[HN Gopher] Discworld Rules
___________________________________________________________________
Discworld Rules
Author : jger15
Score : 148 points
Date : 2025-03-08 12:48 UTC (10 hours ago)
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| megadata wrote:
| There are many ways of rightly praising Discword without sucker
| punching LOTR.
| dcminter wrote:
| I mean addressing the initial proposition - of _course_ a work of
| satire /parody of the real world is going to be a better basis
| for thinking about the real world than a work of escapism!
|
| The rest of it, I think, won't persuade anyone to read Discworld
| novels who's resisted them so far. Those who have and love them
| will find it a pleasant enough survey.
|
| Oh and I personally think that Equal Rites is the best entry
| point to the series rather than Sourcery. But then I was reading
| them in publishing order anyway and eagerly waiting for each new
| one to come out. Damn I miss being able to look forward to a new
| Pratchett novel; he was a Wodehouse for my generation.
| teddyh wrote:
| "Equal Rites" is the first in the "witches" series, but is,
| IIUC, considered a very weak entry. The rest of the witches
| series don't really acknowledge the events in it, and they
| start off the next book with a blank slate, not assuming that
| you have read the first one. If you really just want to read
| the witches series, I'd suggest that you instead start with the
| second book, "Wyrd Sisters".
| dcminter wrote:
| His very last book has Esk in it.
|
| I understand the view, I just don't agree. It has lots of
| nice subtle jokes in it and was the first to have a bit more
| depth to the story rather than being a slightly scattered and
| episodic parody of thr fantasy genre.
|
| But then I like Dark Side and Strata a lot too.
|
| Edit to add: incidentally there are a lot of minor throwaway
| jokes throughout the series that require you to have read the
| preceding books to get them. That in itself is IMO enough
| reason to aim to read them in publication order. But you do
| you, he was very prolific, I can see why someone coming in
| after the fact might choose not to tackle the whole lot from
| beginning to end.
| nsbk wrote:
| What entry point would you recommend to a total newcomer to
| the series?
| zabzonk wrote:
| "Lords & Ladies", and then expand out in both/all
| directions.
|
| Horrible elves, Granny at her best (and Nanny), Magrat the
| killer queen, Morris dancing, stupid wizzards and lots of
| other stuff - what's not to like?
|
| Probably just because it's my fave. But you can read them
| and enjoy in any order.
| nsbk wrote:
| That sounds like a lot of fun indeed! Thanks for the
| advice
| cancerhacker wrote:
| The only reason I disagree is that L&L jumps in with some
| very well established characters that had been built up
| earlier. But I do love his (historically accurate by
| lore?) description of elves. He put a lot of research
| into re-establishing the myths and lore of his little
| corner of the world.
|
| (Along those lines I would also recommend Susanna
| Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell" which builds its
| own parallel history set in the early 1800s Britain, with
| Fairies taking the same role as elves in discworld.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > But I do love his (historically accurate by lore?)
| description of elves.
|
| Yeah, more or less. The "elves/fairies are nice, or at
| least _good_" thing is a fairly modern creation (owing a
| lot to Tolkien, really).
| dcminter wrote:
| I think Susannah Clarke is the only living author I can
| think of who would inspire the same enthusiasm from me
| upon news of a new book from them. Alas, she is not
| _quite_ as prolific as PTerry :)
|
| Mustn't grumble though, it's not like Jonathan Strange
| was a pamphlet!
| rsynnott wrote:
| Wyrd Sisters (first Witches novel in which the characters
| have more or less settled down to what they'll be for the
| rest of the series) or Guards, Guards (first Vimes novel,
| and first 'normal' Ankh Morpork novel; an Ankh Morpork
| shows up in earlier novels but that version is more or less
| entirely retconned away quite quickly.)
| nsbk wrote:
| Both sound great, I'll probably read both and decide
| which series to cover first. Thanks!
| mulakosag wrote:
| Small Gods. It is a self contained book which I think truly
| shows the humor and philosophy of Pratchett.
| lc9er wrote:
| Wodehouse is a great comparison. I typically suggest people
| start with "Guards! Guards!", but the Witches or Night Watch
| books are both great starting points - Granny Weatherwax and
| Sam Vimes are probably the most explored characters, followed
| by Death, Tiffany, and Moist.
|
| If you like "Guards! Guards!" or "Equal Rites", then go back
| and start from the beginning. The first two novels are fun, but
| sound like Pratchett was channeling Monty Python and Douglas
| Adams. It took a few books before his own voice really shined
| through.
| asjir wrote:
| Why not start with Colour of Magic? For context, I started with
| it, then Light Fantastic and I'm finishing Sourcery now.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Many of the cultural references are to other fantasy books
| and comics from the 1980s, so they're increasingly lost on
| current readers.
|
| I generally recommend starting with Wyrd Sisters, since many
| people are familiar with Macbeth.
| dcminter wrote:
| I did too (a long time ago when I was 13). But I think there
| was a change in tone with and continuing after Equal Rites,
| in that the characters and story were a bit more thorough
| rather than being, essentially, a sketch-show vehicle for
| parody and quips.
|
| Besides, it introduces Granny Weatherwax, who is IMO one of
| his two greatest creations (the other being Vimes of course).
|
| Edit: Oh, by the way, if you're just now working your way
| through them then (a) I envy you and (b) I recommend reading
| the Annotated Pratchett File for each book - after you finish
| each of course: https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/
| rsynnott wrote:
| > I recommend reading the Annotated Pratchett File for each
| book - after you finish each of course:
| https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/
|
| Sadly, it's pretty sparse or non-existent for the later
| books, but the TVTropes pages on them are usually very
| good, and cover a lot of the same ground.
| asjir wrote:
| Ahh, I see, thank you (and other commenters)
|
| I was a bit surprised by the change in tone in a way I
| probably wouldn't've been if I'd read chronologically.
| rsynnott wrote:
| You certainly _can_, but they're more or less straight-up
| parody fantasy, and _very_ different to the rest of the
| series.
| kemayo wrote:
| Main argument against starting with Color of Magic would be
| that it's different enough from the rest of the series that
| it's not entirely useful for knowing whether you'll want to
| read the rest.
|
| It and Light Fantastic are both fantasy-parody travelogues,
| which are mostly about the protagonists moving through a
| sequence of largely disconnected pastiches of other fantasy
| works. After this the series rapidly switches to fantasy as
| metaphor for real-world situations, with the fantasy elements
| being more broad tropes rather than specifics references.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| They are by far the most Monty Pythonesque of the books. If
| you enjoy that, look for all of the Rincewind books. If you
| like less of that, avoid the Rincewind books (IMHO).
| tsumnia wrote:
| I followed the prescribed unofficial Reading Order graphic when
| I started the series (only 10ish books in), and I've jumped
| around between all the different protagonists. Color of Magic,
| Mort, Guards Guards, and the Equal Rites do well enough to show
| you what the Disc is all about, the absurdity of normalcy, and
| some of the crazy antics people get into. I think it may be
| more a matter of what "type" of fiction are you looking for - a
| constantly terrified Rincewind in a world of magic, a new to
| the job Mort where no one believes HE is Death, a tired Sam
| Vimes trying to understand a world that is changing faster than
| he can keep up, or the witches the reject all the social rules
| of the land. Really the only one I wouldn't recommend first is
| Small Gods, but mostly because its very self contained to the
| Klatchian region while the others are on another continent.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'd agree on Equal Rites; Sourcery is a _weird_ Discworld book,
| though I think it's the one that most blatantly hits the theme,
| which shows up more subtly elsewhere, that "great men (TM)" are
| _a bad thing_.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Sourcery is a _weird_ Discworld book
|
| He must have liked it; he rewrote it later as _Good Omens_.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Oh, yeah, I'm not saying it's bad, but it's... kind of what
| TVTropes calls Early Installment Weirdness; it feels very
| different to what comes later.
| dcminter wrote:
| Could you explain? I don't see much similarity between
| them.
| Detrytus wrote:
| In both protagonist is a super powerful boy,
| unintentionally bringing the world on the brink of
| Armageddon?
| dcminter wrote:
| Well, I guess...? Tonally they feel completely different
| and Good Omens draws a lot of its DNA from The Omen (and,
| wonderfully, Richmal Crompton) whereas I don't see any of
| that in Sourcery.
|
| I find it hard to see Good Omens as a do-over of
| Sourcery, but I guess they do have _something_ in common.
| crowselect wrote:
| As someone who deeply loves LOTR - if you try to apply the rules
| of LOTR to this world, you will make this world worse. This is
| true. Inheritance and monarchy does not make for a good
| government, and we know this.
|
| But LOTR is about vibes not facts. Friendship, loyalty, hope,
| doing the right thing with what power you have, appreciating what
| is good and green and gentle in the world, etc.
|
| > the more seriously you take Middle Earth, the dumber you get
| about Roundworld
|
| The more seriously you take the rules of LOTR, yes. But you can
| take LOTR seriously without taking the rules seriously - by
| taking the vibes seriously.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > Inheritance and monarchy does not make for a good government,
| and we know this.
|
| Monarchy makes for some of both the best and worst governments
| on record. The problem isn't that you can't get good results,
| but rather the extreme variance.
| paulddraper wrote:
| LOTR+universe was meant to be a mythology for Western Europe.
| Purposefully impractical/fantastical.
|
| King Arthur vibes. Royalty, wizards, magical objects, heros and
| villains, destiny, romance, fealty, etc.
|
| But obviously dispensing swords from lakes is no sound system
| basis for government.
| andrepd wrote:
| It's also notably light on the "prosaic" aspects. It just
| says that elves "dwelt" here and made a kingdom there. But as
| GRRM said: what was Aragorn's tax policy?
| tombert wrote:
| At least in the Once and Future King, the only real King
| Arthur story that I've read, I got the impression that Arthur
| pulling the sword from the stone was more of a metaphor of
| him "being ready" to be king more than just genealogy or
| anything like that.
|
| When Arthur pulled the sword out of the stone, he was
| remembering all the stuff that Merlyn taught him about the
| different ways that animals run their societies and how it
| informed how he would lead if he were in charge.
|
| That might be TH White's flavoring to it though.
| IsTom wrote:
| > Roundworld isn't even modeled in the Middle Earth cosmology
|
| Middle-earth is a fantasy history of England and we're in sixth
| age (or something like that) of it.
|
| It _becomes_ round with the third age.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I always loved Sir Terry's depictions of Ankh-Morpork.
|
| It was a crazy, deeply dysfunctional city, full of crazy,
| dysfunctional people, but he obviously loved it, and the reader
| ends up loving the city, as well.
|
| I think that's a fairly accurate way to look at the world around
| us.
|
| I believe that Tolkien's depictions of Mordor and the Shire, came
| from his own personal experiences in the trenches of WWI, so I'd
| argue that LOTR actually has some fairly significant reflection
| on the real world.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I believe that Tolkien's depictions of Mordor and the Shire,
| came from his own personal experiences in the trenches of WWI
|
| Yes, and the general impinging of mechanisation and automation
| on rural life.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| From all accounts, Mordor seems to be a more pleasant place,
| than 1916 Somme.
| rsynnott wrote:
| China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" is also worth
| reading. It's set in, essentially, a _bad_ Ankh Morpork; like
| Ankh Morpork it's a vast chaotic fantasy city (both are
| probably based on London) but New Crobuzon is _nightmarish_.
|
| (I've always been curious to what if any extent one influenced
| the other; Discworld is older, but Ankh Morpork gets fleshed
| out a lot later. Given how small a world UK sci-fi/fantasy is
| they'd almost certainly have been aware of each others' work.)
| ledauphin wrote:
| I'm equal parts amused and bewildered that this author with so
| many interesting thoughts has managed not to see what pretty much
| every other serious reader of Lord of the Rings has pointed out
| over decades - the entire story is about a weak and almost
| completely unknown set of people who were "chosen" only by the
| most inexplicable series of events anyone could imagine - who
| through no inherent power of their own manage to save the world
| by nothing more or less than the choice to be kind to a pitiful
| (though clearly treacherous) creature... and who then go right
| back home where they belong, dismissing any notion of chosenness
| beyond the ordinary sort where everyone is chosen to do what is
| good for their neighbors.
|
| the Hobbits pursued not greatness or destiny, but took the only
| path toward life available to them and then returned to let the
| rest of the world get on with living.
| DennisP wrote:
| Exactly. Here for example, the author's point seems to just be
| "don't be Sauron."
|
| > What I have a problem with is people trying to live forever
| as part of a Chosen One script which involves them trying to
| carve up all of the world into the dead empires of a dystopian
| Great Game world run according to a totalizing script.
|
| I'm confident Tolkien would agree.
|
| I also think any evaluation of LoTR should take into account
| Tolkien's background as a veteran of the trenches in WWI. In
| 2025 America, maybe that makes LoTR seem less relevant to our
| world. To someone living in Ukraine, it probably feels like a
| much closer fit.
| t-3 wrote:
| > To someone living in Ukraine, it probably feels like a much
| closer fit.
|
| You may be right, but is it a _better_ fit? Is there any hope
| left when you face overwhelming hordes of evil orcs that
| cannot be negotiated or reasoned with, especially when there
| 's no convenient ring to throw in a volcano?
|
| The black-and-white starkness of LotR is what makes it unfit
| for use as an analogy to the real world! There is very rarely
| ever a situation in which Good vs Evil is a correct or useful
| framing, even if it may be a comforting and inspiring story
| to tell ourselves.
| DennisP wrote:
| Aside from the lack of convenient ring I'd say that
| sometimes it's quite a useful framing. To avoid derailing
| into politics I'll use Nazi Germany as another example.
| t-3 wrote:
| Funny you bring them up, I was going to use them as an
| example but didn't want to Godwin.
|
| The Nazis had a black-and-white ideological viewpoint and
| seemed to believe themselves to be heroes fighting to
| save their people from evil Jews and their brainwashed
| minions. Do you see why those narratives are so dangerous
| now?
| nathan_compton wrote:
| I guess it strikes me as weird that we can't just say
| "Well, yes, 'both sides' _thought_ they were right but in
| fact one (the Nazis) was wrong. "
|
| To be sure, there are situations where there is some
| genuinely complicated moral situation. But that doesn't
| mean we have to pretend to be moral morons and sagely nod
| our heads and say "Yes, but Nazis thought they were right
| too, hmm, hmm."
| t-3 wrote:
| You're not even wrong. No sane person has said we can't
| judge Nazis for what they did and believed. What we
| shouldn't do is set ourselves up to fall into the same
| trap by using binary narrative framings.
| squigz wrote:
| Falling into the other trap of treating both sides of
| every conflict as equally valid is probably just as
| dangerous, no?
| t-3 wrote:
| We can start by not separating everything into two sides,
| one of which we must take. Look at each conflict as a
| whole rather than a sports game with a winner and a loser
| or a Good and an Evil or a My Team and Their Team. Maybe
| one side really is actually very bad and needs to be
| stopped. Maybe there are other ways.
| squigz wrote:
| There are times when this is true and admirable - "us vs
| them" rhetoric in political discourse is indeed harmful
| and only serves to help those in power - but there are
| times when it's more dangerous to treat both sides as
| equally valid that we should both listen to - like when a
| superpower invades another country and wages a war for
| years.
