The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 44: Small Gods Pt. 2 (Thematic Themes)

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2  of our recap of “Small Gods”. Themes! Theories! Things!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Join us at Llamedos on the Clacks!Things we blathered on about:Shows - Andrew O’Neill Bruces' Philosophers' Song - YouTubeThe Discworld Timeline  - The L-Space WebAllegory of the cave - WikipediaGreek Philosophy - Ancient History EncyclopediaInfinite Regress - Wikipedia Golden Age of Athens - Facts and DetailsThe History of Chain Letters - SmithsonianEddie Izzard: St Paul’s Letters - Daily Motion Jeep problem - WikipediaMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I've got myself the answering the door to the police to be told my husband's died in mysterious circumstances robe. I was going to plan for a run after recording today, but then I decided to put on a full face of makeup for no reason and I don't want to go running with red lipstick on so I'm not going to. Like I'm wearing eyeliner, this never happens. Oh, pretty. You're so pretty. Thanks. I had to try and look nice to match the kids on the tiktok. On the tiktoks.

I ticked, I talked. Rocked around the clock. Trying to talk like a gen Z. This is never going to happen. So I'm just going to go the other way and talk like a 90 year old woman. I'm with you on this. I do this to the teenagers I work with and they think I'm a delight. Delight.

You were sort, Joanna. How does one tick a tock? Now, I'm pretty sure I've ticked, but how can I be sure I've talked? Do I get a letter? And I've succeeded. Jack was watching the first Spider-Man film last night. So from the seventies. Oh, and I wasn't paying attention because I don't pay attention to what Jack watches on the tally.

It's for the best. But I had my headphones on, I looked up and I saw Spider-Man climbing on a building in the worst piece of green screen, surely ever to make it to a feature film. It's not that the green screen itself was not crisp because it was like it's clearly been done on a professional green screen. But instead of having him say, climb up a climbing wall, they've clearly got him climbing on the floor or something and pasted that onto the wall and also got the scale wrong. Nice. Slightly wrong.

So it looks just bad rather than hilarious. But it was hilarious. I laughed and laughed and laughed and then left the room so Jack could enjoy his film. So I also managed to, this part of my trying to make my mood get better because for most of the week I have been pandemic brain. Yeah. I went to an online comedy gig last night, which I haven't, which they've been going on constantly throughout the whole pandemic. I've just never got around to going to one. But Andrew O'Neill does a weekly one.

So I went along to that last night. It was very, very fun. Cool. So that's like everyone's in a virtual audience. Yeah. So it's like a zoom thing, but it's small enough that everyone can have their mics and cameras on. So you can actually sort of hear us chat and applaud like an hour of comedy music stuff. And then there was just sort of general chat afterwards and we all had a nice little time.

It was good fun. I'm glad that does sound fun. I don't think I know Andrew O'Neill. Friend of, friend of the pod, Mark Burroughs. Friend of a friend of a friend. Friend of a friend of the pod. Day and Mark are in the band, the men who will not be blamed for nothing. Oh, the punk music.

Yeah. Yes. And she's... Which I still feel bad saying punk in a dismissive tone when I'd forgotten the word for it. Day are very funny. Heavy metal. Comedy. There was a very long song about magpies that brought me a loss of joy.

We like a magpie. We do like a magpie. We'll be getting to magpies. Are we? Oh, yeah. No, we are. Yeah. Next, next month.

Magpies. Lords and ladies. Is that not magpies? Probably. I reckon it is. I'm gonna say yes. I can't think what else will be. It definitely crops up at some point.

Yes. I know it crops up at some point. Oh, do you mean it next month? Yes. Next month will definitely crop up at some point. No, I mean... God damn it, Joanna. Yes, we both know that magpies come up with the rhyme.

I'm saying, is it definitely cropping up at some point in Lords and Ladies? Or are you just trying to not say things by saying something? No, I literally can't remember where it turns out if it is Lords and Ladies are in the book. Okay. I'm sorry. I am very prissy and a total dumbass today. This place as well. Yeah, good.

Usually one of us is working slightly better than the other, but that does not appear to be the case. Okay, again. It's fine. We'll be fine. Allowances must be made in these unprecedented times. I think they're pretty fucking unprecedented now, though, aren't they? Yeah, I mean, it's been a fucking year at this point. It's precedented.

We're really nearly at a precedented year. Fuck. I don't mind mispronouncing ancient Greek playwrights, but I feel like... What are they gonna do? Fight me, Aristophan. Aristophanes. All right, Aristophanes. All Aristophanes, your mother.

All right, fuck. I can't remember which one he is. He was... No. I think he was the frog guy. Sure, why not? I've been reading about Aristotle this morning, so... Aristotle and Archimedes and Socrates.

You know. Bagger for the Bowl. Hobbes was one of his drum. And Renee Descartes. Okay, I also promise that just as I only made one Spanish Inquisition next week, that's my one philosopher's song by Monty Python's done for this week. Yeah, if you would like to sing it in its entirety, I can always stick it at the end. You can make the outro section of Joanna the musical.

No. Because that's a bad precedent of Joanna the musical. I mean, I've already started writing it in my head. Actually, no, it could be pretty good. I felt like we need to do something to really drive each other into gear. Okay, like what? Fuck it. I did my homework.

That was homework? Yeah, I just made a note of something I wanted to look up and I did it. Oh, okay. Jesus. Well done. Sorry. I didn't mean to panic. It's not like an essay.

Was I meant to make it? Yes, of course. That was homework, Joanna. I hope you have your presentation ready and now awake from your anxiety dream. Why are you wearing trousers? Not last weekend, weekend before I made a PowerPoint present. Well, not PowerPoint. I used the Apple equivalent, but I made a presentation for the first time in

I want to say 10 or 15 years. And it took me until three o'clock in the morning. I had to make presentations this week as well. I was learning how to do like. No, obviously I'm not going early 2000s mental on it. I just want to be able to make things fade in and out, but everything's changed and it took me quite a while to work out again. Mine was slightly less fancy.

It was a quiz for my little Sunday Zoom chat. So I took me till 3 a.m. to put a bunch of silly moustaches on like Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders. That sounds considerably more fancy than mine actually. So it was artistic. I will send you some of the pictures because really I think I deserve a prize. When we finally get around to doing PowerPoint presentations for each other, I am going full wanker with all like the spinning word.

Oh, yeah. And things like that. Totally. I can create a perfectly nice, modern, clean professional PowerPoint, but in God's name, why would I? That is I think one of the things that I'm looking forward to the most post pandemic is having a small party of like five of us where we just all prepare PowerPoint presentations on something we're really interested in.

Who else are you inviting? Okay, three of us. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking like, you know, three might be a bit small. Maybe we should have a couple of others, but I just can't think of anyone else. I really want to get engaged in that nonsense with us. Yeah.

I mean, there's two things you need. There's someone who's willing to do it and someone we want there. And I just don't think they're getting a mobile app. There are other people I could potentially do that with, but really, people who are as terrible as us. We just don't want around. There is a very specific brand of nonsense. Okay.

Do you know what? We just better fucking get on with it. I might get another coffee. Yeah, I might grab one. But yeah, should we, should we make a podcast? Yeah, I think so. I think at this point, you know, we're here. Let's make a podcast.

Hello and welcome to the True Charming Key Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Brouchett's Discworld series, one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of small gods. Yeah, to part two, part two, the middle bit, the middle thing. I've forgotten the time for it, Joanna. Rising action.

Rising action, which is what is happening. Yes, much action. Much action has happened. It's risen. It's fallen and floated away across the sea. So yeah, note on spoilers before we jump all the way in. This is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book.

We're on small gods, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final discord of all the shepherd's crown until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. In a prototype of a steam powered boat. Or in a ghost ship across the Dead Seas. Yeah, one of those two. Yeah, that made me really choose your fighter.

I'm going for the ghost ship for the aesthetic. All right, that's fair. Sorry, it made you what? It made me want an add-ons, ghost ship. Oh, I thought you were going to say something profound. Never mind. Oh, no. There's a beer listeners who don't have an add-ons nearby.

