Inconsistencies in Discworld books

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

Having read through this topic I was moved to register, I've always wanted people to discuss Pratchett's works with and have as yet been unable to convince my family to read them. I'm working on it though

I can't remember who brought it up but the discussion about Carrot's character evolution between Guards! Guards! and Men At Arms, but is it known how many Discworld years passed in the time between the novels? In Guards! he's still new to the city, the watch and indeed life around humans, and very much wet behind the ears, but those in a new place often gain experience and are changed by their environment very quickly. I myself made the move from Wiltshire to Hampshire in September 08 for an apprenticeship and in the 4 months since I know I've changed significantly.

And on the subject of inconsistencies, there's one between Feet of Clay and Thud! whereby the dwarf battlebread of B'hrian Bloodaxe, which was by his side in the cave at the end of Thud!, was previously used in Feet of Clay to murder the caretaker of the dwarf bread museum (I forget his name).

 

[chris.ph]

i havent got a clue but welcome to the site

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I haven't read Thud - yet. As far as I remember the battlebread in Feet of Clay (or was it Fifth Elephant?) was supposed to be a replica for the 'coronation' Stone of Scone type bread when the High King (or Queen) gets crowned. I may be completely muddling my Watch books as usual however..... And of course that 'genuine' article was a copy of a copy several times over...
So maybe it's yet another of those things that needs the attention of the History Monks?

And welcome to the forum - lots to do on here these days!

 

[Tonyblack]

I can't remember who brought it up but the discussion about Carrot's character evolution between Guards! Guards! and Men At Arms, but is it known how many Discworld years passed in the time between the novels? In Guards! he's still new to the city, the watch and indeed life around humans, and very much wet behind the ears, but those in a new place often gain experience and are changed by their environment very quickly.

According to the Discworld Timeline on L-Space, there's just one year between Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms.

Regarding the Battle Bread in Thud! I think, but could be wrong, that it's unlikely that the it would be the same Battle Bread that was used to kill the caretaker as that which was in the cave in Thud! Just as with our own historical royalty that went to war, they would probably have had several different sidearms and ceremonial weapons.

And welcome to the site. If you want to discuss the books then you've come to the right place.

 

[Nienna]

I just noticed another one! I'm reading Moving Pictures and the trolls Rock and Morraine say they get extra wages for "barrier cream" 'cause if they stay out too long in the sun without it they turn to stone! Is this the case for any other trolls you've heard of? Detritus is flouncing about Ankh-Morpork in daylight all the time!

 

[Tonyblack]

I just noticed another one! I'm reading Moving Pictures and the trolls Rock and Morraine say they get extra wages for "barrier cream" 'cause if they stay out too long in the sun without it they turn to stone! Is this the case for any other trolls you've heard of? Detritus is floucing about Ankh-Morpork in daylight all the time!

Yeah I've noticed that as well - it seems to be something that Terry has 'changed' somewhat.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Well trolls certainly turned to stone for the day shift first of all (in Light Fantastic with Grandad it was all the time and he was gradually blending into the landscape) but that was more a kind of hibernation as they didn't shelter as such and indeed Grandad was almost dead 'cos he never bothered moving about at all... until somebody lit a campfire on his tongue

Later books make much of Troll's being 'allergic' to heat - it makes them really dumb as in Detritus becoming virtually mute and static in Jingo in Klatch - whereas they're absolute geniuses in cold climates... So I think with Discworld Trolls, it's not that they permanently become stone once exposed daylight (as in Middle Earth and other fantasy troll worlds - Tethis for instance is governed by tidal influences not the light) - they're just not daylight creatures and they become drowsy under the sun (warmth more than light) as it were?

So in Moving Pictures perhaps the barrier cream is more to keep them awake than to prevent losing the ability to move? Actually in AM doesn't Chrysoprase corner barrier cream market so Trolls can do bouncer duty for the day shift?

Also don't forget that in the Watch, Detritus, Carrot and co are the Night Watch - mostly anyway - and they also operate in the Shades a lot, so maybe by keeping in the city shadows Detritus, though still fairly thick of course, can remain minimally functional in daylight hours. And he mostly works nights around the Circle Sea so he's never particularly bright - unless he gets locked up in a refridgerated meat packing store when he becomes Einstein...

 

[Tonyblack]

Also don't forget that in the Watch, Detritus, Carrot and co are the Night Watch - mostly anyway - and they also operate in the Shades a lot, so maybe by keeping in the city shadows Detritus, though still fairly thick of course, can remain minimally functional in daylight hours. And he mostly works nights around the Circle Sea so he's never particularly bright - unless he gets locked up in a refridgerated meat packing store when he becomes Einstein...

But are they? I'm pretty sure that by the end of Men At Arms they are just "The Watch" and the only time we see the Night Watch again is in.. erm... Night Watch.

It seems to me that Vimes takes over the running of the whole Watch and that means all the shifts. Certainly in Thud! Vimes is very much on the day shift as that allows him the time to get home to read to young Sam.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Once Vimes has been promoted (and then ennobled) certainly he and Carrot too I think were working day and night shifts - or more likely in Sam's case 'whenever he liked' shifts - Fred Colon seems to have adhered like mad to night shift work as a domestic necessity we're told, as he and his wife only had an hour of 'crossover' time throughout their marriage and still managed to raise a family in conubial, if brief, bliss... In Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms (which is when Detritus & Angua join the Watch) there's mention of the day shift 'coming in' a fair bit, but I cede to your greater knowledge of the Watch as mine peters out around Jingo when I took a Pratchett sabbatical...

