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AlphaDog posted:Also, in that same book (spoilers for Thief Of Time, Night Watch, and Wyrd Sisters) the Glass Clock utterly shatters history and it gets glued back together in a sort of "yeah, that's as good as we're going to get it" way. That's also the reason behind the events in Night Watch - the Glass Clock loving up history threw Vimes back in time (because he was falling through the Library at the time?) and the History Monks couldn't fix it on their own, since Carcer was there loving poo poo up too. This may mean that many main plotlines before/since then only happend because history got broken and people ended up in the wrong place. I don't imagine Granny shifting all of Lancre 16 or so years forward helped much, either. Of course, but there are some things would be definable though the age of the players. Some...and even then, it would get shaky. Honestly, the shattering of time is by far and away the best ever 'excuse' not to have to stick to a timeline ever. For example: Tiffany could technically fit almost anywhere in the overall witch storyline. Except for a couple of casual references to Queen Magrat and I think even Agnes Nitt...Possibly the (Lack of) existence of You. Therefore placing her somewhere past Maskerade Kaskadan fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Feb 15, 2012 |
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Feb 15, 2012 00:07
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I just got Snuff, and for some reason in my copy instead of Willikins there's Sergeant Jack Jackrum instead. Should I take it back and complain?
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Feb 15, 2012 01:38
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Frankly, I'd read the hell out of a book with a Jackrum/Vimes teamup. e: wait I'm dumb, is that a joke about Wilikin's characterization? 
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Feb 15, 2012 02:58
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jfjnpxmy posted:I just got Snuff, and for some reason in my copy instead of Willikins there's Sergeant Jack Jackrum instead. Should I take it back and complain? You seriously need to explain this.
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Feb 15, 2012 04:52
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He's clearly making a joke about the characterization, dudes. I hope no one seriously took it literally and thought someone copypasted names throughout an entire novel...
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Feb 15, 2012 05:19
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I didn't realize people were that annoyed about Willikins.
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Feb 15, 2012 05:21
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His characterization isn't even especially different from the other books; he's just got a bigger part and his relationship with Vimes has grown since the last time he had a really big part in the story (Jingo, I think).
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Feb 15, 2012 09:36
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Another question! "This offended Vimes to his shakily egalitarian core. He said, ‘I know your station, Willikins, and it’s about the same station as mine when the chips are down and the wounds have healed.’" We don't quite get the 'wounds' bit. Any ideas?
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Feb 15, 2012 12:00
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Are there any Discworld books that focus on the thieves guild or assassins guild?
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Feb 15, 2012 13:25
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The closest to focusing on either is in Pyramids, which starts with Pteppic as a student at the Assassin's Guild before going on to Djelibeybi. I'm honestly embarrassed at how long it took me to get the Djelibeybi joke, but to be honest I never listened to the audio books or tried saying the word out loud.
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Feb 15, 2012 13:30
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Megazver posted:Another question! I think it's a figure of speech, not a reference to actual wounds.
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Feb 15, 2012 13:53
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Conduit for Sale! posted:Are there any Discworld books that focus on the thieves guild or assassins guild? Not really, although the assassins play a central part in Men At Arms.
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Feb 15, 2012 16:26
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Vengeance of Pandas posted:The closest to focusing on either is in Pyramids, which starts with Pteppic as a student at the Assassin's Guild before going on to Djelibeybi. I'm honestly embarrassed at how long it took me to get the Djelibeybi joke, but to be honest I never listened to the audio books or tried saying the word out loud. I thought it was made fairly obvious by it being translated as "child of the Djel". Night Watch also has a bit about the Assassins Guild. The closest we ever get to seeing the Thieves Guild is in Thief of Time, I think. To make up for the lack of Assassins in the books, here is a picture of my wallet. 
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Feb 15, 2012 19:52
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What about the "Diaries" ? Don't they have anecdotes about the various guilds they represent?
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Feb 15, 2012 20:06
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Mister Roboto posted:What about the "Diaries" ? Don't they have anecdotes about the various guilds they represent? God I wish I had the money to track some of those down. I got the Fools Guild one and the Black Ribboners one.
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Feb 15, 2012 20:12
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Vengeance of Pandas posted:The closest to focusing on either is in Pyramids, which starts with Pteppic as a student at the Assassin's Guild before going on to Djelibeybi. I'm honestly embarrassed at how long it took me to get the Djelibeybi joke, but to be honest I never listened to the audio books or tried saying the word out loud. If you're American, there's a good chance it doesn't mean anything anyway, since jelly babies aren't really a thing here.
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Feb 16, 2012 14:52
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I don't care what any of you say, another book with Jackrum in it would be pretty awesome.