| xandrius wrote:
| They both thought they were right but only one knee they
| were doing good. I cannot believe any Nazi thought they
| were actually "good", I would understand if they thought
| their action were needed but definitely killing millions
| of non-combatants cannot be seen as good; in the right
| light it can be seen as non-evil given the circumstances.
| wat10000 wrote:
| If one truly believes that it's "us or them," and that
| your enemies are inherently, genetically irredeemable,
| then exterminating them is good.
|
| The problem, of course, is that belief. It's
| catastrophically wrong. And it's the sort of thing that
| black and white good vs evil thinking can lead you
| towards.
|
| We can simultaneously say "the Nazis thought they were
| good" and "the Nazis were profoundly evil." We can
| acknowledge the relativity of perspective without needing
| to apply a relativity of good and evil.
|
| A necessary element of true goodness is a willingness to
| consider new ideas, a constant reevaluation of one's
| beliefs, and an acknowledgment that the world is
| complicated and messy. Someone who does these things can
| justifiably conclude that they're good and the other guys
| are evil, but you have to maintain that openness and
| reevaluation or you can slide into Good vs Evil where you
| can see no wrong on your own side, and that leads to
| disaster.
| fulafel wrote:
| Before they started a war they were mainstream-acceptable
| in the USA. Henry Ford, Charles Couglin, Friends of New
| Germany etc. It can be argued the mainstream culture /
| value system doesn't reject Nazism because it's evil, but
| because they were "the enemy" in WW2.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| All this tells me is that your average american is a
| moral midget, which is not surprising to me.
| DennisP wrote:
| The _average_ Americans went to war and defeated the
| Nazis.
| majormajor wrote:
| "things changed as more and more facts came out"
|
| is learning and changing hypocrisy?
| Woodi wrote:
| > Do you see why those narratives are so dangerous now?
|
| Only when they are "narratives". When they are caution
| stories from historical facts we want to avoid repiting
| then they are not so stigmatising but a warnins.
|
| Nobody should trow that storises again and again and some
| behaviour schamas should be always avoided. Unluckily
| that stories need to be reminded from time to time.
|
| Even better: people should not only know about WWII-nazi-
| communism works but should know broad historical contects
| - what bring that evilness to Earth: communistic
| imperialism wanting to take over globe and using Germany
| poor situation (eg. sponsoring nazi party) after WWI to
| make attempt at concuering Europe (first).
|
| Or maybe it was just another part of "Great Game" and
| reaults with using new technologies are worse and
| worse...
| variaga wrote:
| In opposition to the Nazi tenets (and your
| characterization of it as being "black and white"), LOTR
| explicitly counsels mercy and not being too confident in
| your judgements.
|
| "What a pity Bilbo did not stab the vile creature, when
| he had a chance!
|
| Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy:
| not to strike without need.
|
| I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.
|
| Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve
| death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that
| to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the
| name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the
| wise cannot see all ends."
|
| -The Two Towers
| DennisP wrote:
| Well, yeah, but they also started a giant war of conquest
| and killed nine million civilians in gas chambers, so I'm
| still gonna say they were on the evil side even if they
| used similar narratives themselves. There's a point where
| the "both sides" thing finally breaks down. If we don't
| have enough moral clarity to say the Nazis were bad, then
| we're really in trouble.
| variaga wrote:
| >> To someone living in Ukraine, it probably feels like a
| much closer fit.
|
| > You may be right, but is it a better fit? Is there any
| hope left when you face overwhelming hordes of evil orcs
| that cannot be negotiated or reasoned with
|
| "The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves
| unsure. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such
| reckless hate? ... I will not end here, taken like an old
| badger in a trap. Snowmane and Hasufel and the horses of my
| guard are in the inner court. When dawn comes, I will bid
| men sound Helm's horn, and I will ride forth. Will you ride
| with me then, son of Arathorn? Maybe we shall cleave a
| road, or make such an end as will be worth a song - if any
| be left to sing of us hereafter.
|
| 'I will ride with you', said Aragorn"
|
| -The Two Towers
|
| Seems like it fits to me...
| lolinder wrote:
| > There is very rarely ever a situation in which Good vs
| Evil is a correct or useful framing
|
| This may or may not be true, but Ukraine vs. Putin is
| _absolutely_ one of those times where it 's 100% accurate
| and useful.
|
| Putin invaded Ukraine unprovoked, motivated by visions of
| restoring an empire to its former glory. He cannot be
| reasoned with, he cannot be appeased. The only hope that
| any of the formerly-occupied countries have is to defeat
| him, and any and all efforts to make the issue appear to be
| more grayscale than that will necessarily lead to
| disappointment and to further wars and bloodshed.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| While I agree with you that Ukraine vs. Putin is clear-
| cut, morally speaking, I don't think we can apply pre-
| Atomic Age logic to the situation. I just watched this
| scene in Crimson Tide:
|
| XO Hunter: "...I just think that in the nuclear world,
| the true enemy can't be destroyed."
|
| Captain Ramsey: "Attention on deck. Von Clausewitz will
| now tell us exactly who the real enemy is. Von?"
|
| XO Hunter: "In my humble opinion... in the nuclear world,
| the true enemy is war itself."
|
| I think that's the difference. In WWII, appeasing Hitler
| was a mistake because it only emboldened him. Even back
| then, Tolkien had reservations about how far to take the
| war. While he abhorred Hitler, he initially supported
| Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement" policy.
|
| But today, a nuclear Russia cannot be defeated the way
| Germany was. "In the nuclear world, the true enemy is war
| itself."
|
| We cannot allow a nuclear war to happen, even if it means
| letting Putin have Ukraine.
|
| The question everyone is wrestling with is, how do we
| save Ukraine while preventing nuclear war? Unfortunately,
| we don't know the answer, and the risk of getting it
| wrong is catastrophic.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We cannot allow a nuclear war to happen, even if it
| means letting Putin have Ukraine.
|
| As soon as you decide this, and let others know you have,
| you have lost everything. Because if that logic applies
| to Ukraine it applies equally to Poland, to Alaska,
| France, to Washington, D.C., to your hometown. You've
| committed to surrender everything to any power that has
| the potential to escalate to nuclear war.
|
| (It's even worse if you _don 't_ believe this -- or if
| you think you do but would think differently if the thing
| to surrender was closer to home -- and let people think
| you do, because that makes it almost inevitable that
| things will escalate beyond your trigger point, resulting
| in nuclear war.)
| zdragnar wrote:
| Ukraine didn't have nuclear weapons. America does, as do
| many others, which is largely why none of them have put
| boots on the ground beyond "training". If they did, they
| would actually be entering the war, and nuclear weapons
| are back on the table.
|
| That's also the reason why Alaska and France are safe,
| why Iran wants nukes, and is the best argument against
| disarmament you can find. The cat is out of the bag, and
| the attempts to put it back are starting to leave scars.
| arkx wrote:
| Ukraine _did_ have Soviet-era nuclear weapons at the time
| of their independence, which they let go of in exchange
| of US, UK and Russia security guarantees in 1994. It is
| amazing to me how this fact is being memoryholed.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >It is amazing to me how this fact is being memory holed.
|
| Because every time it is brought up it is easily
| demonstrated that nobody actually agreed to defend
| Ukraine. They each agreed not to invade Ukraine.
| danenania wrote:
| How does the logic "apply equally"?
|
| It's only rational to start a nuclear war if a country
| faces a direct existential threat: i.e. a significant
| percentage of the population will be killed or conquered
| and enslaved. The perceived outcome of nuclear war
| (widespread devastation) has to be preferable to what
| would happen otherwise.
|
| Conflicts over territories at the far fringes of a great
| power's sphere of influence (or desired sphere of
| influence) obviously don't meet the bar. If it's trivial
| to call your bluff, it's probably better not to bluff.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Agreed! That's the key problem: we are not going to blow
| up the world to save Ukraine.
