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Terry Pratchett Book Club: Small Gods, Part III

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Terry Pratchett Book Club: Small Gods, Part III

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Terry Pratchett Book Club: Small Gods, Part III

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Published on October 15, 2021

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Things are about to get real philosophical in our chats with one of those particular Small Gods.

Summary

Om explains Abraxas’s philosophy around gods to Brutha, the fact that gods need to be believed in, but that people wind up believing in the structures around the god more than the god itself (the church, the quisition, and so forth); this ironically leads to the god’s death because people don’t believe in the god anymore. He tells Brutha that he can be the next prophet, which Brutha doesn’t believe for an instant. Vorbis calls and asks Brutha to go on a walk with him. Brutha asks to learn the truth about Brother Murdock, and Vorbis tells him that there are levels to truth, and the trivial truth is that the Ephebians did not kill him, but the important truth is that they did by refusing to listen to his preaching. He commands Brutha to take him out of the labyrinth, and makes it clear that everyone knows an army cannot cross the desert between Omnia and Ephebe—but that is also a different kind of truth. Vorbis has been sending small bits of their army further and further in, setting up caches of water for the others, well before brother Murdock even died. A third of their men have also died, but the ones left have made it to Ephebe through the desert, and now they can let them in. The fight is over in less than an hour, and Vorbis names Ephebe a diocese of Omnia.

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Battle of the Linguist Mages
Battle of the Linguist Mages

Battle of the Linguist Mages

Vorbis calls forward the person who wrote the treatise on the earth being flat. Didactylos confirms it was him, but when Vorbis asks him to declare this belief, the philosopher immediately renounces it, insisting that he will write a retraction—but then he turns to throw his lantern to shatter on Vorbis’s head. Vorbis tells guards to go find the old man and instructs Brutha to burn the Library. One of the guards catches up to Didactylos, but Sergeant Simony kills him; he’s sad to do it, but “the Truth is important.” Simony heads to the library next and tells Didactylos that he’s a friend, and that he and others have read his book and believe The Turtle Moves. He wants to save the philosopher and Urn, and kill Brutha, but Brutha has a different plan; he asks them to give him as many books as they can so he can memorize them before the entire library is gone. He passes out eventually from taking so much into his mind. (As the Library burns, the Unseen University’s Librarian traverses L-space to save some of the books about to be lost.) Brutha later wakes to learn that Simony gathered up Om as he asked, and they’re making plans to send Didactylos to Ankh-Morpork where he’ll be safe. Simony renounces Om formally and learns that Brutha knows the truth and, what’s more, knows that Vorbis lied. He wants to put the man on trial.

Becalmed in their unnamed boat that can still be seen from shore, Brutha wakes again to find that the books in his head are “leaking”—even though he cannot read, he has suddenly learned a great deal and his brain won’t stop. The Queen of the Sea comes to Om in his dreams and tells him that her price is the boat and everyone in it (except his believer, as is custom). Om doesn’t think that’s fair, then realizes that thinking in terms of fairness is awfully human of him. A hurricane starts up, lightning hits the boat’s copper sphere, and Brutha finds himself in the ocean with Om, but he can’t swim. Meanwhile, the Queen of the Sea turns her attention to the Omnian ship pursuing them—the ship is smashed, but the ghost of the captain learns from Death that Vorbis survived. Brutha and Om wake up on a beach and Brutha insists he’s going back to Omnia, even if Om thinks he shouldn’t. They come across Vorbis, bloodied and barely alive, and Brutha resolves to carry him back to Omnia so people can know what he’s done. Om is furious and resolves to leave him, but he rushes back to Brutha to find him nearly dead of heatstroke. He digs and digs until he finds water, and when Brutha comes to, he calls it a miracle. Om convinces Brutha that it would be better to go back to Ephebe, though he’s sure they’re going to die. They talk about ethics and about why people need to believe in gods when the gods need them more.

Didactylos, Urn, and Simony turn out to be alive, and Simony still wants to get Didactylos to Omnia where his “followers” are. Om leads Brutha to one cave, then to a lion’s den to find water; he hoped Brutha would let the lion eat Vorbis, but the lion turns out to be injured by Omnian spear and Brutha tries to tend its wound. Also, the den appears to have steps… Didactylos is led to a barn by Simony where many Omnians are waiting to hear his “gospel” about the turtle that moves the world on its back. The lion’s den is an abandoned temple to a god that got human sacrifices. There’s water and Vorbis is awake but not speaking, and Brutha tells Om that what Vorbis did is the god’s responsibility. Didactylos gives his speech, which Simony is disappointed by because the philosopher doesn’t give the people belief, but facts: The turtle exists, the world is flat, the turtle moves. But there are people who are willing to help them build vehicles to take down the church. Brutha and Vorbis and Om continue their walk through the desert.

Commentary

I’d like to start here with an aside because it kinda stopped me dead in my tracks. Brutha wakes up to find all the knowledge from the books he’s read leaking into his brain. Didactylos tells Brutha that it doesn’t make sense for the books to be leaking because he can’t read and doesn’t know what they mean, to which Brutha replies “They know what they mean!”

We love to talk about the concept of “death of the author” when we’re doing any form of lit criticism, right? For those who haven’t really latched onto that bit, “death of the author” is a critical concept/philosophy that tells us that all reading and critique which relies on thinking about the author and their meaning in creating a text is flawed. It tells us that all works have meaning when they are read and interpreted by others. Essentially, meaning changes because we should not be imposing limits on text, such as what the author wanted or cared about.

Like all tempered agnostics, I’m both for and against the “death of the author” argument. While I think it’s important to remember that all art will be absorbed differently by all people, it seems just a tad bit myopic to suggest that we can learn nothing at all by thinking about the author as a person and who they were and what they cared about. It’s a facet of criticism, and while I agree that it’s overused in analysis (and for some it’s the only point in criticism, which is tedious in the extreme), that doesn’t mean it has no value whatsoever. But here, Pratchett offers us a clever circumvent to the whole issue—neither the author nor the reader has the last say in this discussion. The book knows full well what it means.

I just love it a lot.

This section is full up of philosophy and ethics, and specifically the manner in which religious institutions often betray their own “premise” as it were. The philosophy written by Abraxas—that people come to believe in the structures around their god more than in god itself, which incidentally kills the god—seems to hit right on it in a takes-no-prisoners kind of way. When I was a kid I watched the movie Stigmata (for those giving me side-eye right now… fair point), and I remember talking with my dad about the end text as it finished: The film stated that when the Gospel of Thomas was discovered, it was declared heresy by the Catholic Church. I wanted to know why. My dad told me to think about the text: “Split wood, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me there.” And he said to me, if that is true, why would you need a church? Why would you need cathedrals and bells and robes for a Pope if you can find your god beneath wood and rocks? When, according to this writing, god is everywhere you are?

I was stunned, but the thought took root and bore out in all my continued education. Courses in art history showed me how Christianity got coopted by the Roman Empire, how their architectures and pomp overlaid the religion so that it might be more easily absorbed. (Cathedrals are just jumped up basilicas, after all, if you know what you’re looking at.) And the structure, it seemed, was always bound up in guilt, and fear again, and also money. Because you can’t keep the church looking fancy without coin. And when you start drawing together those conclusions, it’s hard for the whole thing not to come out looking grubby and far too human for its own good.

So what, then, is our alternative? That’s what we start getting at, once Brutha’s brain gets activated on all the books he’s memorized. He wants to bring ethics into his faith. Responsibility. Respect for life. These are the sorts of things that religious friends of mine talk about when they cite what their religion means to them. Importantly, to my mind at least, you don’t have to believe in any god at all to adopt those tenets. They are worthwhile codes for any human being. But some people want to, and that seems a worthwhile goal.

But then, what is faith? Or religion, for that matter? And is it really more like what Brutha says when he deigns Om’s ability to find water in the desert a miracle, and the god demurs by explaining how he found it:

“Sounds like a miracle to me,” croaked Brutha. “Just because you can explain it doesn’t mean it’s not still a miracle.”

There was a copy of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos in the Library, I see.

This is the piece that Sergeant Simony is missing as he tries to get Didactylos firing the crowd up against the Omnian church. Didactylos tells them it doesn’t matter if they believe the world is a disc on the back of a turtle flying through the cosmos: It exists. It’s not truth (because as Vorbis explained earlier to Brutha, truth is entirely circumstantial), but it is real. And Simony is upset because the philosopher is giving them facts, but just because Didactylos can explain how their world moves doesn’t mean it’s not a miracle.

Brutha is hitting on something, but we’ll have to wait and find out where it leads.

Asides and little thoughts:

  • Of course, the Queen of the Sea saying “Life’s like a beach. And then you die” is a play on “Life’s a bitch, then you die,” but claiming life is like a beach is startlingly more accurate, don’t you think? Currents and tides and the ever-changing shoreline… weird bits of seaweed. Funny crabs.
  • That shoutout to Scott’s Antarctic expedition, with Brutha using the presumed last words of Captain Oates (“I’m just going out, I may be some time.”) is such a well-placed deep cut.

Pratchettisms:

You had to have a mind like Vorbis’s to plan your retaliation before your attack.

Brutha managed to get to his feet. The world revolved around him for a moment, adding a third astronomical theory to the two currently occupying the minds of local thinkers.

Brutha felt a sinful twinge of pride that Omnia still had anything he could be proud of.

He felt like a householder coming back unexpectedly and finding the old place full of strangers. They were in every room, not menacing, but just filling the space with their thereness.

Gods never need to be very bright when there are humans around to be it for them.

You gave a god its shape, like a jelly fills a mold.

Humans have always wasted handy protein ever since they started wondering who had lived in it.

I’m on break next week, but the week following, we’ll finish the book! See you then.

About the Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin

Author

Emmet Asher-Perrin is the Entertainment Editor of Reactor. Their words can also be perused in tomes like Queers Dig Time Lords, Lost Transmissions: The Secret History of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction. They cannot ride a bike or bend their wrists. You can find them on Bluesky and other social media platforms where they are mostly quiet because they'd rather talk to you face-to-face.
Learn More About Emmet
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3 years ago

Frankly the more I learn about the non-canonical gospels the more respect I have for the judgement of the Church Fathers. One of the key criteria was date of composition. Second century gospels were considered more dubious. 

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3 years ago

Death of the author – Since you won’t, I’ll blow your horn. Your post: Terry Pratchett Was Never Here For Your Transphobic Nonsense is a brilliant discussion of this.

Power of books – While it was just a cameo in this book, Terry’s view of the power of books is elaborated in and around the UU Library (and Librarian).

Ethics – this is really a topic for the last segment but the arc of Brutha’s ethical development is fascinating to watch and the contrast between Brutha’s short-term view and Om’s long-term view is something to consider.

Justice – Brutha’s desire for justice, ethically and practically, is problematic. In WA, Lily’s chopping off the criminal’s head was justice but not very justifiable. Justice is too often invoked to justify bad actions.

Power of buildings – If you look at the Hagia Sophia, which has been a catholic church, eastern orthodox church, a mosque, and a museum at various times, it seems like what is being worshiped is less important than where it is being worshiped. Even today, large sums are spent to create architectural wonders which seem more like spectacles or tourist attractions than gathering places for worship.

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3 years ago

I will always love the idea that Ethics is a place in Howondaland.

Essex is a county in south-east England.

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Christopher
3 years ago

Your dad sounds cool.

Mayhem
3 years ago

>Currents and tides and the ever-changing shoreline… weird bits of seaweed. Funny crabs.

And an Egg and Cress Sandwich.  No Mayo though.

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3 years ago

 This is the section where I kept noticing other connections to the real world, although I’m not sure Pratchett was aware of them even on the having-heard-of-it-a-long-time-ago-and-not-consciouly-remembered:

* There are probably plenty of examples, but my first thought about the poorly-guarded desert-facing gate was Kronborg Castle (Shakespeare’s Elsinore), where the guide told us the sea side wasn’t nearly as strong because there’d be plenty of warning of ships and no place for them to land — but then the Swedes (tired of being under the Danes IIRC) walked across the strait when it froze one winter.

* The well-balanced temple doors are all very fine, but IIRC there were some temples where even a gentle push wasn’t necessary; they opened of themselves when a fire was lit in an outside altar, due to the balancing being augmented by water boiled out by the fire. (Back when the biggest Smithsonian building was full of how-it-works cutaways, the demo of this was the first thing my six-year-old self went for on every visit.)

* The line from Raiders of the Lost Ark: ~”Archeology is about facts. If you want Truth, the religion department is next door.” This section repeatedly looks askance at people who must have Truth, even when they’re otherwise on the not-killing-people-for-it side. cf also ” ‘I don’t think I’m one of them either,’ said Brutha. ‘I think I’m one of mine.’ “

Pratchettisms:

Om knew about deserts, and one of the things he knew was that this kind of logical thinking had been previously applied by a thousand bleached, lost skeletons.

And the whole impassioned explanation of Plato’s Cave that falls over a cliff with ” ‘Go on, do Deformed Rabbit … it’s my favorite.’ ” And even if Galileo never said it, Didactylos makes the perfect exit line.

 

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3 years ago

The Death of Rats shows up for the souls of the rats on the sunken ship. It shouldn’t be here, a century before the events that caused its manifestation. Another slipup by the History Monks.  
 
Bit of a chilling paragraph-and-footnote explaining that the desert had been verdant woodland before humans brought in goats, after which time the woodland had become scrubland and the scrubland had become, well, poorer scrubland, and the goats and the people and eventually even the cities went away.
 
There’s a reference to plants that look like stones except when they flower — probably similar to Lithops
 
Pratchettisms: 
 
“It’s a funny thing, but why is it that the heathens and the barbarians have the best places to go when they die?”
“A bit of a poser. I suppose it makes up for them enjoying themselves when they’re alive too.”
 
“You can’t inspire people with facts. They need a cause. A symbol.” 
 
But on the whole, there are worse places to be buried than inside a lion. * 
 
Looking ahead: 
 
Om is frustrated that he can’t make Brutha stove in Vorbis’s head. 
 
I’m partial to Pratchett’s portrayals of sea chases in storms. The one in this book is good, but I think the one in Jingo is fabtastic. 
 
*Now I’m earwormed by Shel Silverstein. “I am writing these poems / From inside a lion / And it’s rather dark in here…”

DigiCom
3 years ago

@8:

As the Susan books will later show, Deaths can travel in time.  Once it existed, it always existed. :)

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3 years ago

Life and Afterlife

The Pratchett quote about the best places to go when you die is one of my favorite tropes. It is extensively discussed in Good Omens and is Crowley’s clincher in convincing Aziraphale.

Christianity has always tended toward asceticism and while it has changed in some areas, in others it has not. But it has been consistent about the afterlife. Heaven, even when I was an active believer and Presbyterian (rather young) Elder, sounded excruciatingly boring, even more so since it was eternal.

For my afterlife, give me Ian Dury’s ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’.  ;-)

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3 years ago

@9: I don’t think so — Death has to explicitly travel to get anywhere in either space or time; otherwise Binky would be put out to ?pasture?

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3 years ago

I had forgotten that Death could time travel when he chose. I didn’t think Death of Rats would be going back to perform long-ago duties. And I figured Binky was immortal while in Death’s domain, though now that I think about it, Binky does spend a lot of time in the outer world where he should be aging. But I’ve neve4 understood how time travel works, in this or any other story, so I’d best not speculate on it. 

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3 years ago

@12: He travels in time and has an unearthly child for a granddaughter and lives in a small structure that is inexplicably much bigger in…  ways, and you forgot?  ;-)  Indeed it may be that Sir Terry hadn’t invented some of this yet, here.

