SPOILERS Pyramids Discussion *Spoilers*

[Penfold]

My comment refers more about when I was standing at the other end! Mind you, I have been up close and personal with lions, cheetah, rhino, elephants, scorpians, and assorted snakes to name but a few beasties. I have also been visciously savaged by a vulture but I still stand by what I said about camels Maybe its all down to personal experience?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Has anyone ever seen a camel spit? I have and luckily it wasn't aimed at me The 'payload' was murky yellow ochre coloured (hay mainly I think - this was in a zoo), reeked to high heaven and accurately drenched the head of a fractious younger camel, possibly his or her adolescent calf who was standing about 10 feet (approx 3 meters) away at the time :twisted:

It was a dromedary (the one-humped ones) but the bactrians (hairier and 2 humped) do it as well. In fact it isn't spit at all, but essentially re-gurgitated food carried up from one of the stomachs by the cud and delivered into the mouth for the usual purpose of re-chewing and a second digestion... However, when a camel is provoked or has reason to feel aggrieved for some reason, they aim the wodge of half-digested grass (or whatever it is they last ate) as a projectile weapon - literally a vomit missile...

I was going to go on and make much the same comments as Tony so I won't bother now, except to say that aside from any possible quantum mathematical ability camels are superb snipers with unrivalled eye to lip co-ordination (they're so mobile and flexible as observed HERE - sorry if someone's put this up before but I couldn't read absolutely everything in here from when I wasn't around last week).

We need another rule I think :twisted: Rule #2 never p*ss a camel off :twisted:

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

BTW - we always say 'we're going the gym'

Good for you! I never say that

I have to admit that 'gym' was to impress J.I.B - I should have said 'going to the pub' not gym - or 'the beach' or 'the doctor' yad di yada to infinity

Or even 'going to see the ENT specialist' - which is someone J-I-B might consider visiting for the blockage in his ear canal orifice 'cos he's obviously not hearing too well these days :twisted:

Back to Terry's camels and the greatest mathematician of all time - I think this venerable animal was mentioned about the time Teppic's in with the philosophers wasn't it?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

As I'm still catching up in here no apologies for back to backing

Another Brit comedy connection - has anyone picked up on the resemblance of Ptraci to Carry on Cleo star Amanda Barrie?

Ptraci

Cleo (Amanda Barrie)

 

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Camels Spit Accurately. 'Nuff said. YouBastard was stunning Seagulls with Olive Pits while Ptraci was feeding leaves to the fortunate Tortise.

 

[swreader]

Actually, I think that Terry's use of You Bastard (spitting or doing calculations) is more like incongruous humor. Camels (and lamas) don't technically spit--but they can propel the cud they are chewing accurately for quite a long distance.

But, Tony, the problem with your suggestion that the camels are the ones who "caused" the appearance of Djelibeybi that Khuft (as he points out to Teppic) is a dream and "If you're expecting a bit of helpful ancestral advice, forget it. This is a dream. I can't tell you anything you don't know yourself."

Actually, I rather think that Terry is having a great deal of fun with the camel(s) and their ability to spit accurately at anyone one or anything who annoys them. They are marvellous creatures who have the ability to subsist on food that no other animal can eat or digest. Like cows, they are ruminants. But though there are lots of myths about camels storing water in their humps--they actually have the ability to store water in their blood stream, which allows them to go for long periods without drinking. They certainly are an example of a animal adapted to it's environment. But mathematicians?
Come on now.

 

[swreader]

Who is Dios?
Tony and I were talking about Dios this morning, and about Dios and Khuft. He said that Dios claimed to have a tomb buiilt for him. So I checked (having said, would you trust anything Dios said), and at the beginning of Teppic's reign after he and Dios have ordered the building of the giant pyramid, Teppic talks about how the pyramids radiate age, and asks (p. 97) if Dios will get one. "A pyramid?" said Dios. "Sire, I have one already. It pleased one of your forebears to make provision for me."

But, when Teppicymon and Gern and Dil reach the last of the pyramids to let out Khuft, they find the tomb is open and there are counting marks on the walls. And we know that Dios makes those marks.

