#rincepost

rincewind's anger is very much what catalyzes his character growth. rincewind's anger is what gives him the momentum to form and then assert the bone-deep sense of self that becomes the centerpiece of his character arc. rincewind's anger is what gives him the momentum to decide that, even though bad things do just happen to him, he doesn't need to just resign himself to them - he can talk back, he can refuse, he can even act. rincewind's anger is what sends him after a nightmarified trymon with nothing but his bare teeth and after the sourcerer (and then the staff) with nothing but a half-brick in a sock. rincewind's anger is what drives him to act on his morals rather than on his sense of self-preservation, is what lets him decide that fuck it, nobody else is going to so he's going to be the line in the sand between something much bigger than himself and the world.

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.)

IT WON'T WORK, laughed a voice like the dull toning of a funeral bell, YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN THEM.

something about spelter panicking on the top of coin’s tower (something made entirely of magic. something that fundamentally isn’t really there.), suspended thousands of feet in the air.

The thought shocked him. He was a wizard, and he was worrying about magic.

something about how the events of everything that has happened between the light fantastic and sourcery has happened because of the things that are fundamentally wrong with wizard society. and about the way that this is communicated through how they think of magic, the way it is a thing they use, and the way that even as far back as the color of magic, we see how rincewind is just,,, fundamentally the opposite of all of this. the ways he doesn’t perform wizard society. the ways he’s set up to be its textual contrast. how he fundamentally doesn’t think of magic in the same way - and @thestarsarelaughing has put this more eloquently than i ever could, but the way that rincewind has a mistrust of it that lends itself to a respect that other wizards don’t have?

thinks about spelter sounding almost like rincewind. while breaking from the view of magic that has allowed coin’s takeover in the first place. suspended on something made entirely of magic, something that isn’t really there, thousands and thousands of feet in the air.