards live longer. And who knows
how these facts combined in the case of the Librarian? He might live
as long as a human *and* an orangutan put together.
I'm pretty certain that the same Patrician was in all the books. Let's
look at it like this:
*Some* guilds are very old (the Beggars and the Assassins). Vetinari
merely encouraged them and helped the thieves, hitherto a loose
association of gangs, form their own Guild.
He's clearly lost weigh and got more austere. It must be the pressure.
As for racehorses and so on -- Vetinari is not the first Patrician, and
no doubt the earlier ones, like Lord Snapcase, were often crazed, greedy
and acquisitive. So he has inherited all sorts of things. But he
doesn't change anything without a reason.
Terry Pratchett
Gordon Steemson
Mark Syddall <mts...@novell3.bham.ac.uk> writes:
>Victoria Martin wrote:
>>
>> On 25 Oct 1996, Peter Bleackley wrote:
>>
>> > The Assassins' Guild, in particular, is nothing but a band of
>> > cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic.
>>
>> And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
>What about the scene in the Broken Drum, just before the great
>fire of A-M breaks out? The head thief and the head assassin are
>discussing Twoflower, yesno? So, perhaps there was some kind of
>organisation at that point. Though it is hard to imagine Dr Cruces
>being quite so civil with a mere thief.
The head of the Assassins (hey, there's another word it's hard to stop
spelling!) in TCOM was Zlorf Flannelfoot, who--though possessed of a
certain style--was definitely not particularly upper-class, and also he
was killed in the tavern brawl, IIRC. This seems out of character for
the head of a violent guild, but there you are.
I am probably wrong about his dying in the tavern brawl, but I think the
rest of it is sound. Anyone got anything to add here?
GtM (gste...@sfu.ca)
--
Unclear on the Concept, No. 1:
When one arranges a death by poisoning, it is not usually necessary to
boil the water first.
Andrew Janssen
Kedamono wrote:
<snipped>
> Speaking of the Librarian...If the above timeline is more or less correct,
> then how old is the Librarian? In human form, I don't see a spring chicken
> in charge of UU's dangerous library, in fact a wizard of some skill would
> be needed. So let's put the Librarian's human age at 40 or 50 at most.[1]
> So, if we take the 15 years add them to Susan's 17, toss in about 3 or 4
> more years for post SM stories, and we get a mon...orangutang of about 75
> to 85 years of age! The Librarian shows no signs of slowing down, and is
> still in full vigor as seen in Maskerade. What of the Librarian?
Well, it appears (from Windle Poons) that one of the advantages of being a wizard is
a rather longer lifespan. Since the Library is just crackling with magical energy and
is something of a spatial/temporal anomaly, maybe the Librarian's normal aging processes
are retarded by all that raw magic.
> [1]If he's too old he ends up as an interesting appendix to
> _Thorton's_Guide_to_meta-stable_Thaumatic_compounds_.
>
> --
> Kedamono
> I'm now on Concentric as well as on AOL
> Two for the price of One!
> Keda...@concentric.net or Keda...@aol.com
> ----------------------
> Take a look at the Alternate History Travel Guides!
> http://users.aol.com/kedamono/sliders/alterguides.html
--
Andrew D. Janssen
----------------------------------------------
If you like J.R.R. Tolkien |
check out ElendorMUSH at |
--< elendor.sbs.nau.com:1893 >-- |
-----------------------------------------------
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--Grand Moff Tarkin
Peter Wilson
Your Name Here wrote:
>
> In article <01bbc108$4ff0c960$LocalHost@prsncpcr>, "Boylard" <dan...@white.prestel.co.uk> says:
>
> Mort takes place after The Colour of Magic, and the Patrician is in
> The COlour of Magic.
>
> mabb
Mort takes place before The Light Fantastic because Twoflower teaches
Mort Wier or Dam on the astral journey.
-----------------------------------------
_
/ \ eter
\_/ , /
\ /| /
\/ |/ ilson
'
Alex Burr
In article <kedamono-241...@cnc096100.concentric.net>,
Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> wrote:
>Speaking of the Librarian...If the above timeline is more or less correct,
>then how old is the Librarian? In human form, I don't see a spring chicken
>in charge of UU's dangerous library, in fact a wizard of some skill would
>be needed. So let's put the Librarian's human age at 40 or 50 at most.[1]
>So, if we take the 15 years add them to Susan's 17, toss in about 3 or 4
>more years for post SM stories, and we get a mon...orangutang of about 75
>to 85 years of age! The Librarian shows no signs of slowing down, and is
>still in full vigor as seen in Maskerade. What of the Librarian?
So, the transformation is into a _young_ orang-utan.
Alex Burr
Ben of Bens
p...@ltsun6.star.le.ac.uk (Peter Bleackley) wrote:
>In the guildhouse, (Tony Finch) writes:
>|>
>|> On the other hand, the Guilds of TCOM are not quite the fully formed
>|> guilds that the citizens know and are ripped off by in the later
>|> books. They are mentioned, yes, but they seem to be a lot less
>|> manipulated than they are under HV.
>|>
>Pyramids, they claim to have a long and noble history. I considered
>that this might be an outright lie, but M@A seems to back it up.
>the rule of the Fat Patrician, during which undesirable elements
>gained control over the Guild, and lowered the tone of things. (Note
>that this is written from the Assassins' point of view. From the point
>of view of the Watch, say, and most normal people, the Assassins are
>still a band of cutthroats, but highly paid cutthroats with good
>manners and impeccable dress sense).
>Ankh-Morpork. It seems like a logical way of disposing of him, and it
>explains why Rincewind and Twoflower weren't wanted men when they
>returned to Ankh-Morpork.
From a cetain point of view Twoflower and Rincewind didn't start the fire -
it was a result of uncontrolled guild rivalry.
More to the point the Watch in TCOM are definately a traditional style
Watch, as opposed to the Guards Guards flavour (who else thinks the
Sergeant in TCOM was Colon ?).
In the orginal discussions on the timeline (about a year and a half ago ?)
we ran into this problem. The timeline as formulated only has about 3
years (that's great years) between TCOM and M (AFAICR) and the Patrician in
M is Vetinari (PTerry has more or less said so) and has been there for ten
years. My theory was that the great fire radically altered his view of the
way things should be done. Also, if he was badly burned in the fire he
could well have lost a lot of weight, skin regeneration races through the
calories.
In all the recent timeline discussions I've not seen a full, updated
version. Has one found it's way into the archives yet ?
Ben
Victoria Martin
On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Mark Syddall wrote:
> Victoria Martin wrote:
> >
> > And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
> >
>
> What about the scene in the Broken Drum, just before the great
> fire of A-M breaks out? The head thief and the head assassin are
> discussing Twoflower, yesno?
Ah, i clearly didn't recall correctly.
So, perhaps there was some kind of
> organisation at that point. Though it is hard to imagine Dr Cruces
> being quite so civil with a mere thief.
Maybe it isn't Dr Cruces. Or am I failing to recall another essential
detail? The fastidiousness of the Guild could have been the result of the
lengthy period of prosperity and order alluded to in FoC which allowed the
Guilds to take on their modern form.I daresay things were a lot more rough
and ready in the TCOM days.
Victoria
Dick Eney
Peter Wilson <wil...@a.crl.com> wrote:
>Your Name Here wrote:
>> "Boylard" <dan...@white.prestel.co.uk> says:
>> Mort takes place after The Colour of Magic, and the Patrician is in
>> The COlour of Magic.
>> mabb
>
>Mort takes place before The Light Fantastic because Twoflower teaches
>Mort Wier or Dam on the astral journey.
No, you're confusing Death (whose nickname is Mort) with Mort (whose
nickname is "boy"). When Death asks him what his name is, Mort says
"Mort" and Death says "WHAT A COINCIDENCE."
So _Mort_ takes place after _TLF_.