|
| But what if Putin thinks that unless he takes Ukraine,
| Russia will cease to exist (or Putin will cease to
| exist). In that scenario, taking Ukraine is an
| existential goal for Russa, and he will blow up the world
| unless he wins.
|
| Unfortunately, I think the rational thing to do is to
| apply increasing pressure to Putin until he either backs
| down or proves that he is willing to blow up the world
| over Ukraine. If the latter, then we back down. Of
| course, the risks of that strategy are all too obvious.
| notahacker wrote:
| Nobody said "start a nuclear war". They said "maybe we
| shouldn't roll over for the nuclear power just because
| they want something and make insincere threats involving
| nukes"
|
| The logical consequence of _disagreeing_ with this is
| that every country that doesn 't want a significant
| percentage of their population killed or conquered or
| enslaved should get their own nukes, because nobody else
| wants to help them. And I'm not sure _every country
| acquires nukes_ is a safer world than _maybe we don 't
| let Putin have everything he wants_
| danenania wrote:
| Putin's threats are not obviously insincere though is the
| problem.
|
| He knows it would be strategically impossible for the US
| or Nato to respond in kind to a nuclear attack on
| Ukraine. It can be rational for him to climb the
| escalation ladder if he knows his enemy will have to back
| down before he does because they have less to gain and
| more to lose.
|
| I don't like this situation at all, and I understand the
| point about rolling over to threats. Unfortunately, this
| is just how nuclear game theory works whether we like it
| or not. You can't win in a conflict under MAD against an
| opponent who has more at stake than you.
| notahacker wrote:
| They are obvious insincere, because they've been idly
| making them about every minor gesture the West has made
| in Ukraine's favour. And ultimately it is strategically
| impossible for there to be any good outcomes of a nuclear
| attack on Ukraine for Russia, never mind "better than
| conventional war Russia have marginal advantages in" or
| even "better than retreat to pre-2014 borders".
| danenania wrote:
| If they were obviously insincere, they could just be
| ignored. But we can see that in practice, US/Europe have
| been hesitant to escalate too much or get directly
| involved with troops. Which is part of the reason for
| making those threats over and over. While each one is
| most likely posturing, they cannot be blanket ignored,
| because Putin has an advantage in an escalation scenario.
| Making those threats is a way of repeatedly emphasizing
| that fact.
|
| And of course there can be an advantage for Russia in
| using nukes. They could destroy Ukraine's entire army,
| kill all its leaders, destroy all its infrastructure,
| etc. with no risk of (nuclear) retaliation. There would
| be many negative consequences too, so it's not likely to
| happen unless the conventional war is going very badly
| for Russia, but it's certainly a card they hold.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Ukraine has crossed many of Putin's red lines, and all
| that happened was Putin drawing a new red line, or
| revising nuclear doctrine, or whatever they call it at
| the time.
|
| The game theory works roughly like this: Putin wins the
| most if his threats work. If they don't work, he has the
| choice between drawing a new red line, launching a
| limited nuclear attack on Ukraine, or full-on nuclear
| war. The last option is obviously out (guaranteed
| destruction is in no proportion to the reward). A limited
| nuclear attack would likely make him a pariah on the
| world stage and make it even more difficult to find
| trading partners. So instead he redraws the line.
|
| If he ever went for the limited nuclear attack option
| Ukraine might give up, and the west would have to choose
| between war against Russia (high risk, low reward) or
| just tightening economic sanctions to the max and
| punishing anyone who dares to trade with him.
|
| If we assume rational actors I don't see how this would
| ever escalate to nuclear war. And as long as Ukraine
| doesn't find a way to decisively push Russian troops out
| Russia has no incentive to climb the escalation ladder.
| Even as prolonged war leads to internal instability
| twoWhlsGud wrote:
| Unfortunately, MAD likely requires that you can't let
| Putin have Ukraine. And if MAD fails, well then we're all
| screwed anyway.
| Scarblac wrote:
| That's assuming Putin would use nukes in case Ukraine
| succeeds in winning back their territory.
|
| Which he won't do _if_ mutually assured destruction is
| credible. He 's not going to destroy the world including
| himself and everything he loves for Ukraine.
|
| Once there are doubts that use of nuclear weapons will be
| punished, then all bets are off.
| danenania wrote:
| The problem is that it's simply _not_ credible on its
| face. No matter what is said, there is no possibility of
| US leaders launching nukes over Ukraine.
|
| It's a bad idea to bluff in situations like this, because
| when the obvious bluff is called and you are forced to
| back down, it makes enemies more likely to test all your
| commitments and "red lines".
|
| While Putin might not be willing to risk MAD either over
| Ukraine, it's a lot more believable that he would than
| that the US would. There have been direct kinetic attacks
| on Moscow and parts of Russia have been invaded. There
| have been assassination attempts against people close to
| him. This is not some far away conflict for him. He's
| already taking on a huge amount of risk, a lot more than
| the US has taken on in a long time--even in WW2 there was
| no direct attack on the continental US.
| StormChaser_5 wrote:
| If it's not such a far away conflict then why isn't Putin
| looking for a way to stop? If anything the war shows how
| little Putin cares about his own people, even those close
| around him and how willing he is to spend their lives to
| burnish his legacy. In that case why would you think that
| any backing down on Ukraine leads to anything other than
| him or his successors wanting to swallow more?
|
| Personally I don't see any real chance of nuclear
| escalation over Ukraine on both sides. The war needs to
| end but to do that Putin needs to be given a way to
| deescalate and claim a win at home. But that can only be
| allowed to happen if Ukraine is made safe and secure once
| again and if Putin is willing to swallow that. And I see
| no evidence of that being true.
| danenania wrote:
| There's definitely a chance it does lead to Russia
| wanting to "swallow more", which is a terrible thing, but
| that doesn't really change the strategic dynamics. Until
| they try to swallow territory that is as important to a
| nuclear-armed enemy as it is to Russia, they will have an
| advantage and it will be difficult to stop them.
| qznc wrote:
| Putin created a system of carefully balanced violent
| psychopaths around himself. Showing any weakness (like
| losing against little Ukraine) can quickly lead to a coup
| there. I can very well imagine Putin think "if I'm going
| to die, I want the whole world to die with me".
| wongarsu wrote:
| It has become very clear over the last couple of years
| that Putin doesn't want nuclear war either. Lots of
| nuclear threats, all of them backtracked. If we marched
| on Moscow the way we marched on Berlin that might change
| his mind. But If we push Russia back to Ukraine's
| rightful border and build a line of fortifications there,
| Russia has no point where launching nukes is actually
| advantageous to them.
|
| If anything, nukes only remain an option because of the
| lack of Western troops in Ukraine, allowing Putin to make
| a limited nuclear attack that hits Ukrainians but isn't
| worth war a nuclear war for the West. And even that is a
| trigger Putin has repeatedly refused to pull, preferring
| to win the war the conventional way even if that takes
| years
| Muromec wrote:
| >especially when there's no convenient ring to throw in a
| volcano?
|
| We tossed the ring away in the 90ies, it turned out to be
| not the smartest idea
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > Here for example, the author's point seems to just be
| "don't be Sauron."
|
| Sadly, it seems like this particular point was missed by
| several prominent tech folks who took notes from LotR...
| wat10000 wrote:
| One could instead take the point to be, if you're Sauron,
| keep a better hold on your ring.
| notahacker wrote:
| A more accurate reading of LOTR would give us startups with
| names like Nazgul and Saruman...
|
| Quite apart from not wanting people to try to be Sauron,
| Tolkein just didn't like industry very much.
| vitus wrote:
| > and who then go right back home where they belong, dismissing
| any notion of chosenness
|
| Well, except for Aragorn, who turns out to be the true king of
| Gondor.
