stories about time travel are about two things. number one is inevitable tragedy. number two is seeing that inevitable tragedy and saying oh god I will make this right please even if I can’t fix it I will try to make this right. also I lied they’re about three things and third is obviously love
I’ve been listening to a lot of discworld books lately and, if i can make a one sentence pitch for the series in general, it would be this;
Where many other book series have characters, Discworld has, in fact is filled to bursting with, people.
Or, To elaborate, because i cant help myself:
Characters are, at the end of the day, a way for an author to make a point or illustrate an idea. Characters are limited to what an author can think to do with them and that’s that. That’s not a bad thing, not at all, its the most basic function of a story to make a point or show an idea.
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld has a lot of points to make and ideas to show, but the people in them are in no great hurry to do either. They’ll get to it when they’re good and ready and not a moment before. Thank you very much.
In the mean time they’ll simply…exist. they’ll have tea and talk about that odd thing that happened yesterday and be petty and awful and kind and deep and shallow and all the things people are capable of being in that casual sort of way existing lets you be.
And the wonderful thing is that Terry allowed them to do so, as much as they pleased. (Though I doubt he could stop them if he tried) He allowed his characters to become people, no matter if they were a troll or a dwarf or DEATH or a royal dragon breeder or a common as muck copper or a witch living in a cabin in the swamp or a wizard with luck so preposterous in both directions it could literally only come from the gods themselves having a laugh.
He allowed them to be kinder then saints, fouler then blood specked mud, and everything in between. He let them be fools with deeply ingrained wisdom, he let them be wise with foolish preconceptions that were very hard to kill. He let them grow beyond their prejudices, he let them sink into their bad habits.
Nobody is simple on the Disc, especially not the simpletons. Even the simplicity of people can be very nuanced, if you give it a bit of space to stretch its elbows.
They’ll tell the story, sure enough, just wait a moment for them to live a bit first.
So. Yeah. Go read the Discworld books. They’re great.
stupid leftists and their belief in *checks notes* the intrinsic value of human life
Reblog if you would burn down the statue of liberty to save a life
Here’s the thing, though. If you asked a conservative “Would you let the statue of liberty burn to save one life?” they’d probably scoff and say no, it’s a national landmark, a treasure, a piece of too much historical importance to let it be destroyed for the sake of one measly life.
But if you asked, “Would you let the statue of liberty burn in order to save your child? your spouse? someone you loved a great deal?” the tune abruptly changes. At the very least, there’s a hesitation. Even if they deny it, I’m willing to bet that gun to their head, the answer would be “yes.”
The basic problem here is that people have a hard time seeing outside their own sphere of influence, and empathizing beyond the few people who are right in front of them. You’ve got your immediate family, whom you love; your friends, your acquaintances, maybe to a certain degree the people who share a status with you (your religion, your race, etc.)–but beyond that? People aren’t real.They’re theoretical.
But a national monument? That’s real. It stands for something. The value of a non-realized anonymous life that exists completely outside your sphere of influence is clearly worth lessthan something that represents freedom and prosperity to a whole nation, right?
People who think like this lack the compassion to realize that everyone is in someone’s immediate sphere of influence–that everyone is someone’s lover, or brother, or parent. Everyone means the world to someone.And it’s the absolute height of selfishness to assume that their lives don’t have value just because they don’t mean the world to you.
P.S. I would let the statue of liberty burn to save a pigeon.
also, there is an extreme difference between what things or principles *i* personally am willing to die for, and what i would hazard others to die for. and this is a distinction i don’t think the conservative hard-right likes to face.
an example: so, as the nazis began war against france, the staff of the louvre began crating up and shipping out the artworks. it was vital to them (for many reasons) that the nazis not get their hands on the collections, and hitler’s desire for them was known, so they dispersed the objects to the four winds; one of the curators personally traveled with la gioconda, mona lisa herself, in an unmarked crate, moving at least five times from location to location to avoid detection.
they even removed and hid the nike of samothrace, “winged victory,” which is both delicate, having been pieced back together from fragments, and incredibly heavy, weighing over three metric tons.
the curators who hid these artworks risked death to ensure that they wouldn’t fall into nazi hands. and yes, they are just paintings, just statues. but when i think about the idea of hitler capturing and standing smugly beside the nike of samothrace, a statue widely beloved as a symbol of liberty, i completely understand why someone would risk their life to prevent that. if my life was all that stood between a fascist dictator and a masterpiece that inspired millions, i would be willing to risk it. my belief in the power and necessity of art would demand i do so.