=Tamar
Andrew Janssen
Kedamono wrote:
<snipped>
> Speaking of the Librarian...If the above timeline is more or less correct,
> then how old is the Librarian? In human form, I don't see a spring chicken
> in charge of UU's dangerous library, in fact a wizard of some skill would
> be needed. So let's put the Librarian's human age at 40 or 50 at most.[1]
> So, if we take the 15 years add them to Susan's 17, toss in about 3 or 4
> more years for post SM stories, and we get a mon...orangutang of about 75
> to 85 years of age! The Librarian shows no signs of slowing down, and is
> still in full vigor as seen in Maskerade. What of the Librarian?
Well, it appears (from Windle Poons) that on
Geoff Mordock
Victoria Martin wrote:
>
> I reread Mort this weekend for the first time in ages and was struck by
> how unlikely it is that the Patrician mentioned there is in fact
> Vetinari. I know conventional wisdom says he is, but this is based on
> Terry's post to the effect that he's always thought of Vetinari as a
> party animal, and which is not actually a refutation of the suggestion
> that the Patrician in Mort is not Vetinari. There were three things that
> particulalrly struck me: (i) the party is described as being given for
> 500 of the Patrician's friends. It's hard to imagine Vetinari describing
> race horse. This seems a little unlikely - it's hard to imagine Vetinari
> whiling away his time on race courses, or adding to his personal fortune
> by making wagers on his own horse (I know he has a private menagerie, but
> that seems different from a race horse). (iii) He has a pet swamp dragon.
> In Sourcery he has a different pet, Wuffles, who, we are told, is the only
> living
> creature he seems genuinely fond of. Wuffles is pretty ancient at this
> point, so presumably would have been around at the time Mort takes place.
> Wufffles himself is, I'll grant you, a most unlikely companion for
> Vetinari but a swamp dragon seems even less likely. Besides, Wuffles
> presumably has some sort of history (and he gets mentioned again in G!G!)
> whereas the swamp dragon never reappears.
>
> This makes me think that V.'s first appearance is indeed in Sourcery, and
> that in that book he's a fairly young man near the beginning of his
> career as patrician (hence, perhaps, the fact that he misjudges the mood
> of the wizards so badly and ends up as a lizard).
>
> Victoria
Vimes sat down in the Patrician's chair. "Can you remember the last
Partician?"
"Old Lord Snapcase? And the one before him. Oh, yeah. Nasty
pieces of work, they were. At least this one didn't giggle or wear a
dress."
-Feet of Clay
If it wasn't Vetinari in Color of Magic, this statement puts a hole new
light on some of the scenes
Victoria Martin
On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Ben of Bens wrote:
> In the orginal discussions on the timeline (about a year and a half ago ?)
> we ran into this problem. The timeline as formulated only has about 3
> years (that's great years) between TCOM and M (AFAICR) and the Patrician in
> M is Vetinari (PTerry has more or less said so) and has been there for ten
> years.
With the emphasis on "more or less". If you're thinking of the quote in
APF, all it actually says is that it's a mistake to assume that Vetinari
wouldn't throw extravangant parties. That's always been understood to mean
that Vetinari *is* the Patrician in Mort, but it's not definite. All
Terry's post says for certain is that the party alone isn't sufficient
grounds to conclude that it isn't Vetinari.
My theory was that the great fire radically altered his view of the
> way things should be done. Also, if he was badly burned in the fire he
> could well have lost a lot of weight, skin regeneration races through the
> calories.
And also underwent a major character transplant.Not to mention the chances
of surviving major burns in a place with doctors as lousy as those in A-M.
>
> In all the recent timeline discussions I've not seen a full, updated
> version. Has one found it's way into the archives yet ?
>
Someone posted one a few weeks back. It could be re-posted.
Victoria
Brian Nisbet
>Victoria Martin wrote:
>>
>> On 25 Oct 1996, Peter Bleackley wrote:
>>
>> > The Assassins' Guild, in particular, is nothing but a band of
>> > cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic.
>>
>> And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
>>
>> Victoria
>What about the scene in the Broken Drum, just before the great
>fire of A-M breaks out? The head thief and the head assassin are
>discussing Twoflower, yesno? So, perhaps there was some kind of
>organisation at that point. Though it is hard to imagine Dr Cruces
>being quite so civil with a mere thief.
I always got the impression that the thieves in the Broken Drum were sort
of proto-thieves guild. They were at the top of all of the other
competing thieves gangs and shortly afterwards they were brought together
to form the Guild.
Enjoy,
B.
--
Brian Nisbet B.F.
E-mail: Nis...@tcd.ie
Web: http://www2.tcd.ie/~nisbetb/
"Goblins may not be big, cuddly, fluffy or kind, but they are FUN!!!!!"
Geoff Mordock
Andrew Janssen wrote:
>
> Kedamono wrote:
>
> <snipped>
> > Speaking of the Librarian...If the above timeline is more or less correct,
> > then how old is the Librarian? In human form, I don't see a spring chicken
> > in charge of UU's dangerous library, in fact a wizard of some skill would
> > be needed. So let's put the Librarian's human age at 40 or 50 at most.[1]
> > So, if we take the 15 years add them to Susan's 17, toss in about 3 or 4
> > more years for post SM stories, and we get a mon...orangutang of about 75
> > to 85 years of age! The Librarian shows no signs of slowing down, and is
> > still in full vigor as seen in Maskerade. What of the Librarian?
>
> a rather longer lifespan. Since the Library is just crackling with magical energy and
> is something of a spatial/temporal anomaly, maybe the Librarian's normal aging processes
> are retarded by all that raw magic.
As long as we are onthe subject, what is the average lifespan or an
orangutan?
Malcolm Fraser
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.961024...@ermine.ox.ac.uk>
Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
->
->
->On 24 Oct 1996, Colm Buckley wrote:
->
->> > == Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz>
->>
->> > The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
->> > (shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
->>
->> Not nesse-celery. Rincewind spent an unspecified amount of time in the
->> Dungeon Dimensions, and a short time in Hell... who knows how quickly
->> time passes in these alternate planes?
->
->Even if it's the same as Disc time, that needn't matter much. IIRC we
->learn in IT that Rincewind never actually graduated, so he could well be
->student age in TCOM - say about 20 - which would make him in his forties
->in IT. I don't remember anything
->about his behaviour in either of those books which is inconsistent with
->those ages (or, for that matter, with any age in between - he's not as
->old as Cohen nor as young as Coin, but apart from that his age seems
->largely immaterial).
In fact, IIRC, students could have a much greater range of ages in the
past. Sou you could have some starting at, say, 14 years old, while
others are 20 or more. This could also account for a lot of slack
time.
--
Malcolm in sunny Berkhamsted
Andrew Janssen
Kedamono wrote:
<snipped>
> Speaking of the Librarian...If the above timeline is more or less correct,
> then how old is the Librarian? In human form, I don't see a spring chicken
> in charge of UU's dangerous library, in fact a wizard of some skill would
> be needed. So let's put the Librarian's human age at 40 or 50 at most.[1]
> So, if we take the 15 years add them to Susan's 17, toss in about 3 or 4
> more years for post SM stories, and we get a mon...orangutang of about 75
> to 85 years of age! The Librarian shows no signs of slowing down, and is
> still in full vigor as seen in Maskerade. What of the Librarian?
Well, it appears (from Windle Poons) that on
ROCKY FRISCO
CC> Clem:
CC> Rather like Nigel Lawson then? I was quite astonished to see him on
CC> TV the other day loooking so gaunt and thin. I can't really say
CC> though that he looks any healthier - more like some kind of ancient
CC> exhumed corpse.
Nigel Lawson looks like me?
-Rock
<rocky....@bgbbs.com> Black Gold BBS http://bgbbs.com/~rocky/roc.htm
Harry Browne in `96 our only real hope--> http://www.HarryBrowne96.org
* RM 1.31 1542 * There is no gravity, the earth just sucks. (sluuuuuuuuuurp!)
Ross Smith
Geoff Mordock wrote:
>
> Was the librarian's visit linked to time travel? I didn't get that. I
> thought he used L-Space to travel through space, not necissarily time.
> I always assumed that the main part of SG took place at roughly the same
> time as the other novels...with FOC maybe happening a few years
> afterwards (enough time for Brutha to force the people to calm down.)
