Okay, here's what this is all about... and it might be a big spoiler if you haven't read certain Discworld novels. Sorry.
Okay, my main point is that in many Discworld novels,
it is always the person with an organisational or administrational mind (eg. secretaries, Grand Viziers, etc.)
who is the ultimate Villain. For instance, this happens in books like Guards! Guards!, Maskerade, Interesting Times, Small Gods, Feet of Clay, Soul Music, etc.
It's not the organizers, it's the bureaucrats. Several significant characters organize things quite well and are not villains. They organize without inflicting bureaucratic torture on most people. Sweeping statement: The villains are the joyless ones.
Hmm... I'm not sure that bureaucrats are solely to blame. Here's why (warning - do not read further unless you have read the above-mentioned novels):
- In Guards! Guards!, the villain is Vetinari's secretary, Lupine Wonse;
- In Maskerade, the villain is Salzella, who tries to organise the Opera Company;
- In Interesting Times, the villain is the Grand Vizier, Lord Hong, who organises the Agatean Empire to run around him - and has delusions of invading and conquering Ankh-Morpork (obviously he has never met Lord Vetinari);
- In Small Gods, the villain is Vorbis, the "Exquisitor" - who organises the Omnian Inquisition into something terrifying;
- In Feet of Clay, the villain is Dragon, King at Arms - who organises it so that Nobby (of all people) should become King of Ankh, and be made into Dragon's puppet;
- In Soul Music, the villain is Mr Clete, the secretary of the Guild of Musicians, who makes sure all the fees are paid and the rotas worked out, etc.
Of these,
Lupine Wonse and Lord Hong
are obviously government bureaucrats; however,
Dragon and Vorbis
are bureaucrats without belonging to a government, as such.
Clete and Salzella
behave more like secretaries or personal assistants than as bureaucrats; indeed,
Clete
- while definitely hampering our heroes - truly believes that he is doing the right thing in the interest of his guild as a whole.
Salzella,
on the other hand, is
driven mad by being the only Straight Man in an Opera House full of insanity
I would say that among the essential elements of a bureaucracy are rigid rules, the written records that make sure the rules can't simply be amended by people's conveniently forgetting them,and in many cases, using discretion to apply the rules prejudicially.
Vorbis
runs a government bureaucracy even though
no doubt originally there was a core of genuine belief which is long gone.
Meticulous records are kept.
Dragon
doesn't just organize; he keeps records. If he organized without keeping records he would not be a bureaucrat. Vetinari can organize without keeping written records if he must, and he routinely bends rules.
He organized the rats in Guards! Guards! without much more than a single notebook, and in a later book he operates without even that much.
Clete
is absolutely a bureaucrat. He doesn't care about the Guild he works in except as a way to make money from it.
If he cared about music, he wouldn't be ordering musicians (e.g. the violinist) to be made physically damaged so that they can never play again.
He goes to whatever Guild will hire him, wherever he sees a chance to take over and pay himself a large salary. Making money for the guild is merely a necessary step along the way for him to increase his salary.
Salzella
is an interesting mixture. He is definitely in it for the money, and his tool is the written record
which he has doctored in a variety of ways
and yet
his dying words reveal that he, too, is addicted to the adrenaline high of the opera catastrophe curve.
On the other hand, tellingly,
he doesn't say "and give up opera" - he says "and give up show business." It isn't the music that attracts him, it's the show - he is an egotist. He could just as easily have murdered people without all the theatrics. The bodies could vanish into the underground river and that would be all. Even the shortfalls in the accounting could have been explained as "they ran away with the cashbox."
Even
Carrot
starts with the inflexible mind of a bureaucrat. It takes quite a while for him to relax, and even then, he uses the rules as a weapon, applying them prejudicially.
He's happy to force an individual business owner to pay taxes, but he doesn't go around to every business in turn, only to the ones that - I believe - annoy him, or use the protection of the Watch. That is, if you are attacked, you may get your payroll back but you'll be forced to fill out tax forms that will cost you more than the robbers would have taken.
Very interesting! Thank you, =Tamar. But I'm pretty sure that this...
=Tamar said:
[SNIP]
Salzella
is an interesting mixture. He is definitely in it for the money, and his tool is the written record
which he has doctored in a variety of ways
and yet
his dying words reveal that he, too, is addicted to the adrenaline high of the opera catastrophe curve.
On the other hand, tellingly,
he doesn't say "and give up opera" - he says "and give up show business." It isn't the music that attracts him, it's the show - he is an egotist. He could just as easily have murdered people without all the theatrics. The bodies could vanish into the underground river and that would be all. Even the shortfalls in the accounting could have been explained as "they ran away with the cashbox."
Incidentally, I have to say that is one of the most brilliant death scenes that Terry ever wrote. But then, I've performed light opera for years, and Maskerade always cracks me up. Bravo! :clap:
he doesn't say "and give up opera" - he says "and give up show business." It isn't the music that attracts him, it's the show - he is an egotist. He could just as easily have murdered people without all the theatrics.[SNIP]
You are correct. I seem to have been remembering a copy from a different trouser leg of time.
I thought perhaps the rest might be still be valid, since he uses the tools of bureaucracy, but on second thought, he abuses them more than he uses them.
He creates financial records but make them useless. He organizes as much as is possible in that environment, but to some extent it requires chaos to work. So he organizes chaos, and makes it more chaotic. Perhaps he is more of a dis-organizer?
He is, in the end, so much a creature of
opera
that he dies that way.
So, not all villains are bureaucrats. IIRC I don't think either of us actually made that sweeping a claim. But there's nothing intrinsically wrong with organization, nor even with record-keeping (which is after all how we develop science). The problem is unnecessary rigidity, and misuse of the rules in order to abuse people. There really is a difference between reasonable discretion on a case by case basis and flagrant favoritism.
I think I’ll answer your question with another one… Isn’t already known organisers run the universe? As they say… Behind every great boss there’s a really great secretary!
Interesting thesis, but I think that a much more accurate description of most (but not all) DW villains is that they wish either to maintain their current status quo (i.e., are highly resistant to changes that could threaten their exalted place in the social order), or wish to restore their town/region of DW to an idealized state that they believe occurred in the past and which ensures their own positions power-brokers.
<br><br>
Examples:
Vorbis's highest priority is preserve the domination of the Omnian church against the kinds of changes that could threaten it.
Dragon's priority is to preserve an Ankh Morpork where the ancient aristocratic families run the city with a figurehead king as the leader.
Wm. De Worde's father's priority is to return Ankh Morpork to a state where the aristocrats once again control the city with a figurehead Patrician at its nominal leader.
The Auditors want to return the universe to a state where sentient beings don't exist.
Edward D''eath wants to return Ankh Morpork to an idealized state in the past where kings, rather than guilds, ran the city.
Ardent and Dee want to return Dwarf society to an idealized state in the past where there are no gender distinctions, every follows the grags' edicts, and the wars with Trolls continue in perpetuity.
Lilith wants Genua to remain in an idealized state of "fairy tale" harmony.
The leaders of Borogravia (sp.) fight wars to keep their country locked in its own medieval trap.
The Elf Queen wants to return Lancre to a time when elves were able to rule their hearts and minds.
Essentially, what all of these villains crave is the power to control others--whether they're doing it themselves or whether they're serving as puppetmasters to manipulate those they wish to put in power. In these scenarios, it's natural that some of these villains are highly organized and often bureaucratically inclined.
But then, I've performed light opera for years, and Maskerade always cracks me up. Bravo! :clap:
