- Or perhaps it's about Vimes' aging... not longer feeling "up to snuff" as it were. Or perhaps it refers to Angua's method of snuffing out clues. Or Snuffing out a candle.
- I suspect that one of the meanings involves Angua, given that, in a recent interview, Pratchett declared (to much audience cheering) that it is high time for Carrot and Angua to finally marry.
- It could also refer to Snuff tobacco. Possibly Vimes switches to it from cigars. Maybe Sybil won't let him smoke in the house because of their son?
- Or maybe Pterry released a fake title as a prank, because nobody believed him when he revealed the last Watch novel was going to be called "Thud!".
- Snuff Films? The Moving Picture business is going to return with a vengeance after secretly turning evil?
- Uh, "secretly"? "turning"?!
- I had a talk with my librarian. Apparently, old murder movies were slang-titled 'Snuff'. Coincidence? Pterry's too bright for that.
- Pterry knows he doesn't have all that much time left as a writer. Perhaps this is going to be Vimes's swansong, designed to wrap up the subseries for good.
- "Snuff", being a monosyllabic word beginning with S, sounds a bit like a troll drug.
- Anyone read I Shall Wear Midnight? Mrs. Proust uses snuff,copiously. And she's an Ankh-Morporkian witch who is fairly familiar with the Watch - particularly Angua (could tie in with above **)
- Perhaps this book will follow up on the "extreme sneezing" Vetinari mentioned in Making Money?
- The cover shows Vimes on a boat, with a small hourglass next to him (Also, some chickens). So lets hope that the "snuffing out life" part wont be true.
- Pratchett has said the word has two meanings in regard to the book. Having now read it, I think the meanings are (1) to the tobacco/snuff smuggling trade that Vetinari sent Vimes on his "vacation" to investigate, and (2) the casual snuffing of goblins that attended said snuff smuggling.
- A more metaphorical comparison occurs with Billy Slicks, the lone goblin assimilated into Anhk Morpork work culture but completely disinterested in superstitions; Angua ponders the fate of goblins losing their culture and "vanishing" into just another kind of city humanoid.
- The pots might also mimic, albeit in a playfully grosser fashion, the various body parts treated as powerful religious relics (saint's bones, Jesus's foreskin, etc)
- Stinky may be a self-actualized goblin, one who has collected enough self-belief to turn into a small god himself. This may not be too dissimilar to the dangerous but potent techniques of Miss Gogol back in Witches Abroad; whose voodoo magic works using "practically nothing" to call or even make gods using focuses of belief.
- This troper assumed that "unggue" was a portmanteau of "unguent" - a reference to the ointment-pots commonly found in old Egyptian tombs - and "goo", referencing the snot which goblins fill them with. Unggue pots are intended as burial pots, after all.
- I'd leave it up to Pratchett to make it into a philosphical question. Like "Why did the Chicken cross the road?", complete with bafflement and misunderstandings by the cast. And then have it be sybolic of the plot somhow, because as we all know, the Chicken crossed the road to see what was on The Other Side.
- . Hmm. Just as the goblins were rounded up, sold down the river, and sent to a future as convenient slaves to the human race, then so were the chickens? Perhaps a subtle point about how we treat animals, in this case battery hens, and how when this is done to sentient beings it's called slavery?
...and Vimes failed.
Spoilers ahoy.
It's seemed for a while that Vetinari is grooming a successor. Or rather, a group of potential successors. People like Vimes and Moist are therefore put in positions where they have to deal with the sort of complicated conditions a Patrician deals with daily, to see how they react. Here, Vimes had to deal with a crime that was not a crime. A clearly unjust situation where no actual crime has been committed. Vimes performed admirably to a point, even getting it declared a crime...but could not accept that within the confines of the law, Gravid Rust had not actually done anything wrong at the time. He wanted Vimes to go that extra mile and punish the wicked who were outside the bounds of the law, while still punishing those who were well within it in the legal manner.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Vimes was unable to accept this, and thus Gravid Rust got off with a mere exile and a fine. Vetinari tied up that loose end his own way, the way he hoped Vimes would have originally, and he mentally checked Vimes off the list of potential successors.
- This has one major flaw: Vetinari and Vimes are the same age, to within a year or two. He also needs Vimes in charge of the Watch so that Carrot isn't the senior officer.
- Another major flaw: While the Dark Clerks don't exist, they do exist. And so Gravid Rust gets off with a mere exile, a rather severe fine, and an unfortunate chance encounter with one of the many highly venomous spiders native to Fourecks. Sometimes, not all sins are forgiven.
- And another: purposely killing a criminal in anything other than self defense, no matter what they've done, would be completely out of character for Vimes. Vetinari knows him better than that.
- Indeed, the very fact that Vimes is an absolute, unbending straight arrow is part of what makes him so valuable to Vetinari. He knows that other leaders accept that Vimes's integrity is without question, and can therefore rely on everyone accepting Vimes as the ultimate unbiased witness. That's why it was so crucial to Vetinari and the dwarf and troll kings that Vimes be the one to uncover Koom Valley's secrets.