SG, p. 216 (Corgi paperback):
Only a few librarians learn the secret, and there are inflexible
rules about making use of the fact. Because it amounts to time
travel, and time travel causes big problems.
But if a library is on fire, and down in the history books as
having been on fire...
[...] Some time later, scrolls thought to have been destroyed in
the Great Ephebian Library Fire turned up in remarkably good
condition in the Library of Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork.
To me that seems pretty clear: the Librarian had read about the fire in
history books, and went back in time to save some of the books.
--
Ross Smith (Wellington, New Zealand) ...... <mailto:al...@netlink.co.nz>
......... <http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/3699/> ..........
"The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it
regularly went cuckoo." -- Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters)
Tony Finch
Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz> wrote:
>
> SG, p. 216 (Corgi paperback):
>
> Only a few librarians learn the secret, and there are inflexible
> rules about making use of the fact. Because it amounts to time
> travel, and time travel causes big problems.
>
> But if a library is on fire, and down in the history books as
> having been on fire...
>
> [...] Some time later, scrolls thought to have been destroyed in
> the Great Ephebian Library Fire turned up in remarkably good
> condition in the Library of Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork.
>
> To me that seems pretty clear: the Librarian had read about the fire in
> history books, and went back in time to save some of the books.
Hmm. Even if "only a few librarians learn the secret" I'm surprised
that the place wasn't overrun by them all trying to save the books...
FTony.
Kedamono
In article <c3i4FAAo...@unseen.demon.co.uk>, Terry Pratchett
<tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Here's what I think, for what it's worth:
>
> The age of the Librarian. Well, orangutans have been known to live to
> about 30, and humans to c. 114. But wizards live longer. And who knows
> how these facts combined in the case of the Librarian? He might live
> as long as a human *and* an orangutan put together.
OK, this sort of makes fine discworldian sense, and I can live with that.
I really don't want to were a black arm-band in mourning for the
Librarian.[1]
Still, this puts an upper age on the Librarian of around 144 or 154. Well,
actually, that works very well, because it means that the Librarian is now
middled-aged. I wonder if he's going to go through a middle aged
crisis.[2]
>
> I'm pretty certain that the same Patrician was in all the books. Let's
> look at it like this:
>
> *Some* guilds are very old (the Beggars and the Assassins). Vetinari
> merely encouraged them and helped the thieves, hitherto a loose
> association of gangs, form their own Guild.
>
> He's clearly lost weigh and got more austere. It must be the pressure.
>
> As for racehorses and so on -- Vetinari is not the first Patrician, and
> no doubt the earlier ones, like Lord Snapcase, were often crazed, greedy
> and acquisitive. So he has inherited all sorts of things. But he
> doesn't change anything without a reason.
>
> Terry Pratchett
Geesh, I now in a position to disagree with the person who writes this
stuff.[3] I went over the pertinent pages, and the Patrician in TCOM just
doesn't read the same as Vetinari, he scans as a different person
altogether. He also seemed to be a bit more blood thirsty, and had an
active spy network that doesn't seem to mesh with the system that Vetinari
has in place. In fact, he reads like ol' Snapcase.[4] The casual mention
of a beringed hand, Rincewind worried about being shot down by a hail of
crossbow bolts, the somewhat sybriatic lifestyle of this TCOM Patrician,
all point to a different person. Vetinari would have met with Rincewind
alone, in a simple room, and his very presence would have sufficed in
sending Rincewind into a nervous fit.
Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
isn't Vetinari.
[1] I can imagine the stares when I tell them "Well you see, this
character, an orangutan, who used to be a man, but got primatized by some
magic..."
[2] I don't suppose that there is a female orangutan in the Patrician's
menagerie? What's said about the seventh son of orangutan?
[3] Just missed seeing you in Seattle. Darn! Visiting Seattle or nearby
again soon?
[4] I know, we have never met the previous Patrician, but from inferences,
the TCOM Patrician matches to a tee.
Midnight Tree Bandit
In the last episode, we saw Victoria Martin say:
>Even if it's the same as Disc time, that needn't matter much. IIRC we
>learn in IT that Rincewind never actually graduated, so he could well be
>student age in TCOM - say about 20 - which would make him in his forties
>in IT. I don't remember anything
I always assumed that Rincewind was about thirtyish, since that was his age
when he made the transfer the TWA plane on our, er, plane in the third part of
TCOM. "...Dr. Rjinswand, 33, a bachelor, born in Sweden, raised in New
Jersey..." (NAL hc (SFBC edition), p132). For no particular reason, I fgured
his age by IT to be in the late 40's. I'm with Colm -- no telling how time in
the nether regions compares to our time here. But he was only on the desert
island for six months, and I got the impression he'd been through an awful lot
between the end of Eric and the beginning of IT.
-=><=-
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Midnight Tree Bandit | happy tune in time with irresponsibility
mtba...@mindspring.com | i'm dancing on the muddy slope of financial security
100000 Driuds have been | and squandering cheerfully my nicey-nice conformity
known to get it wrong! | i've fallen out the window of opportunity (m cadell)
John Fouhy
In article <326DCD...@netlink.co.nz>,
Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz> wrote:
> The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
What is Rincewind's current age?
I got the impression that he was youngish in TCOM (20-30), and don't
recall anything since. I know on IT he is depicted as being old (beard,
etc), but this hasn't struck true with me, and IIRC I'm not alone..
--
\\\\\ John Fouhy, Wellington, New Zealand _o_ jfo...@actrix.gen.nz \,
\\\\\\\__o Student of Wellington College ($) Fido: 3:771/160.43 <>
\\\\\\\\'/ 58% afpure | De Chelonian Mobile.. " " '73 | NHPure: 82 ./,/`
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. - GM /_/`
John Fouhy
In article <54qtpc$9...@morgoth.sfu.ca>,
Gordon Steemson <gste...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> The head of the Assassins (hey, there's another word it's hard to stop
> spelling!) in TCOM was Zlorf Flannelfoot, who--though possessed of a
> certain style--was definitely not particularly upper-class, and also he
> was killed in the tavern brawl, IIRC. This seems out of character for
> the head of a violent guild, but there you are.
The assassins - violent?
I should say not, good chap!
They are not mere common thugs, but highly trained and skilled
professionals, every dagger carefully aimed, and /stylish/. Like [c|k]ats,
really. Or Elves.
John Fouhy
In article <Pine.OSF.3.91.96102...@ermine.ox.ac.uk>,
Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> the Assassins have a rather unclear history, but have certainly been
> around for a long time.
Vetinari even studied there...
John Fouhy
In article <54rmdu$h...@dex.trin.cam.ac.uk>, Tony Finch <fa...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hmm. Even if "only a few librarians learn the secret" I'm surprised
> that the place wasn't overrun by them all trying to save the books...
Consider that they must abide by the rules of the "Librarians of Space and
Time", and the library was only down as burning in the Disc's history
books..
Even if they did nip through and read them (which would be unlikely -
unless you don't grow older whilst in a different area of lspace from your
own - given all the potential history books available for reading that are
available to the skilled lspacer), it is possible that they respected the
books as being part of The Librarian's 'patch'..
The Bellinghman
On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Peter Wilson <wil...@a.crl.com> wrote:
>Your Name Here wrote:
>>
>> In article <01bbc108$4ff0c960$LocalHost@prsncpcr>, "Boylard" <dan...@white.prestel.co.uk> says:
>>
>> Mort takes place after The Colour of Magic, and the Patrician is in
>> The COlour of Magic.
>>
>> mabb
>
>Mort takes place before The Light Fantastic because Twoflower teaches
>Mort Wier or Dam on the astral journey.
No, Mort is only ever in the astral plane during the course of the novel
'Mort'.
The Mort mentioned as meeting Twoflower is Death. 'Mort' (as mentioned at
the start of the novel Mort) is a nickname for Death, as well as a standard
contraction of Mortimer.