| hollerith wrote:
| And Gandalf, who is not a man, but rather an angelic being or
| minor god (Maiar) sent to Middle Earth to oppose Sauron.
| Swizec wrote:
| > And Gandalf, who is not a man, but rather an angelic
| being (Maiar) sent to Middle Earth to sort out Sauron
|
| But that's just what all wizards are and always have been.
| It's the only way to be a wizard. It isn't, like, a hidden
| fact or anything. Wizard is a race not a profession. Like
| elf or dwarf or hobbit.
| hollerith wrote:
| My point is to contradict the notion that
|
| >the entire story is about a weak and almost completely
| unknown set of people who were "chosen" only by the most
| inexplicable series of events anyone could imagine.
|
| I don't know what your point is.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Their point seems to be strengthened by these facts. The
| story is about these people without any inherently powerful
| qualities performing a duty and going home without
| aggrandizing themselves. The fact that this happens in a
| world which has a "true King of Gondor" and these angel-
| wizards drives home how mundane and down-to-Middle-Earth
| Hobbits are.
| vitus wrote:
| I mean, yes, the hobbits go back home where Sam becomes
| the mayor of the Shire for 50 years, and Gimli and
| Legolas sail off together into the sunset.
|
| But it's also unambiguous that Aragorn, who was
| previously a nobody raised by elves, turns out to be the
| long-lost king and definitely does not just go back to
| whatever he was doing previously.
| lolinder wrote:
| > does not just go back to whatever he was doing
| previously.
|
| He absolutely does. Being the future king was a core part
| of his character, everything in his life was preparing
| him for it. The book version of Aragorn doesn't have the
| hesitance to accept his duty that the films portray, he
| doesn't have to be prodded into it: his whole life has
| revolved around his future kingship.
|
| In a lot of ways the book Aragorn is just as superhuman
| as Gandalf is. He's an archetype, not a perspective
| character. The hobbits are the only normal humans.
| allturtles wrote:
| Aragorn can't defeat Sauron, though, and he knows it. His
| role in the final victory is to distract Sauron, who assumes
| that the ring will be used against him by a "somebody" like
| Aragorn, rather than destroyed by nobodies.
| jon_richards wrote:
| My favorite analysis of lotr is this:
|
| > good does not need to destroy evil; good needs only to resist
| evil, and when it does that, evil destroys itself
| xandrius wrote:
| In LotR, good did indeed destroy evil (or rather its boss) by
| destroying the one ring.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| If you read Tolkien's other works, you'll find that evil
| cannot be destroyed as Melkor/Morgoth corrupted the very
| nature of the world and that evil will remain until the end
| of the world.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| You have to go deeper than that, though. Eru Iluvatar
| said this to Melkor:
|
| > No theme may be played that hath not its uttermost
| source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite.
| For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine
| instrument in the devising of things more wonderful,
| which he himself hath not imagined.
|
| The idea being that the evil that Melkor commits
| ultimately just builds towards the creators greater and
| secret purpose. It's kind of an attempt to deal with the
| "problem of evil".
| ViktorRay wrote:
| Worth mentioning that Tolkien was a devout Catholic and
| the idea you are talking about is something Catholic
| theologians would probably agree with.
|
| (I'm not a Christian though so somebody please correct me
| if I am wrong)
| lolinder wrote:
| No. Good took the ring all the way to Mount Doom, resisting
| its Evil all the way up until the end, and then once more
| the Good person _failed_ to destroy the Ring. Frodo stood
| at the precipice and took the Ring for himself.
|
| The only way the Ring was destroyed was by accident when
| Gollum attacked Frodo to claim the Ring. The Evil that the
| ring stoked in the hearts of those it touched is what ended
| up destroying it in the end, not the Good people who took
| it to Mount Doom.
| majormajor wrote:
| There's a whole lot more going on in the story than just the
| hobbits.
|
| And I think movie-LOTR-fans in particular are there at least as
| much for the Great Big Hero Chosen People Of Destiny aspects
| and battles as for the hobbits.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| In terms of the positions of the characters in the narrative,
| yes, you're right. but in terms of the worldview you take home
| with you after reading... (or well rather a worldview that tech
| bros alledgedly leech themselves onto, if you will, because i
| don't necessarily agree that LOTR is all that bad)
|
| Anyway. my take of tfa: in discworld, the whole system is
| designed for pluralism and messy progress. in middle earth, the
| entire universe is designed for epic quests and magical
| solutions from wise old wizards.
|
| frodo might be a humble hobbit, but he's still caught in a
| deterministic prophecy machine where the fate of the world
| depends on ONE RING and ONE QUEST
| gostsamo wrote:
| And all this gentle falk bent before the chosen king and sang
| his praises, and some of them went to live in the immortal land
| of the god's chosen people beyond the curve of the world. Let's
| be honest, there are both heroes of might and humble hobbits in
| the book, but if Tolkin published only the Frodo chapters from
| books 2 and 3, Lotr wouldn't be the legend it is today.
| kulahan wrote:
| The entire LOTR trilogy is meant to be "unapologetically
| Christian". The intended point was basically the concept of
| having a cross to bear, as well as the importance of apost--
| er, friends.
| lukev wrote:
| This exactly.
|
| Interesting to note that Peter Thiel has never named a company
| "Hobbiton"
| bix6 wrote:
| Please don't let the few who have co-opted LOTR ruin it for the
| rest of us. It is a shame though, I wear my Palantir shirt very
| infrequently now.
|
| I'm currently on book 2 of Discworld and finding it ludicrously
| enjoyable. Its absurdity makes it feel like an antidote to many
| things.
|
| It feels more fantasy than "hardest of hard sci fi" to me though?
| And I think the space suit was broken so is it a good model for
| tech?
| InkCanon wrote:
| One of the marvelous things about Discworld is that although it
| is absurd, it is one of those logical abstractions of
| technology I've seen. For example he describes in an incredibly
| lifelike way the clacks system (basically a kind of internet)
| and it's many properties - the network effects of internet
| infrastructure, it's used in commerce, the importance of
| information, the "hackers" who manipulate it, etc. Discworld is
| almost really hard scifi sometimes.
| dcminter wrote:
| There were _real_ semaphore systems used for communication.
| Then he layered a lot of early telegraph stuff on top of
| that, popped some of his own invention into the mix and
| finally used the rest to parody internet and mobile phones.
| It 's magnificent really.
|
| Speaking of sci fi - have you read Strata and Dark Side?
| They're pastiches of Asimov and Niven and so on, but he has
| some really neat ideas in there as well. I particularly like
| his notion of vacuum tube technology taken to its limits in
| Strata.
|
| If ever I needed proof of the non-existence of a benign all
| powerful god then the fact that someone who loved writing
| that kind of intricate and clever sophisticated humour would
| be so cruelly struck down with Alzheimers would suffice.
|
| "A life with footnotes", the biography of him by Rob Wilkins
| is excellent and very moving.
| bloopernova wrote:
| The Clacks, the Disorganiser, Dwarf-discovered Devices, and
| L-Space are all wonderful ideas. I'm a huge fan of the City
| Watch series, with Thud! being my absolute favourite.
|
| I envy those reading the series for the first time!
| Scarblac wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph
|
| One of the major recurring themes of r/discworld is that so
| much of the amazing ideas in Discworld were actually real
| things.
| IsTom wrote:
| > on book 2
|
| All the books were written over span of 30+ years and they
| changed over the time during this.
| rsynnott wrote:
| The first few books are straight-up parody fantasy. The first
| one which even _verges_ on feeling like Discworld is the third,
| Equal Rites, but really you probably won't see what he's
| talking about til Wyrd Sisters and Guards, Guards if you read
| chronologically.
| Macha wrote:
| Yeah, the first two books especially were very clearly
| intended as "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but fantasy".
