Drumknott, the Patrician’s
secretary, was waiting by the door of the Oblong Office, and quickly ushered
him into the seat in front of his lordship’s desk.
After nine seconds of
industrious writing, Lord Vetinari looked up from his paperwork.
“Ah, Mr. Lipwig,” he said.
“Not in your gold suit?”
“It’s being cleaned, sir.”
“I trust the day goes well
with you? Up until now, that is?”
Moist looked around, sorting
hastily through the Post Office’s recent little problems. Apart from Drumknott,
who was standing by his master with an attitude of deferential alertness, they
were alone.
“Look, I can explain,” he
said.
Lord Vetinari lifted an
eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his
salad, raises the rest of the lettuce.
“Pray do,” he said, leaning
back.
“We got a bit carried away,”
said Moist. “We were a bit too creative in our thinking. We encouraged
mongooses to breed in the posting boxes to keep down the snakes…”
Lord Vetinari said nothing.
“Er… which, admittedly, we
introduced into the letter boxes to reduce the numbers of toads…”
Lord Vetinari repeated
himself.
“Er… which, it’s true, staff
put in the posting boxes to keep down the snails…”
Lord Vetinari remained
unvocal.
“Er… These, I must in
fairness point out, got into the boxes of their own accord, in order to eat the
glue on the stamps,” said Moist, aware that he was beginning to burble.
“Well, at least you were
saved the trouble of having to introduce them yourselves,” said Lord Vetinari
cheerfully. “As you indicate, this may well have been a case where chilly logic
should have been replaced by the common sense of, perhaps, the average chicken.
But that is not the reason I asked you to come here today.”
Sometimes when I’m sad I like to imagine what would happen in a crossover universe between Discworld and Harry Potter, and what Granny Weatherwax would make of their style of magic.
But then I think about more important things, like what would have happened if Granny Weatherwax ever met Albus Dumbledore, and I can’t help but feel a whole lot of shit could have been avoided if he’d had a good clip round the ear and a strong talking to about the whole “my hands are tied” bullshit that enabled years of abuse and suffering at the hands of adults in a position of authority over young, vulnerable people.
Like oh, this spell requires the bond of blood to keep him safe, all right. So that just means we’re not going to hold these adults accountable for their torment and abuse? I think the entire fuck not, Albus.
Snape is a double agent who is actually working for the greater good. All right, but that doesn’t stop him from being an absolute fucking shit weasel who shouldn’t be around children until he learns to control himself and works out his issues in a safe and sane manner, what the fuck, Albus.
You have an entire school system that ascribes to ideas of inherent morality when in fact this is a thing that needs to be taught? Well no wonder there’s one house in particular that keeps going off the rails, you keep telling them they’re evil. Tell people something for long enough they’ll start to believe you. There’s nothing wrong with being selfish and cunning, sometimes that’s what it takes to survive. Teach them how to use those traits for good. As strength. My land, my home, my people (not my daughter, you bitch) how dare you try to hurt them. Teach them, Albus, you have to bloody teach them and realize that evil isn’t born. It’s made. In a thousand small deplorable ways. And it starts with treating people like things and I cannot be having with this.
Of course there’s also the other flipside to this thought process, which is imagining Gytha “Nanny” Ogg shouting “watcher Molly” as she thumps Bellatrix Lestrange on the back of the head with a cauldron, and drops her like a fucking stone. Later they’ll sit together and grieve, later there will be time to pick up the pieces and mourn. But for now there are things to fight for, people to keep alive. And people to keep from doing what they shouldn’t ever have to do, so you find a way to do it for them, by hook, crook or blunt force trauma.
And because my head wont let go of this thought:
“You always was a right little miss,” she said, taking a puff from her pipe and resettling her weight with a hefty bounce as the younger witch struggled to get out from under Nanny’s considerable girth. “Giving yourself airs and graces and such. Pretending you was too good to scrub a pot. Well, let me tell you something, Mistress Lestrange, you ain’t fit for nothing no more except maybe a noose. And if I had my way that might be the end of it. But we don’t do things like that no more, we don’t rule by blood.”
“Then you’re weak,” Lestrange shot back, still struggling to claw her way free. “A weak, old woman with nothing left but tricks up your fat sleeve.”
Nanny puffed in silence for a few more moments, then reached up her sleeve. “And your wand, dearie. Walnut is it? With a dragon heartstring core? Very nice, painting it black was a bit much, but you always were fond of your dramatics.”
She pulled out her own wand, holding it out under Bellatrix’s nose, whose face went cross eyed and then wide with panic.
“You know, I’ve only ever heard of Priori Incantatem,” she said, puffing on the end of her pipe until the pit glowed cherry red then white hot and she exhaled smoke like a dragon, “but I wasn’t about to risk it, not in front of all those kiddies. But I reckon now might be a good time…”
Also, for your consideration. Feegles.