Alan
--
Alan Bellingham: al...@lspace.org
http://www.doughnut.demon.co.uk/
Malcolm Fraser
In article <54rmdu$h...@dex.trin.cam.ac.uk>
fa...@cam.ac.uk (Tony Finch) wrote:
->Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz> wrote:
->>
->> SG, p. 216 (Corgi paperback):
->>
->> Only a few librarians learn the secret, and there are inflexible
->> rules about making use of the fact. Because it amounts to time
->> travel, and time travel causes big problems.
->>
->> But if a library is on fire, and down in the history books as
->> having been on fire...
->>
->> [...] Some time later, scrolls thought to have been destroyed in
->> the Great Ephebian Library Fire turned up in remarkably good
->> condition in the Library of Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork.
->>
->> To me that seems pretty clear: the Librarian had read about the fire in
->> history books, and went back in time to save some of the books.
->
->Hmm. Even if "only a few librarians learn the secret" I'm surprised
->that the place wasn't overrun by them all trying to save the books...
->
->FTony.
Well, perhaps if it has fractal nature, or some such, then it (LSpace)
can cope with an infinite number of Librarians wandering around the
same part at once. Of course, I think there would have to be a limit
to a countably infinite number. And in any case there there would be
all the others banging away on their typewriters to produce the
complete works of Shakespeare. (Bet you thought I was going to use the
M word there.)
David O'Brien
Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz> wrote:
>Geoff Mordock wrote:
>The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
>(which leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
so who says time passes in the Dungeon Dimensions?
we do get the impression in TLF/TCOM that Rincewind is fresh out of UU
(i.e. mid-twenties) and not too worried about a career progression.
For him to be a mid-forties shores-of-reality bum[1] in IT isn't too
far out. He is a bit excitable though, for a 'mature' person. Maybe
the events in F^hE don't return Rincewind and Eric to their proper
times. (should there be a question mark there?)
>associated with time travel, so I tend to think that the *end* of SG
>fits into the series in its nominal place (between WA and L&L), with the
>bulk of the book happening a hundred years before the others.
must do, what with Constable Visit... in FoC.
dave (Hogfather: gimme, gimme, gimme!)
[1] kind of like a beach bum, but more mystic...
Noel Foster
Tony Finch (fa...@cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz> wrote:
> >
> > To me that seems pretty clear: the Librarian had read about the fire in
>
>
Maybe it was. Would you argue with a determined Librarian?
Noel.
--
When a person puts his best foot forward and it gets stepped on - that's life.
Dr. Laurence Peter, 5000 Gems of Wit & Wisdom.
Nestle Roof
Dylan O'Donnell
Geoff Mordock <gmor...@erols.com> wrote:
[sodding huge snip]
>As long as we are onthe subject, what is the average lifespan or an
>orangutan?
According to http://www.med.usf.edu/NINA/park/primate/orangutan.html,
35 years. Alta Vista couldn't find any references for transformed
orang-utans living in a high-thaumic environment, however.
--
Dylan O'Donnell (dyl...@demon.net)
Demon Internet Ltd, slave deck.
http://www.vy.com/psmith.html
Aka Psmith (elsewhere). Badger? *urf*
John Fouhy
In article <32728786...@news.news.demon.net>,
Dylan O'Donnell <dyl...@demon.net> wrote:
> 35 years. Alta Vista couldn't find any references for transformed
> orang-utans living in a high-thaumic environment, however.
High-octane^H^Hrine, hmm? :-)
FWIW, are orangutans native to the Disc? If they are, one would assume
they're probably limited to Howondaland and similar areas, outside of
which they would be essentially unknown (bar the one in question :-) ).
Given the Nature of Belief...?
Perhaps the Librarian would keel over dead if he came within a certain
distance of Howondaland, but otherwise live on..
Terry Pratchett
In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> may well have written:
>
>Geesh, I now in a position to disagree with the person who writes this
>stuff.[3] I went over the pertinent pages, and the Patrician in TCOM just
>doesn't read the same as Vetinari, he scans as a different person
>altogether. He also seemed to be a bit more blood thirsty, and had an
>active spy network that doesn't seem to mesh with the system that Vetinari
>has in place. In fact, he reads like ol' Snapcase.[4] The casual mention
>of a beringed hand, Rincewind worried about being shot down by a hail of
>crossbow bolts, the somewhat sybriatic lifestyle of this TCOM Patrician,
>all point to a different person. Vetinari would have met with Rincewind
>alone, in a simple room, and his very presence would have sufficed in
>sending Rincewind into a nervous fit.
>
>Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
>isn't Vetinari.
How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?
--
Terry Pratchett
Sarah Bonnett
Terry Pratchett <tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Here's what I think, for what it's worth:
<snip>
What do you know about it?
:)
Cor, anyone would think this bloke WROTE the books the way he answers
peoples questions.
What's that you say, Skippy?
Oh...
Sorry Mr Pratchett.
John Fouhy
In article <84636627...@diaspoir.demon.co.uk>,
David O'Brien <d...@diaspoir.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> so who says time passes in the Dungeon Dimensions?
There would be interesting consequences if it didn't..
For one, every hole/'weakening' would have all the DDers that could fit
(which could potentially be all, full stop) around it instantly (possibly
unless there were more than one ongoing at the same time, Disc-side). For
two, RW would either be instantly caught or never caught, and what he did
would have little bearing on the fact..
Or it could be a '!time', Death-style (or Djel?). Death's House is a bit
wierd because time doesn't pass there relative to the outside world, yet
things do happen in sequence, which suggests an internal type of
timekeeping method.. <shrugs>
> far out. He is a bit excitable though, for a 'mature' person. Maybe
Can you blame him..? Not everyone who gets chased through the DD, flies
around the backblocks of Klatch, or falls off the Edge..
> the events in F^hE don't return Rincewind and Eric to their proper
I think they probably did.. RW's age doesn't seem to cause any problems to
me - if anyone ever works out a proper timeline, it'll be easier to see
what's going on exactly..
> times. (should there be a question mark there?)
Technically, no. But you could have put one there.. Were you asking a
question? :-)
Archangel
Victoria Martin (sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk) wrote:
:
:
: On 24 Oct 1996, Colm Buckley wrote:
:
: > > == Ross Smith <al...@netlink.co.nz>
: >
: > > The whole Discworld saga so far must span at least a couple of decades
: > > (shich leads to some awkward questions about Rincewind's age).
: >
: > Not nesse-celery. Rincewind spent an unspecified amount of time in the
: > Dungeon Dimensions, and a short time in Hell... who knows how quickly
: > time passes in these alternate planes?
:
: Even if it's the same as Disc time, that needn't matter much. IIRC we
: student age in TCOM - say about 20 - which would make him in his forties
: in IT. I don't remember anything
: those ages (or, for that matter, with any age in between - he's not as
: old as Cohen nor as young as Coin, but apart from that his age seems
: largely immaterial).
:
Not to mention the fact that wizards always seem to have pretty good
prospects at longevity. Windle Poons was one hundred plus, and this AFAIK
isn't too unusual. They also seem to manage this while smoking like
chimenys, eating several meals a day, and with as much exercise as a
garden gnome with lead wieghts tied to it's feet. Rincewind OTOH, seems to
do a helluva lot of running for various reasons and besides Ridcully and
the Librarian, is probably the fittest wiz(z)ard ever.
Archangel (I'll have to get a sig one of these days..)
--
Daniel Ratcliffe
Terry Pratchett <tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?
Maybe he was just having a bad year? Or maybe it was Vetinari, but not
Havelock? Maybe his dad was in power or something?
Bye,
~Daniel Ratcliffe
--
'Beware of...men coming to you dressed as sheep' - Matthew, Ch 14
'Maybe, just *maybe*, you're clueless. That means you have a great career
ahead of you at Microsoft!' - Dave Brown
T J Wilkinson
Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Rob Cotterill wrote:
<snip>
>> (not posted to a.b.p coz it don't exist)
>>
> Huh? It had 200+ messages last time I looked, not all of them
>cross-posted to afp either.
>Victoria
>(follow-ups set to include abp!)
When I was trying out a variety of newsgroup readers recently (I've settled
with Free Agent) several of them, including News Express, wouldn't know
anything about alt.books.pratchett[1], while others could find it happily.