So my question is, is it possible that Khuft is Dios?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Sharlene - I have to turn your usual stock objection to the wilder theories in the discussions around on you - This is a story not real life and the Disc has a high magical field so why can't camels be brilliant mathematicians? Discworld has a lot of idiosyncratic fauna and flora, so this is just one more thing to ice the cake, given that camels are naturals at calculating angles and tangents, even in this world, with their talented lips and long snakey necks...

Given that Khuft's camels 'found' the Djelbeybi valley in the first place it then follows that You Bastard was up to pulling off the same trick whilst in a similarly thirsty state, but then Terry ups the ante and has him miscalculate slightly in order to solve the Riddle of the Sphinx. Whatever you want to call Terry's humourous approach(es), for there's more than one, all of them feed the story. Really the amount of slapstick in Pyramids is neglible and anyway spun cleverly in context, as in You Bastard's target practice in Ephebe and the playing around with camel's unusual gait and stubborn natures in the difficulty that both Teppic and Ptraci have when they're trying to make a quick getaway... it's plausible and very well observed classy slapstick

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Who is Dios?
Tony and I were talking about Dios this morning, and about Dios and Khuft. He said that Dios claimed to have a tomb buiilt for him. So I checked (having said, would you trust anything Dios said), and at the beginning of Teppic's reign after he and Dios have ordered the building of the giant pyramid, Teppic talks about how the pyramids radiate age, and asks (p. 97) if Dios will get one. "A pyramid?" said Dios. "Sire, I have one already. It pleased one of your forebears to make provision for me."

But, when Teppicymon and Gern and Dil reach the last of the pyramids to let out Khuft, they find the tomb is open and there are counting marks on the walls. And we know that Dios makes those marks.

So my question is, is it possible that Khuft is Dios?

No he isn't Khuft - Dios is a kind of immortal time traveller and at the end of Pyramids, instead of being met by Death, he is cast back in time to meet Khuft yet again and go through the whole process again from scratch. I think he also has a kind of amnesia as well? (Terry being a kind chap and mitigating this horrible looping fate a little) so he at least only vaguely recalls that there's something that he needs to do to make sure Khuft is 'made safe' and meets his destiny as King of Djelibeybi.

Dios' tomb is open because he uses it quite frequently to recharge his mortal body enough to keep going as High Priest - I can't remember whether it's said he locks it up in some way, but given that the earliest mummies (including Khuft?) may have known he had one for himself perhaps they have broken into it to try and nail the horrible git.

Dios (god in Italian and Spanish as Crys points out) uses the time energy charges in his own pied a terre pyramid in a far more practical way to the poor old Kings as he cuts out the superfluous dying and mummification process and prolongs his own mortality by effectively having a little kip in his very own time-protection chamber aka a pyramid. So not only is he a fiendish control freak he's also peddling immortality on false pretences to Khuft and his royal descendants :twisted:

Djelibeybi itself may be inherently magical with the valley able to exist on different temporal planes (because the people are all still trapped in there) and perhaps the pyramids themselves channel the shifts (the Great Pyramid certainly does... ) but also keep them stable.

Khuft is dead but Dios lives on by literally recharging his batteries and persuading the next generation to keep on building pyramids - Dios is a kind of time vampire and Frankenstein's monster in effect

This is also why Dios gets so mad with the gods showing up - because HE made them... 8) Yes we're back to that ole myth/religion belief thing again - also why Teppic had to go to assassin school... :twisted:

 

[Tonyblack]

By the way, I don't know if this is deliberate, but besides the obvious joke about Djelibeybi = jelly baby, there is also such a thing as a Djeli or Griot. They are West African praise singers and repositories of oral traditions like bards.

Of course it could be a coincidence, but knowing Terry I doubt it.

 

[swreader]

Dios' tomb is open because he uses it quite frequently to recharge his mortal body enough to keep going as High Priest - I can't remember whether it's said he locks it up in some way, but given that the earliest mummies (including Khuft?) may have known he had one for himself perhaps they have broken into it to try and nail the horrible git.