| They're a good read, but they're not quite what the series
| became
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| To greatly oversimplify, the first 4 Discworld books are about
| fantasy. The ones after that are about other subjects, using
| the fantasy world of Discworld as a vehicle. And Pratchett
| really does this masterfully.
| t-3 wrote:
| > (except the Tiffany Aching ones)
|
| Those are actually some of the better ones among the later books
| though! If you're going to skip, skip the Moist von Lipwig books.
| They're substantially worse than the other books in the series,
| IMO. Not too big a fan of the Watch books after Night Watch
| either (Night Watch was definitely peak Vimes though!).
|
| > These are books you cannot really appreciate if you're too
| young.
|
| Other than maybe missing one or two sex jokes, not really?
|
| > The only story revolving consequentially around gods is Small
| Gods, about a meme-stock god named GameStop, whose power crashes,
| and who ambitiously plans to pump himself back up to a new high.
|
| Did an LLM hallucinate or is this supposed to be a joke? The
| god's name is Om.
| DennisP wrote:
| Also, _Hogfather_ is another one. The Hogfather is a god,
| essentially Discworld 's Santa Claus, and the whole story is
| about a plot to kill him off.
| Ekaros wrote:
| What makes Hogfather interesting is that I might argue that
| he is not a god. At least for taken meaning of what a god is
| and acts like in/on Discworld. He is more so a force of
| nature like Death. Or a thing like tooth fairy.
|
| Such entities have a special existence on Discworld.
| import_awesome wrote:
| Why not both? LLMs are hilarious when they aren't trying to be
| funny. They are pretty bad at jokes normally, but when LLMs
| hallucinate more than normal it has the right amount of
| absurdity to be funny.
| stevekemp wrote:
| I think your comment just goes to show we all have different
| tastes - I love Moist, and his chain-smoking girlfriend.
|
| There's only one Discworld book I don't like, and it is unseen
| academicals - the football one - I struggled to finish that,
| and it's the only one I've read only a single time. Every other
| discworld book I've read numerous times over the past 20+
| years.
| dcminter wrote:
| I'm with you on Moist. As for Unseen Academicals - yes, I
| think that was one of the ones where Alzheimers was really
| getting its teeth into him. Raising Steam is similar.
|
| There's a point where you get a lot of rather similar
| monologues from his characters. I presume these are from the
| period after he had to dictate as he couldn't write directly
| any more. If so it's amazing that they're as good as they
| are.
|
| What an embuggerance (as he said himself).
| Macha wrote:
| > I think your comment just goes to show we all have
| different tastes - I love Moist, and his chain-smoking
| girlfriend.
|
| The one thing I'll fault the Moist books on is they're sort
| of the same book 3 times if you're in it for the story. If
| you enjoy the post/finance/rail exploration, that's enough to
| get past it, and I certainly did, but I can't blame others
| who didn't.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| I voted you up because I don't fully disagree, but the "if
| you're in it [only] for the story" part is an important
| conditional. Once you get beyond the story outline
| similarities, the books feel different in fundamental ways.
|
| For eg., Going Postal and Making Money have the same basic
| setup, and a one-line story description would sound very
| similar. But Going Postal is about themes of past and
| future, regret and risk, connecting to the past while
| bringing in the future; while Making Money feels like a
| constant tug-of-war between order and chaos, and hence
| ultimately about balance.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it's a joke. Gods in Discworld are,
| essentially, scams based on belief; an unkind person might
| posit that meme stocks are similar.
| dcminter wrote:
| Did you get all the fonts and other printing terms in The
| Truth? Did you get all the philosopher and academia jokes in
| Pyramids? Did you really understand all of Vimes' middle-aged
| gloom as a youth?
|
| More power to your elbow if so, but I didn't. Fortunately the
| broader slapstick and parody was right up my alley and I grew
| into (at least some of) the rest.
| InkCanon wrote:
| Seems like this "Chiang's law" would fail in Discworld, where
| both people and technology are strange.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| The inherent misconception of the author is about "seriousness".
| His hypothesis is that taking Discworld serious is "good", while
| taking LOTR as serious is "bad".
|
| No, it's really about taking either universe at face value, which
| is the problem. And with Discworld, its overt absurdity and humor
| forces you to think about it more deeply.
|
| LOTR doesn't make an effort to explain what it is about. But
| knowing just a little about history and the author goes a long
| way.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| "The more seriously you take Discworld, the smarter you get about
| Roundworld."
|
| Love that.
|
| I love LoTR too. I would never feel the need to pick one OR the
| other. It's not about WHICH. Much better to love BOTH. AND is the
| correct operator to place between these two great sets of works.
|
| I think an under appreciated subset of Discworld is the Tiffany
| Aching series. If you really want to see Pratchett's notions of
| "good morality" on display, these model it the best IMO.
| mulakosag wrote:
| I don't think anybody is asking to choose one over the other.
| You can love both or either of them.
| lolinder wrote:
| TFA explicitly sets out to contrast the two:
|
| > The Lord of the Rings on the other hand -- the more
| seriously you take Middle Earth, the dumber you get about
| Roundworld.
|
| > ...
|
| > The thought I began with, that The Lord of the Rings,
| whatever its merits as a fantasy tale, is brain-rot for the
| technological mind, is one that I find so obvious it feels
| barely worth stating.
|
| It's honestly hard to read the piece because of how clearly
| visible the author's sneer towards those who love Tolkien is.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| > The more seriously you take Discworld, the smarter you get
| about Roundworld."
|
| Depends where. Getting serious about Discworld would make you
| think thinking something makes it real. Which is a different
| set of crazy.
| Macha wrote:
| > I think an under appreciated subset of Discworld is the
| Tiffany Aching series.
|
| Yeah, the author indicates he skipped them, probably because of
| the YA moniker, but honestly, _maybe_ Wee Free Men exempted,
| they're equally as mature as any other discworld books, with
| really the only YA thing about them being their underage
| protagonist.
| Scarblac wrote:
| The main thing with his YA books is that the themes are
| darker and they're scarier than the regular stuff, imo.
| zem wrote:
| yeah the tiffany aching subseries is perhaps the most
| consistently good one. loved every book in it.
| dmd wrote:
| My 10 year old - who has never really been exposed to religion,
| much less the 'WWJD' meme - told me a few months ago that when
| she wonders what she should do in a situation, she asks herself
| what Tiffany Aching would do.
| the_af wrote:
| I advice everyone not to follow the TFA's author's example and do
| read Tiffany Aching series, which is one of the best. Yes, it's
| marketed as YA fiction, but disregard: it's exactly the same
| style and themes as the rest of Discworld, and as good or better.
|
| Also, the author does a disservice to Small Gods (also, oddly
| names the god Om as GamesStop, was that humor?), but this novel
| is one of the best ones in my opinion -- self-contained and both
| humorous and strangely moving.
| awinter-py wrote:
| small gods is about how history could go either way + about
| developing critical thinking skills through reading
|
| agree that it's one of the best
| Lyngbakr wrote:
| Small Gods is my favourite so far. I think it's a great
| example of how Sir Terry could be silly and funny whilst
| making very interesting points about (usually) serious
| matters.
| awinter-py wrote:
| hoping not to spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read it,
| but a line that has stayed with me:
|
| 'you don't know what they mean / _they_ know what they mean
| '
| cancerhacker wrote:
| "It takes a long time for a man like Vorbis to die" - is
| my favorite, but the book is chock full of brilliantly
| executed philosophy.
| awinter-py wrote:
| at the end of the desert is judgment
| dcminter wrote:
| Not to mention that it's also about the difference between
| religion and the church!
| awinter-py wrote:
| atheists like Simony are almost as good as believers
| ttepasse wrote:
| Small Gods postulates that Discworld gods get their power
| through the amount of belief in them.