Since I was getting the list from the same newserver regardless I don't
know what was going on. IIRC Free Agent even grabbed the list from News
Express instead of down loading it from the server. News Express couldn't
find a.b.p, Free Agent could, no sweat. Go figure.
Tracy
[1] ie, it wouldn't show up on the list of newsgroups, subscribed or
unsubscribed, and when I told the newsreader that I specifically wanted
a.b.p it wouldn't be able to find it.
***********************************************************
t.wil...@student.canterbury.ac.nz
Maddness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
Dylan O'Donnell
jfo...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (John Fouhy) wrote:
>In article <32728786...@news.news.demon.net>,
>Dylan O'Donnell <dyl...@demon.net> wrote:
>> 35 years. Alta Vista couldn't find any references for transformed
>> orang-utans living in a high-thaumic environment, however.
>
>High-octane^H^Hrine, hmm? :-)
>
>FWIW, are orangutans native to the Disc? If they are, one would assume
>they're probably limited to Howondaland and similar areas, outside of
>which they would be essentially unknown (bar the one in question :-) ).
>Given the Nature of Belief...?
They live in Bhangbhangduc, if I remember rightly; Sir Roderick Purdy
came into close contact with them during his explorations, according
to the booklet with the Discworld Mappe.
And the Nature of Belief has nothing to do with it. The Librarian is
like Granny Weatherwax in that he believes very strongly in _himself_.
>Perhaps the Librarian would keel over dead if he came within a certain
>distance of Howondaland, but otherwise live on..
How many books are there in BBD? This is the key question the Librarian
would be considering. Females are all very well, but there are
_priorities_.
Midnight Tree Bandit
In the last episode, we saw Terry Pratchett say:
>In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
>Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> may well have written:
>>Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
>>isn't Vetinari.
>
>How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?
Ah, but Shirley you are aware that in the tradition of modern literary
criticism, the author has absolutely no idea of or say in what is *really*
going on in his own books. Only the Baconians know the *real* story. And so
whether the writer claims that Vetinari's term goes all the way back to TCOM
is immaterial. After all, if the Author had final say, the litcrits would be
out a job, wouldn't they?
Rob Cotterill
Ross Smith wrote:
>
<snip>
> SG, p. 216 (Corgi paperback):
>
>
>
> [...] Some time later, scrolls thought to have been destroyed in
>
> history books, and went back in time to save some of the books.
>
Not necessarily: he could have felt the resonances of the fire through
Lspace, and acted as necessary to save the scrolls. I'm quite sure that
the Unseen Library would react to the burning of the Ephebian library.
Rob (th ergonomist).
Victoria Martin
On Sun, 27 Oct 1996, Terry Pratchett wrote:
> In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
> Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> may well have written:
> >
> >
> >Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
> >isn't Vetinari.
>
> How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?
> --
> Terry Pratchett
I find it hard to imagine anyone agreeing with this outright, but perhaps
if it were phrased more tactfully.... The point, of course, is that the
Patrician on TCOM clearly *isn't* Vetinari as he is later described, but
that there may be some pressing reason for us all to agree that it should
have been Vetinari, so we'll have to admit the extra-literary evidence
(ie. Terry says it is V.) and regard him as a proto-Vetinari written by
a more stHHH^^^ less developed writer. The differences will just have to
be put down to the kind of inconsistencies that develop when a series has
been running for a long time - and I look forward to finding out just what
the pressing reason for accepting this might be.
Victoria
Rob Cotterill
Geoff Mordock wrote:
>
> Andrew Janssen wrote:
> >
< snip >
> > Well, it appears (from Windle Poons) that one of the advantages of being a wizard is
> > a rather longer lifespan. Since the Library is just crackling with magical energy and
> > is something of a spatial/temporal anomaly, maybe the Librarian's normal aging processes
> > are retarded by all that raw magic.
>
> As long as we are onthe subject, what is the average lifespan or an
> orangutan?
A good question, but one that will not affect the argument. The
Librarian spends all his time in the presence of some VERY magical books
which he looks after, and which, no doubt see him as a friend (OK, so
we're dealing in some VERY abstract areas here). So naturally, they are
going to look after him, and make sure he stays healthy and able to look
after them for some time to come.
Does anyone have a copy of the timeline that was posted about a year
ago? IIRC, the author of that list managed to get everything to work
out rather well and I don't see how the more recent books will have
mucked that up.
Rob (the ergonomist).
Random Companion
In article <yrAtSAAu...@unseen.demon.co.uk>, Terry Pratchett
<tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
>>isn't Vetinari.
>
>How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?
How *dare* you say such a thing about PTerry! :)
--
Random Companion
Ook. Oook ook OOOOK!.
Ook.
Ian A. York
In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> wrote:
>In article <c3i4FAAo...@unseen.demon.co.uk>, Terry Pratchett
><tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I'm pretty certain that the same Patrician was in all the books. Let's
>> look at it like this:
>
>isn't Vetinari.
He's definitely Vetinari. Terry's reasoning is wrong (Ha! So there!) but
his conclusion is right. Those who disagree are missing the two most
fundamental aspects of Vetinari:
(1) He does things the easy way, and
(2) He works with people's pre-existing expectations.
Now, picture yourself as an Important Man in Ankh-Morpork - a guild
leader, as it were, or a social leader - under the leadership of the old
Patrician. You know what a Patrician is like: Portly and beringed,
crossbow bolts for those who disagree with him, throws parties for his 500
closest friends.
Now you hear that the Patrician has unexpectedly taken ill - a tax hike
disagreed with the Assasin's Guild, perhaps - and keeled over in the midst
of a party one day. Who is the new Patrician? Nah, couldn't be that
skinnny, ironic lad over there dressed in black - that's not what a
Patrician looks like, is it. But look over there - there's a plump,
beringed feller, throwing a Getting To Know You party for 500 of his best
friends! Why, there's a chap looks like a Patrician! Best join the
party, and watch out for the crossbow bolts.
It would entirely in character for Vetinari to change himself to fit the
preconceptions at first, rather than perform the much more difficult task
of altering the preconceptions out of the blue to fit *him*. Over the
years, of course, he could mold the opinion to fit himself better, and (no
doubt with relief) gradually let the parties die down, give up on the
Extra-Crispy Klaatchian Fried Swamp Dragon and nibble on a bit of bread,
use irony instead of cold iron.
So there you go. It all makes sense. Vetinari it was, though perhaps in
the first few years of his new job.
Ian
--
Ian York (iay...@panix.com) <http://www.panix.com/~iayork/>
"-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England
The Red Salamander Zaruga
Terry Pratchett wrote:
>
> Here's what I think, for what it's worth:
Oh, like you're an authority or something. What do you know anyway?;)
-TRSZ
(In any case, I tend to agree with this chap here on the subject):)
Dick Eney
Rob Cotterill <r...@hplb.hpl.hp.co.uk> wrote:
><snip>
>> Or he could have been done in by the Star People. That was certainly a
>> period of chaos and anarchy when many things might have changed.
>
>Err, could someone be kind enough to refresh my memory as to who the
>Star People are? Ta.
The Star People were the crazed mobs who were killing wizards[1] and
burning things in general 'because no one should be doing anything now
that the Red Star is here'. TLF
[1] Possible because the magical field had apparently been weakened by
being so close to a star.
=Tamar (sharing account dick...@access.digex.net)
Rob Cotterill
Victoria Martin wrote:
>
> On 25 Oct 1996, Peter Bleackley wrote:
>
> > The Assassins' Guild, in particular, is nothing but a band of
> > cutthroats (minus saussages-inna-bun) in The Colour of Magic.
>
> And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
I think it probably did. Do you say this because we know about Ymor?
OK, he was an Independant Thief, with his own organisation, but IIRC,
the Companion mentions him as being the last Thief to throw his lot in
with the Guild, so either he was too strong for the Guild to be able to
force him in, or they were still trying to establish their exclusivity.
I suspect that Ymor could have gone into the Guild and taken it over,
with his organisation.
<snip>
> Or he could have been done in by the Star People. That was certainly a
> period of chaos and anarchy when many things might have changed.