While I don't disagree really with what you said in your full post, I realize I didn't make myself clear in one respect (or at least I think I didn't). Dios is lying when he tells Teppic that he has a tomb which one of the prior rulers had made for him. Yes indeed there is a tomb that he uses to recharge himself--and has for 7000 years. It's Khuft's tomb - as we realize when Teppicymon, Gern and Dil reach Khuft's tomb, find it open and find the marks inside.

And if you look at the 2nd page of the paperback , there is a description of Dios as he gets up after "recharging himself" Terry writes:

"He swung his legs off the slab in the little chamber. With barely a conscious prompting from his brain his right hand grasped the snake-entwined staff of office. He paused to make another mark on the wall, pulled his robe around him and stepped smartly down the sloping passage and out into the sunlight, the words of the Invocation of the New Sun already lining up in his mind. The night was forgotten, the day was ahead. There was much careful advice and guidance to be given, and Dios existed only to serve.

Dios didn't have the oddest bedroom in the world. It was just the oddest bedroom anyone has ever walked out of."

Now it seems clear to me that Terry makes this tomb that Dios rests in the tomb of Khuft--found empty with markings at a later time. The question is, if Dios isn't Khuft (and I don't think he is), then where is Khuft?

The problem with this book is that Terry is trying to do too many things. Some of what he does is indeed pretty much slapstick--having Dios stopped by the spit of a camel comes close to that. But on the other hand, this isn't your average camel.

And if you look at Dios "transportation" to the beginning of the Kingdom, it does correspond somewhat to what Khuft told Teppic (in Teppic's dream) about how the Valley came to be. So my question, perhaps re-pharased is if Dios isn't Khuft, then where is Khuft?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Well my recall is even less perfect than usual atm and, as you say, Terry's skimming around a lot in some of the sequences so I guess this is one of those anomalies that crop up with his books. Pyramids in Roundworld often had antechambers (even Tutankhamun's tomb - which is I think the smallest in the Valley of the Kings, and not a pyramid of course - had two or three chambers in it) so perhaps Khuft was farther back, although I don't know that Terry's description was that vague so probably not.

If it was, then maybe Khuft had already got out - he wouldn't have had to break his way out of the outer door at least, so maybe he'd emerged from his own pokey chamber and got through a less substantial portal and then met no resistance in the chamber Dios used. The chief servants of the Roundworld Pharoahs were sometimes buried with their god-king and maybe Dios took that option, but didn't get around to taking the dying/mummification route.
Or maybe Khuft was a deposed king like Teppic nearly ended up being and so never made it into the tomb at all and was instead fed to the crocodiles, then Dios took the tomb for himself?

When we see him at the end of the book Khuft is certainly another person, so the answer lies in the Valley somehow - perhaps Khuft is also stuck in this loop with Dios, although that seems unlikely too.

 

[poohcarrot]

Dios can't be Khuft. Dios has lived for 7,000 years by reversing time in his pyramid. If he was the first king, Khuft, then as he's still alive, how could there have been any more kings and queens? Surely he would just have continued as king for 7,000 years?

But then where (as SW points out) is Khuft?

Pyramids weren't built until the king was dead. There is a pyramid for Khuft. Therefore Khuft died when he was king. I reckon the dead Khuft was thrown to the crocs by Dios, who then took over Khuft's pyramid for recharging purposes.

 

[poohcarrot]

Ignore the post above - it's piffle.

Khuft built the first pyramid for Dios. His was the first, not the first king.

The following was on the doorseal;

Page 321
"KHUFT HAD ME MADE. THE FIRST"

That's why Dios' name is in the pyramid and the following inscription;

Page 331
"Khuft-too-said-unto-the-first (Dios), What-may-we-give-unto-you, Who-has-taught-us-the-right-ways (Dios).
And-the-first-spake, and-this-he-spake, build-me-a-pyramid, that-I-may-rest.
And-the-name-of-the-first-was DIOS

 

[Tonyblack]

What copy do you have Pooh? - I have the hardback and the paperback and neither of them have more than 290 pages. While I absolutely agree with you that Khuft had the pyramid built for Dios, the book doesn't actually say that. Terry stops short of naming the name on the seal, he just hints at the sudden realisation of the whole line of ancestors that they've all had the same high priest.

