YMMV / Interesting Times

• Broken Base: While generally well-received, it's one of the most controversial books in the Discworld series thanks to the never-ending parade of Asian stereotypes. Granted stereotypes and their lampshading (which remains extremely thorough) are standard for the Discworld, but...
• Complete Monster: Lord Hong is the Grand Vizier of the Agatean Empire and seeks to become the Emperor so he can invade the outside world and consume their culture after growing bored from mastering every aspect of his stagnant society. Hong secretly backs a rebel army that he seeks to scapegoat the Emperor's assassination and manipulates his fellow nobles into leading massacres of entire cities to popularize the rebels. Inviting Rincewind after his previous adventures made him a legend, Hong sought to frame him as a foreign backer of the rebels to justify a bloody conquest of the Discworld. Seeking to end the Empire's stagnancy for pragmatic and selfish reasons, Hong still intended to enforce the Agatean caste system where commoners as treated as less than human and executed for the pettiest of reasons. Ultimately undone by Cohen the Barbarian and Rincewind, a furious Hong tries to kidnap and murder Rincewind as a final act of spite for his ruined ambitions.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Probably unintentional by Pratchett, but Rincewind repeatedly says "Your wife is a big hippo!" to a widower.
  • It's rather harder to laugh at the senility of Cohen's crew after Terry Pratchett's own experience with Alzheimer's.
  • Twoflower's character in The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic once he explains how his wife had been killed (along with a few streets of other civilians) during a minor and pointless little scrap between Lord Hong and Lord McSweeney. His absolute unflappability in the face of near-certain death takes on a tearjerking new meaning when you realise that he understood what true evil really is all along.