Err, could someone be kind enough to refresh my memory as to who the
Star People are? Ta.
Rob (the ergonomist).
Kedamono
In article <yrAtSAAu...@unseen.demon.co.uk>, Terry Pratchett
<tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
> Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> may well have written:
> >
> >Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
> >isn't Vetinari.
>
> How about: maybe he was Vetinari, but written by a more stupid writer?
> --
> Terry Pratchett
Naw, that doesn't sound right.
The writer has always been good at doing a riveting story, and TCOM was
the reason I got hooked on the whole of Discworld in the first place.[1]
If blame must be placed on the writer, then it must be one of not thinking
of where TCOM would lead him and how important it was to be consistant and
maintain continuity.
Of course the writer has said that if he had known where TCOM would had
lead to, he would have had a good lie down and written something else.
Still, I don't believe it was Vetinari. Trying to fit that corpulent
carcass into Vetinari's smooth mold does not work. I'm voting for
Snapcase.
[1] However, The Colour of Magic was not the first Pratchett book I read.
Strata was first, and kind of endearing too. That lead me to look for
other books by you, and I found TCOM.
--
Kedamono
I'm now on Concentric as well as on AOL
Two for the price of One!
Keda...@concentric.net or Keda...@aol.com
----------------------
Take a look at the Alternate History Travel Guides!
http://users.aol.com/kedamono/sliders/alterguides.html
Kedamono
> In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
> Kedamono <keda...@concentric.net> wrote:
> >In article <c3i4FAAo...@unseen.demon.co.uk>, Terry Pratchett
> ><tprat...@unseen.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm pretty certain that the same Patrician was in all the books. Let's
> >> look at it like this:
> >
> >Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
> >isn't Vetinari.
>
Ah, Bravo! Bravo Ian! Beautifully wraught, and dead wrong. :-)
> He's definitely Vetinari. Terry's reasoning is wrong (Ha! So there!) but
> his conclusion is right. Those who disagree are missing the two most
> fundamental aspects of Vetinari:
> (1) He does things the easy way, and
> (2) He works with people's pre-existing expectations.
Ah, I beg to differ. Vetinari does not do things the easy way. If that
were the case, he would had simply ruled Ankh-Morpork via a reign of
terror through brigands and armed might. *That's* the simple way. The
contrived and convoluted set of alliances and tensions that he set up in
the guild structures isn't easy.
- Not easy to setup.
- Not easy to maintian.
- And not easy to keep someone from mucking with it for their own
nefarious purposes. (See Feet of Clay for that example)
On your point 2, he does work with people's pre-existing expectations, by
creating those existing expectations in the first place. When Vimes was
locked up with him in the dungeon in G!G!, he convinced Vimes that he was
a small minded tyrant, seeking nothing but power, in any form. He is
seeking power in any form, but for, at least I believe so, a nobler
purpose: The City. The Big Wahoonie. Ankh-Morpork. He is trying to make it
a safer place to live. The Patrician of TCOM, old Snapcase, wasn't so
Civic minded.
>
> Now, picture yourself as an Important Man in Ankh-Morpork - a guild
> leader, as it were, or a social leader - under the leadership of the old
> Patrician. You know what a Patrician is like: Portly and beringed,
> crossbow bolts for those who disagree with him, throws parties for his 500
> closest friends.
>
> Now you hear that the Patrician has unexpectedly taken ill - a tax hike
> disagreed with the Assasin's Guild, perhaps - and keeled over in the midst
> of a party one day. Who is the new Patrician? Nah, couldn't be that
> skinnny, ironic lad over there dressed in black - that's not what a
> Patrician looks like, is it. But look over there - there's a plump,
> beringed feller, throwing a Getting To Know You party for 500 of his best
> friends! Why, there's a chap looks like a Patrician! Best join the
> party, and watch out for the crossbow bolts.
>
Actually, you might be tempted, especially, if the young lad seems
malleable and willing to be a patsy for the guilds...After a bit, you
wonder who the idiot was that put that insufferable Patrician into power
in the first place, but he is on *your* side.[1]
> It would entirely in character for Vetinari to change himself to fit the
> preconceptions at first, rather than perform the much more difficult task
> of altering the preconceptions out of the blue to fit *him*. Over the
> years, of course, he could mold the opinion to fit himself better, and (no
> doubt with relief) gradually let the parties die down, give up on the
> Extra-Crispy Klaatchian Fried Swamp Dragon and nibble on a bit of bread,
> use irony instead of cold iron.
Au contraire! Being a person of unfortunate metabolism, and having the
scales knocked from my eyes, I can say that Vetinari is one of those types
that can eat whatever he wants, and not gain a pound. Trying to become a
fat person through eating fatty and greasy food isn't a good idea. Your
body will fight you every step of the way. But it will give up,
eventually, and then you have lost, because your metabolic cycle is now
set lower, and you can lose weight only through lots and lots of
exercise.[2] He would have to have started when he was still in the
Assassin's School.[4]
[1] He's on everybody side.
[2] I doubt Vetinari has a "Scale the Ramparts" Master in the den.[3]
[3] By riding 10 to 15 miles a day on my bicycle, I was able to drop
several pant sizes. But at a cost: My caloric intake went up, to about
4,000 calories a day! When I lost the time to work out everyday, (viz, I
got a job) Bloop! Those fat cells came right back.
[4] Doubtful, as look is all important to an Assassin.
Of course, his stint could have led to his only one pet peeve: Mimes.
Since the Assassin's Guild is cheek and jowel to the Fool's Guild, there
should be one or two places where you can see into the courtyard of either
establishment. Vetinari got one of those rooms. And right across from that
was the room of a young fool, one who was learning the skill of the Mime.
Everyday Havelock would come back a grueling day of poisons, knives, and
other friendly implements of death, and sit down and look out his window.
At the Mime. Doing Walking Against the Wind. Every Night. At first, one
could follow along and learn one or two tricks of pantomime, but watching
this poor soul trying to master the basics, night after night, his
whiteface streaming under the sweat of his exertions, proved to much for
one Havelock Vetinari. He was Mimed for life.
Ridcully the Brown
Victoria Martin wrote:
>
> On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Mark Syddall wrote:
>
> > Victoria Martin wrote:
> > >
> > > And the Theives' Guild doesn't seem to exist, IIRC.
> > >
> >
> > fire of A-M breaks out? The head thief and the head assassin are
> > discussing Twoflower, yesno?
>
> Ah, i clearly didn't recall correctly.
>
> So, perhaps there was some kind of
> > organisation at that point. Though it is hard to imagine Dr Cruces
> > being quite so civil with a mere thief.
>
> Maybe it isn't Dr Cruces. Or am I failing to recall another essential
> detail? The fastidiousness of the Guild could have been the result of the
> lengthy period of prosperity and order alluded to in FoC which allowed the
> Guilds to take on their modern form.I daresay things were a lot more rough
> and ready in the TCOM days.
>
> Victoria
You're right it's not Dr Cruces. The individual in question is Zlorf
Flannelfoot, President of the Assassins Guild. Its not only him and the
head thief [1] though, theres also Rerpf, founder member of the
Merchants Guild as well as other assorted thieves, assassins, merchants
and guild enforcers. There wasn't much civility either as it didn't take
long for a fight to break out just prior to the fire starting. Dr Cruces
could have taken over after they perished in the fight or the fire [4].
Ridcully the Brown
[1] Ymor? He was there and the greatest thief in Ankh-Morpork [2]
[2] or Stren Withel [3]
[3] can't quite recall
[4] always assuming they did die then
--
“Hello, Mr Flowerpot, two pints of eels if you would be so good.”
- The Bursar
Kedamono
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92.96102...@ermine.ox.ac.uk>,
Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> I find it hard to imagine anyone agreeing with this outright, but perhaps
> if it were phrased more tactfully.... The point, of course, is that the
> Patrician on TCOM clearly *isn't* Vetinari as he is later described, but
> that there may be some pressing reason for us all to agree that it should
> have been Vetinari, so we'll have to admit the extra-literary evidence
> (ie. Terry says it is V.) and regard him as a proto-Vetinari written by
> a more stHHH^^^ less developed writer. The differences will just have to
> be put down to the kind of inconsistencies that develop when a series has
> been running for a long time - and I look forward to finding out just what
> the pressing reason for accepting this might be.