“Haul yoo, aye yoo, the great big ugly gangly scunner wi-oot a nose. Can yesew? Well stitch this.”
Harry watched in consternation as Voldemort staggered back, dropped to the ground like a ton of bricks and lay still.
“That’s it?” he demanded, lowering his wand. “That’s all you had to do?”
Rob
Anybody, perched on his shoulder, looked up at the young wizard out the
corner of the eye, which was to say he looked him in the nostrils.
“Weell,”
he said, gesturing towards the chaos that had been unleashed as the
full force of the Nac Mac Feegle was unleashed upon the band of Death
Eaters, primarily by running up the inside of their trousers. “That’s
the thing about the lads. Once they’ve decided tae dae something, they
dae it good and hard.”
“But you just headbutted him!”
“Aye, weill,” Rob said, feeling as though the lad wasn’t quite grasping the practicality of the situation, “he might be a bloody great dark bigjob wizard, but he cannae cast a spell wi-oot a heid.”
Ok but the one I want to see is Dolores Umbridge vs Munstrum Ridcully, becuase that would be the Petty Academic Slapfight of doom.
Because Ridcully, for all his faults, probably understands that the actual learning of magic relies on a certain degree of both freedom and madness and sometimes explosions.
And Umbridge would crawl right up his skin with her concept of a “Defense Against The Dark Arts” Course, and in the middle of a lecture on recent runes, would go on a “tangent” on the history of various dark wizards and the means by which they were defeated and here Why Don’t We Have A Practical Outside, The Weather Is Nice (The weather is not nice. It’s Scotland. In Late November.) But everyone is really curious to see the old man actually take his wand out for once, only to discover that that’s not a wand at all, that’s a Burleigh & Stronginthearm and they’re all going to pass it around and whoever shoots the weathervane off the top of Ravenclaw tower gets 50 points. Hannah Abbot puts a bolt through Umbridge’s window, taking out a kitten plate and gets 100 points.
Fred and George turn the third floor corridor into a Swamp and Umbridge is pleased to hear Ridcully bellowing at the Weasley boys about “BLOODY INSONSIDERATE, NEVER HAVE I EVER MET SUCH WRETCHEDLY-” but the second she’s around the corner it changes to “-brilliant young men, how much is this setup you have here? That potions-master could do with some aggravated moisturizing. Speaking of moisturizing, what would it take to get you two gentlemen to work on the faculty baths? Disgustingly substandard, nowhere to put your nail trimmings-”
Ridcully would like the students there too, I think. Especially the Slytherins, because he’s perfectly aware how important being a cunning bastard and willing to get your hands dirty or bloody if needed is, especially in the world of Magical Academia. They’re socially intelligent and disenchanted with the system, not Evil, Albus. The Malfoy boy would be a lot less trouble if he had something to do besides practicing subject’s he’s bored with. Fratricide, perhaps. I’m kidding Albus! (he’s only sort of kidding. Maybe not murder. Just turn him into a toad and keep him as a familair in a bowl on the mantlepiece.)
He’d be so mad about the Chamber of secrets though. Potter! A Basilisk! Why didn’t you bring the head back up it’d be magnificent hanging over the great hall. Oh I see. Well why didn’t you go BACK? Perfectly good potion ingredients going to waste, doesn’t that brooding mop of a potions master teach you anything about looti- er, collecting spell components?
I forgot I wrote this haha, and I’m glad @gallusrostromegalus made it better.
Okay but feagles and house elves tho
Obeyin’ the hag is one thing, but any hag that’d that inna worth the title
(Dobby takes it up first, under his breath: “no lords and no masters”)
Havelock Vetenari is not a man to “Go Spare”, and certainly not without good cause but that shambling mountain of paperwork and prejudice they call “The Ministry Of Magic” is several thousand good reasons. He doesn’t even WANT to take over this disaster but he can’t rest so long as it continues to exist.
But. He’s better than that. Why waste time in pointless rage when there are things he can actually do to fix this?
“Mr. Lipvig.” He says, conversationally. “Did you know that the currency conversion rates haven’t changed since Gringotts was founded? Seventeen silver sickles to a gold galleon since the 1100’s”
He doesn’t really need to say anything else. Moist blinks a few times, then gradually begins to vibrate as every instinct he possess is called to the forefront.
“They’re just down the street if you wanted to see their facilities-”
Moist’s chair actually spins with the force of his rapid departure.“
Dug around in my archive drives for Discworld fanarts. I have a lot of Feelings I can’t articulate very well soooooo I’m not going to, just enjoy the draws xD FYI Zombie Reg is still one of my favorite faces I’ve drawn of all time, ever!