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Feb 16, 2012 15:22
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Pope Guilty posted:If you're American, there's a good chance it doesn't mean anything anyway, since jelly babies aren't really a thing here. One of Djelibeybi's near neighbours is Hersheba. It's an equal opportunities joke.
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Feb 16, 2012 23:22
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Jedit posted:One of Djelibeybi's near neighbours is Hersheba. It's an equal opportunities joke. Oh MOTHERFUCKER. Never got the Hersheba joke before.
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Feb 17, 2012 00:06
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Jedit posted:Hersheba. It's an equal opportunities joke. Oh Jesus Christ, really? How many books has that been mentioned in that I've never caught it? I'm most of the way through Jingo again, and I'm sure it's been in there. I was sitting here thinking "How do you not get jellybaby?" ^^ What up buddy? ^^
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Feb 17, 2012 00:08
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Someone's going to have to explain "Hersheba" to me. I didn't get "djelibeybi" until just now when Dead Alice gave it away; thus is the downside of living in America where they're shaped like bears.
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Feb 17, 2012 00:56
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I think it's Hersheba = Hershey bar? Djelibeybi took me a while the first time too.
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Feb 17, 2012 01:05
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YggiDee posted:I think it's Hersheba = Hershey bar? Got it in one, Yggi.
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Feb 17, 2012 01:39
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I feel like a complete loving retard. I've been reading these books for 12 years, goddamnit. Oh and if we're taking a poll for ressurecting characters, Susan and Lobsang, please!
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Feb 17, 2012 05:59
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Oh god, Hersheba. gently caress, I'm dumb.
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Feb 17, 2012 06:06
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DontMockMySmock posted:His characterization isn't even especially different from the other books; he's just got a bigger part and his relationship with Vimes has grown since the last time he had a really big part in the story (Jingo, I think). His characterization is enormously different. In every other book he seemed deeply reticent about his thuggish upbringing and immediately switched it off whenever Vimes was in earshot. That led to the priceless scene in Jingo where he kept swapping between snarling army sergeant and impeccably polite butler in an attempt to match two sets of expectations at once. And in Thud!, after the ice knife incident, he was nearly pleading for Vimes to believe that his fatal stabbing of the dark guards was just the result of unfortunate circumstances. In Snuff, he swaggers around with his hoodlum side on his sleeve, to the point where it eclipses his entire personality. It's incredibly jarring, and gets downright galling when Pratchett uses him to re-enact, almost line for line, the final confrontation between Pepe and Andy Shank. I know that Pratchett's condition is probably forcing him to take a few shortcuts in terms of plotting and characterization to get his stories out, but really, that just makes it even more depressing.
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Feb 17, 2012 09:29
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Oxxidation posted:His characterization is enormously different. In every other book he seemed deeply reticent about his thuggish upbringing and immediately switched it off whenever Vimes was in earshot. That led to the priceless scene in Jingo where he kept swapping between snarling army sergeant and impeccably polite butler in an attempt to match two sets of expectations at once. And in Thud!, after the ice knife incident, he was nearly pleading for Vimes to believe that his fatal stabbing of the dark guards was just the result of unfortunate circumstances. In Snuff, he swaggers around with his hoodlum side on his sleeve, to the point where it eclipses his entire personality. It's incredibly jarring, and gets downright galling when Pratchett uses him to re-enact, almost line for line, the final confrontation between Pepe and Andy Shank. Your argument seems to be simply that he's the same except that he no longer feels the need to keep up appearances around Vimes. gently caress, are two characters not allowed to have their relationship evolve a little? Oxxidation posted:I know that Pratchett's condition is probably forcing him to take a few shortcuts in terms of plotting and characterization to get his stories out, but really, that just makes it even more depressing. Don't do this.
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Feb 17, 2012 10:38
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DontMockMySmock posted:Your argument seems to be simply that he's the same except that he no longer feels the need to keep up appearances around Vimes. gently caress, are two characters not allowed to have their relationship evolve a little? Exactly. Vimes is all "...but you, you went to the Shamlegger school of butlering!" at one point, I think in Thud. They have a non-gentleman's understanding that appearances must be kept up around the nobs, but around each other they don't have to have the perfect lord/butler relationship, since they would probably have been childhood friends if they weren't in different gangs.
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Feb 17, 2012 11:53
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Oxxidation's right though. Willikins changed, and not for the better, and its depressing as its hard not to assume its due to his illness. Also Hersheba  in my defence though I don't think they're very common in the UK!