>
> Victoria
Ah, Victoria, you are subscribing to the "If your best friend jumped into
the burning pits of perdition, would you?" theory of literary relavency.
Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. This is also something I do not approve of,
retroactive continuity. Comics do it all the time, and to me, it spoils
what may be a wonderful set of inconsistencies, which, of course, resemble
real history.
I admire PTerry's work on the entire Discworld series. That he has been
able to even come as close as he has with continuity with little or no
help in the first set of books is amazing. Still, the little greeblies and
gromins of error do creep in.
The Patrician of TCOM is few steps from the giggle stage, and does lack
one very important trait of Vetinari: a sense of humor. Ol' Snapcase of
TCOM is want to play games, but not at the level of Vetinari in any of the
Guard books. Nor does he have Vetinari's sardonic, and stoic form of wit,
and ability to put on a mask of bemused bewilderment at the antics
underneath him. The Patrician of TCOM is just not as nice as Vetinari
is.[1] There are other reasons that the Patrician of TCOM is not the same
as Vetinari, but I will go into those later.
[1] And I mean that in both the old and present definitions of that word.
C.Cooke
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92.961029...@ermine.ox.ac.uk>,
sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk says...
>I can give you another example. in S. we are told that the throne of Ankh
>has been empty for 2000 years. In FoC, the execution of Lorenzo the Kind
>seems to have taken place much more recently, around 300 years ago. This
>later date works much better for the purposes of the political and moral
>discussion that informs FoC and I'm happt to "pretend" that the date in S.
>is in fact 300 years, even though it says on the page in black and white
>that the time period is twenty centuries.
If you look in the DWC, it says that the throne of Ankh was held by the first
monarchs of the city, but after the demise of that line the throne was
available to anyone willing to kill enough people to stay on it. Stoneface
Vimes executed the last king of Ankh-Morpork, not Ankh.
Incidentally, since that esteemed tome also mentions that the royal sword and
birthmark are relics of the kings of Ankh, not Ankh-Morpork, but in Guards!
Guards! Vimes seems to say that Carrot was probable the descendant of some
relatives of Lorenzo the Kind who were banished, which monarchy does he belong
to? The kings of Ankh-Morpork did not have the sword, and were just murdering
bastards anyway, while the kings of Ankh were supposed to have died out 2,000
years ago.
--
Charles Cooke
MCHU...@fs2.ee.umist.ac.uk
+++ FTB not enabled +++ Redo from start +++
Victoria Martin
On 29 Oct 1996, Kedamono wrote:
>
> Ah, Victoria, you are subscribing to the "If your best friend jumped into
> the burning pits of perdition, would you?" theory of literary relavency.
I am? Oh okay, if you say so. But, er, what exactly are the tenets of this
particular literary school? (if you mean "Would you be prepared to deny
your conviction that the Patrician in TCOM is not Vetinari if the desire
to be consistent with past novels were to prevent Terry from writing the
prequel" - then yes, I guess I subscribe.
> Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. This is also something I do not approve of,
> retroactive continuity. Comics do it all the time, and to me, it spoils
> what may be a wonderful set of inconsistencies, which, of course, resemble
> real history.
But not very much. The point is precisely that we're dealing with fiction
and not history. In fiction, a character can simultaneously both be and
not be themsef. By which I mean that, while it is quite clear to anyone
with half a brain that the Patrician in TCOM is not Vetinari, he may have
to be Vetinari for plot purposes. He is and he isn't, both a wave and a
particle. That's not very like history (except in the sense that a
historical figure can be both a hero and a villain depending on
perspective. But that's different again).
>
> I admire PTerry's work on the entire Discworld series. That he has been
> able to even come as close as he has with continuity with little or no
> help in the first set of books is amazing. Still, the little greeblies and
> gromins of error do creep in.
>
I can give you another example. in S. we are told that the throne of Ankh
has been empty for 2000 years. In FoC, the execution of Lorenzo the Kind
seems to have taken place much more recently, around 300 years ago. This
later date works much better for the purposes of the political and moral
discussion that informs FoC and I'm happt to "pretend" that the date in S.
is in fact 300 years, even though it says on the page in black and white
that the time period is twenty centuries.
> There are other reasons that the Patrician of TCOM is not the same
> as Vetinari, but I will go into those later.
>
I'd like to hear them. The fact that I'm pretending the guy is in fact
Vetinari doesn't mean I'm not interested in discussing the ways in which
he's different.
Victoria
Victoria Martin
On 28 Oct 1996, Ian A. York wrote:
> Now you hear that the Patrician has unexpectedly taken ill - a tax hike
> disagreed with the Assasin's Guild, perhaps - and keeled over in the midst
> of a party one day. Who is the new Patrician? Nah, couldn't be that
> skinnny, ironic lad over there dressed in black - that's not what a
> Patrician looks like, is it. But look over there - there's a plump,
> beringed feller, throwing a Getting To Know You party for 500 of his best
> friends! Why, there's a chap looks like a Patrician! Best join the
> party, and watch out for the crossbow bolts.
This induces the wonderful image of Vetinari solemnly stuffing a couple of
cushions under his shirt, easing cotton wool into his cheeks and dusting
on rouge before preparing to go out and force down a few dozen larks
tongues, all in the interests of efficient ruling - Na, can't quite belive
it somehow.
>
> It would entirely in character for Vetinari to change himself to fit the
> preconceptions at first, rather than perform the much more difficult task
> of altering the preconceptions out of the blue to fit *him*.
Maybe in TCOM the reality hadn't yet quite outweighed those expectations,
so Rincewind sees a fat and greedy Patrician because that's what he
expects to see, and he's too terrified to notice that in fact this one's
a bit different. Actually, though, I'm loath to attribute too much power
to the "you get what you expect" phenomenon because there are numerous
examples where it doesn't work. How about this: Rincewind
in fact only encountered a flunkey of the Patrician's, possibly one left
over from the old regime, but was too flustered and scared to realise he
wasn't being leaned on by the man himself (Rincewind even calls him The
Man in S, which suggests he tries to avoid thinking about him as far as
possible, rather as if he'd afraid that thinking about him will somehow
magically attract his attention). Rincewind is only an insignificant
little failed wizard, the chances are he's never even seen the Patrician,
just heard terrible rumours about him.
Victoria
Ridcully the Brown
Rob Cotterill wrote:
<Snip>
> Err, could someone be kind enough to refresh my memory as to who the
> Star People are? Ta.
>
> Rob (the ergonomist).
>
> (not posted to a.b.p coz it don't exist)
The Star people are the mad folk who went around with red stars painted
on their heads destroying anything magic in order to prevent the end of
the world [1]. A number of them were eaten by luggage when they tried to
get at the Octavo which was inside it.
Ridcully the Brown
[1] in TLF
Peter Bleackley
In Ankh-Morpork, Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> writes:
|>
|>
|> On Sun, 27 Oct 1996, Terry Pratchett wrote:
|>
|> > In article <kedamono-251...@cnc096061.concentric.net>,
|> > >
|> > >
|> > >Nope, as much as I hate to disagree with the master, The TCOM Patrician
|> > >isn't Vetinari.
|> >
|> > --
|> > Terry Pratchett
|>
|> if it were phrased more tactfully.... The point, of course, is that the
|> Patrician on TCOM clearly *isn't* Vetinari as he is later described, but
|> that there may be some pressing reason for us all to agree that it should
|> have been Vetinari, so we'll have to admit the extra-literary evidence
|> (ie. Terry says it is V.) and regard him as a proto-Vetinari written by
|> a more stHHH^^^ less developed writer. The differences will just have to
|> be put down to the kind of inconsistencies that develop when a series has
|> been running for a long time - and I look forward to finding out just what
|> the pressing reason for accepting this might be.
|>
Maybe, at some point in Lord Vetinari's past, it suited his purposes to look
big, fat, corrupt and sybaritic. He possibly got into power by pretending to
be easy to manipulate, and, once he had established himself, went back to
his normal self. If Lord Vetinari was educated at the Assassins' Guild, he
probably stayed on to do an Inhumationis Doctor (Inh.D.) in Applied Political
Expediency.
