Talk:Book:Thud!

2018-09-14T21:18:02Z

Leftcontact: /* Link to the game */ new section

==Dribble Dragon==

I'm not sure if this is a relevant fact, or purely coincidence. Sam Jr has a pet dragon called Dribble. At Wonderland Park in Telford (which has been around for many years) has a castle called Dribble Dragon Castle which includes a softplay area for young children to play in. Is it possible that Pterry is alluding to this place, or is it a bit of coincidental alliteration?

I've done a bit of searching, and I've found this photo here of the castle: http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/gallery/wonderland_telford/v15_8_DSC_0013
[[User:StephenBuxton|StephenBuxton]] 00:40, 22 December 2006 (CET)

:Someone with an original please fill in the number of pages...--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 21:04, 23 September 2013 (GMT)

== The Chicken ==
I've never understood the point of Rascal living in fear of The Chicken. I'm not even 100% sure I understand the relationship between Rascal and The Chicken, even having read Thud dozens of times.

Rascal lives in mortal fear of The Cicken, to the extent that he writes notes in code and takes steps to prevent The Chicken discovering his movements. Ridiculous, right? But Rascal dies choked by feathers. The implication seems that The Chicken was somehow real, that Rascal was right to fear it. Perhaps The Chicken was simply part of Rascal's mind, in a Pointer and Pickles way.

But why? It sure seems to me that The Chicken is an unfired Chekhov's Gun. Which means that I absolutely must be missing something.

The only payoff I can see for The Chicken is that "Awk" is the magic word for causing the cube to speak. Is that it? Is the whole Rascal/Chicken element of the story just humorous backstory explaining why Rascal, and no other human, got the cube to speak? And setting up Vimes for figuring out the magic word at the end in the Cave of Kings?

Normally I'd expect that there's some roundworld reference here. Is there some real artist who had a mental illness relating to barnyard animals? A real artist who had, say, a sexual affinity for chickens (or was accused of such)? An artist killed by chickens? I did a wee bit of research, but couldn't find anything relevant. (I did find a 1979 set of Dr. Who episodes in which a professor is assumed to be breeding chickens, but really he's plotting to steal the Mona Lisa to finance his time experiments. Interesting, but not useful here.).

If not a roundworld reference, is there some other payoff in the story that I've missed? Any thoughts? [[User:Moishe Rosenbaum|Moishe Rosenbaum]] ([[User talk:Moishe Rosenbaum|talk]]) 22:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
:''Dozens'' of times! Moishe, mein boy, sit, take a glezl veyn; you'll get fercockt! Anyway...these things are sent to try us. The Author never worried about making it easy or even comprehensible; he once said that all the references were jokes, we just often missed parts of the set-up. Stinky, the Goblin with no real name or back-story has bothered me. I want to connect him to the story-book Goblin of Vimes' childhood and he feels imaginary, but of course other people can see him. The best remedy for these situations is fan fiction, whether published or just behind your eyes. I didn't believe Lady Roberta was actually Vetinari's ''aunt'' but I wrote a fan-fic supposing that she was. I still don't know. [[User:AgProv|AgProv]] has dozens of them, of course.

:As for Chekov's gun, the chicken ''is'' an essential guide to the Cube. Lose the chicken and you have to write another means of discovering its password.--[[User:Old Dickens|Old Dickens]] ([[User talk:Old Dickens|talk]]) 01:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

== Link to the game ==

Note that www.thudgame.com now points to a FourEcks law firm's website. Perhaps the link at the bottom should point elsewhere?

Book:Pyramids/Annotations

2018-09-14T19:20:40Z

Leftcontact: Added to the Definitely Not Star Wars mythos comparison.

'''''On Djelibeybi'''''

As well as the more obvious parellel with the much-loved sweetie proffered by Time Lord Dr Who ( a man skilled in manipulating and recycling Time), it is perhaps worth noting that in Egypt and Libya on Roundworld, the long flowing robe of the Arab male is called the ''gelebeia''.

Corgi pb (1990 first edition) p35:- put on the spot by Mericet, who has just subjected Cheesewright to dark sarcasm, and challenged to name the invisible enemies of the Assassin who will dog at his heels, Pteppic lists them as ''"Ill-preparedness, carelessness, lack of concentration, and poor maintainence of tools. Oh, and over-confidence, sir"''

This brings to mind a British Army training mantra, summarised as ''The Rule of P's'':-

'''''Practice, Preparation and Planning Prevent Piss-Poor Performance!'''''

Not, of course, that the Guild would ever phrase it like that...

It has been suggested that the parents of Pteppic are a direct and deliberate parallel of the central characters in Mervyn Peake's ''Ghormenghast'' trilogy. The setting is a several-thousand-year-old state ([[Djelibeybi]]/Ghormenghast) which has fossilised into a tyrannical regime of age-old rituals which nobody dares to question the modern significance or relevance of; the Rituals are ferociously guarded and imposed by a fossilised Loremaster who embodies the tradition of the state in his own being (Barquentine/[[Dios]]). Most of the free income goes into endlessly maintaining old structures or building new ones to the same pattern (Pyramids). The ruling family consists of a rather vague and introspective Count/Pharoah, married to a woman working on instinct who loves cats (the Countess/[[the Great Cow of the Arch of the Sky|Artela]]). Of their children, the son (Titus Groan/[[Pteppic]]) goes out into a world not ruled by tradition and groaning under the weight of the past to see how things are done elsewhere, specifically in a fairly nearby but unspecified Big City. The daughter (Fuchsia/[[Ptraci]])is also intensely dissatisfied with her lot and, if given a chance, would try to change it for the better - in ''Pyramids'', she manages it, in ''Ghormenghast'', she dies in ambiguous circumstances. Pteppic is also an archetype of anti-hero Steerpike, in that he climbs to the highest point in the Kingdom and brings about its dissolution (Steerpike dies trying in ''Ghormenghast'', but at this point, he has mutated into an embittered scarred and burnt villain who, interestingly enough, [[Maskerade|conceals a mutilated face behind a mask]]... another Roundworld fable creeping in here?)
In his final insanity, the Count in ''Ghormenghast'' imagines himself to be an owl; Pteppic's father just before his death is overcome with the essence of the noble seagull, the Divine and Royal Bird.

Another, er, literary association: the final scenes where Ptraci asserts her authority as Pharoah and really puts her foot down. It occurs to me that this has been illustrated, if not written down. Readers familiar with Goscinny and Uderzo's Asterix books will perceive the interpretation of Ptraci as intractable and rather stroppy comes straight out of '''''Asterix and Cleopatra'''''. Read it – there are some lovely illustrations! I'm sure Pterry got his character of Ptraci, at least as ruler, from Cleopatra as she appears in the ''band desinée''.

The heiroglyph for "feather mattress" is a hippo's bottom. Regard the long-running advert on British TV for Silentnight mattresses - using a hippo in bed as its examplar of excellence regardless of the sleeper's dimensions.

Here's another interesting one. We have two separated people (Pteppic and Ptraci) who get together in difficult circumstances - in fact he rescues her from a prison cell and certain death. At this point in the story they have no idea they are siblings. Aid is given by a sentient being whose mind runs on mathematical logic (YouBastard the camel). They travel on a deceptively fast and manoeuverable ship, used for fast smuggling of undeclared goods, for which the navies of two continents are on high alert. The captain is a raffish pirate with an eye for the ladies (Chidder) supported by a huge hulking hairy brute (the first mate with the dubious tattoos).
There is immediate LUST between Chidder and Ptraci which plays out as arguments. This ill-assorted crew assists the Hero (Pteppic) in throwing down an oppressive Theocracy/"Empire".
Eventually the Herione winds up running the empire, probably marrying the pirate, while the Hero goes off and does something else...