Sorry, they're local-ish to us brewery. Anyway. Anyway. So attention to girly. Yes, just a warning listeners, both of us are kind of in a pretty good mood, but also that's maybe because half of our brains have switched off finally. Yeah, also great for us, not necessarily for you. I don't know how you are, but I am like sleep deprived.

Yes. Anyway, do we have anything to follow up on from last week, Francie? Yeah, fucking yes. I did my homework. Sorry, with the casual. I've read a really old reviews that I've not seen before where they mentioned our casual profanity and how they can't listen to it in the car with their kids. So sorry.

What am I doing? Oh, homework. Yeah. Homework, Francie. So, yeah. Last week, we said, when is this happening in the timeline of the disc world? And so I looked at the L space, have a timeline and approximately 1885 UC, which I see means our time-ish, is when small gods happens,

which is about, oh, hold on, 27 years before Granny Weatherworks was born. Right. I thought that that was the case it had taken place before. Yeah. Effectively, a lot of the disc world books have already done, but the century of the fruit that is also mentioned in this is in dragging something kicking and screaming into, which makes sense because by later books, we will discuss dragging things kicking and screaming out of.

Yeah. So the century of the fruit that begins about four years after this. Okay. Great. So, yeah. The three lice, the century of the three lice were currently in, and I think everyone was probably very happy to leave that and enter the century of the fruit that because that's a fucking awesome.

Can you remember that? Oh, the next one's the century of the anchovy. Yep. Cool. I do like an anchovy. I like an anchovy. I've got some anchovies in the fridge. Excellent.

Well, you melt a little anchovy in your oil before you start cooking a savory sauce listeners and it adds a lovely hint of umami. Let me go the cooking tips today. From scene. We've switched brains. I've done my homework. I've got cooking tips. Now it's all going to fall apart as we realize I've got half a page of

hundred notes and quite a lot of history to try and talk about. And your co-coast is literally a potato. Yes, literally a potato with headphones on, but beautiful eyeliner. Thank you. Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously in small gods? Oh, I mean, not really, but I will. It's not because I want to withhold the information. It's just because look at my handwriting.

Excellent. Yeah, quite. Previously on small gods. In a monotheistic citadel naive novice brother considers the tortoise because it's whispering to him from a melon patch said tortoise is great God om somewhat diminished by the fact that brother is his last true believer and therefore source of power in a more or less related turn of events. Brothers astounding memory is noted by chief villain for this who decided

to take the young believer on an peace mission to the neighboring of Phoebe. Meanwhile, in shadowy rooms adorned with symbolic scratches, the turtle moves. Oh, right. So in this section of small gods still at sea, a storm rages as the Queen of the Seas expresses her anger at the murdered poor boys. Brothers life is almost given to the angry ocean, but Om's intervention with his fellow deity saves them and calms the waters in the nick of time. However, now a debt is owed.

Vaubus instructs brother to watch for flashing lights on the coast as Om dreams of his beginnings as a small God. Brother communicates using the captain's mirror. The captain tells him that the turtle moves on wakes and admits to brother that he did not in fact create a round world and the turtle might indeed move. The Omnians sail into a fee for their mission of diplomacy. As they're led through the city, brother learns of heathen gods and Om checks on brother's understanding of belief.

Blindfolded, the group are taken through a dangerous labyrinth and into the palace of a fee brother remembers the way inside the palace of a fee. The Omnians are given meat and fruit on a fast day. The horror allowed out to explore for the evening. Om and brother go and search for philosopher. They come across some passionate philosophers at the pub. Unfortunately, brother is strapped for cash. He's told didactylos back at the palace library might be his best bet.

The next day, the tyrant of a fee presents Vaubus with a peace treaty as brother looks on the tyrant will brook no negotiation, but he gives Vaubus the night to consider. Om goes in search of the library and finds himself picked up by didactylos and his nephew earn. We learn that brother murder may not have been stoned to death in a fee after all, but Vaubus twists the truth as he tells brother to go and explore for the day. Brother finds on performing geometry for didactylos and earn. Brother pretends to be a scribe as blind didactylos shows him the library.

He's given a scroll on gods to study with Om's help. Om and brother talk gods and Om tells brother he might need to be the next prophet. As the sun sets, brother walks with Vaubus and learns about meta truth as he leads him through the labyrinth, a guard and a watchman meet untimely ends and the city gates are opened as brother finds out that eventually an army can in fact cross the desert. As Omnians perform a coup in Feib, didactylos stands up to Vaubus. Brother is sent to burn the dangerous library. With Sergeant Simony somewhat on their side, brother memorizes the library and our rag

tag bunch of philosophical friends make their escape on earn's unnamed boat. As a Feib burns and fights back, the gang discusses escaping to Ankh-Morpork and Simony has some ideas. Knowledge sloshes through brother's brain as Om negotiates again with the Queen of the Sea. As Vaubus chases their small boat in a ship of his own, a storm rages. The unnamed boat is shocked as brother escapes and the ship goes down to sea death as Vaubus somehow survives. Francine.

Sorry. I was hoping your eyes would flicker back to the screen before you'd finished your monologue, but no. I very intentionally don't look at you when I have to read out large chunks of text because I can't keep a straight face anyway. All right. Not because of your face. Just because I'm really bad at existing.

I've only got a fortnight left of this zoom pro. So I thought I'd give myself some cool pixel sunglasses. Thank you. Helicopter and loincloth watch. Obviously implied heavily throughout, especially with the philosophers. They're all about the loincloths and the helicopters. Yeah. Not the helicopters exactly, but cool mechanical contraptions and cool mechanical

contraptions. We've got the proto speed boat, which is a helicopter in spirit. We also four other things we are keeping track of. The librarian gets a cameo. Yeah. He's come back in time through the passages of L space to save some scrolls from the burning library. Oh, yeah.

Save some scrolls. Sorry. Not Nixon books. Of course. Yes. Yes. Saving not stealing. Very important.

Yes. So we're, uh, we're very pleased that he's there. Of course, he's not explained. Just for those of us keeping track of that. No. Um, although the ankle more pork in library is briefly explained. Yes, I quite like the small description of it. The dictionaries of illusory words and the.

This or stomping down the aisle or whatever it is in this one. I did enjoy that section. Uh, so quotes, I believe yours is and we've got wildly differing page numbers, but I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Um, because mine's very near the end. Yeah. No, I think you might be right.

Actually, I meant to switch them around and I didn't. Uh, yeah. Sorry. Well, well, said too many. We live and learn just like he said. Some of us even do it the other way around said didactylos. It's like that was a little fucking burn. Whoo-hoo.

Hot. Didactylos is quite bitchy actually. He is. I like him a lot. I am a big fan of didactylos. A little bit of snark from our resident philosopher slash. I think Terry Pratship vocalizing. Yeah.

Through this. He's definitely, I think the Pratship mouth, Pratship mouthpiece, not the Pratship mouthpiece. Funny old world. Yes, his philosophy is excellent. How much have you got on philosophy in this one, by the way? Not too much. I seem to be going way more off about it.

I was going to, but then it was just, it was all a bit rabbit hole-y. Rather than actually talking about the book and I didn't want to. So I've kept it to not too much, but like the quote I've chosen is rather relevant to philosophy. Oh, go on then. This is also from didactylos. Life in this world, he said, is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality?

For all we see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by the unseen blinding light of absolute truth from which we may or may not deduce some glimmer of veracity. And we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom could only lift our voices to the unseen and say humbly, go on, do deformed rabbit. It's my favorite. Now, I know there's something called Plato's cave, but I don't know

what it is. Is that a? So this is Plato's cave theory. Okay. I am casting my mind very far back. This is the first very, very first thing we studied when I did a level philosophy. So I'm trying to remember something I did.

Oh, I'm sure they don't have a Wikipedia cage or something like it now. I could have done, but I thought I'd see if I could go from memory. All right. Well, what I mostly remember about studying it is that we were told to watch the film, The Matrix and the. So why don't I watch The Matrix? The idea is that effectively what we see as humans is, is only a shadow on the wall of the cave and the real truth is beyond our understanding.

And then if you wear a cool enough trench coat, you can dodge bullets in slow motion. Yeah, Plato definitely said that. Yeah. Well, no. So the idea of The Matrix is you take the pill and you see the real world, not the one that is being. So the idea is that the world pre-pill in The Matrix is the shadowy reflections

of the cave. And when you take the red pill. Yeah, which is in cells and Q and on have just ruined this terminology so thoroughly that I don't think I'm ever going to be able to watch this without snorting through it. I know the kind of disgusting irony of Q and on and in cells adopting the phrase red pill from a film that was meant to be a trans allegory made by two trans women.

Yeah. Or they before they were out. Is it an allegory? Yeah. There's an axiom. The Wachowski sisters use the term trans allegory in multiple interviews. I'm still not sure what an allegory is, but I know one when I see it. No, not even fucking slightly.

All right, but we can probably trust those two to know. Yes. So that's Plato's cave. I hope my excellent summary there made it really clear for everyone. No, absolutely. I'm educated. But also I like the bratchety technique, the lofty high-minded then go on to do deformed rabbit.

It's my favorite. Which the do deformed rabbit is my favorite is another one of those little things that crops up again and again and always makes me giggle. Yeah. Yeah. Like a million formed trance. Yeah, that crops up nine times our turn. So characters.

Yeah. We will start with the queen of the sea. Oh, okay. Because she's sort of the first new character we meet in this section. And this is when they're on the boat and on as this very small deity with one believer has to wrestle with this angry deity. And of course, she's angry because they killed the poor boys. Yeah.

Don't kill a poor boys guys. Yeah. Don't kill a poor boys. And all of the gods we meet in the section are great. And I like the idea that they're all actually kind of fucking dumbasses. Yeah, I do. Yeah. But her absolute rage is quite impressive.

And then we have so mad. He made a hurricane appear over one boat. Like so many fucking times to be honest. It's really awkward. I kind of need to get a reputation after all. Yeah. I mean, of all the things I've got a reputation for France in hurricanes. That's the main one.

Yep. Joanna hurricane Hagan. That's what they call it. That's quite cool. Actually. Yeah, that's all you've got. If people could start calling me that actually. If we could, if we could try and make that catch on.

All right. Cool. Sorry, I'll stop interrupting you with absolute nonsense. Carry on. Yeah, because I'm saying so many intelligent things. Carry on with destruction nonsense written by someone better than us. Gilesh, which is the God that Om supplanted back in his early days of day. Deity hood.

Yep. Sure. So I Godhood. Yeah, that was that was the word. Better. I was wondering if the name was a reference to something. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I looked it up to see if it was referenced something and obviously.

The downside to Googling something like a Gilesh is you mostly get then references to the book small gods. Thankfully annotated Pratchett exists. So yeah, good. Yeah. It is Gilgamesh, but Gil Gilesh was also the ruler of one of the Euphrates civilizations and was a Babylonian city as well as a prefix signifying primal or original. So we've got Simony. Yes.

Who I brought up briefly last week. We'll talk about him more today, especially as we get onto the organized religion stuff of it all. One thing I forgot to mention and Stacey reminded me. Thank you, Stacey. That Simony itself is Stacey can't see my finger gun, but I did a finger gun. Hi, Stacey. Simony is a religious crime. It's the crime of selling benefits.

Oh, like so benefits like being a blessing or? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Come on. You're the Catholic here, Joanna. I mean, I know you're not a Catholic. You went to Catholic places. Yeah.

I'm not so much lapsed as yeeted myself out of the entire organized religion. Lapsed sounds a lot more gentle than what actually happened there. Yeet. It's a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. Ah, there we go. So good money can be exchanged for goods or services. So yeah, so selling benefits is the crime of Simony cool. That doesn't seem to ever come up in relation to his name or his character.

Just a cool religious adjacent name. Yeah, which I found quite funny. I was looking through annotated Pratchett and there's a note about Simony's name and this selling benefits and it says underneath. I didn't bother putting this in because it's not relevant in that. It's never used in relation to his character. That's not something he does. But so many people wrote to me about it that I've included it here now.

I like it when he puts in little exasperated comments of his own. It does make the giggle. But yeah, his version of this kind of weirdly zealot like belief in didactylos is quite interesting as a parallel to the Omnions. Yeah, I liked I liked the Omn said he was almost as good as a believer. It's the whole love and hate thing like strong feelings either way. Yeah, with love being the indifference in difference being the opposite of love rather than hate.

Yeah, he's still feeling just as passionate about something. Yeah. You can almost go to one of those militant atheists that we like to laugh at. But to be fair, he's got more of a reason than most to. Yeah. And he's doing this horrible thing. But I do feel like that is kind of the point of his character. Yeah.

Yeah. And yeah, to find as much of a, as you say, zealous belief in a new system. But also to really hate something that much, you do kind of have to believe in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like Satanists not really believing in Satan. Yes. It's yes, the Christians that really believe in Satan.

Yeah. Some of them. I don't know. Not all Christians hashtag. I really don't know. Yeah. So Legibus. Well, oh yes.

The bath, bath man. Yes. The sort of Archimedes was the one who did the Eureka or apparently. Yeah. I like the idea that practice just kind of taken that reference and run with it. Now all philosophers live in Baths and, you know, we're in Terran Luther. Yep. Jump out of it.

I like the fact that he sort of turns up to this little shop, buys some chalk, draws on the wall and says, I'll send someone now to collect it later. Yeah. These professors, like the mad professor type, isn't it? Yeah. There's the great, like he's sort of standing there. See, he's had this idea and he's drawing on the wall and then he says, oh, and he says to the guy with the shop, oh, can I also have a lever of infinite length and

a moveable place to stand, please? And he says, well, what you see is what I got, sir. Pots and general household items, but a bit short on axiomatic mechanisms. And I want to reassure listeners that after my brave, brave efforts during pyramids to explain axioms like such as Zeno's paradox, I will not be trying to do that again this week. No, I must say, although we have promised not to do any Monty Python references, it's quite a lot of this Reeves-Quite-Python-esque, that line in particular.

Oh, there's another one that I read out to Jack that sounded particularly. There are a few very Python-y moments, especially around philosophers. Yes, of course. See, that's Allegibus. Aristocrates, whose name I am assuming is meant to be a combo of Aristotle and Socrates. Yeah, and it happens to pleasingly mean aristocrat almost. Exactly.

Yes, I enjoyed that one. The tyrant. So, if Aphib is a democracy, again, we've learned this section definitely parallels Tepik's trip to Aphib in pyramids. It's got the same rhythm to it down to finding philosophers to figure out what the fuck is going on with the gods. Yeah. But we learn a bit more about the Aphibian democratic system.

Every man should have the vote provided he's not poor, foreign or mad, frivolous or a woman. Which totally fair. So every five years someone's elected to be tyrant, provided he can prove he's honest, intelligent, sensible and trustworthy. And of course, immediately after he's elected, he's revealed to be a criminal madman, totally out of touch with the view of the ordinary philosopher in the street.

Yeah. Did you know that there was a tyrant called a tyrant that ruled over ancient Greece at one point? No, I didn't know that. Piscitratus. There might have been more than one, but that was the one I read about. And tyrant, as hinted at here, didn't mean terrible person. Just meant one who couldn't be challenged by any above or below.

I don't, I expect most of the story behind his rise to power is legend because it involves things like basically tricking everyone into thinking he was a demigod or something by riding in on a chariot with a six foot woman who was pretending to be Athena. Nice. Yeah. No, it's a pretty good story. It is so easy just to lose track of what the fuck you were trying to research in

the first place with these topics. It's yeah. Ancient Greece was wild. Yeah. Ancient Greece was fucking awesome. I would have loved to have been an ancient Greek philosopher sitting around because you're a frivolous and a woman, Joanna. I'm a frivolous and a woman.

Yes. Well, they would consider you such, I'm sure. I'm just going to say. Part-time woman. Yes. Every now and then. Part-time woman, part-time frivolous. Full-time mad.

Full-time mad philosopher. I just really like the idea that they basically wrote fan fiction of themselves and their mates as plays having arguments so they could put their words into their friends' mouths and win philosophical debates. I think we quite often do that in group chat. Oh, yeah. No, we absolutely do. Possibly not in the same kind of way that will be exalted in a couple thousand

years, but speak for yourself. I think car group chats are going to be held up as a classic example of the ancient British civilization. We've got Aris. Was Aristotle a playwright? No, Aris click. The one I couldn't pronounce last week. Thank you so much.

Yeah, that guy. He was a playwright. Excletus. Excletus, thank you. Excletus. And there were a couple more that were mentioned in the same breath in whichever obstacle I was reading. But yeah, like I said, Aristophanes was the one who did the frog thing.

Yeah, that's it. I'm trying to remember. Oh, yeah. No, the frog thing came up in Dark Side of the Sun. Okay. Sorry. I can't remember anything about this play other than it had like a frog chorus and apparently Stephen Sondheim once did it with Meryl Streep.

Yeah. So who else are we talking about? What the fuck are we on about? Didac's Lost. Didac's Lost. Yay. The good one. Yes, we like it.

I mean, they're all fine, but we like the dirty barrel philosopher. Yep. It poses the famous philosophical conundrum. Yes. But what's it all really about then when you get right down to it? I mean, really? Which is another beautiful example of cherry perhaps. You're just really wanting to put the kind of nonsense pub common sense into

as much of this ridiculous fancy world as you can. Yes, I do enjoy it. I also like the summation of Didac's Lost's philosophy, cynicism, stoicism and the Epicureans. Yes. Translation is you can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him. There's nothing you can do about it. So let's have a drink.

It's pretty good condensed philosophy, if you ask me. Yeah, no, I'm very up for it. Generally, all I know about the rest of those is how they relate to the Stoics because that's the only Greek philosophy book I've read. But I haven't actually read that much on the Stoics. I've mostly learned about stoicism from the group chat. Yeah. See, we're great.

Well, I mean, the philosophy talk is generally me and our other friend arguing at each other, but I do say at each other, not with each other, because let's be honest, I think we're taking much on board. You're both just writing essays. It's great to watch. And eventually it turns into that. And then Anne Rand slid in on socks. And this is why we can't tax the rich, Joanna.

So Didac's Lost also has the nil illegitimate carbon random thing, which is another one of those sort of pratchity called Latin. Oh, yeah, I didn't look that up. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Oh, cute. That's another one that definitely comes up a lot, especially sort of in pratchit Facebook groups and things. I noticed someone calling someone else chicken in Latin.

Yes, I didn't mean to say that in Avis Domestika or something. Yeah, Latin-esque. Is it not? Yeah. I think the Latin is all sort of that slightly silly version of Latin. Cool. But yeah, so I like Didac's Lost and obviously his nephew, the slightly more practical philosopher.

And it's kind of this in-between thing. So Didac's Lost is the philosopher and then Anne starts doing the practical things like making the boat go and then Simony takes the practical things and well, we'll see what he does with them next week. And then what will Simony do with a combustion engine? Hint, violence. And then other, this is just a little cameo moment.

But when the ship goes down and the death is there on the ship, there's a death of rats is there lining up the ship. Oh, yeah. So for those wondering at the end of Reaper Man, if the rat hung on, he did. He's back. The Grim Squeaker. Do you reckon the rats kind of went somewhere else or stayed on the goat ship?

Ghost ship, ghost ship. I think they stayed on the ghost ship. That's nice. I think they all had a lovely time on the ghostly seas together. That's good. And yes, as you were saying last week, I'd forgotten about this, but you're quite right. At this point, the concept of the great desert of the afterlife is still

person-specific. And so these people get the great sea of the afterlife. Yes. All of us practice like to bend the rules for narrative purposes. I wouldn't have been surprised if even later he'd done this because it's just nice, isn't it? It is. So for these guys, they can have a sea instead of a desert because ooh.

I mean, obviously they're all dead and that's quite sad, but I very much enjoyed that section. I thought it was quite sweet. I mean, let's be honest. What were they sailing towards? Nothing nice. At least now they get to explore some cool sea without for this. Yeah.

I'd read like a whole spinoff book just about like I'm having some fun adventures on the ghostly seas. Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. If anyone wants to like, I don't know, draw that for us or something. Go ahead. Onto characters.

I thought you were going to say write that for us or like that bit of an arse mate, but yeah. No, don't like write a whole discord spinoff series, but if you want to draw like a cool ghost ship or something, we'd be into it. Yeah. We don't like, we don't like Pirates of the Caribbean anymore. So we're kind of. No, but I managed to reference it during my Lord of the Rings tweets.

Yes, you did. I was very proud of that. Yeah. Which by the way, listeners happened on Monday instead of Saturday. So if you checked when I told you to, you might not have seen them. But now you can go on our account and see the highlights. Screenshot it. Yes.

Francine very kindly took the 100 to 200 odd shitposts and found a few of the funny ones. Anyway, onto characters that we've hung out with already. So I thought he's musing on the concept of fairness. Quite interesting. Yes. Because he's something he hadn't thought about as God. No, because he hadn't had to.

And because, like as we said, gods don't really have to think they've got humans doing it for them. But Om is now stuck in this very precarious position. He is a God, but with his one believer who he needs to keep alive. And so he's now very picked up. He's, he's angry at Vaubus. He's angry that the porpoise has been killed, not just because it means the Queen of the Seas is going to take it out on all of them, but because Vaubus is going to

get away scot-free, having been the person who insisted on the death of the porpoise. Yes, because he wasn't the one who did it. Yeah. And he's sulky about that. And obviously he's got this whole sort of thing with the Queen of the Seas where he's trying to explain to her like, I'm not fair game. Oh, you know, this is fair game.

This isn't. Yeah. And something kind of gets through. Like it kind of trickles into her consciousness enough that she's like, all right, I'll go for this ship, which is fair game. Yeah. But there's the nice line. Gods are not very introspective.

No. Which be there's a couple of those lines throughout the book. Like last week we had gods have no one to pray to. Yeah. And I like these sort of things about the nature because I also like the line. Gods never need to be very bright when there's humans around to be it for them. Yeah. It's a nice summary of what he was trying to get out with all the profit stuff.

Wasn't it? Yeah. It's like, on was clearly just like a manically raving drunk on power running around as a bull and the profits were like, all right. So I'm going to interpret that like this. And then hopefully that would be good for all of us or at least for me. Yeah. So I like Dom and his growing concept of fairness and then brother has an interesting journey.

Brother's very first and second thoughts, as I think Procter would put it later on. He is and you see him start to transition. There was a line somewhere. I haven't noted it down, but something about there were the thoughts that watched brother's thoughts that was very first and second thoughts or a proto version. And he starts transitioning to this different kind of faith. I mean, he does. He can't not believe it on because on is there.

Yeah. But he stops believing in the religious shell built around on. Which book was it that the quote about you don't need belief anymore? If it's there came from. It's one of practice. It wasn't this book, was it? No, there's it sort of mentioned in which is abroad, which is don't believe in gods, they don't need to because they're there.

It would be like believing in the milkman. Yeah. Yeah. And that's extended to more here. Yeah. Yeah, in a kind of less trivial way. Well, you sort of have the trivial version of it with the philosophers. Like they're all very aware that the gods exist.

So they're not bothering to believe in them and they're getting down to the fundamentals instead. Apart from FedEx, God of Messengers, lovely guy. Oh, I missed that. But yeah, so you see his mind starts to open as he's in a fieve and he's just getting more input. But you see it really early on in this section. The captain has to lend him this mirror, which is something not allowed under Omnionism. Yeah. And yeah, that was a good moment.

Brothers about to say, oh, brother thinks you'll be purified through the inquisition and then he doesn't say it and he can't quite admit to himself. Why? I'm sorry, instead. He's stopped believing in thequisition, effectively. And then as a foil for him, you've got Vorbis. Vorbis. Vorbis, the villain. Who sees...

I'm still preparing my thesis on Vorbis. I think the conclusion part of the book would be a good part to go off on my massive rant. Yeah. I've definitely got more to say in the next section, but something I noticed with this is as you see brother's faith start transitioning into something else. You see Vorbis pushing it. He's really testing him. Kind of testing the limits. Yeah.