--
~PETE "QUANTUM" BLEACKLEY~
Daleks! Repent of your evil ways, and live in peace as plumbers!
X-Ray Astronomy Group University of Leicester
p...@star.le.ac.uk ~ Website coming soon
C.Cooke
In article <54qhrf$r...@access1.digex.net>, dick...@access1.digex.net (Dick Eney) says:
>
>In article <54q2i1$a...@falcon.le.ac.uk>,
>Peter Bleackley <p...@ltsun6.star.le.ac.uk> wrote:
>>In Ephebe, Ross Smith writes:
>>|>
>>|> On a related note, there's _Small Gods_. Terry has said that the
>>|> publication order of the books is the same as their chronological order,
>>|> but since SG spans just over a hundred years, obviously a slight
>>|> exception must be made for it. There's a reference in FOC to the events
>>|> of SG as historical, and the Librarian's visit to Ephebe is explicitly
>>|> associated with time travel, so I tend to think that the *end* of SG
>>|> fits into the series in its nominal place (between WA and L&L), with the
>>|> bulk of the book happening a hundred years before the others.
>>
>>If the events of Small Gods are contempory with the rest of the series,
>>and Brutha's death happens 100 years later (Cause of death: prophesy
>>overdose), then the Librarian doesn't need to travel in time, only in
>>space. There are two ways that he could have known about the fire.
>>1) He works in the Unseen University. He probably has a few friends with
>>advanced precognitive abilities.
>>2) He was working in a remote part of the library at the time and smelt
>>smoke.
>>As for the rescued books turning up later, well, in the UU library, it
>>would be a while before anybody else found them (the UU library probably
>>being designed to facilitate the process of picking up something
>>interesting while you were looking for something else- a very wizardly way
>>of working.).
>
>Could the events of SG _bridge_ the rest of the series? That is, during
>FoC the missionaries are at work, but Brutha might still be alive. He
>doesn't travel, after all, and he never actually visited Ankh-Morpork.
>The fire would then have been as little as 20 or as much as 80 years ago,
>and the Librarian would have had time to hear about it normally and still
>have to go back in time to rescue books.
>
>Though I dislike the thought that Brutha would have sent out missionaries,
>he was actually quite strong in his faith. Maybe he couldn't stop them
>going and just required that they be nonviolent.
>
>=Tamar (sharing account dick...@access.digex.net)
As to the timing of SG, the major events would have to be some time _after_
Pyramids, since the Djel at that time could not afford anything like the
military pressence implied towards the end of the SG. Pyramids left me with
the feeling that the monetary problems would be solved in time, but I think
the gap between Pyramids and Small Gods is far too short for SG to be in its
correct chronological place.
Ian A. York
In article <Pine.OSF.3.92.961029...@ermine.ox.ac.uk>,
Victoria Martin <sann...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>On 28 Oct 1996, Ian A. York wrote:
>
>> Patrician looks like, is it. But look over there - there's a plump,
>> beringed feller, throwing a Getting To Know You party for 500 of his best
>> friends! Why, there's a chap looks like a Patrician! Best join the
>
>to the "you get what you expect" phenomenon because there are numerous
>examples where it doesn't work. How about this: Rincewind
I have another theory. It's actually the same theory, but this time it
has a false nose and wig on. This theory says that the TCOM Patrician was
Veterinari, and he looked exactly the same there as he does in the later
books, but the same force that means people can't hear Gaspode, or see
Death as a Skelington, caused people to see The Patrician as the Platonic,
as it were, Patrician: they saw their preconceptions standing in front of
Vetinari.
I also have a theory about the brontesaurus.
Having said "as it were" twice in two posts, I'm now off to have my
avuncularity surgically removed.
Victoria Martin
On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Rob Cotterill wrote:
>
> <snip>
> > Or he could have been done in by the Star People. That was certainly a
> > period of chaos and anarchy when many things might have changed.
>
>
> Err, could someone be kind enough to refresh my memory as to who the
> Star People are? Ta.
They wre in er, um, that book where Cohen first appears, was it TLF? When
the red eye appears in the sky and all these anarchists start painting
stars on their foreheads and burning books (and people) (the red eye
subsequently proves to be the sun around which the World Turtle Eggs are
hatching).
> (not posted to a.b.p coz it don't exist)
>
Victoria Martin
On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Ridcully the Brown wrote:
>
> You're right it's not Dr Cruces. The individual in question is Zlorf
> Flannelfoot, President of the Assassins Guild. Its not only him and the
> head thief [1] though, theres also Rerpf, founder member of the
> Merchants Guild as well as other assorted thieves, assassins, merchants
> and guild enforcers. There wasn't much civility either as it didn't take
> long for a fight to break out just prior to the fire starting. Dr Cruces
> could have taken over after they perished in the fight or the fire [4].
I take it no-one wants to argue that in TCOM and TLF Vetinari is not right
at the beginning of his career, ie. assuming we accept that the Patrician
then was Vetinari, he hasb't got round to establishing the Guild system
properly yet? The thieves don't appear to be responsible for law and
order, and the assassins are a bit crude, and the representative of the
Merchants' Guild is it's founder member.
Victoria
Mark Syddall
Victoria Martin wrote:
>
[snippety-snip]
> I'd like to hear them. The fact that I'm pretending the guy is in fact
> Vetinari doesn't mean I'm not interested in discussing the ways in which
> he's different.
You mean little things like, 'cradling his many chins in a beringed
hand', or whatever the verbatim quote is, used to describe the Patrician
in COM, when 'interviewing' Rincewind. Given that Vetinari, I think, is
described somewhere as being lean and considering 'half a dry crust and
a glass of water' an 'elegant sufficiency?
Sorry that I can't place the second reference, or indeed the first one,
any more precisely than that.
Mark Syddall
Dick Eney
Rob Cotterill <r...@hplb.hpl.hp.co.uk> wrote:
>... The
>Librarian spends all his time in the presence of some VERY magical books
>which he looks after, and which, no doubt see him as a friend (OK, so
>we're dealing in some VERY abstract areas here). So naturally, they are
>going to look after him, and make sure he stays healthy and able to look
>after them for some time to come.
Then why does he have to wear special gloves and eye protection to read
certain books (MP) and receive slight burns when he falls into the vat
(F^HE)? And occasionally Rincewind had to help him with a recalcitrant
grimoire. That doesn't sound very 'tame and friendly' to me.
=Tamar (sharing account dick...@access.digex.net)
"... and some ambivalent feelings about cucumbers, which wore off by
teatime." -TP, F^HE
Jeremy Thomson
i writted this now:
Kedamono (keda...@concentric.net) wrote:
: [2] I don't suppose that there is a female orangutan in the Patrician's
: menagerie? What's said about the seventh son of orangutan?
^^^^^^^^^^^
I hate to be picky, well not really, but isn't it the eighth son? Of an
eighth son... Or child if that is more appropriate - ER and all that.
jerm
Jeremy Thomson
i writted this now:
: >Then we will discover that not only is the Patrician in Mort Vetinari but
: >so is the one in TCOM (judging by his posts on the subject, Terry was
: >envisaging Rincewind enrolling at UU at about the time Vetinari was taking
: >over A-M). Then we'll all just have to shrug our shoulders and say things
: >like "Well, conceptions change over time, those were early books, nothing
: >was really settled then, characters develop"
: >The identification of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork with Havelock Vetinari
: >does not appear to take place until Sourcery. Although a Patrician
: >features in the earlier books the characteristic traits associated with
: >Vetinari are not developed until Sourcery, where the name is also used
: >for the first time.
There is also the Assassins gallery to be considered. It has pictures of
Patricians (and other notables) often with discreet little plaques saying
who killed them. (It is the Assassins gallery after all...)
jerm