But there was no name. It was just a babble of raised voices, arguments, ancient cursewords, spreading along the line of desiccated ancestors like a spark along a powder trail. Until it reached Teppicymon, who exploded.

That was presumably the first time that it was realised just how long Dios had been running things. If all the ancestors were like Teppicymon, then they had been tied pretty much to their bodies, conscious of the passing of time and not able to finish their lives for thousands of years. No wonder they were p*ssed off.

 

[poohcarrot]

I have the Josh Kirby paperback which is 380 pages long.

Read the paragraph just before the one you quoted. It basically says Khuft built the first pyramid for Dios. Granted it doesn't name him but that's why the mummies are angry. It's not on the seal, it's inside where he's named.

 

[Doughnut Jimmy]

As Pooh's quotes say Dios has his own pyramid, made for him by Khuft. He didn't need to throw Khuft to the crocs to get it, Khuft may or may not have had his own pyramid (perhaps only later kings got the idea that they could confer immortality) if he did have one it appears to have been lost.

If we assume the scene at the end of the book is the same as the original discovery of the valley Dios is already there when the camels arrive therefore the "first".

(or I may be talking complete rubbish!)

 

[Tonyblack]

I have the Josh Kirby paperback which is 380 pages long.

Read the paragraph just before the one you quoted. It basically says Khuft built the first pyramid for Dios. Granted it doesn't name him but that's why the mummies are angry. It's not on the seal, it's inside where he's named.

Yes, I agree with that. I have the Josh Kirby paperback as well, but there's only 285 pages in it.

And DJ - yes, that's right. Dios was already there.

Actually, Dios's pyramid seems different to the others in that it runs time backwards rather than holding time in a 'null' state. This is in keeping with what we learn in an earlier passage in the book which describes the uses of pyramids.

 

[Doughnut Jimmy]

Don't the other pyramids not work because they started building bigger and grander pyramids, Dios's is presumably the only one built to his original specifications.

From p185 of the Corgi Paperback:

There is nothing mystical about the power of Pyramids.
Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and oriented, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, ...
After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by a) ritual b) pickling people and c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
This seldom works.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Page 321
"KHUFT HAD ME MADE. THE FIRST"

The brain cells are very frazzled here today, but surely the ME in that quote is the pyramid itself isn't it? As in the first pyramid, so the doorseal is simply referring to the pyramid, not Dios?

Try it the other way Khuft had Dios made...?

Actually, Dios's pyramid seems different to the others in that it runs time backwards rather than holding time in a 'null' state. This is in keeping with what we learn in an earlier passage in the book which describes the uses of pyramids.

No - they're all the same except in physical dimensions. Dios doesn't die but then he doesn't age or get younger either does he? So he's also marking time exactly like the dead kings, never getting older or younger so his pyramid performs the same function as the others - the pyramids simply preserve time and their 'inmates' never change. As the pyramids also 'leak' into the outside world this does slow time down in the rest of Djelibeybi and makes any significant change impossible especially as Dios is there to keep things going on the same way by building more and more pyramids.

The kings do die and are mummified, so their spirits live on in that inanimate state, whilst their pyramids are working properly. If they're mummies that's how they stay and never leave their tombs. Dios is alive of course and he stays that way and can come and go as he pleases, but as he goes on he wants/needs to use the pyramid more and more, but becomes tired and careless. Taking that point further of him being pyramid-dependant, he keeps having the kings build bigger and bigger pyramids and so Teppic's dad's one is the final straw (that broke the camel's back )and sets the whole lot of them off in the Star Trek sense that 'the pyramid cannae take it!'

That also leads to yet another issue - are the all the pyramids part of a circuit which the great pyramid overloads and sets off a chain reaction when it goes ciritical? Does it's huge power surge blast through all the other pyramids to trigger the mummies into finally walking and talking again? I'm thinking of the way lightning works and channels itself (in Tony's calendar piccy) so maybe there isn't necessarily a permanent linkage at work, but when Ptaclusp A & B try to cap it, the charge they set off hit all the other flares and that not only triggered the massive shift in the temporal plane for the whole valley of the Djel, but also pulled the other pyramids 'online' to pick up the charge and do the Frankenstein things for the mummies too. An interesting theory to ponder anyway