SPOILERS Thief of Time Discussion *Spoilers*

[swreader]

Pooh & Kakaze, your questions and comments don't make sense because you persist in treating this as a description of real events. Only if you see it in this way does Pooh's question

Lobsang and Jeremy were theoretically born about a week before time stopped. Yet they were both adults when time stopped. Why were they sent back in time to be brought up, if not to defeat the auditors?

become meaningful. And it leads to further tangles in that since DEATH couldn't foresee the Auditors plan to destroy the world, than what makes you think Time could either?

It follows that Kakaze's reply

Time couldn't have had a son in order to stop the auditors, because Jeremy was required for the auditors' plan to work. Therefore, by having son(s), Time was both causing and preventing the event. For that same reason, the event would happen when her son(s) were young adults, whenever they were sent back in time.

is equally irrelevant.

The questions you need to be asking have to do with why Pratchett has characters acting in a given way, keeping in mind that he at times has them act in contradictory ways throughout a book. Thus, the real important question is why is Pratchett writing about a "race" of "devils" whose ideal world is one of complete stasis? What, in the actions of humanity, might he be parodying. Remember the book was published in 2001, when we had just gone through the madness of Y2K and what would happen if Time stopped at 2000.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

....... it leads to further tangles in that since DEATH couldn't foresee the Auditors plan to destroy the world, than what makes you think Time could either?

Just an observation - Time isn't DEATH so she can move through any or all iterations of past, future and present events and so 'knows' what is happening either rationally or by instinct by virtue of her being TIME and so it's always happening, potentially happening, or has happened, through her, in her 'natural' state and not in her antropomorphic manifestation/incarnation. In theory at least.

With Jeremy and Lobsang we know that Nanny delivered one child twice last week, but that she had also been approached when she was 15 etc etc by Wen slicing time like mad presumably through about 10 minutes, hours or seconds? So it then follows that the two boys were then taken from last week, back to 16 years earlier or whatever and (maybe in some kind of parallel reality / time-phase / wormhole / wrong trouser legs) were left simultaneously at the Thieves and the Clockmaker's guilds and then both left to grow naturally into the present where Time is 'gone'.

DEATH is only concerned with Time (as a whole), in relation to the life-timers which he always uses in the 'present' in that it is always the present of someone's death. In some cases he must be there personally to sever the soul from the body and so between having Binky and the life-timers (both of which are his version of mobile Procrastinators in a way) he also is able to 'slice' in a dedicated way to be everywhere at once where necessary.... As does the Hogfather... As does... I think I need to lie down.

The anthropomorphic wotsits are all at it in other words, which is why it's left to the superhuman qualities of Susan and Jeremy/Lobsang to 'control' the event of real time being stopped in that it has to happen in order for it to be prevented / negated... How the bloody hell did Einstein ever get to sleep of a night?

Slight digression back to why the other Auditors didn't show up in the black desert - they can't go there unless they existed and they didn't 'cos time wasn't working so they could never have incarnated (Mr. Black/White and Co were only briefly incarnate before time was stopped so presumably not long enough) - Unity did because she existed before the event and had accepted her body :twisted: I think I may be getting the hang of this...

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Afterthought from above - Time, the anthropomorphic thingummy thereof doesn't have to see the Auditors, she just sees a future with no time or perhaps a dead end where there shouldn't be one all of a sudden.

And a flashback to something someone said earlier on (sorry whoever it was) about Ronnie Soak/Chaos (not Kaos the wilder original edition :twisted: ). He is necessary to the storyline as he's the antithesis of the Auditors as the collective Order of the Universe. Without him as their Fifth the Four cannot defeat the Auditors in pitched battle as they have to play by the rules. Ronnie's the wild card that means the rules can be smashed...

 

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

" 'Cause of Quantum!!"

Nice Digressions tho.

Jan is right about Ronnie...

 

[poohcarrot]

Jan is usually right about things, apart from when she's wrong, which usually happens.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Keeps me occupied and you amused anyway smartypants - or should that be the other way around?

 

[kakaze]

I was just trying to point out that Time having Lobsang to stop the Auditors would be paradoxial because she would be having Jeremy at the same time, giving the Auditors the means to succeed in their plans.

As far as acting contradictory, real people do that all the time.

Death can travel back in time too, didn't he go back and talk to Susan at the event of her parents' deaths, 16 years before she briefly became Death?

If you've got Auditors, you must have something like Ronnie Soak; everything needs its antithesis. Just like me and my wife!

So why is Kaos's sword so cold?

If Kaos is the antithesis of order, why is he in the dairy business. This type of business would require good organization and a regular timetable/schedule (Ronnie's famous for always being on time), and, to top it off, the who process of turning milk into cheese is a case of self-organizing order, isn't it?

If you justify Jeremy/Lobsang's age on Wen's first appearence at Nanny Ogg's house, then he should be the same age as Nanny, which is isn't. They were obviously just dumped into the time-stream.

And as long as we're on characters' ages, just how old is Quoth the raven? We met him when Susan was a teenager, and if I remember correctly, he was already pretty bedraggled at that time, and now we see him again when Susan has become an adult and school-teacher.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I was just trying to point out that Time having Lobsang to stop the Auditors would be paradoxial because she would be having Jeremy at the same time, giving the Auditors the means to succeed in their plans.