@7: I’m doubtful about all these wonderful doors for temples and palaces, without modern engineering and pivots and grease and so forth, though it may be possible.  The Star Trek method, 1960s real life, seems more likely.  The way I think I heard it, the director had a button to press to open “automatic” doors such as on the Starship Enterprise bridge: the button electrically activated the team of stage crew who dragged the doors open from behind the scenes.  I suppose there was a lamp or a buzzer and not a direct attachment.

And today, every shopping mall or supermarket uses the same method!  As far as I know.

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3 years ago

Death of Rats and Death

Death is certainly capable of time travel, with or without Binky. He appears in Books from the first to the last and from the beginning of time to the end of time. He can also step outside of time which allows him handle the workload.

Binky is mortal but not when in Death’s domain. He seems to serve as a steed for significant deaths and a means of transporting mortals like Mort or Renata Flitworth.

The Death of Rats should share these characteristics. He had a dog equivalent to Binky in Reaper Man (who was never mentioned again). He will have a talking bird equivalent to Binky but it serves more for communication than transportation.

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3 years ago

@13: While we have no physical evidence of door openers, in Pneumatika, Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria describes his invention, along with many others, including the rotating ball used in Small Gods.

You can view the book in translation at the Library of Congress. Machine Number 37 is the door opener and it’s on page 84.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbc0001.2009gen41532/?sp=84

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3 years ago

@14 – I don’t believe that the Death of Rats actually had a terrier to ride in Reaper Man – he was told by Death that if he had to ride anything, it wouldn’t be the cat that he wanted to ride, but some sort of small dog. We never did see him ride anything.

Not surprising, given Death’s attitude towards cats. And dogs, for that matter.

 

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3 years ago

@16: You’re right, the terrier was Death’s suggestion and we don’t ever see it or hear about it again. We “see” the Death of Fleas but never hear of him again either.

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3 years ago

 These sentences are in the previous section of this book, but I was curious about what these mean:

Candidates for the Tyrantship were elected by the placing of black or white balls in various urns, thus giving rise to a well-known comment about politics. What comment?

Brutha thinks: People forced to work against their will. People treated like animals. And they even call their ruler a tyrant! And why isn’t any of this exactly what it seems? Why don’t I believe any of it?

This begs the question: why DO they call their leader a tyrant? Is it just a joke? How well-run are things actually in Ephebe?

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3 years ago

@18

As far as the first question, using black and white balls to vote in an election (with a majority of balls winning) isn’t common anymore and if Terry knew a quote about it it’s probably from an ancient work.

In modern times, black balls are used as a veto power. I have heard blackball used as a verb many times. But I can’t think of any well known political comment about blackballing someone. The best known non-political comment referencing blackballing is Groucho Marx’s “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

For the second question, in Greek tyrannos originally just meant monarch or ruler of a city. By the time of Aristotle, it picked up its modern day meaning. So there was a period where some cities would elect a tyrant but I think for Terry it was just a joke.

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3 years ago

I always assumed that Terry was implying that politics was all balls.

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3 years ago

 @13:@7: I’m doubtful about all these wonderful doors for temples and palaces, without modern engineering and pivots and grease and so forth, Why? Modern engineering is better at complex high-stress things (like a universal joint that can last tens of millions of rotations), but the ancients had polished metal and petroleum seepages, and knew how to balance so that inertia was the only reason something didn’t move; they might have had to lubricate more often due to not having worked out the compounding that makes modern greases be slick while not running, and they might not operate the door very often, but I see no reason to doubt it could be done. Star Trek was made for $180,000 per episode (ISTR from a David Gerrold book), back when an engineer with a BA made $8000 or so; in proportion, the resources available for a palace or temple could be considerably greater. (I don’t know about an electric signal; the opening may have been just rehearsed, as there are stories of Shatner walking into doors that didn’t open on time.)

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3 years ago

@21: You never saw the outtakes reel for old Star Trek episodes? Gene Roddenberry showed it at speaking gigs for years prior to ST:TNG. I should think it’d still be around somewhere.

There must’ve been a couple of dozen bits when Kirk, Spock, or one of the others walked splat into a closed door.