MAN I just remembered how I sketched the Vimes family portrait after I read Thud! I should find that and finish it…
I’ve been on a Discworld re-read for about a year now, and it just struck me how Pterry gets progressively angrier and less subtle about it throughout the series.
Like, we start out nice and easy with Rincewind who’s on some wacky adventures and ha ha ha oh golly that Twoflower sure is silly and the Luggage is epic, where can I get one. Meanwhile Rincewind just wants to live out his boring days as a boring Librarian but is dragged along against his will by an annoying little tourist guy and honestly? Fuck this.
We get the first view of Sam Vimes, and he’s just a drunken beaten down sod who wants to spend his last days as a copper in some dive but oh fuck now he has to fight a dragon and honestly? Fuck this.
The first time we see Granny Weatherwax, she’s just a cranky old woman who has never set foot outside her village but oh fuck now she has to guide this weird girl who should be a witch but is apparently a wizard all the way down to Ankh Morpork and honestly? Fuck this.
Like, these books deal with grumpy, cranky people. But mostly, the early books are a lot of fun. Sure, they have messages about good and evil and the weirdness of the world, and they’re good messages too, but mostly they are just wacky romps through a world that’s just different enough that we can have a good laugh about it without taking things too much to heart.
But then you get to Small Gods, in which organized religion is eviscerated so thorouhgly that if it was human, even the Quisition would say it’s gone a bit too far while at the same time not condemning people having faith which is kind of an important distinction.
You get to Men at Arms and I encourage everybody with an opinion on the Second Amendment to read that one.
You get to Jingo, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal (featuring an evil CEO who is squeezing his own company dry to get to every last penny, not caring one lick about his product or his workers or his customers or anything else and who, coincidentally, works out of Tump Tower. I’m not making this up).
And just when you think, whew, this is getting a bit much but hey, look, he wrote YA as well! And it’s about this cute little girl who wants to be a witch and has help from a lot of rowdy blue little men, this will be fun! A bit of a break from all the anger!
Wrong.
The Tiffany Aching books are the angriest of all. But you know what the great thing is?
The great thing is that Pterry’s anger is the kind of fury that makes you want to get up and do something about it. It upsets you, sure. But it also says It’s up to you to change all of this. And you can change all of this, and even if you can’t. Do it anyway. Because magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
It’s the kind of anger that gives you purpose, and it gives you hope. And that concludes my essay about why the Discworld series is so gloriously cathartic to read when it seems like all the world is going to shit.
So go. Read them, get angry and then get up and fight. Fight for truth. Justice. Freedom. Reasonably priced love and, most importantly, a hard-boiled egg.
GNU Terry Pratchett.
GNU Terry Pritchett
GNU Terry Pratchett
GNU Terry Pratchett
I recommend anyone who hasn’t read the article Neil Gaiman wrote before PTerry died about what an angry person he was. Not in a bad or aggressive way, but a seething fury at the people in the world who use their gifts or power to wreck it for other people. I grew up through Discworld books being moved from the ‘fantasy’ niche through to people acknowledging their sales and (gasp) being allowed on the ‘new releases’ tables (and yes it was Night Watch that led to a big change in that), but it doesn’t mean literary critics didn’t still write them off as being fantasy, and thus not serious. When of course we know fantasy is the most serious thing there is.
that time Sybil called Sam smol and angry and he was too smol and angry to notice
Awww
It’s the “until some days later” in the last line that really puts the finishing flourish on the joke.
Vimes, halfway through the carriage ride back to Ankh-Morpork: WAIT A MINUTE
when you gaze in awe at the deeds of carrot, detritus, dorfl, agnua, buggy swires, the librarian, wee-mad-arthur, and reg shoe- and then find out they all report to someone
Odd thing, ain’t it… you meet people one at a time, they seem decent, they got brains that work, and then they get together and you hear the voice of the people. And it snarls.
Jingo, by Terry Pratchett
Sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of passable red wine, reading a (marvellously, horribly relevant) Discworld novel, and… waiting. And waiting.
“[There] are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.”
“Witches just aren’t like that,” said Magrat. “We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.“
The other two looked at her with a certain amount of surprised admiration. She blushed, and looked at her knees. “Goodie Whemper did a recipe,” she confessed. “It’s quite easy. What you do is, you get some lead, and you—”
“I don’t think that would be appropriate,” said Granny carefully, after a certain amount of internal struggle. “It could give people the wrong idea.”
The thing about Discworld, you see, is that it’s a very hopeful form of cynicism. It doesn’t just tell you that the world is crap, it says, well, yes, of course the world is crap, but that’s why you should be hopeful, and helpful, and kind, and why you have to be good, because maybe you can make it a little less crap.
Reason #33573743742 why I love the Discworld books.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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