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"People as things, that's where it starts."
Carpe Jugulum (Discworld #23) - Terry Pratchett
Going Postal (Discworld #32) - Terry Pratchett
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Something about Pratchett villains.
There's a lot of Pratchett villains who share one common thread: they're unromantic. They rip the charm and soul out of things.
Reach's service sends messages 'as warm and human as a thrown knife'. He himself 'kills people by numbers'.
Teatime is literally trying to kill Santa.
The Magpyrs turn the Gothic-vampire-novel style of the Old Count into industrial blood-harvesting.
Similarly, Wolfgang exchanges the traditional Game for just straight up killing people, and seeks to implement a werefascist regime to boot.
The Auditors are, by definition, made of unromantic. They are objectively unromantic.
And I think the idea of ripping apart the whimsy of things ties back to the idea of believing the little lies to believe the big ones. If you can't see charm and warmth, the dreams and imagination, you'll fall into what STP says is the biggest sin of all: treating people like objects.
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Vlad looked imploringly at Agnes, and reached out to her.
'You wouldn't let them kill me, would you? You wouldn't let them do this to me? We could have... we might... you wouldn't, would you?'
The crowd hesitated. This sounded like an important plea. A hundred pairs of eyes stared at Agnes.
She took his hand. I suppose we could work on him, said Perdita. But Agnes thought about Escrow, and the queues, and the children playing while they waited, and how evil might come animal sharp in the night, or greyly by day on a list...
'Vlad,' she said gently, looking deep into his eyes, 'I'd even hold their coats.'
granny weatherwax was such a buzzkill for not letting her tear him apart <\3
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She would hate this phrasing but my faith in the Church of Granny Weatherwax is being revived by this latest reread of the witches books. Her exchanges with Mightily Oats are so vital.
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Rip Nanny Ogg you would have loved the song Rasputin
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“And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that –”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes –”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”
(Granny Weatherwax, to Pastor Mightily Oats, Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett.)
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"Er...you don't like me very much, do you," said Oats.
"I've hardly met you." [...]
"A lot of people don't like me as soon as they've met me," said Oats.
"I suppose that saves time," said Agnes, and cursed. Perdita had got through on that one, but Oats didn't seem to have noticed.
Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
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I love how much Nanny Ogg bullies Agnes about being a boring virgin, while also being glad she’s The Maiden to round up the little group.
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CASSANUNDA THE DWARF
NOT Cassanova
Cassanunda
Not Cassan-OVER
But Cassan-UNDER
Cuz he's a DWARF
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Perdita: I could fix him
Agnes: no the fuck you couldn’t
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You know, one of my least favorite plot tropes is a narrative driven by a misunderstanding. And for the first several pages of Carpe Jugulum, I thought that's what I was dealing with.
Instead, we got a battle of wits involving the most clever witch at her lowest and a...ahem..."vampyre" family trying to be sensible and not superstitious. It's also neat to see Agnes and Perdita develop into their own distinct personalities. And Nanny Ogg is, well, Nanny Ogg (aka just the best). The Scottish pixies were also a delightful treat, as was the witchy return of Magrat.
I can't say this book was my favorite in the witches arc, but I still really enjoyed it.
Next up, we're dealing with The Fifth Elephant!
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One of my favorite Discworld Quotes I had forgotten existed.
There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats. “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that . . .”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes . . .”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things . . . ”
Carpe Jugulum
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He glanced at Granny. She’d changed as soon as the others had entered. Before, she’d been bowed and tired. Now she was standing
tall and haughty, supported by a scaffolding of pride.
-- Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum
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thinking about the relationship between mightily oats' "the worthwhile [words] don't burn" and constable dorfl's "the words in the heart cannot be taken"
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I think if all those Edgar Allan Poe characters who got buried alive had just hung a sign around their neck that said “I ATEN’T DEAD” all their problems would have been solved smh
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