And it's this weird... Not weird. It's this curiosity he has that's the same reason he left the tortoise on his back. Yes. And the same reason he tries to get the team of soldiers to go backwards up the... Yeah. ...baby trapped alley. Yeah.

He wants to see what happens when you push people. Yeah. And, you know, he's mostly created this very intense belief in most people and everything he does is to keep that belief. But in that case, it's so established with brother that it's more interesting to see how far that belief can be pushed. I think that his kind of foregone conclusion about brother, though, is blinding him slightly in a way that it wouldn't for most people. Because brother is coming out with answers that Vorbis is kind of happy with because he thinks of brother as already as an ally. So I would like the established true stuff. Yeah.

When brother is able to work out what happened to... Brother Murdoch. Brother Murdoch. And Vorbis is okay with that. I feel like if he hadn't already decided brother was on side. Yeah. He's very sure of brother's loyalty. He's been happy that, yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Because that's, you know, that was pretty complex unraveling that brother did there rather than a straight record and replay. Yeah. And to be specific about it, because I wasn't in my summary because I was trying to get through everything. Yeah. So brother Murdoch went to Afib to preach. And as far as the Omnians know was stoned to death in Afib and his brother was bought back in stone and shown having been stoned to death.

What actually happened is he went to Afib, got laughed at and Vorbis had him stoned to death so he could tell everyone that Afibians did it. Because he needed... What would that be known as a false flag? Something like that? Yeah. It's to create propaganda for another holy war. Yes. And the other Vorbis thing.

Oh, sorry. Yes. No, sorry. It was just referred to as the trivial truth, i.e. the actual truth versus the deep truth, which is the ideal we want to uphold and which we can surround with lies in a moral way. Which I think probably goes back to this just war thing we talked about last week. It also goes slightly back to the cave thing. Well, that's kind of wonky, didn't it? Sorry.

It also goes back to the Plato's cave thing. That's the idea. You're not seeing... Yeah. You're seeing the superficial truth and not the pure truth. And therefore the deformed rabbit of our soul. God, we were doing so well for that. God, I wish I hadn't entered that sentence.

Sorry. The other Vorbis thing is the army getting across the desert, which is horrifying if an army can get a quarter away and leave a cache of water and do that. And then another army can use part of that cache to go further. And the idea is just that a lot of people had to die to get enough caches of supply set up to get everyone across this fucking desert. Yes. And it has been going for months. It's been going before Brother Murdoch even went to Ephieb. And it said, you know, you had to have a mind-like Vorbis to plan your retaliation before your attack.

Yeah. Yes. That's a good line. Who's next? I think that was all I had on characters, actually. So I've sort of folded a bit of talking philosophy a bit more into locations, specifically, Ephieb. A very sheppy term. I am.

I am chef. So we go to Ephieb. This is where we to most of the thing. We've been to Ephieb before in, as I said, pyramids. Nice few little sub-bullet points in here. We have. So we've got, I already mentioned, I just really enjoy the sort of statues of gods everywhere. Yeah.

Sorry. I'm on the wrong page. Fairly, fairly, fairly. So we've got the goddess of wisdom with her penguin, because the sculptor fucked up. I like it. Why penguins? I like the penguin just sort of popping up to squawk at people if they've criticized the goddess of wisdom. Yeah.

I kind of like the, I don't know if it would be a slight reference or not, but like penguin being the publisher and everything. See penguins on books everywhere in Round World. Oh yeah. Maybe that was a bit of a reference. That's the penguin I'm seeing. Brothers horror at the fact that there's a goddess of negotiable affection. She saw the niche, she took it. I approve.

So yes, I like the fact that all these gods, little gods are just sort of lingering about. Yeah. And they all, like I said, they're real enough. There's a statue of Offal at the crocodile god, which isn't one of theirs. He's clutching him, but they quite liked him. They thought he was quite fun, so they put him in. They're really enough that one of them was in the crowd throwing vegetables or throwing his canteen of wine at the Brother Murdoch. And when we get to the philosophers thing, which is the other main thing I want to talk about with the Phoebes, we get to the philosophy pub moment.

Yeah. And brother starts asking about gods and they sort of say, oh, relic of an outmoded relief system, belief system. Apart from, and then they suddenly realized the gods might hear them. They're like, oh yeah, apart from this one, apart from this one. Onto the philosophers in the pub. I love this section. It made me laugh a lot, including the guy getting kicked out of the pub saying, I'm telling you, listen, find our intellect, right? Cannot by means of comparison, reach the absolute truth things because being by nature indivisible, truth excludes the concept of moral less.

Nothing but truth itself can be the exact measure of truth. You're bastard. Yeah, I like, I definitely like the idea that instead of kind of these stately exalted figures that we kind of see Greek philosophers as, they were just, yeah, drunk and pub arguments most of all. Yeah. I also want to put up what, again, timeline confusion is that one of the philosophers hanging around in the pub is Zeno. Yes. Who we met in Pyramids. Yes.

And it is, it must be the same Zeno because he's referenced it having axioms to do with tortoises and things, which was, I see. Pyramids had the things like shooting arrows at tortoise. It would never hit the tortoise. Let me check my timeline again. Because if this is before Granny Weatherwax was born, I don't think it can be, it either needs to be before or after the events of Pyramids. Yeah. Hold on. I actually know it probably could run at about the same time.

It's the only outside of jelly baby stuff we get in Pyramids is in a fee band briefly and more at the beginning. Yeah. This seems to be one of the slight, yeah, this is one of the ones that doesn't fit exactly in. I mean, we'll allow it. Yeah. There's a little footnote there saying that perhaps simultaneously a century later. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, this whole bit, if Eve is kind of a parallel obviously to the golden age of Athens. Yeah. In Greece, which I think I'd noted down later, but I may as well like say now is I think, yeah, specifically the kind of period where Athens was in charge of the Grecian Empire and very rich and very saturated in this kind of liberal learning kind of idea. Yeah. Which is a little bit of a veil over some fairly deep corruption, which led to its eventual fall. But that's just how empires go. Yeah.

So we're looking at about 500, 300 BC Greece, which I think I didn't check the exact timeline would also be about the time where our comedies was in theory building or in legend, sorry, building these mirror weapons like the one in mentioned at the start of this section and the Trebuchet as well. Yeah. That was to defend Syracuse against the Romans, which didn't work and certainly did apparently burn the fleet, but our comedies was killed by said Romans in said city. Oh, poor Archimedes. Poor Archimedes.

Lovely chap. Was he? I don't know. Bob's. Pretty smart. Pretty smart. We're giving that. Yeah.

Yes, we'll give Archimedes that. He was quite clever. Got a brain on him, any. Yeah, that's that. When you think of when one thinks of ancient Greece and this kind of enlightenment, it is that. That period. Yeah. But it is post-Persia wars, pre-Sparta wars.

Yeah. It's between it was philosophy and enlightenment, but still the belief in a specific pantheistic system. Yeah. Although that could have, it could be kind of bent here and there to fit the idea of kind of a universal energy as well. And it all got very metaphysical. Yeah. It was as the pantheistic belief in the ancient Greek gods was beginning to fade, but it was still kind of, it was a bit like this with the philosophers. They're like, yeah, we've got the gods, but we've also got the philosophy.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yes. Yes, exactly. He cut down my handwriting. Slaves as well, you mentioned. And yeah, that's another parallel between Greece and this place being slaves being treated.

Slaves were a lot better than one might imagine. Yeah. I'm not going to sit here and defend slavery. I'm trying to say this in a way that's not depending slavery. But the version of slavery that is slavery. The version of slavery in this is they get two weeks a year running away allowance and weekends off and they get fed. And then there's the line, Volbis says, oh, in Omnia, we have no slaves. And the tyrant says yes.

And I believe fish have no word for water. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the idea that in a fee, yes, they have slaves, but they're called them slaves and treat them quite well. Whereas in Omnia, they don't have slaves, but everyone is effectively enslaved to an incredibly cruel regime. Yeah, which is a decent point, actually. I can't pretend I've had enough time to sit down and think or read about this enough. But drawing the line between a slave, which is called a slave and an entire city full of people who are free, but will definitely be killed if they put a toe out of line.

