thinking about rincewind’s “It could be worse. It could be us.” and vimes’ (colon: “It could have been worse.”) “It could have been us.” and something about rincewind as someone who has been failed/outcast by a system that he was supposed to be a part of and vimes as someone operating within a system in which he is a failure/outcast but is someone who nonetheless has obligations as part of that system but has been encouraged by that narrative of who he is not to meet them.
wait no i have more thoughts.
the evolution of rincewind’s “It could be worse. It could be me.” (10 - 15 years of the social isolation that comes with being the system’s reject. only interested in saving himself - his conscience might disagree, but it’s not running the show. the prey animal fear is. saving himself is the thing to do.) => “It could be worse. It could be us.” (still interested in saving himself but,,, okay hrun is a necessary loss. it isn’t worth dying over him. but he doesn’t want anyone to die, unnecessarily. maybe he wants twoflower to let himself be saved too, or to see for once that twoflower should save himself.) => “Chin up. Look on the bright side. It could be worse.” (has chosen to, and fully believes that that he is going to, die for coin. has already decided that, this time, he isn’t going home. the only thing he can do now is to make it less scary for coin. and hope he can convince coin to save himself, and not look back for rincewind. to do what rincewind’s been doing, but this time rincewind’s staying behind, and coin is the social outcast - in different ways, in similar ways - who gets to save himself.)
if i see an equivalent progression of this line with vimes this will be a real essay but for the moment i just get to sit here with all that and also with the knowledge of who he becomes. that’s great.
