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terramythos · 1 year

Text

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett Reading Notes

Full Review Here!

-I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett outside Good Omens (ages ago)

-Discworld has always been on The List so I followed the general "just pick one" recommendation

-no chapters :0 here's hoping I organize these notes in a coherent way

-probably just rando page breaks tbh

-ok putting a characters drunk rambling in the narration is pretty good. Like drunkenness and blurring state of mind etc

-oh boy. Footnotes

-"all this was untrue" oh good. *proceeds to describe something more insane* oh GOOD.

-... oh no, it IS funny.

-God the back and forth of nonsense pass codes

-oh my god the punchline being not just that but they're at the WRONG secret society 😭

-and the switch to just ordinary pleasantries. With the dramatically grim tone otherwise. Help

- nooooo another person was at the wrong one. Boomerang-ass joke

-youve done it, you've broken down megalomaniacal villains to their bare essentials!

-ok it dawned on me their titles are their professions. Lmao. Brother Plasterer literally a Plasterer.

-thunder rolled... a six

-the sword being unique because it's not obnoxiously prophetic/magical

-"it's a terrible thing to be nearly sixteen and the wrong species" brother, ain't that the truth

-wait. This is the premise of Elf. Hello?

-damn, dwarves a bunch of nonbinary kings I guess

-I like that the word "king" is nonliteral, at least in the way we would think it, but by technicality fits the prophecy shit or w/e

-"You have to know all the laws to be a good officer" ooooog

-oops! You're a dragon now

-thieves threatening to strike lmao

-"do not let me detain you" brooo lmao

-thieves having state sponsored organized and licensed crime with annual quotas! So like. The actual cops, not The Watch

-ok I'm not the only one seeing the poop jokes right. "Back to front way of living." "Sergeant Colon." Vimes enters the story basically in the sewer.

-If The Fantasy Noir Aesthetic Was Not Obvious Enough Here Is A Magic Glowing Sign That Is Flickering Random Letters

-nicotine elephants graveyard? Where did he come up with this shit lmao

-there are a lot of boomerang jokes

-oh boy them giving Carrot a drink. Like hes not a biological dwarf but. Uhhh

-ok this has a lot of good bits. But one of my faves wasn't actually a joke. "There were some types of sobriety that you just couldn't budge." So true bestie

-is the Patrician also the Supreme Grand Master?

-ok probs not based on that line. And wouldn't make sense based on the SGM's motivation

-sybil ramkin token chick but also. GIRLBOSS

-i don't often say this but the sex jokes are really good lmao

-there are so many good lines that I have to hold myself back but. "A group of swamp dragons was a slump, or an embarrassment"

-"and then they realized." What a transitional statement

-"it dawned on him that he was very probably a flawed character" like hello?

-okay, I like the contrast between Vimes' alcoholism and the SGM saying "I can give it up any time I like" about summoning the dragon.

-though side detail, It's interesting we havent actually seen him control the dragon from his perspective

-a little funny that the currency is just dollars

-"the curious incident of the orangutan in the nighttime" we getting Sherlock Holmes references now

-the implication it isn't a "real dragon" but it's effect seems to be. Is the SGM transforming into one

-one thing I like but didn't necessarily expect is there's sobering seriousness throughout the story

-and sometimes the serious bits are told like a joke. You know?

-all the innuendo with vimes and ramkin is so fucking funny dude

-vimes sympathizing with the swamp dragons 🥺

-"in another few hours, the sun will rise"-ass line

-oh the use of typeface

-fucking MORPHIC RESONANCE, Terry?!

-oh good to know New Orleans and Rio are Discworld-canon.

-halfway point of the book and there's a bookend with a rainy night

-I like that vimes is way smarter than he or the narrative give him credit for cause he's also Just Some Guy

-oh i like that the summoning goes both ways. Uh oh!

-ok is this an extended balls joke or am I extremely immature

-my totally batshit theory: the watch guy who died (Gaskin) is the Supreme Grand Master

-im so ffxiv brain poisoned but "noble dragons don't have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive." IF you know you know

-Lady Ramkin is so fucking cool she just grabbed the horses out of the mist and dragged them back what the fuck 😭

-you know shit about to get real when the Death typeface shows up

-t-time travel is it?

-the number of times this printing has typoed Vimes as "Vines"

-the story has made many comparisons about the dragon's behavior being "practically human", but when we got the dragon's perspective it was more that it had an intelligence that pre-dated anything anthropomorphic so I'm not sure what to think on that

-the giant fucking dragon hanging from the ceiling like a bat is pretty funny though

-Oh This Is An Allegory For Capitalism. I See.