So surely that's slavery. But if it's not called slavery and they're not technically property, then blah, blah, blah, blah, you know. Yeah. Where's the line? Where do we draw it? Everything's very murky. Isn't it? Talking of murky.

Sea after life. Oh, fuck, no, we did this already. Never mind. That would have been great segue if I'd mixed up my bullet points. We have already talked about it, but yes, the sea after life for the sailors is excellent. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't have any. Well, we don't go anywhere else.

Not yet. No, we're in the sea. Although Jelly Baby gets a reference. Does it? Oh, I missed that. Where was that? Yeah, one of the slaves runs away to Jelly Baby for a couple of weeks every year. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm glad the kingdom's doing well after all that nonsense. Yeah. Or before all that nonsense. I'm head-gannoning this takes place not that long afterward because Zeno is so non-plussed by brother and his tortoise and a little bit irked that I feel like he's dealt with Tepik already. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah. The Phoebes sort of getting on quite well, so I feel like they kind of sorted out all their problems after that war they nearly had. Sort it out. Oh, we're a delight. A delight. Oh, Francine, you card. Little bits.

We liked. What does the turtle stand on? I don't know. What does the turtle stand on? On another turtle, obviously. No, it doesn't stand on anything, you idiot. It's a turtle. It swims.

This is Om and brother discussing the Great Artuin. Yeah. But this is a reference to turtles all the way down theory. Yes. Which is an analogy that has been told about many different philosophers, but the idea is that the philosopher has some kind of lecture and afterwards an old lady comes up to him and says he's wrong and actually the world's on the back of a turtle. So the world turtle is quite an old belief.

And then he says what does the turtle stand on? She says another one. It's turtles all the way down. So the actual saying turtles all the way down appears as early as 1838, but it's rocks all the way down. The idea is that something is on something is on something is an older belief. And it's been used to illustrate problems such as the regress argument in epistemology. Good.

Epistemology. Good. She really checked how I say that before I start doing this. So the regress argument is the argument that any proposition requires a justification, but any justification itself requires support. And it's a problem in epistemology in any situation where a statement has to be justified. Okay. So the problem of turtles all the way down is, okay, well, so if you're justifying the

turtle by saying it's standing on another turtle, then you have to justify that turtle and then you have to justify that turtle and you end up with an infinite regression of turtles. Okay. An infinite regression of turtles. Yes. Got you. As long as we're clear.

Okay. So that is the theory of turtles all the way down. I just thought I'd talk about it because it's an entertaining reference. And speaking of turtles, we've also got a tortoise and the idea of morphology. Yes. Yes. The brain starts taking the shape of what it's in. Although his arm is a god because he is in the body of a tortoise.

He starts thinking like a tortoise and he explains that tortoises are cynics. Yes. It's never explained why tortoises are cynics, but... I think he says things happen at tortoises, doesn't he? Well, yeah. I mean, I suppose it's not an easy life being a tortoise. They do look quite cynical as well. Yeah.

Yeah. They've got those... Old from being babies onwards and... Baby tortoises are adorable. And calculated reptile eyes, obviously. Yes. Yeah. I like as well that he kind of mentioned it in context of cities.

So, if he sits on a hill facing the sea and the citadels, it's facing the desert. And it creates very different ways of thinking. Yeah. And also, brother's brain starts to change shape as he goes into a feb. Yes. He starts to think differently, put into a different environment. Yeah. Yeah.

Because he sort of... He assumes the shape of an aphebian brain over an omnian brain. Yes. So, yes. I like this idea of morphology that we'll come back to. Do we come back to that next week or in another book? In general books, it's another one of those thematic themes that comes back over again. The idea of...

Another thematic theme, you say? Yes. I was hoping we'd just skip over that. Why are you hoping that? Well, you probably should have done a podcast with somebody else, didn't you? Chain message, Francine. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Just a silly joke. The chain message. Talking about other cities that kind of got converted from news via the letters that put the minds of men in chains. Chain letters. Yes. So, the chain letter to the febians. Forget your gods be subjugated.

Learned fear. Do not break the chain. The last people who did woke up one morning to find 50,000 armed men on the lawn. Yes. Obviously a reference to chain letters. Also to Paul's letters to the... God, who did he fucking write to? I don't know.

One of the chapters of New Testament is St Paul's letters to... Which are letters of conversion. I've read it. Sorry, mate. I didn't even see the movie. One of my very, very favorite eddias are bits. And I will link to it in the show notes is him making fun of Paul's letters to... And I can't remember who they were letters to now.

And all of them sort of go, fuck said we'd write to him. Who signed us up for this exchange? Don't put gem on a magnet. Never put your granny in a bag. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yes, I mentioned this because listeners our age or younger might not realize that chain emails, which this brings to mind for most of us probably, were in fact predated

chain letters. So you would get letters saying, write this letter out 10 more times and send it to people or, you know, you'll be cursed. Your arms will fall off. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. Yeah. Now it's...

Share this Facebook post or... Oh, yeah, that's right. We've moved past emails now, haven't we? Yeah, we don't... But yeah, we had... Before we had Facebook posts that say if you don't share this, your arms will fall off. We had emails that said if you don't forward this to 10 people, your arms will fall off. And before that, we had actual physical letters that said if you don't send this letter to

people, your arms will fall off. Before that, we had mad people who ran up to you in the street and said, if you don't repeat this to everybody else, your arms will fall off. Yes, but that was a long time ago before the postal service. And we had send 10 carrier pigeons to where your arms will fall off. Yeah. Smoke signals. Carve this into 10 stone tablets so your arms will fall off.

Right. 10 separate uniform scrolls and leave them in obscure locations so your arms will fall off. So I've been reading about ancient Babylonian civilizations. Of course you have. That seems relevant. Oh, that wasn't for the podcast. That was because I listened to a episode of Your Dead to Me on it.

Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that was a silly joke that apparently also referenced the Bible, which I didn't catch. Well done, Joanna. Well done. You read the Bible. Once.

Did you read the Bible? All the way through, ever? No. No. I wonder how many people actually have. There are definitely people who have. I mean, my dad has, obviously. I mean, obviously, people who don't know my dad, my dad just reads everything.

My dad's read the Bible and the Koran and did the communist manifesto. I think he learned enough Greek to read the Odyssey in Greek or something. Obviously, the communist manifesto, yes. Oh, I miss your dad. He's great. My dad's stupid pandemic. Yeah. And then the other one is also just a silly little one as they are so named our silly little ones.

Little bits. Fuck me. Little bits we liked. Oof. Francine. Yeah. Just. Oh, my God.

Which with the punctuation. Oh, full stop. My God comma is instead of an exclamation of surprise or horror is going. Oh, I forgot my God somewhere. What's happened to the best of us? I just thought that was a lovely clever little punctuation cadence joke. I did enjoy that. I love a silly, placed full stop.

Yes. A silly, placed full stop indeed. Silly is a word. I'm embracing it. Sure. Sure. That's one of the biggest stuff. Yeah.

And before I dive into religion, I want to talk about foreshadowing and general very clever writing techniques that Pratchett does. Oh, go on. Yes. Also, this is all of the books are an omniscient third person narrator. Yeah. But generally so much from one person's point of view that you often forget for quite huge chunks that the narrator is omniscient.

Yes. And then there'll be little moments that remind you. And one of the moments that I really loved in this is when brother first goes to the library, it says the library of a fee was great until it burnt down, which in itself, I'm obviously referenced to the burning of the library of Alexandria. Yes. But we won't go into that. Oh, by the way, there's another library.

I think this one might be based on, which was, oh, it might have been Aristotle again. Fuck me. One of these lots. Fucking Aristotle. God damn it, Pratchett. I think it was Aristotle who had a library that apparently inspired the library of Alexandria. Oh, marvelous. It was one of the first people to kind of organize it in a certain way.