|
| Memestocks get their value not through some form of
| fundamentals but how many people believe in them.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| > I advice everyone not to follow the TFA's author's example
| and do read Tiffany Aching series, which is one of the best.
| Yes, it's marketed as YA fiction, but disregard: it's exactly
| the same style and themes as the rest of Discworld, and as good
| or better.
|
| To each their own, but to me the Tiffany books definitely felt
| weaker and felt like Terry Pratchett was restricting himself in
| terms of worldbuilding, human complexity (which Discworld
| usually portrays very well), and narrative. I hadn't knownn
| they were meant as YA fiction, but looking back, that would
| explain the mild feeling of lack-of-Discworld-richness to the
| books.
|
| They aren't bad books by any means - just today, I was thinking
| about the "third thoughts" idea from one of these books and how
| interesting a mental model it is - but they certainly have a
| different feel from the rest of them.
| breckenedge wrote:
| How does it compare to the Culture series? I've been reading that
| lately and enjoying it. Almost done though, so looking for the
| next series to pick up.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I think a lot of the author's points about Discworld hold true
| also for the Culture. Both works are steadfastly utopian, and
| build their conflicts around the intersection of that utopia
| with other, less utopian societies. Both have a strong
| suspicion of the Chosen One, and tend to rely on the actions of
| an ensemble of imperfect characters to drive forward the plot.
|
| Where I hesitate is that I'm not sure Discworld's humour will
| land with everyone. It's a very dry form of absurdist British
| humour - if you enjoy Douglas Adams, you will probably get
| along with Terry Pratchett.
| breckenedge wrote:
| Great, I love Douglas Adams!
| shkkmo wrote:
| The article ends with section called "Discworld Rules vs.
| Culture Rules" that you would probably find worth reading.
| breckenedge wrote:
| :facepalm: thanks for pointing that out
| zabzonk wrote:
| Well, they are both series, but the Discworld books have a
| bunch of recurring characters, and are basically comedic,
| whereas the Culture books do not, though Special Circumstances
| agent Diziet Sma pops up a few times. And the Culture books are
| much darker - the Culture is very morally ambiguous.
|
| Discworld is a very funny place - I'm sure you would enjoy it.
| thih9 wrote:
| > Now, for those of you who haven't read the Discworld series, it
| is basically the anti-LOTR.
|
| This seems very wrong. Discworld heroes value the power of
| legends, LOTR heroes live for everyday life and sillines. While
| different on the outside, the essence of these books can be quite
| similar.
| egypturnash wrote:
| > The Auditors of Reality are particularly interesting. They are
| the Discworld edition of what I've called the Great Bureaucrat
| archetype elsewhere. Their ideology is something like the Wokism
| of Discworld, a deadening, stifling, faceless force of
| intersectional lifelessness.
|
| what
|
| Man this dude sure has a definition of "woke" that is completely
| alien to the roots of that term.
|
| > I read one Pratchett novel (Thief of Time I think) in college,
| but I'm glad I didn't properly get into it till my mid-forties.
| These are books you cannot really appreciate if you're too young.
| I read through the lot around 2017-19, during the first Trump
| admin, when I was in my early forties.
|
| _what_
|
| Dude they are comic fantasy, yes Pratchett has Things to Say
| about the world in them, more and more as the series goes on, but
| I picked up _Equal Rites_ soon after it came out when I was
| _eighteen_ and the series was a constant delight through my
| college years and beyond. Yes there are things in Discworld that
| will zoom right by a kid and only land when you come back to it
| as an adult. That's part of why they're _good books_. There's
| things like that in Lloyd Alexander's _Prydain Cycle_ (Book of
| Three, Black Cauldron, etc) that hit me like a ton of _bricks_
| when I pick up those little books forty years after I first read
| them as a kid and completely missed those parts. Stories can
| speak to multiple ages on multiple levels.
| jfengel wrote:
| That is how "woke" is used now. Any resemblance to the original
| use is completely lost. It is merely "things I don't like".
|
| And it has become a convenient shibboleth: anyone using the
| word that way has nothing of value to say to me on any topic.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| Perhaps ironically, that's not actually what shibboleth
| means.
| jfengel wrote:
| "A common or longstanding belief, custom, or catchphrase
| associated with a particular group, especially one with
| little current meaning or truth." (Wiktionary).
|
| If you mean to restrict it to the Biblical usage of
| pronunciation, it generalized past that centuries ago.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| It's exactly what it means. Don't try and correct people if
| your English is limited.
| dcminter wrote:
| > I picked up Equal Rites soon after it came out when I was
| eighteen
|
| I read Colour of Magic when I was 13 I think. It might have
| been a year or two later; a friend's mother had heard the Radio
| 4 "Woman's Hour" reading of Equal Rites and recommended them to
| me as she knew I liked Douglas Adams.
|
| Adams and Pratchett had this in common - they had sufficient
| layers of jokes in them that they could appeal to both me in my
| early teens, and a friend's mother in her 40s (roughly). I
| missed a huge number of gags on the first read through. I like
| to re-read familiar books, though, and I used to get a few more
| each time through.
|
| Until I read the APF there were still a bunch of historical
| gags or similar that I was missing by a country mile! I'm sure
| there are plenty more that have still gone over my head.
|
| I honestly think that Pratchett was a _better_ writer than
| Wodehouse, even though that 's practically heresy for a Brit.
| Macha wrote:
| > Wokism of Discworld
|
| That comment also raised some eyebrows when I read it.
| Discworld is pretty "woke". The female dwarves are a bunch of
| LGBT analogues, a huge chunk of the watch series is about
| racism, Night Watch and Jingo are both pretty anti-populism.
| floren wrote:
| The Discworld books are great but yeah, they're very much at
| the level of say a bright 15 year old. I've been reading them
| since I was that age, and I always find plenty to enjoy, but I
| think they're really at their best for teens.
| notahacker wrote:
| tbh you probably get _more_ out of some of them in your mid
| teens, especially the ones which really aren 't trying to
| make serious points (the first two especially) and the ones
| that were explicitly written as YA fiction. The sophisticated
| bits are references, not _stuff you won 't understand until
| you've been married_ and the social commentary isn't exactly
| hard to digest. (Or maybe it is if you wait until your 40s
| and conclude that the Auditors are 'woke'!)
|
| Pratchett wrote good kids books earlier in his career too
| Vsolar wrote:
| I always found Pratchett's novels to be amazing sources of humor
| and creativity. I'm glad I'm not alone on that one.
| patrickmay wrote:
| Terry Pratchett hasn't been an escapist writer for quite some
| time.
|
| He'll amuse you, sure, but he won't tell you that things are
| great just the way they are or that they're hopeless and
| there's nothing you can do. He'll tell you that you -- yes, you
| -- should make them better.
|
| And then he'll do something even more radical. He'll make you
| think you can.
|
| -- randombrethren, Tumblr
| roter wrote:
| One of his (Sir Terry) sources for inspiration was Brewer's
| Dictionary of Phrase and Fable [0]. Indeed he wrote a foreword
| for one of them.
|
| [0] Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
| rdtsc wrote:
| > And it only gets sillier from there.
|
| That's exactly where it fails for me: it is too cute, like a
| longer than necessary joke.
|
| It's just not my cup of tea to read and think "oh yeah, I see
| they inverted the thing, very cute, they even have the elephants
| and the turtles". It's ok but maybe for a short essay or a comic
| book only.
| dcminter wrote:
| This sounds like you might have read only the early novels
| which, yes, were mainly silly. Try Night Watch perhaps? There's
| a bit of background silliness - residual from all the world
| building that's gone on before - but to me it's one of his most
| thoughtful novels.
|
| It's perfectly ok for them not to be your cuppa of course; my
| Mum and I loved them but my Dad never got into them despite
| trying quite a few times. Funny because generally our tastes
| intersected quite thoroughly.
| lelanthran wrote:
| Night watch is probably my favourite, but for me Jingo is the
| one with the most depth.
| stevekemp wrote:
| I can see why you'd choose it, but if picking a standalone
| "Small Gods" is the one I'd always choose.
|
| (To be honest I'm lying, the standalone book I prefer
| myself is Pyramids, but the one I'd recommend to others is
| Small Gods.)