-well this took a turn from light hearted fantasy-flavored ribbing to uh. Kinda horrific! I'm a little impressed tbh

-oh my god WONSE was the Supreme Grand Master. That just hit.

-ok well played, he was kind of a prick, and way over qualified for a SECRETARY position

-and he got that extra characterization for seemingly no reason

-... AND his flat denial about the dragon being back and his anger at Vimes for it. This makes a lot of sense.

-I guess you could make the argument "wolf in sheep's clothing" since his surname is literally Lupine

-The Poop Jokes Are Back, But No One Is Laughing Now

-okay the previous scene makes it seem like the dragon is coming up with this horrifying arrangement itself. And now we learn it's really Wonse trying to make it "better".

-but my honest and genuine surprise at the dragon REALIZING this, and its actual HORROR at how horrible people can be by nature. WOOF.

-so I guess that's the "almost human" connection cause. No it's not. That's just how people read and projected it.

-"we [dragons] never burned amd tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality" like hello??? This is so dark all of a sudden

-I guess the comedic tone elsewhere lets Terry sneak this shit in and make it stick especially hard.

-^ this is nothing but praise, to be clear. I've read a lot of "silly-humorous but with darker moments" work but this might be the best example I've read so far.

-did we need a canon explanation/justification of Vimes being an alcoholic?

-ALTHOUGH. isn't that like. Lack of natural alcohol an actual thing? Am I insane? I swear I've heard of that before.

-like I'm sure missing natural dopamine production which means I do need to take stimulants to function but I'm not sure if that's comparable

-not to over analyze this but that sort of implies drinking doesn't even make him drunk unless he has way too much which adds some interesting context to previous bits.

-in before it was literally just a joke

-If You Somehow Didn't Figure Out It Was Wonse We Are Spelling It Out Here

-oh shit he said the line

-I am just shocked that the one token female character is the designated sacrifice, lol. At least she's a GOOD character

-I will be a little annoyed if she's just a damsel in distress for vimes, considering she just charged six guards with a broadsword and only lost cause one of them tripped her

-ok the bit about the Patrician and the rat unlocked a forbidden memory of me reading like one chapter of a YA novel in the Discworld series when I was like. Ten

-i don't remember what it was called lmao

-one bit I liked in the arrest scene is it was very trope-referential, like literally naming what a hero is supposed to do in a scene like this. But unlike say 90% of adult animation, it actually like. Made a joke of it. "There IS no fireplace!"

-like the bar is low but YES! JUST BEING AWARE OF THE TROPE ISNT A JOKE! YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT! THANK YOU!

-"never build a dungeon you wouldn't be happy to spend the night in yourself" ok Patrician kind of based actually

-the sudden strange implication (?) that one can see a thousand miles away with how the Discworld is structured? It might have been metaphorical

-i love the whole bit about million-to-one odds always working (like the cliche), but then the rank rethinking the actual odds as way better, so now they have to do something to make their odds of success worse

-the fucking bit being they don't make the million to one shot at the dragon but DO make the million to one chance of surviving being hit by its flame. My god.

-oh my god errol is farting flame to fly??? Like a rocket? INSANE.

-ok is that one Tumblr comic about the wolf needing to get lucky only once literally from a line in this book. I guess there might be something they're both referencing that I just don't know

-oh my god the twist of the dragon being female. I guess I take the comment back about Lady Ramkin being the only one. Lmao.

-Shrek moment?

-i like that explaining Errol's weird behavior and how he like. Decides he has to. Court her? I guess? That's pretty funny.

-ok I basically chalked and dismissed The Patrician as just like, a Lawful Evill Ruler type but he has a fun amount of depth.

-ok I like the echo of "Guards! Guards!" as the title line summoning the protagonists this time

-ive resisted saying it but I have to now. Carrot autistic king

-Vimes telling the Patrician to shut up. Character growth

-"killed by a... metaphor" ... "looked like the ground to me" RAW ASS LINE

-ok this was earlier but I forgot to note it. I like that textually we know Vimes doesn't choose swords because he associates them with heroes. And when he decides to go to the palace for Wonse, he asks for Carrot's sword.

-"is that you, Brother Doorkeeper? METAPHORICALLY, it said." RAW ASS LINE!!!

-ok. The whole monologue about all of humanity being evil like. Man if that isn't how I feel, sometimes. It's a little cathartic to read. Evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no. Yeah...

-is this the first time we've heard Vimes' first name? Book almost over?

-CASABLANCA? Fucking Casablanca?

-well that was pretty good! I'll need to think and organize my thoughts

#taylor reads #reading notes

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