Talk:Diamond King

The Trolls article does say a Diamond Troll is "made entirely of diamond", but I wonder if that's supported. Other trolls aren't pure anything. By their names, Ruby, Pyrites and Corundum are externally non-silicaceous and Coalface must carry some carbon. I suspect the diamond exterior protects the usual doped-silicon brain and mineral metabolism. --Old Dickens 14:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

After all, all trolls are capable of naturally making some diamond as part of their biology -all trolls have diamond teeth - so it isn't a great leap from here to the idea of a troll, who doesn't need to belong to a different carbon-based species, whose genes allow it to make more diamond than most. --AgProv 20:01, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

The troll king is special. Why wouldn't he be made entirely out of diamond? --Sanity 21:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

You mean a different species again? I can just imagine crystalline carbon brains, but I can't see the supporting systems. Anyway, I thought Mr. Shine was still a troll. --Old Dickens 23:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

A diamond troll could conceivably have a doped diamond brain, which is a known semiconductor that can operate at much higher temperatures than silicon. —User:Ch98 3:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

It is metamorphorical rock, it doesn't have to have the same properties as the equivalent real rock. For example, I assume that neither Coalface nor Chalky crumble under light pressure. They are not actually the rock that they appear to be made of. --Confusion (talk) 06:29, 2 January 2014 (GMT)

Regarding the question of more than one diamond troll, I'm not sure there is. Mr Shine is described, as mentioned above, as (appearing as) pure diamond. Vimes can't even look directly at him because of the light-refraction. Mr Thunderbolt, on the other hand, is described as just looking like a troll until you notice the sparkle. He's "diamond through and through", but he's not pure diamond. So I think there's only one "pure" diamond troll, and he's the king, but other trolls in the "royal family" have veins of diamond within their rock. Daibhid C (talk) 21:27, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

To get back to the subject of whether diamond trolls are really entirely made of diamond, I'm re-reading Thud! at the moment and Old Dickens and Confusion seem to have it right. The relevant passage (page 269 in the Collector's Library edition) has Mr Shine bring up "the concept of metamorphorical rock", to which Vimes asks "You mean the way tolls look like certain types of rock?" Mr Shine replies: "Indeed. Schist, Mica, Shale, and so on. Even Brick." So he -and other trolls - aren't made of those things, they just have the appearance and metaphorical properties of them. In Mr Shine's case, he looks like diamond and has diamond's transparency, reflectivity and so on, as well as the social status of King. I'm going to edit this article accordingly. -- Guybrush (talk) 01:16, 4 November 2022 (UTC)