Yeah. Anyway, Karen. Yeah. So there's just little foreshadowing moments like that. It says at the beginning of that section until it burned down. And you read it and you sort of think, especially reading it for the first time, I think you think, oh, it's like a library of Alexandria reference. So at some point this library burns down.

And then it happens by the end of 100 pages later. You're like, oh, you just told me that and I didn't even realize you told me that. Yeah. And the other things he sort of builds cleverly, this whole invasion of a fee, the only reference to the approaching army is, brother, not being sure about the camels in the desert earlier. Yes. And it's such a quick moment. You sort of don't really think about it.

And then you come to it here and the actual action of the coup happens off screen, as it were, off page. Yeah. Brother goes to the gate. Brother takes Vaubus to the gate. Vaubus kills a watchman. The gate's open. You find out the conversation followed by muffled silence.

Lovely little sentence there. Yeah. You're told an army can cross the desert and then Vaubus is in charge of a fee. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. So again, it's just really, really clever writing. You don't need to see the action of what happened when the army ransacked the city.

No. Yeah. That would have been tedious, possibly. It would have probably not have written by Pratchett, but less interesting than what he did have to say. Yeah. Because the point of the book is not the sack of a fee. Yeah.

That's one catalyst to a greater ending. So that in a different book where that was the point, the story that was being told is how this city was ransacked, then yes, that would have been described in detail because that would be the big climax moment. Yeah. But it's not here. So there's no need for the action to be on the page. Yeah.

Something that most fancy writers do not subscribe to. Yes. But my practice books are all small enough to hold in one hand, which we appreciate. Yes. Thanks, Pratchett. And also the slow build of Simini's kind of mania. Oh, the slow build of Simini is a fantastic sentence. Yeah.

The way he's like immediately deifying didactylos. And that. Oh, look at this alliteration, Joanna. You're all over it today. I am so poetic. Absolutely. And the way he wants for this to be made an example of. Yeah.

He doesn't just want things to be better. He wants to win. Yes. Yes. The zealot side of him again. Yeah. And the way it's not. We can all relate, I think, and hate that part of ourselves and try and stamp it down.

What do we realize it's there? Yes. We can all absolutely get too zealous about things. I mean, admittedly, these days, I miss you. But people seasoning their food properly. Salt's not going to kill you. All right. Also it might also stop diets.

Well, okay. Okay. I'm not going to argue with you about salt today, Joanna. I don't know how to argue about salt. I put plenty of salt in my food. I was just wondering what I could be a zealot about today. Okay. Sure.

I would like to be a zealot about, see, now I'm hungry and I can't think of anything apart from food. Well, we can be zealots about the diet industry then. Okay. Yeah. I have been listening to what you may call it this morning. Oh, Michael Hobbs podcast. Yeah.

The maintenance phase. Yeah. Have you listened to any of this? Yeah. I've listened to a couple of episodes. It's really good. Anyway. Yeah.

The clever, just obviously the writing is always really good. That's why we love him. Yeah. But the foreshadowing moments and the slow build of stuff is something I really noticed in this section. I thought it was all incredibly cleverly done. Yeah. Yeah.

Especially as he manages to build it up so quickly, as he said, it's like within 100 pages, the action has happened. It's a short book and he manages to fit so many bits of, yeah. Still moments that take you by surprise and then make you think back and go, ah. Yeah. And as you say, it never really feels jarring when he switches from being the omniscient narrator, but from brother's perspective to the then overarching one. Yeah.

He does it very smoothly, doesn't he? I think he does. Obviously we don't have chapters, but we have these kind of line break moments between scenes and it tends to have, he tends to have the omniscient moments at the beginning of scenes. It's almost like a wide perspective before you zoom into brother. You've got me thinking of things in fucking TV terms now. All I do is watch TV right now.

Again, I was re-editing the very first episode and there's a bit there where you talk about how something panned and went from shot to shot and I was like, what are you talking about? It's a book and now here we are. I've converted you. Speaking of converting, as we've already talked about great parallels, shall we talk about faith and belief? Yeah.

All right. I guess. Sure. That doesn't seem fraught. What thoughts do you have on faith this week, Joanna? It's Joanna's faith corner. Oh, no, that sounds terrible. Yeah.

That sounds like I'm becoming some kind of weird zealot preacher. We've agreed we're not a cult. Not a cult. I mean, a lot of what I had to say about gods and believing in them, we sort of covered earlier talking about the philosophers. I like this idea. There's no point believing in them because obviously they're there. Yes.

I think it was a throwaway line in which the broadened has become an entire huge thematic section of this book. But I do like the idea of the sort of relics of an outdated belief system and the philosophers have chosen to ignore them because they want to learn about bigger things than the gods. Yes. Unfortunately, being on the disk, you can't ignore them entirely. But the idea of the origins of truth and beauty, they're not interested in creationism. The world is here fine, but how here is the world?

Yes. Yeah. That's learned about now and what is to come, not how we got there. What must have happened in the past? Yes. But the stuff about the power of belief that I really loved in this section, the scroll The scroll brother takes from the library and on breeds with him from old charcoal or Braxess challenges, not challenges, suggests this thing that is what has happened to one,

which is you start with a God and people believing in the God, a shell of worship forms around them. Yeah. And eventually that shell of worship and ritual becomes so solid that belief cannot penetrate through to the actual God. Yes. And I like that he immediately followed it up with an example of Om going, going then kill Vorbis.

Yeah. I loved that moment is that I absolutely and brother absolutely believes in Om and believes that Om is his God, but he still can't challenge the status quo of the shell of belief around him in this case referenced by it for this. I mentioned here was the lost city of E, which I believe we've mentioned in a previous episode as something we wanted to know more about and now we know something a little more about it. Yes.

This happened in the lost city of E. Yeah. And maybe partly why it's it's come up in a couple of books and I think we went with it is meant to be like an Atlantis type thing. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

I, I also like that as a concept. I like it as a concept because it's something you see with organized religion, you know, you'll lose what the central tenets are because it becomes about the religion, not about like using Christianity as the example, because obviously it's the one I know the most about and sort of yes, sounding Peter's email last week. His point was he got so stuck in it. He believed literally everything and worshiped in a certain way and eventually went more hang on.

I still believe that there's a loving God and we should all treat each other nicely, but I really don't agree with anything else if I can say it because yeah, that's, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. The, um, oh, there's a very good podcast about the Heaven's Gate cult that is presented by a chap who grew up in another Christian cult and he said that part of the undoing of the cult he grew up in was that they made the children memorize the Bible basically

the huge passages of Bible in the way only children really can. It's very hard to do the same kind of thing as an adult and therefore when the adults would say something like, do this, the Bible says so, the children be like, well, no, it doesn't. Actually, what it says is. Yeah. I think you'll find blah, blah, blah, and so yeah, I think probably something similar is going on here and that brother knows what it says and is like, well, this to warm and

I'm like, Oh, no, no, I didn't mean that. Sorry. Yeah. So this is, this goes into the idea that we were talking about this sort of meta truth. Hmm. And I think as well as that being a fascinating thing when it comes to for this and teaching brother the shell of it because he's almost come far enough through religion to be allowed to know.

And as I said, his particular sick curiosity of how far he can push brother. Yeah. But if you compare it to the philosophers need to not know anything. Yeah. It's like the thing I talked about that's come up in a couple of these books and the one that comes back to me is always equal rights where the wizards now know that they don't know anything about the universe having been to one of Simon's lectures and they feel very superior about it because they're aware of just how much they don't know.

My ignorance is better than your ignorance. Exactly. And here you have for this idea of there being this absolute meta truth compared to the philosophers whose entire aim is to unravel everything they think they know. Yeah. In fact, if I can just pop my coffee down and find the relevant thing I'm referencing, which I should have done already, but I am disorganized. It does say that.

This is brother is frustrated with the aphibians. This is fairly on and him being there and meeting the philosophers is going to the it's him talking to didactylos. He knew why when Vaubus spoke about aphib, his face was grey with hatred. If there was no truth, what was there left? And these bumbling old men spent their times kicking away the pillars of the world and they had nothing to replace them with but uncertainty and they were proud of this. They seek ignorance.

