#mythic humanism

EXPLICITLY FRAMED as the exact opposite , as someone who consciously & knowingly & deliberately BC MORALITY rejects a certain model of violent masculinity in a more sophisticated modern style than that of conan , sorry – cohen – the barbarian , but which is @ heart NEARLY the same swaggering machismo ….only w that extra twist of sadism that as howard wld say only civilization can give

& that tension , between versions or models of what is civilization , is as much @ the heart of discworld as the tension btwn models of “manliness’ @ the heart of sam vimes chara , & the watch itself – sir terry playing as equivocally & wickedly & to the same purpose & effect as tolkien even if in mirror image , w the definition of the word w BE A MAN -JOIN THE WATCH = WATCHMEN

( 1 hobbit dude + 1 human princess on 1 horse = 0 "living men’ if yr overliteral enf to rely on prophecy for yr shield of +10 immunity to disintegration ; likewise everyone can be a watchman in ankh morpork whether human or ‘monster’ or machine – YES I SEE WHAT I DID THERE – no matter yr gender … )

so i have another adversary for team wall & the possibility that a LOT of discworld things that seemed like random jokes werent , ever – i realized on reread that FIFTH ELEPHANT leads directly to MONSTROUS REGIMENT in some key ways – and MR has the jeanne d'arc expy , which yeah luc bessons MESSENGER

so now i gotta watch both of em to see if besson is clearly on the side of team elitist vs humanist all the way back then , i cant trust my memory for beans

but anyways

leading into MONSTROUS REGIMENT w its multiplex satires of church & state & nationalism & militarism to the point of bankrupting its citizenry ( sun tzu wld NOT approve borogravia ) but following on the heels of YET ANOTHER restatement of the fact that sam vimes - no matter how tempted - is NOT & never will ( let self ) be

Dirty Harry

there is the moonshot apocalypse-averting via bleedng edge tech of LAST HERO

& now i suspect that its not just a bit of a takethat to ARMAGEDDON

we all remember that captain ironfounderson is very big on civic responsibility & the demand of the "heroes ” of bays film is to avoid all such forever as price of worldsaving

but also of a now forgotten but then splashy & def bellwether film called SPACE COWBOYS

an early entry in the “old action movie heroes clinging to their laurels ’ genre see also THE EXPENDABLES & idek what all else by now

anither thing to check into

but meanwhile i can see very clearly now the OTHER references in SNUFF -vimes as mirrorverse javert , sybil as a nascent class traitor via inept tricoteuse - & , @ the same time the syncretism of vimes-&-vetinari w nick fury

combined w a reference to UNFORGIVEN

following refs to THE ROOKIE & oc the obligate rejection of DIRTY HARRY as a model of manliness

( altho willikins is a kink-positive alfred it turns out tho ankh-morpork is a bit unclear on safe/sane there yet as in so many things )

but yes IMDB confirms that LUTHER is def part of the monomyth

& SOUL MUSIC explains why elba wld take the role of a motorcycling monastic in an otherwise wretched film

& yes my suspicion that he was playing a captain carrot expy in THE OFFICE as "charles miner” are abt 100 per confirmed now

bc for reasons indelicate but which ive already dealt w back when in my “RECESSIONAL” posts on my then suspicions of PR as a complex takethat to the raj

terry pratchett has yes indeed & in a not insignificant way coded captain ironfounderson as black even before he showed up on the page or in the city eternal

“You know what they say about dwarves…”

–in THE LAST HERO , sir terry set up the PETER PAN syncretism whose deducted presence in PANS LABYRINTH he then confirmed in SNUFF - bc there is the crocodile , on the banks of the alt mississippi , not to mention the counter to vidals seeking personal / familial immortality by begetting a son who will “carry on his legacy” as he was forced to

but ghengiz cohen rejects that too in LAST HERO - what matters is how yr remembered in stories & he hopes his kids live for themselves not for him - agn STRAIGHT DIOTIMA , STRAIGHT OUTTA PLATO

but in SNUFF pratchett sets that out plain , w old sam happy that young sam looks like he is going to be a scientist aka wizard when he grows up & nurturing that

instead of taking it as a rejection

but also that he HAS kids following in his footsteps careerwise

oodles of em

& the most recent a mixed-race rookie who has a lot to learn from him

but also teaching him a thing or 2

including karate

& as importantly reminding him that he can never ever slip & become dirty harry

even when he is disobeying orders bc the orders were wrong ones or bad ones

or being a vigilante bc there ARE no laws to appeal to then

but most important to not do evil in the name of the good cause

ppl carelessly call discworld satire & dont think WHAT OF? let alone remember that good satire famously punches up

& i note again that sah ridley coyly told idris elba to read MOBY DICK to prepare for his role in PROMETHEUS

remembering that 1 ) gregory peck played both captains ahab & hornblower 2 ) there are i think strong & deliberate parodic swipes from the HORNBLOWER movie in PROMETHEUS along w swipes @ HOGFATHER & the watch books along w the swipes @ HELLBOY & BLADE 2 & CRONOS ive pointed out

& 3 ) in NIGHT WATCH pratchett moved the eastwood /leone plot themes from the US civil war to the post waterloo civil unrest in england following the napoleonic war

just as del toro moved them to the spanish civil war

& 4 ) put an ahab-expy as a salvific figure & manifestation of his hekate-avatars lasting power in the world , in THE WEE FREE MEN

& in SNUFF both the witches & the feegles are present as are the decadent sparkly aristocratic louche young vampires -& thus the old count of the legends , who was hornblowrers doppelganger in the old movie recall –by the law of magic & lit called Synechdoche

bc it is rev oates & his doubleheaded cretan style ax of liberation who sets the plot in motion there

but he was first set in motion by granny weatherwax

& the witch books & the watch books came tog in I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT

& “own goal’ scott didnt realize what he had done , by mocking BLADE 2 & HELLBOY 2 in his ROBIN HOOD

& then w his arch little janek-vickers charade

but sir terry set up sam vimes as a fisher king without it being clear to any not looking for patterns of strata

that it was an answer to the MUMMY 3 makers / mockers ( reread of LAST HERO adds a bit of knifetwist to millar & goughs scavenging bc the barbarian heroes code is no grave robbing – temples & palaces & wealthy merchants - but never the dead )

& so the first kaiju drift flashback scene falls into place in the long game that isnt poker but might be football AM style , & the role of dogs in the mythos comes into sharper focus bc DOGS = OUR FIRST FRANKENSTEIN MONSTERS for real which pratchett explores repeatedly in the werewolf context

& in CRONOS the first ppl we see are guillermo & his wife walking their own dog as a bystander cameo , so that parallel was always there in their multiverse , whenever they synched them up

but there is something fitting in the first key for me starting to unlock it all bein the fact that idris elba was channeling gregory peck so perfectly that i got it right off , even if i didnt realize which movie was foremost in importance bein distracted by chronological trappings ( but TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH is part of the weave so it wasnt wrong exactly … )