But - as regards Trolls functionality during the day, to come back to the point of discussion for once!¬ Which is what I was looking at - day or night on the Discworld doesn't matter to Trolls necessarily, except insofar as it relates to ambient temperature The warmth is what they avoid NOT the light, and as its much more likely to be hotter in the daytime this is when trolls are less active unless they're using barrier cream - which in my argument isn't against the light so much as insulation against the heat? Rather like a reverse of Channel swimmers spreading goose fat or lard or whatever they use to keep warm, but in this case to keep them cool and thus stay alert?

 

[Tonyblack]

I think the silicon brain of a troll works rather like that of the silicon chip in a PC. It works far more efficiently when it is cold and really slowly when it gets overheated.

 

[Nienna]

I think the silicon brain of a troll works rather like that of the silicon chip in a PC. It works far more efficiently when it is cold and really slowly when it gets overheated.

Really?! I never knew that! And I did a degree in it.

Anywho, I have an idea. I knew that hotter temperatures make trolls slower, so I've just thought - Moving Pictures is set largely in Holy Wood, which is described in the beginning as a sort of shoreline resorty type place. Like California, I imagine, only with less... stuff in. So maybe because Ankh-Morpork (like London) is always pretty dreary and dull it never gets hot enough for the trolls to completely shut down! Perhaps it's not an inconsistency after all...

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

That's what I'm trying to say (and failing to do it concisely) yes Nienna

And I think Terry did say that the climate on the beach of Holy Wood certainly was hot and sunny and nothing like the Big Wahooni with it's damp climate - so it was rather like the early movie industry beginning in New York and then moving to LA where the light was always good - in the Discworld they didn't have to move so far of course...

I love that book - not only for introducing Gaspode but also for CMOT as the studio head - Sam Goldwyn would have been so proud!

 

[Tonyblack]

I think I have found what could possibly be a small error in Moving Pictures by the way.

One of the clickies being made is called Pelias and Melisande and we are given the impression that these are the same famous lovers Mellius and Gretalina that Ysabelle was reading about in Mort. She commented that it was tragic and that they never met. They also appear in Wyrd Sisters as a play that Tomjon and co. perform. That same comment is made in Moving Pictures. But, there is a Round World couple called Pelias and Melisande, or more usually Pelleas and Melisande.

Their story has been portraying in plays, operas and musical pieces by such people as Sibelius, Debussy, Schoenberg, Faure and Maeterlinck. In fact I'm pretty sure that most of you have heard and know 'At The Castle Gate' from the Pelleas et Melisande Suite by Sibelius. I'm certain that Terry has. It's the theme music for BBC's A Sky At Night.

Now I'm wondering if Terry was thinking Mellius and Gretalina and actually wrote Pelias and Melisande.

Of course I could have it all wrong and Terry put them there on purpose.

 

[Dotsie]

I can't really remember this exactly, but is it a footnote? Maybe he was just trying to be a copycat later on, & invent his own tragic lovers.

 

[Sam]

Somewhere (can't remember where) Leonard of Quirm invents a machine for making coffee 'quickly': i.e. an expresso machine. But 'expresso'/'espresso' doesn't mean 'quickly'; it means 'made under pressure.'

Yes, I KNOW this was a nerdy thing to say.

 

[Tonyblack]

Somewhere (can't remember where) Leonard of Quirm invents a machine for making coffee 'quickly': i.e. an expresso machine. But 'expresso'/'espresso' doesn't mean 'quickly'; it means 'made under pressure.'

Yes, I KNOW this was a nerdy thing to say.

I didn't know that. *files fact away in brain*

 

[Lest]

I seem to recall that Terry's opinion is (something along the lines of) there are no discrepancies in the Discworld narrative... just alternative histories.
I can live with that.

I find that annoying. I want my stories to have canon! :x

Aren't there some cannons in Guards, Guards??? ;o)

 

[Lest]

Are we talking about "fanwanking" here?
Also who came up with that horrible term?



Sometimes it can be fun if there's something particularly challenging to explain. Like howcome in the first few books Death was made of Octarine light and could only be seen by wizards and cats who could see this particular area of the spectrum, but in later books it became a matter of just accepting what was really there in front of you?

Fanwanking sounds like something really expensive that a guacher girl would do!!! ;o)

Lest

 

[baruch menachem]

to take the example from the front of the thread, I think the increase in the consistancy of the river is a case of author consistancy. He does mention over and over that the size of the city is growing exponentially during Venturi's rule. And the city does seem to have circa 1840's our world plumbing issues.

60 years ago, the Willamette was just as bad as Terry describes the Ankh. With all the paper mills dumping strait into the river, as well as the city, as well as the amount of water taken out for various industrial uses, during the summer the river sludge was just that viscous. And had a similar perfume.

And the Portland dosn't have Ankh-Porak's excuse of being on a tidal basin. We are 250 above sea level, wich is 60 miles from the ocean. Nowadays with it being cleaner, it is also very swiftly moving.

 

[Tonyblack]

to take the example from the front of the thread, I think the increase in the consistancy of the river is a case of author consistancy. He does mention over and over that the size of the city is growing exponentially during Venturi's rule. And the city does seem to have circa 1840's our world plumbing issues.

60 years ago, the Willamette was just as bad as Terry describes the Ankh. With all the paper mills dumping strait into the river, as well as the city, as well as the amount of water taken out for various industrial uses, during the summer the river sludge was just that viscous. And had a similar perfume.

And the Portland dosn't have Ankh-Porak's excuse of being on a tidal basin. We are 250 above sea level, wich is 60 miles from the ocean. Nowadays with it being cleaner, it is also very swiftly moving.

Indeed - the River Thames in London is another case in point. Until the sewers were built it was used pretty much as a public toilet and even after it was a stinking river for many years.

Recent years have seen a marked improvement in the cleanliness of the water.