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Feb 17, 2012 14:56
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Hasn't a few years passed between Thud! and Snuff? I don't know if they ever give young Sam an exact age but it seemed to be implied that a decent amount of time had passed between the two books. In Thud! Vimes seems to acknowledge Willikins past and true nature occasionally, but generally not pressing him on it. They also seemed to have a degree of friendship between them. It makes sense that after a few years of close contact the friendship would grow and they would be perfectly comftorable being more open with one another about something like that, especially as has been said, since its a huge common ground for the two of them. I guess it's a change but it's also a very reasonable and organic one. As far as attributing it to Pratchett and his illness, I think it's ridiculous to assume we can tell what changes in the books might be from his shortened time, versus what he was always intending to do. He could have never been diagnosed and written Snuff in the exact same way. Unless there's an interview stating otherwise it seems a bit presumptuous to assume we know why he wrote anything the way he did. or to summarize... DontMockMySmock posted:Don't do this.
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Feb 17, 2012 15:51
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I figured it was a combination of the years they've now spent together, the multiple times they've been in a fight against assassins and such together and the fact that he's been looking after young Sam in more of an uncle type role than purely a butler and Sybil and Vimes consider him part of the family. Obviously it was a change but no more so than the changes multiple other characters have gone through between books.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:12
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Oxxidation posted:I know that Pratchett's condition is probably forcing him to take a few shortcuts in terms of plotting and characterization to get his stories out, but really, that just makes it even more depressing. Shortcuts, right. I heard the opening of Snuff 15 months before it was published. The only thing I'll say about whether Pterry's condition affected the writing of Snuff is that it's the first "main series" Discworld novel not to feature at least a cameo from Death.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:33
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Honestly, and I said this earlier in the thread, I think the issue is that his editors aren't being as strict and thorough as they once were. Their job is to catch the minor mistakes, continuity errors and sections that need tightening up. All of those were present in Snuff (and UA and Midnight to some degree). Some cutting of the overly-long speeches, some shaving down of the rougher plot points (i.e the dark), and catching the minor Discworld mythology errors that are jarring for long term fans. I honestly think his editors just don't have it in them to be as cruel anymore to Pratchett. He is a good, honorable man suffering from disease. Could YOU bring yourself to be as strict and brutal to your sick friend and coworker of 20+ years doing what he loves to do? It'd just be too heartless. Mister Roboto fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 19:37
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I'd rather they were stricter to him than his work suffers from problems they can prevent, and I think the Terry from before he was diagnosed would want that too. Honestly if he had never gone public with this diagnosis I wonder if we'd notice any change in his writing or not. The editing, yes, definitely, but his writing?
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Feb 17, 2012 19:39
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Pratchett doesn't need the money anymore. I assume that from his fame, knighthood, obvious profits and recent donations to charities. So he's doing this not just because of the money, but because of his love for his world. I don't think his friends and partners of 20 years, seeing their respected comrade degrading, have it in them to be as harsh on a man just doing what he loves to do in the declining years of his life.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:42
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Nilbop posted:I'd rather they were stricter to him than his work suffers from problems they can prevent, and I think the Terry from before he was diagnosed would want that too. Snuff's writing quality fell off a loving cliff, even compared to very recent works like UA. Characters shout and monologue so often they sometimes sound like they strode out of an Ayn Rand novel. Personalities are reduced to caricatures, wit Sybil and Willikins taking it especially hard. Time and place are often murky, which is really unusual, since Pratchett's always been fantastic at establishing setting. He spends half the book casting around for a plot, seizes one for maybe fifty pages when Vimes first reaches the goblin settlement (incidentally the only part when the book regains the lovely brisk pace that all Watch books share), and, again, the resolution for the villain is a nearly note-for-note copy of what happened in UA. It's not just a matter of excess language or dialogue or anything like that. It feels like someone straining to capture the style of Discworld and never quite getting a grip on it.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:46
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Oxxidation posted:Snuff's writing quality fell off a loving cliff, even compared to very recent works like UA. Characters shout and monologue so often they sometimes sound like they strode out of an Ayn Rand novel. Get out sir. You have just crossed a line.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:49
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SeanBeansShako posted:Get out sir. You have just crossed a line. He's right though. I mean even this sentence posted earlier: quote:"This offended Vimes to his shakily egalitarian core. He said, ‘I know your station, Willikins, and it’s about the same station as mine when the chips are down and the wounds have healed.’" Does that really read like Pratchett?
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Feb 17, 2012 19:59
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AXE COP posted:He's right though. Being right doesn't excuse comparing a dying mans writing style to that reptillian thing and her nonsense. He could have said the writing style has just degraded.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:03
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SeanBeansShako posted:Being right doesn't excuse comparing a dying mans writing style to that reptillian thing and her nonsense. He could have said the writing style has just degraded. A painfully apt analogy is still an apt analogy. I don't like making it any more than you like hearing it.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:04
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