on Big Deal Moments in Discworld
Oct. 15th, 2016 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Guards! Guards! has one of the first Big Deal Discworld moments for me, and I’m not very good at articulating what that means.
The moment I’m thinking of is the dragon’s speech to Wonse – “we were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But…we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.” That’s a passage that always makes me stop and reread it a couple of times. And it’s a small moment – it’s the only time we hear the dragon speak at all, and it’s a speech that has no bearing on the rest of the story. It could have been taken out of the book entirely and nothing would feel like it was missing. But the fact that it’s there is a Big Deal moment. The great big monstrous antagonist’s judgment of humanity is unavoidable in its accuracy.
And the Discworld series is full of moments like that. Sometimes it’s just one line, sometimes it’s a full scene, and most of the book is so full of shenanigans coming so quickly one after another that you don’t always see the Big Deal moments coming. We think of Pratchett as a humor/satire writer and yes, the books are hilarious, but in between the jokes are these Big Deal moments that casually rearrange our perspective and stick with us even after we think we’ve forgotten.
Then there are the other Big Deal Moments, that are Emotional Meteorite Strike Moments (e.g. the phrase “that is not my cow” can now instantly put me in the fetal position) but I’m having a hard enough time describing this one as it is so I’ll probably go on a tirade about those ‘round about that One Part in Feet of Clay. (You know the one.)
Suggestion: Reblog this with your favorite Big Deal Moment.
YES. It’s so fun hearing everyone’s Big Deal Moments! (although choosing just one is so hard…)
I think my favorite one changes, but right now it’s in Feet of Clay:
The vampire looked from the golem to Vimes.
“You gave one of them a voice?” he said.
“Yes,” said Dorfl. He reached down and picked up the vampire in one hand. “I Could Kill You,” he said. “This Is An Option Available To Me As A Free-Thinking Individual But I Will Not Do So Because I Own Myself And I Have Made A Moral Choice.”
“Oh, gods,” murmured Vimes under his breath.
“That’s blasphemy,” said the vampire.
He gasped as Vimes shot him a glance like sunlight. “That’s what people say when the voiceless speak.”
@copperbadge
All my Discworld books are packed, and usually I’m a City Watch guy, but the first moment like that for me, and still I think my favorite, was in the first Discworld book I read, Small Gods, where Didactylos the Ephebian philosopher is brought before the militant evangelist Omnian priest, Vorbis.
Vorbis demands that Didactylos recant his claim that the world travels through space on the backs of four elephants who stand on the back of a giant turtle (which in Discworld is true). Vorbis insists that Didactylos agree that it is a sphere, as the Great God Om intended.
To all appearances, Didactylos easily and happily recants, saying something like “Sure, let it be a sphere” and Vorbis – for whom this is as much about humiliating Didactylos as it is about what’s “true” – decides to let him go. Didactylos gets all the way to the doorway before he turns, throws the lantern he carries into Vorbis’s face, and yells “NEVERTHELESS…THE TURTLE MOVES!” before legging it.
I was thirteenish at the time and wrestling with religion, and I was familiar with Galileo and eppur si muove, but it’s never as satisfying for there to be a myth of a whisper when you want there to be a legend of a roar. Didactylos bashing Vorbis on the head and screaming the truth before beating feet was much, much more satisfying. And as someone who has never borne fools in power easily, it was an object lesson in how to do the thing.
I also like how Pratchett could turn these heartwrenching moments into pure hilarity in a line. My favourite part of any of the books is Feet of Clay when Dorfl breaks and we have the line WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN and I’m in tears but then the very next line is Carrot going:
“We can rebuild him, we have the pottery.”
And that is the best kind of mood whiplash where I’m snotty and teary and laughing my head off because it’s going to be okay and seriously Pterry- the Six Million Dollar Man? Seriously?
copperbadge:
badgerbee:
discworldtour:
poorlydescribedpterrybooks:
discworldtour:
Guards! Guards! has one of the first Big Deal Discworld moments for me, and I’m not very good at articulating what that means.
The moment I’m thinking of is the dragon’s speech to Wonse – “we were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But…we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.” That’s a passage that always makes me stop and reread it a couple of times. And it’s a small moment – it’s the only time we hear the dragon speak at all, and it’s a speech that has no bearing on the rest of the story. It could have been taken out of the book entirely and nothing would feel like it was missing. But the fact that it’s there is a Big Deal moment. The great big monstrous antagonist’s judgment of humanity is unavoidable in its accuracy.
And the Discworld series is full of moments like that. Sometimes it’s just one line, sometimes it’s a full scene, and most of the book is so full of shenanigans coming so quickly one after another that you don’t always see the Big Deal moments coming. We think of Pratchett as a humor/satire writer and yes, the books are hilarious, but in between the jokes are these Big Deal moments that casually rearrange our perspective and stick with us even after we think we’ve forgotten.
Then there are the other Big Deal Moments, that are Emotional Meteorite Strike Moments (e.g. the phrase “that is not my cow” can now instantly put me in the fetal position) but I’m having a hard enough time describing this one as it is so I’ll probably go on a tirade about those ‘round about that One Part in Feet of Clay. (You know the one.)
Suggestion: Reblog this with your favorite Big Deal Moment.
YES. It’s so fun hearing everyone’s Big Deal Moments! (although choosing just one is so hard…)
I think my favorite one changes, but right now it’s in Feet of Clay:
The vampire looked from the golem to Vimes.
“You gave one of them a voice?” he said.
“Yes,” said Dorfl. He reached down and picked up the vampire in one hand. “I Could Kill You,” he said. “This Is An Option Available To Me As A Free-Thinking Individual But I Will Not Do So Because I Own Myself And I Have Made A Moral Choice.”
“Oh, gods,” murmured Vimes under his breath.
“That’s blasphemy,” said the vampire.
He gasped as Vimes shot him a glance like sunlight. “That’s what people say when the voiceless speak.”
@copperbadge
All my Discworld books are packed, and usually I’m a City Watch guy, but the first moment like that for me, and still I think my favorite, was in the first Discworld book I read, Small Gods, where Didactylos the Ephebian philosopher is brought before the militant evangelist Omnian priest, Vorbis.
Vorbis demands that Didactylos recant his claim that the world travels through space on the backs of four elephants who stand on the back of a giant turtle (which in Discworld is true). Vorbis insists that Didactylos agree that it is a sphere, as the Great God Om intended.
To all appearances, Didactylos easily and happily recants, saying something like “Sure, let it be a sphere” and Vorbis – for whom this is as much about humiliating Didactylos as it is about what’s “true” – decides to let him go. Didactylos gets all the way to the doorway before he turns, throws the lantern he carries into Vorbis’s face, and yells “NEVERTHELESS…THE TURTLE MOVES!” before legging it.
I was thirteenish at the time and wrestling with religion, and I was familiar with Galileo and eppur si muove, but it’s never as satisfying for there to be a myth of a whisper when you want there to be a legend of a roar. Didactylos bashing Vorbis on the head and screaming the truth before beating feet was much, much more satisfying. And as someone who has never borne fools in power easily, it was an object lesson in how to do the thing.
I also like how Pratchett could turn these heartwrenching moments into pure hilarity in a line. My favourite part of any of the books is Feet of Clay when Dorfl breaks and we have the line WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN and I’m in tears but then the very next line is Carrot going:
“We can rebuild him, we have the pottery.”
And that is the best kind of mood whiplash where I’m snotty and teary and laughing my head off because it’s going to be okay and seriously Pterry- the Six Million Dollar Man? Seriously?