- My own impression is that Vimes did exactly what Vetinari wanted him to do: put an end to smuggling by a bunch of aristocrats, thereby bringing aristocrats more under rule of law (a long-term problem in Ankh-Morpork), and liberating the goblins. The fact that Vetinari dressed Vimes down for doing this is irrelevant. Or rather it is: Vetinari can't let Vimes know that he sent him to act on the windy edges of the law, even if it was to extend those edges.
- Not to mention the frequently noted odd smell.
- He also turns up with a goblin girlfriend towards the end of the book as well.
- I had thought he was Unggue. Not the god of Unggue, just... Unggue. Remember, "when gods turn away, Unggue pulls up sleeves and gets to work. Unggue watches over us." Or something like that. What better way to improve the goblins' lot than by saving the life of someone who wants to help them?
- Or else a god/avatar of the goblin people? Rather like the ineffectual and powerless god Herne the Hunted, who appears in "Lords and Ladies" to speak out for the prey of stronger animals, as best he could...
- Vimes has no way of telling that the entity assisting him isn't the Summoning Dark, and so the assumption that it's the same entity is simply his perspective as an unreliable narrator.
- It means that Vimes will be wary of it, watching the Guarding Dark for wrongdoing, which, as an internal watchman, is exactly what the Guarding Dark wants him to do.
- He claims at one point that he considered it, but they have too many rules.
- It's also worth noting that Wilikins was a street kid, while the Assassin's Guild is traditionally a gentlemen's society. It's only relatively recently begun offering scholarships (not to mention admitting women, which is irrelevant in Wilikins' case, but seems to coincide with the scholarships).
- Jossed, in part, owing to Died During Production. But Terry's amanuensis Rob Wilkins let it slip that when Terry died, there was an unfinished outline novel about Howondaland called The Dark Incontinent. Some of that material may have surfaced in the Complete Discworld Atlas, which expands a little on the continent. Snippets include more on Balgrog hunter "Howondaland Smith", who is visually depicted as a Great White hunter type in safari garb. There is also a country where the nearest thing to a capital city is called Smithville. White Howondaland?
- Unlikely. Vetinari's just being more humanized in recent novels. Sure, he's always been described as a tyrant, but he's also always been a good and (mostly) moral ruler. You can only take that so far before having to show more sides of him.
- Vendetta? This troper assumed Pterry might be setting Vetinari up to marry the crossword-writer in a future book. One day he'll stop off at that pet shop to get Mr. Fusspot a new toy, and find the owner doing Sudoku from memory while all the puppies and kittens are obediently cleaning their own cages for her...
- But, given what we know about Mr. Fusspot's taste in toys, what kind of "pet shop" would stock them?
- Assuming it's clockwork-in-rubber that Fusspot found so entertaining, just stuff a Mr. Clicky into a Mr. Squeaky.
- Yeah, I'm getting a sort of Belligerent Sexual Tension vibe, even though as far as we know they've never met each other.
- But, given what we know about Mr. Fusspot's taste in toys, what kind of "pet shop" would stock them?
- I think his deal may actually be that the better he gets at his job, the more he can afford to relax and behave like a person. He used to be occasionally prone to making mistakes (Sourcery, Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms), and tended to get removed from office and/or nearly killed a lot. He was probably trying to avoid coming across as at all vulnerable, but since he hasn't screwed up and/or nearly been killed recently, he feels confident enough to act human.
- While you were out…
- Stratford wasn't particularly threatening to Vimes, but he was certainly threatening to Young Sam. He doesn't have to be Carcer-caliber to make Vimes fearful for his son.
However, if we assume UK law is a rough basis, as the legal system P Terry would have been most familiar with, we can see a couple things. First, what Vetinari asserts, namely that laws cannot be applied retroactively, is more his personal philosophy than a fact of AM law. In the UK, such laws, known as ex post facto laws, are doable (though likely actually enacted rarely), because of how their government works. Vetinari as a tyrannical ruler, would presumably be just as capable of enacting such a law if he wanted. So one is left to assume that he is personally not a fan of the idea, and that is understandable for practical reasons. Vetinari retains power in large part because the AM with him is just slightly less inconvenient than an AM without him, and he likely recognizes that if he started making ex post facto laws, the balance might swing due to a public perception that he just does whatever he wants. (Which he does, sort of, as a tyrant, but perception is important).
That said, and setting aside the fact that it's debateable as to whether Vimes had any true jurisdiction as an officer of the law in the Shire, the Shire is his land. And if goblins are regarded as animals... Well that means that to kill a goblin in the Shire without Vimes' permission is an act of poaching. Which in the UK, back when the government was (just) kings and nobles, carried a penalty of death.
Now, it would anger Vimes to no end to have to prosecute Stratford for the crime of poaching, rather than murder, but presumably that is a law on the books, whereas the murder laws are written such that they do not apply to goblins (which does make me wonder how those laws are written, precisely).
It's a sort of tricky legal situation, or, rather, moral situation of the legal code, having to say "well, if the law says they're animals, then I'll entertain that for the sake of legalities," but it would get the job done.
- The goblins were classed as vermin, not just animals. Game animals have value to the landowner and poaching them would be a form of theft; killing vermin is legal without need for authorization, else you'd need a license to set mousetraps.