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Thief of Time is my fav of the standalones. Always wish
| there had been more of that.
|
| If you like Death, Hogfather is my first recommendation.
| dcminter wrote:
| "The trouble with you, Ibid, is that you think you're the
| biggest bloody authority on everything" :D
|
| So many good gags in that one. I love the cinematic
| flashback scenes while Pteppic is falling off the wall.
| Plus it's where the "Pterry" nickname comes from of
| course.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Thank you for the suggestion. I might even have it in my
| library, someone gifted it to me.
| zem wrote:
| be warned that night watch is perhaps the least standalone
| of the discworld books, though. to my mind it is
| unquestionably the pinnacle of an already brilliant series,
| but it builds upon the earlier watch books.
| Cosi1125 wrote:
| Night Watch is _really_ dark. Also, The Monstrous Regiment.
| But the books I love the most are the ones with an "Alistair
| MacLean vibe" to them: Thud! (MacLean's _Fear is the Key_ )
| and The Truth (Discworld version of _All the President 's
| Men_?).
| dcminter wrote:
| The Truth definitely spends some time parodying ATPM (a
| film I adore) and is one of my favourite PTerry novels. I
| re-read it last week as it happens.
| allturtles wrote:
| Yes, I have tried to enjoy Pratchett and have the same feeling.
| I read Guards, Guards! and found it amusing for about 50 pages,
| then it became tedious, hitting the same notes over and over. I
| would have enjoyed a short story about Carrot, I think.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| There is a split in discworld around 'Mort'. The first 2 books
| are at their core a critique on all the tolkien clone books
| repeating these same old boring cliches. The 3rd is a critique
| around the lack of gender equiety in fantasy.
|
| The 4th book, Mort, is Terry dealing with the fact that he has
| a successfull series running, so he might as well start writing
| his own stories. He's not primarily reactionary at this point.
| This is for me the first 'real' discworld book.
|
| In fact, I find the first 3 books a string of stand alone gags
| if you don't see them as critiques of the genre. Funny but
| shallow. Small Gods has real depth, but the author still stands
| at the sidelines. The Truth or Nightwatch are even deeper, and
| I suspect they are both autobiographic and cathartic on some
| level.
| cancerhacker wrote:
| I love discworld and prosetyilize its virtues when and where I
| can, but two thoughts about this:
|
| 1 - why not both?
|
| 2 - via MST3K "If you're wondering how he eats & breathes, And
| other science facts...(la! la! la!) Then repeat to yourself its
| just a show, I should really just relax..."
| karaterobot wrote:
| > I won't get into whether Discworld is better or worse as a
| fictional universe than Middle Earth.
|
| "I won't get into which book is better, today I am only
| evaluating these books according to a set of rules I am making
| up, to see which succeeds at something neither author set out to
| achieve, and which most readers don't know or care about, and
| which is ultimately just an analogy for something else.
| Intrigued? Read on!"
| ben_ wrote:
| > Their ideology is something like the Wokism of Discworld, a
| deadening, stifling, faceless force of intersectional
| lifelessness.
|
| What? Do words even have meaning anymore? How is that anything to
| do with being "woke"?
| notahacker wrote:
| I think Pratchett probably revolved in his grave at the idea
| that the lifelessness of the Auditors came from lack of
| contempt towards minorities...
| joeconway wrote:
| "As an extended allegory for society and technology it absolutely
| sucks and is also ludicrously wrong-headed"
|
| > As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention
| of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical
|
| Tolkien himself in the foreword to fellowship
|
| This person needs to cool it with the pseudo intellectualism and
| let people enjoy things
| Pfhortune wrote:
| The idea of crypto as a force for plurality is baffling. Crypto
| is just as controlled by the "sourcerers" of round world as state
| controlled fiat currency. Distributed ledgers make no difference
| here. It's still just "chosen ones" projecting their power. And
| the jab at "wokism" is pretty ironic, as the right has been
| making a very overt push for rendering culture into a grey goo,
| by quashing diversity.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| As I scroll through the various discworld commentaries here, one
| of the things I haven't seen surface much yet is Pratchett as a
| dialog artist. My dad and I were both discussing just the other
| day how we're honestly happy just picking up any Discworld book,
| opening it anywhere, and having a listen on what the characters
| are saying to each other at the moment. I'm not sure what others
| have created dialogue like that. Maybe Michael Sullivan in his
| Theft of Swords series.
| i_don_t_know wrote:
| The dialogs and the interaction between characters are also
| driving the story in a natural way. It's like those screwball
| comedies from the 30s (His Girl Friday etc). Pratchett had a
| good ear for how people talk, and he managed to put it on page.
|
| There are no lengthy stilted lectures (characters explaining
| stuff to other characters) as in some other books by other
| authors, and only few (and usually short) descriptions of what
| happens when and then this and then that and then something
| else.
| Animats wrote:
| The author alludes to a general problem with popular culture -
| the cult of the Chosen One.
|
| Pixar has some in-house rules for stories. One of them is:
|
| _Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___.
| Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ____
|
| That sums up a Chosen One story. Chosen One protagonists do not
| work their way up. They are special snowflakes.
|
| _Star Wars_ is an extreme case of Chosen One popular culture. So
| is the Marvel Overextended Universe. (Note that _Star Trek_ is
| not. Starfleet people start at the bottom and work up.) The top 8
| highest grossing films of all time, unadjusted for inflation, [1]
| are all Chosen One movies.
|
| Overexposure to Chosen One stories predisposes people to look for
| a Strong Leader, one who is somehow special. This seems to be a
| problem. Historically, the United States didn't work that way,
| having rebelled against a European monarchy which did. But I
| digress.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films
| Detrytus wrote:
| I fail to see how "Titanic" is a Chosen One story...
| ViktorRay wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
|
| The stories you are talking about, also known as The Monomyth,
| have been part of every recorded culture and civilization.
|
| It seems that the Chosen One stuff is not a _result_ of
| stories. It is a fundamental part of our species and that is
| _reflected_ in our most popular stories. From ancient times all
| the way to today.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| An utterly uncalled for hit piece on a much beloved piece of work
| (LOTR).
| satisfice wrote:
| I can't take Discworld seriously. It doesn't even take itself
| seriously. I read the first book, which was full of random deus
| doing ex machina all over the place, and tapped out.
| qznc wrote:
| The first rule of Discworld fandom: Don't start with the first
| book.
|
| Pratchett himself said so and that is mentioned in the article.
| dcminter wrote:
| Perhaps you should try one of his other 60 or so books some
| time? Seems a bit narrow minded otherwise.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Reading LOTR as about technology is like reading Alice in
| Wonderland as about tea time ettiquette. For fuck's sake.
|
| LOTR makes its theme and conceits explicit - it is about the
| appeal of power to the ego. Industrialization is an expression of
| that will to power, and its ability to magnify man's already-
| present distorted relationship with nature. That industry relies
| on technology does not make technology the central topic or even
| the target of critique.
|
| Bone-headed take.
| golergka wrote:
| Reading is a creative process. You should not be bound by
| author's intention or by conventional knowledge about the
| material. If you approach it with a new perspective and get new
| ideas out of it, or even if it just means you have a good time,
| then it's worth it.
|
| In fact, Alice in Wonderland relationship to ettiquette, both
| at a tea table and in royal court, is a curious theme.
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