Reg Shoe

Reg Shoe
Name	Reginald Shoe
Race	Zombie
Age
Occupation	Watchman
Physical appearance	Graygreenish skin, occasionally bits of him fall off
Residence	Ankh-Morpork
Death	Some 30 years ago in the Glorious Revolution
Parents
Relatives
Children
Marital Status	single
Appearances
Books	Reaper Man, most Watch books
Cameos	Monstrous Regiment

For the God of club musicians see Reg

Reg Shoe is the first zombie member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Originally a dead rights activist (founder of the Fresh Start Club), Reg Shoe has been organizing meetings, trying to rouse the dead from their graves, and complaining about the Watch treating undead citizens unfairly. When once (in Jingo) he complained to Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, Reg Shoe was offered a position in the Watch so that he might give insights on how matters can be better handled. He then quickly became the main source of complaints made to the Watch by undead citizens. On the whole, however, Reg is considered by Commander Vimes to be a good Watchman.

As we know from contemplating Windle Poons in Reaper Man, a zombie, almost by definition, has to pay conscious attention to all the little things, like systolic - diastolic, and ensuring they all fit together in the correct order and sequence. This makes Reg an excellent detective and a good officer to have at the scene of a crime.

For him, there is no worry of death and little of injury; he can always sew himself back together, providing the pieces can be located. In one instance, confronted by Visit, to consider the state of his immortal soul, he replies: "It's the state of my immortal body that's worrying me."

For a while, before an Igor was recruited into the Watch, Reg may have served as the Watch emergency surgeon. This probably reduced the amount of (reported) injuries, since the sight of a zombie licking the thread before starting to sew you up would be quite unnerving...

Reg Shoe died during the events of Night Watch. As much of an idealist and wannabe revolutionary in life as he is in death, he was repeatedly struck by crossbow bolts while defending his home streets around Whalebone Lane against Carcer and his men during the Glorious Revolution in Ankh-Morpork. This was only a temporary setback, however, as his revolutionary zeal caused him to ignore his injuries and continue fighting. Shortly after succumbing to his wounds, he returned as a zombie. He maintains his own grave in the Small Gods' Cemetery, where he spends one day every year in solidarity with the other Heroes of the Revolution who fell alongside him.

He was the inspiration for the addition of "communication cords" on the railway, after he lost a finger in a railroad car window. (Raising Steam, p. 282)

Annotation

On revolutionaries and footwear:- one of the great leaders of the Mexican revolution was called Zapata[1] by his followers. Zapato is Spanish for "Shoe".

We get the English word sabotage from French civil disturbances and revolutions. The wooden clog worn by workers was called un sabot. Such a sturdy piece of wood could be used, in extremis, to terminally clog up and block industrial machinery if jammed firmly into the gears. Hence sabotage - or vandalism with footwear harnessed to a revolutionary cause. Throwing a shoe is still seen as a rebellious act, especially in Middle Eastern countries.

Reg, played by John Cleese, was of course the self-proclaimed leader of the People's Front of Judea, the haplessly inept revolutionary group in Monty Python's Life of Brian, who was far better at spouting jargon and quoting the revolutionary constitution than he was at taking any sort of action. (To those of us who attended British universities in the 1980's, this parellels far-left groups such as the Socialist Workers' Party and the Workers' Revolutionary Party, who could echo Reg and the PFJ right down to the letter.) Later in the film, Cleese portrays another character named Arthur, who attempts to name the titular Brian as a Messiah based upon worshipping his every move - including the brief founding of "The Order of the Shoe" based on Brian's accidental loss of one of his own sandals.

Another shoe-related revolutionary fact: Joseph Stalin's father and grandfather were both cobblers/shoemakers. So Stalin's patronymic might well have been Josef, son of the shoemaker.