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You know, I always thought the situation with Vetinari, and Carrot/Vimes too, was more due to Pratchett inadvertently writing himself into a corner. Vetinari and Vimes play such essential roles in Ankh-Morpork as it evolves, that losing them would make it difficult to continue the city's development believably. The books give the impression that without them around to stop all the criminals and schemers, the city would quickly fall apart. So Pratchett has to keep them alive and in power, even though doing so starts to stretch believability after a while.
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Aug 16, 2007 05:05
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Also just finished Snuff, and I mostly liked it. It seemed wordier to me - more time spent in Vimes' head, more long speeches, a lot of talking from Willikins. Somehow the whole major plot around the goblins getting legally recognized as people didn't resonate with me, for reasons similar to what whatpuppy said. It also reminded me of a slight problem I had with Unseen Academicals in that orcs and goblins hardly existed in the Discworld before, and suddenly they're both these terribly persecuted, maligned groups. I think the only thing that I really disliked about the whole book though was Vetinari. He's downright chatty in Snuff, similar to Unseen Academicals, and I don't know, it just takes away from his character to have him get obviously sentimental. Stiffie-Hellman posted:Some of Sybil's comments to Vimes and the bit about her breasts during the music performance were a bit jarring. I'm pretty sure previous books all the way back to Guards Guards have had similar asides, so it didn't seem to out of place to me.
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Oct 24, 2011 04:09
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I think part of the odd thing about Snuff is that there doesn't seem to be an overarching purpose or theme the way the last few Vimes books have had. It always seemed to me that Guards Guards, Men at Arms and Feet of Clay were all about Vimes moving up in the world, the Watch turning into a decent organization, and Annk-Morpork accepting non-humans as it modernizes. Night Watch and Thud! sort of felt like they were all about Vimes reckoning with himself and his dark side and sort of taking his place in history. Snuff, I'm not so sure about. Maybe it shows Vimes finally getting comfortable with being rich and influential? Or it could be leading up to him actually retiring happily (rather than being forced out like he's always feared)?
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Nov 5, 2011 22:35
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