A Short Blunt Human Pyramid

Sam Vimes (my beloved) is often acknowledged as "not the sharpest tool in the shed" but BY GODS does he get shit done and is the RIGHT shit.

Juliet Stollop is dumb as a box of rocks but it's her straightforward mind that says to (smart and clever) Trev Likely and Glenda Sugarbean "are you stupid? You're talking about Mr Nutt! Of course he isn't evil!"

Sybil Vimes is radically kind BECAUSE OF and NOT inspite of her size.

Junior Postman Groat is old and creaky and INVALUABLE to the post office!

Stanley Howler is young and a bit crazy but ALSO has his value recognised by Moist and given an important job, and he does it really well!

Sergeant Jackrum is massively fat and appears stupid but is so sharp that he saves the day and (redacted because I'd hate to spoil, even if the book isn't at all new).

I don't know it just makes me happy and wish more people read Discworld

a poem by Jay Hulme, titled Jesus at the Gay Bar

He's here in the midst of it - right at the centre of the dance floor, robes hitched up to His knees to make it easy to spin.

At some point in the evening a boy will touch the hem of His robe and beg to be healed, beg to be anything other than this;

and He will reach His arms out, sweat-damp, and weary from dance. He'll cup this boy's face in His hand and say,

my beautiful child there is nothing in this heart of yours that ever needs to be healed.

She's capable, she's furious, she's not conventionally attractive and she's forever reading and fantasising about bodice rippers. She's running everyones lives for them, but she's full of self hatred for not doing anything for herself.

She's feminine in a way that we rarely see in media but all the time in real life.

the color of magic and the light fantastic are set during the waning days of barbarian thug heroes. cohen and his cohorts are either old or dead, and the incoming generation isn't finding much profit in the hero business. tax fraud is more profitable than pillaging.

the mention of horrific wizard wars that are so old that even the aftermath of them are relegated to allusions instead of explicit description.

lancre is haunted by the spectre of black aliss, who never appears on screen and has been hansel and greteled by the time of granny and nanny being the witches of authority, and even they feel like their time coming to a close.[1]

uberwald is the remnants of a fallen evil empire.

ankh-morpork had kings, then despotic tyrants, but on page is governed bureaucratically by a man who, i will always argue, was working to ultimately get rid of his own job.

we are introduced to a city watch that has been defanged and recovering from several failed revolutions.

moist von lipwig is a reformed con man being forced to repair the damage done to public institutions by other con men, but we never truly see the shell games played by moist or others.

even small gods concerns itself with the reformation of a fire and brimstone religion.

basically, if epic fantasy is a party, discworld is the story of the people who have to clean up afterwards despite not being on the guest list for the event.

-

"He asked you to shoot at people who weren’t shooting back,” growled Vimes, striding forward, “That makes him insane, wouldn’t you say?”

“They are throwing stones, Sarge,” said Colon.

“So? Stay out of range. They’ll get tired before we do."

- Night Watch

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

It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman.” If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers.

- Snuff

The poor devils. They thought a king would make them free.

- Feet of Clay

Beating people up in little rooms…he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one. You couldn’t say “we’re the good guys” and do bad-guy things. Sometimes the watching watchman inside every good copper’s head could use an extra pair of eyes.