Jeremy is Lobsang and Lobsang is Jeremy - they're not twins but the same person so he/they are a polarity not a paradox. By virtue of Time being their mother and Wen being an adept of existing forever through sliced time (in her disembodied state which BTW sets up a completely different connotation for 'slicing' Time ) they are a balance of physical time (Lobsang) and conceptual/cerebral/perceived time (Jeremy) set in a polarised time niche by their parent so their singular but separated actualities can exist in the same place (the Disc) at exactly same time.

They've been separated to make/end the paradox that the Auditors want to create to destroy time so they are the balancing factors to achieve the removal of the time anomaly (the glass clock) as though it had never happened (and yes it's fiction so this can be done however Terry calls it because it is quantum).

It's a story about balance in effect - Order and Chaos cancel each other out and so does the realignment of Jeremy/Lobsang in A-M and then back in the History Monk's valley where the integrated Lobsang is able to re-balance the glass clock's damage and thus repair the anomaly so it never existed - I think.

Don't ask me about Lobsang being able to make cherries at the end of the book though as I think I just busted my insomnia and have arrived back at last Monday and not today...

 

[poohcarrot]

And it leads to further tangles in that since DEATH couldn't foresee the Auditors plan to destroy the world, than what makes you think Time could either?

I think you're totally wrong there SW.

Death COULD see the auditors plan to destroy the world.

That's why he got Susan to find Lobsang and asked War etc to ride out BEFORE time stopped.

And if you're referring to the millenium bug non-event, why did TP write about it two years after it happened? He is a whizz with computers and would have known about it before the event, so if he was going to write about it he would have written about it in 1999.

Thus, the real important question is why is Pratchett writing about a "race" of "devils" whose ideal world is one of complete stasis? What, in the actions of humanity, might he be parodying?

I don't know.

Religious people? People who believe the $ should stay as the world reserve currency? Rock fans who like the Status Quo?

 

[Dotsie]

And it leads to further tangles in that since DEATH couldn't foresee the Auditors plan to destroy the world, than what makes you think Time could either?

I think you're totally wrong there SW.

Death COULD see the auditors plan to destroy the world.

Hmm, no, he could detect that they were up to something because of the malignancies, but he couldn't actually see anything at all. That was the point.

And if you're referring to the millenium bug non-event, why did TP write about it two years after it happened? He is a whizz with computers and would have known about it before the event, so if he was going to write about it he would have written about it in 1999.

It's not surprising that an idea wouldn't be turned nto a book for two years. He might not even have had the idea until after Y2K. And he might have been writing something else at the time anyway.

Thus, the real important question is why is Pratchett writing about a "race" of "devils" whose ideal world is one of complete stasis? What, in the actions of humanity, might he be parodying?

This is the important theme of the book, everything else is just a means of bringing this idea to a novel. But I can't answer your question. I think the auditor mean different things to different people.

 

[poohcarrot]

Hmm, no, he could detect that they were up to something because of the malignancies, but he couldn't actually see anything at all. That was the point.

Death knew the world was going to end, and when.
Death knew the auditors were behind the plot to end the world.
Death knew the auditors were getting a "human" to build another glass clock.
Death knew Time had married Wen.
Death knew that Time had had a baby and who the midwife was.
Death knew that Lu-Tse was with Lobsang.
Death knew Lobsang was Time's child.
Death couldn't do anything because he had his Duty to ride out.
Death got Susan to help foil the auditors.

I don't see how it's possible to say that Death couldn't foresee the auditors' plan. He foresaw it all! The only thing he couldn't see was Lobsang (and Jeremy).

And it leads to further tangles in that since DEATH couldn't foresee the Auditors plan to destroy the world, than what makes you think Time could either?

Therefore, if Death foresaw all the plan, what makes anyone think Time couldn't too?

 

[bikkit]

NOOOO! My little irrelivant nugget of irrelivantness has been drowned.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Awww - Bikkit.

We love irrelevant digressions and irrelevantness most of all, so of course we want to hear yours as well! Please, please please?

Anything to shut us up about DNA, Darwin and Who saw What Wen *ahem*

 

[Tonyblack]

You have two weeks to read or reread Equal Rights for the discussion on Monday 2nd November.

 

[bikkit]

Jeremy Clockson sounds like Jeremy Clarkson

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Jeremy Clockson sounds like Jeremy Clarkson

Only Jeremy's younger, better-looking, has a nice quiet, hobby and is much more intelligent - AND always on time! :twisted:

 

[bikkit]

 

[Lady Vetinari]

Jeremy Clockson sounds like Jeremy Clarkson

Only Jeremy's younger, better-looking, has a nice quiet, hobby and is much more intelligent - AND always on time! :twisted:

I can't stand Jeremy Clarkson I like Jeremy Clockson though ... and Pooh you have summed it all up in a nutshell ... I have nothing to add!

 

[poohcarrot]

What, nothing?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

What, nothing?

Nudges you in the direction of Kakaze's speculations in his last post -

Lot's of good stuff to rummage about with on Ronnie, The Void, Chaos as extreme anti-Order... and dairy products :twisted: