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communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009

Applewhite posted:

Has anyone done a Terry Pratchett tribute yet where Terry Pratchett meets death and they have a maudlin exchange before Terry is lead off into the afterlife?

Ya within like 3 seconds of him dying twitter retards were falling all over each other to be the first ones lol

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Applewhite
Aug 16, 2014

by vyelkin
Nap Ghost

SquadronROE posted:

It's quite simple actually. The author simultaneously wanted to showcase the childlike glee we all feel when going into a bank and really being involved with money, while at the same time instantiating the dread of the financial sector that looms over all of us. What represents childlike glee and dread at the same time? A clown.

You're v. good at this.

turn it up TURN ME ON
Mar 19, 2012

In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there is only war.

...and delicious ice cream.

Applewhite posted:

You're v. good at this.

Dr. Squadron, ROE pHd.

Applewhite
Aug 16, 2014

by vyelkin
Nap Ghost

SquadronROE posted:

Dr. Squadron, ROE pHd.

Was there any special symbolism in Stanley's obsession with pins in Going Postal or was it just a random thing to establish he had an obsessive personality that was fertile ground for him becoming the first stamp collector?

barbecue at the folks
Jul 20, 2007


Feminition posted:

while raising steam isn't great i really do enjoy the undercurrent and tone of ankh morpork becoming more modern at this insane exponential rate

I kinda felt satisfied that he managed to wrap things up with Discworld by leapfrogging the whole thing into industrial modernity with its own adult-sized problems and finally leaving genre magical fantasy stuff behind, which I kinda felt was a good last middle finger to all manchild fantasy spergs everywhere. That he went about doing this while dealing with probably not knowing who or where he was most of the time has to be one of the more impressive things he ever did.

turn it up TURN ME ON
Mar 19, 2012

In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there is only war.

...and delicious ice cream.

Applewhite posted:

Was there any special symbolism in Stanley's obsession with pins in Going Postal or was it just a random thing to establish he had an obsessive personality that was fertile ground for him becoming the first stamp collector?

You can tell from the amount of pages dedicated to the art and style of pin collecting that Pratchett really wanted us to pay attention to the pins and collecting of pins. That's a really good catch. So consider what pins are used to do very often in our society - they are used in the garment industry or by dressmakers/tailors. Generally speaking these are industries dominated by women. By having a man obsessively collect pins Pratchett was trying to turn the gender stereotype of pins on its head and show that tailoring is something that men can do just as well as women.

"But Squadron he could have just had that pointed out a little, why the obsessive aspect?" Well this is a good point and it is obvious on a third reading of Going Postal that the act of collecting is integral to the character. Remember that this character has been in the Post Office for quite some time, long enough to see many many people come and go. "Collecting" postmasters, as it might be considered. It all adds up to the subtext that is ever-present in Going Postal: The theme that we must be obsessive and dedicated in order to achieve our goals.

Eighties ZomCom
Sep 10, 2008




Can you explain why Moist hates strawberries in Going Postal but likes them in Raising Steam?



Other than "alzeimers" that is.

turn it up TURN ME ON
Mar 19, 2012

In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there is only war.

...and delicious ice cream.

EvilTaytoMan posted:

Can you explain why Moist hates strawberries in Going Postal but likes them in Raising Steam?



Other than "alzeimers" that is.

It's called character development, goddamn it. Read a drat book sometime.

But more seriously a lot of Pratchett's character development is implied or inferred rather than explicitly defined. He lets his characters grow on their own without having to show us their every piece of growth. For example, Moist's relationship develops pretty much without us watching. It's the same with his ideas on strawberries.

The really interesting thing is that strawberries were chosen for this, and you can tell that this is a very deliberate choice on the part of the author. In this case it was actually done due to marketability. In Going Postal and Raising Steam, Pratchett was asked to show that he could write something marketable to a very wide audience. Pratchett actually didn't like this, he felt that it was pandering and would cost him too much integrity. So as a nod to this request, he chose to include strawberries because "Everyone knows what a strawberry is!".

Nemo2342
Nov 26, 2007

Have A Day




Nap Ghost

Veskit posted:

Did I like Making Money a whole lot because I didn't read Going Postal?

Nah; Making Money is still a very good book in it's own right. However, it is also perfectly valid to say that it retreads some old ground in regards to Moist, which makes it feel a little more derivative than Going Postal did.

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Son of Rodney
Feb 22, 2006

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

Pick posted:

Vimes was okay at the beginning but he got to be a crappy character loving fast. I like characters doing better in life too, but Vimes whines the same amount regardless sooo

To be fair he whines about the same poo poo consistently. He gets a huge amount of money that he doesn't really care about and instead of having to deal with low-life criminals he now has to deal with high-life criminals. They're all bad people in his book, and his new status didn't change that.

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