Is this story arc reminiscent of anything at all?

* The Ephebian god turning himself into a "golden shower" parodies Zeus turning himself into a "shower of gold" to impregnate {{wp|Danae|Danae}}. "{{wp|Urolagnia|Golden shower}}", on the other hand, is slang for urinating on someone for mutual sexual pleasure. This is why the expression "raised interesting questions about everyday night life in sophisticated Ephebe" in Teppic's mind.

* "THIS? IT'S A SCYTHE." - Death reaps King Teppicymon's soul with a scythe, even though he normally uses a sword for kings.

A real devious link between {{M}} and {{P}} that never made the apf:

{{M}}, Corgi pb P247: "[the elephant] sniffed the distant dark continent of Klatch on the night breeze and, tail raised, followed the ancient call of home."

{{P}}, Corgi pb P147: "But the stables now held ... an elderly elephant whose presence was a bit of a mystery"

Actually confirmed by [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.fan.pratchett/%22trevor$20curry%22/alt.fan.pratchett/bxoOB7db6Lw/Di7jJ4QrFNsJ Terry]

The Djelibeybian Pharoahs' shared dream, a bizarre nocturnal fantasy concerning seven cows playing trombone. Reminiscent of Genesis Chapter 41:

''Two years later the king[a] of Egypt dreamed he was standing beside the Nile River. 2 Suddenly, seven fat, healthy cows came up from the river and started eating grass along the bank. 3 Then seven ugly, skinny cows came up out of the river and 4 ate the fat, healthy cows. When this happened, the king woke up.''

and perhaps of [http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joseph+and+the+amazing+technicolor+dreamcoat/song+of+the+king+seven+fat+cows_20625835.html a certain piece of musical theatre] concerning an amazing raincoat.

Corgi pb (1990 first edition) p116: note the typo of a very minor character's name: Prince [[Imtebos]] becomes Imbetos in the same line. Doesn't matter too much, as the prince never appears again... This error may appear only in the first few print runs of the novel (1989-90) as good authority advises me it's been corrected in later editions.

Corgi pb (1990 first edition) p184:- ''There was a monstrous splash out in the river. Tzut, the Snake-Headed God of the Upper Djel, surfaced... Then Fhez, the Crocodile-Headed God of the Lower Djel, erupted beside him and made a spirited attempt at biting his head off. The two submerged in a column of spray and a minor tidal wave which slopped over the balcony...''

This echoes another mythological battle and a serious demarcation dispute between two mythological creatures. In the Welsh mythological cycle, the Mabinogion, the wizard Merlin is called to referee a dispute between two dragons, whose subterranean war persists in throwing down the King's new castle. Merlin witnesses the fight, and explains that the two dragons, each with its teeth locked in the throat of the other in perpetual war, represent the battle for the land of Britain between the red dragon of Wales and the white dragon of the invading Saxon. Nothing of permanent worth, said Merlin, may be built in Britain until the English and the Welsh cease their eternal strife and learn to live as neighbours. The English are now too numerous for the Welsh to throw out and the English must realise they can never completely take Wales. (this was first written about 800 AD).

Corgi PB (1990 first edition) p265:- ''Teppic sank on one knee and, out of desperation, raised the knife in both hands.'' This echoes the position and rationale of the weathercock on the highest point of the [[Assassins' Guild]] building: a silhouetted assassin with knife poised to inhume the very wind. Poised on top of the Great Pyramid, at the highest point of the Kingdom, Pteppic is about to perform the greatest act of assassination ever: an entire Kingdom, seven thousand years of history, ''and'' an entire pantheon of gods. (And also, by default and by their implicit consent, a total of 1,300 monarchs... simultaneously.) The Guild's collective heart must have swelled with pride...

[[Category:Annotations|Pyramids/Annotations]]

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