Yes. And it's too hugely... Oh, sorry, okay. I was just saying it's two hugely different ways of looking at the world and eventually brother sort of finds something of a comfortable medium, I'd say. Yeah, I mean, it's what evolved into what we now know as the scientific method, isn't it? One must always try and prove oneself wrong and try and find the ignorance.

And it's also a bit like what we talked about with the dark side of the sun and black holes. You find them by finding the absence around them. Oh, very nice. Yeah. You approach truth by finding a lack of knowledge. Oh, that's very profound. Very good. You're on it today, Joanna.

Yeah. You're alliterating, you're making astronomy references. I know what I'm about. How are you doing for socks? I am wearing two of them. Goddamn. We are good. Polka dot socks and stripes and things from the intentionally mismatched socks I got

for Christmas from my sister because that's a tradition. Pretty. Yes. I'm wearing white trainer socks, which are socks. Excellent. There is that to be said for them. They are a layer of floss between my feet and the floor. Last question you had, Francine.

You wanted to know which scrolls and books we'd save. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So there was this whole argument between Erne and Didette Kloss about, are we going to take the practical engineering books or are we going to take the high-minded philosophy books, which are most useful? And Joanna, what would you say? Speaking as a high-minded philosopher, let's take the practical engineering books.

Very good. I'm not being funny, but wonky thoughts can be had over and over again. If there's anything you learn from studying philosophy, it's that everyone eventually comes to very similar conclusions by thinking a lot and occasionally eating some funny mushrooms. Totally agree. I put quite a lot of time into thinking what books and information I would want to print out, steal, hoard, in the case of an apocalypse. And indeed, yes, it is things like, what plants can I eat?

How do I build a generator? Not less about, yeah, the stoic thoughts on what I should eat. Stoic thoughts on these. The important thing is, you don't get overly emotional about this mushroom. I think some of that is because you and I are, as much as I like discussing all the wonky philosophy contents at heart, we're both quite survivor-type people, which I think is to do with the lives we've had to leave. We've always sort of...

It makes us sound a bit more protagonist than we are, but yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we've never actually been in giant amounts of physical hardship or financial hardship, but we have had to live lives where we have to work to keep our heads above water and that means... Yeah, with MacGyver solutions. Exactly. And that means the insane apocalyptic scenario where we're deciding what information we

want to save. Our focus would be survival, where someone who is used to surviving as a matter of course might be more focused on the high-minded thoughts of the Stoics on mushrooms. High-minded thoughts of the Stoics on mushrooms is the title of my new indie album, which will be a dropping-dware. What you should drop is today, it's Bank Camp Friday. It's what? Bank Camp Friday.

What's that? Bank Camp do a thing. I think it's like the first Friday of every month where they waive their fees so artists get more if you buy stuff from Bank Camp on the first Friday of every month. Oh, cute. Well, I've got like a few hours to write this album I just made up then. Okay. Drop me a text if you want to hand.

Sure. I've got nothing else on. You're also can't compose music, Joanna. Minor detail. I know what chords are. We're both lyricists, neither of us can play an instrument. Oh, no, I'd like. You can play.

You can lately. Okay. I've sort of been playing with piano chords on GarageBand for shits and grins. Ah, cool. Anyway. Anyway. Do you have an obscure reference for me? I do.

I do. I do. Which we've touched upon already and which is mathematical, I'm afraid. As you were talking about Vaubus and desert crossing, Terry Pratchett's Small Gods turns up on a mathematical Wikipedia page because of this very thing. Have you heard of the Jeep problem before? No, I haven't. Also known as travellers cross the desert problem, which is possibly a bit more relevant

for this, but it's more often called the Jeep problem now. It's basically working out how far you can get a Jeep across a desert without running out of fuel with a given quantity. And so the Jeep can only carry a fixed and limited amount of fuel, but it can leave fuel and collect fuel at fuel dumps anywhere across the desert. And it's been in various forms posited since the 9th century, apparently. Also known as the camel and bananas problem, which I rather like. I do.

That's the name of my indie album, dropping later today in Bangkok. The solution is much the same as Vaubus comes up with here. I'm not going to read out all the ends and the brackets and the things I will link in the note, but it is going a fraction of the way leaving a thing going back. In the mathematical problem, one generally attempts not to kill half the people you've got in your group. Vaubus obviously has a slight advantage over our hypothetical not a twat problem solver. Yes, by being a twat of Vaubus does it now. By being a twat, yes.

Vaubus is a twat. Hot takes this week on the true Shamankee threat. I'm not quite sure if that falls under obscure reference, which I say for a good 70% of these. So that's good. Yeah. But it was obscure equations. I was trying to do was find out if it had a root and historical event. Again, I feel like I might be taking some of my vague history from having read Terry Pratt a long time ago.

I had it in my head that this had happened at some point and I can't find it if it did. So again, readers out the draw postcard, you know the drill. Yeah. But I do like a maths problem. That's a nice sort of obscure reference. Phineal for us. I remember maths for a while. I'll send you a coherent version of the mass problem and see if you can solve it for us in this solution.

Oh, cool. I think was that sincere? You've gone a bit, my internet's still a bit unstable. You've got a little bit blurry. I can't tell from the tone of your voice if you're really angry with me. I don't know anymore. No, I haven't done maths for a while apart from trying to. You're the one I ask when I have maths issues.

I was like, when I have women's issues, you know, I come to. What was the thing I said the other day that confused? Oh, yeah. The radius is the repeated variable in those equations or something. Oh, yeah. God. It was a crossword, Clay. Yeah.

No, I just, yeah, I blank out. Sorry. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway. We've wildly tangented. I think it's probably time to wrap this up. Which is the mathematical term.

Puns. I don't know what it means in maths. Yeah. I would explain tangents, but I don't want to. So, thank you for listening to this episode of The Two Shall Make You Frat. We will be back next Monday to talk about the thrilling conclusion of small gods. Yes. Thrilling.

Thrilling is the word thrilling enough. No. Well, it always sounds a little bit sarcastic. Everything I say. It sounds a little bit sarcastic, Francine. I lost sincerity when I was about 17 years old. Yeah. But especially when you use a fusive adjectives.

Oh, a fusive. I like that. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. God. Do you know what? I think we've said anyway more in this episode than we have in any other.

I'm not going to count that, obviously, but... If a listener wants to count, let us know. Don't. Make us a cross. No, I'm telling you right now. Don't do that. Please don't count our word rep. Quick plug before we go.

We've dropped a few hints around this, but we can definitely say now that we are taking part in Lamedos on the Klax. This is an online Discworld convention taking place from the 5th to the 7th of March. On the Sunday, the 7th, we will be taking part in a panel on Discworld podcasting. There is loads of other... There's going to be loads of other fun stuff happening over the weekend. Anna Ranovic is doing a panel. The guy wrote Rivers of London, which if you haven't read, go read that because you'll

love it. Yeah. Big project fan is Anna Ranovic. Also a big project fan. Stephen Briggs is coming on to talk about adapting Discworld. The guy's from Baxmindle Games. He made the Discworld board games going to be there. It's only 20 quid and the profits all go to charity.

You can go to at Lamedos camp on Twitter or we will link to the website in our show notes today to get tickets, but please come along and watch us and support us. Yeah. And come to the panel and ask us intelligent questions, please, because we've never done a panel before. We might give intelligent answers. You never know. Bollocks, will we?

Anyway, until next time, dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram, the true shall make ye fret on Twitter at Minky Fret pod. You can find us on Facebook at the true shall make ye fret. You can join our subreddit r slash ttsmyf. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, albatrosses and snacks. The truth shall make ye fret pod at gmail.com. Please don't forget to rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts because it helps other people find us.

Tell other people about us. Add to the F. If you could drop us a review on Facebook, that would be good. I just looked at the page for the first time in ages the other day and we've got like two reviews on there and one of them hated us. So I think we've got a three star average. Yeah. Please review us on Facebook.

Jack it up, guys. Wait. Make us sound good. And in the meantime, dear listener, don't let us detain you. Oh, my internet connection is unstable. It has come up with saying, well, let's mute.