if, however, a nazi held a gun to some kid’s head (any kid!) and asked me which crate the mona lisa was in, they could have it in a heartbeat. no problem! i wouldn’t even have to think about it. being willing to risk my own life on principle doesn’t mean i’m willing to see others endangered for those same principles.
andthatisexactly where the conservative hard-right falls right the fuck down. they are, typically, entirely willing to watch others suffer for their own principles. they are perfectly okay with seeing children in cages because of their supposed belief in law and order. they are perfectly willing to let women die from pregnancy complications because of their anti-abortion beliefs. they are alright with poverty and disease on general principle because they hold the free-market sacrosanct. and i guess from their own example they would save the statue of liberty and let human beings burn instead.
but speaking as a leftist (i’m more comfortable with socialist tbh), my principles are not abstract things that i hold aside from life, apart or above my place as a human being in a society. my beliefs arise from being a person amidst people. i don’t love art for art’s sake alone, actually! i don’t love objects because they are objects: i love them because they are artifacts of our humanity, because they communicate and connect us, because they embody love and curiosity and fear and feeling. i love art because i love people. i want universal health care because i want to see people universally cared for. i want universal basic income because people’s safety and dignity should not be determined by their economic productivity to an employer. i am anti-war and pro-choice for the same reason: i value people’s lives but also their autonomy and right to self-determination. my beliefs are not abstractions. i could never value a type of economic system that i saw hurting people, no matter how much “growth” it produced. i could never love “law and order” more than i love a child, any child, i saw trapped in a cage.
would i be willing to risk death, trying to save the statue of liberty? probably, yes. but there is no culture without people, and therefore i also believe there are no cultural treasures worth more than other people’s lives. and as far as i’m concerned the same goes for laws, or markets, or borders.
i never in my life understood the US obsession with The Princess Bride (the movie) and at this point I’m a little afraid to ask.
And if anyone comes to tell me about how the characters and the storytelling yadda yadda – I read the book. Several times. It was one of my favorite books in childhood. I love The Princess Bride. I think it’s an amazing book.
But the movie….? I…. again, aside for nostalgia being the reason, I’m afraid to ask.
Ok, I’m super tired so I hope this explanation does not wander too much. I’ll do my best. I’m going to start with two critical ideas related to the Princess Bride.
First, in many mediums or styles of art the form has rough edges. Seams where the illusion is apparent. And for many people the seams themselves become an important part of the art. There are many examples.
Many people who first get into Doctor Who wonder why the Daleks have an egg beater and a toilet plunger, or the cybermen are so clunky but still treated as a threat, while for long time fans these things are part of the artistic style of Doctor Who. A Doctor Who that doesn’t lean into these things isn’t really Doctor Who. Star Trek is another example. People throwing themselves around a bridge or the weird bare bones sets in TOS are part of the identity of the show.
For examples that are more of a medium, people who are really into vinyl often enjoy the unique crackling corruption in the audio recording. People who like SNES style sprite art like the low fidelity nature of the art. These are important features of the medium.
Artistic identify is often heavily tied to what some might consider flaws in the creation.
Second, the US artistic tradition is young. Our critical artistic traditions all came within the last couple of centuries as the people of the United States as a country has built an identity for itself. This means a disproportionate amount of our background artistic tradition is tied up in some very young styles and mediums. The broadway musical (and movie adaptations of such), the classic hollywood film, and the american folk tale (especially as expressed in the western) are important examples of this.
It can be very hard to describe this because it is almost a feeling. An example is the duel between Wesley and Inigo. That takes place on a set deliberately created to look artificial in the way classic hollywood film sets looked artificial. The discussion before about Inigo’s revenge plot and the deliberately choreography to be play acting instead of a realistic, tension filled sword fight with a sense of danger, that sort of thing. It isn’t a scene that tries to be a sword fight, it is a scene that invites the audience to imagine a sword fight, or maybe the ideal of a sword fight as a contest between two champions.
There is the strategy of eliminating the seams to allow for suspension of disbelief, but there is also taking it in the opposite direction, leaning into disbelief to create an ideal for the audience to engage with. This idea is disproportionately important in US artistic tradition. The man with no name (Clint Eastwood’s most popular character) isn’t meant to be understood as a person, but as the ideal of the western outlaw.
One of the major reasons this became so important in US tradition is in part because of the low budget of classic hollywood films, cheap spaghetti westerns, and the nature of broadway plays. The seams of our art and the techniques used to compensate for them informs a lot of how we engage with art. Once you know to look for it you can see its influence all over the place in our art.
The Princess Bride deliberately taps heavily into this style, which resonates in a unique way with a US audience.
