The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 58: Interesting Times Pt. 2 (I Was Going To But Then I Didn't)

Episode Date: July 21, 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 “Interesting Times”. Peacocks! Politics! The People!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Some additional information on "orient". - RedditBON MOT | meaning in the Cambridge English DictionarySama, san, kun, chan: the many Japanese honorificsBanknote - WikipediaNinjas in popular culture - Wikipedia10. The Han Dynasty - The First Empire in Flames - YouTube (Also available as audio podcast)Samizdat Is Russia' Underground Press - The New York TimesNightingale floor - WikipediaMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Oh, Buffy mug's back. Terrifying stare of Sarah Michelle Geller here to get me through this. So it is now, it is now Monday. So apologies, listeners, it should be already enjoying this episode that hasn't yet been recorded, thus placing us all in a terrible, terrible time paradox. This is we're going to rip a hole in the nature of causality again, Francie. I know this is what happens if I let my schedule get slightly off kilter, completely existential low. It's very hot right now. So we are generally in existential low.

Oh, yeah. Do you think like tearing a hole in the nature of causality might let a bit of a breeze through? At this point, I'm very willing to try it. It is very warm. I like it fine when I don't have anything to do. That's just never the case now. I'm moaning about it. I do genuinely like Sunday. It was lovely because yes, it was really warm, but I got to go and spend the afternoon in a nice little countryside by a river.

And Friday was very nice because you did everything for me. Thank you, Dorena. You are very welcome. I had a lovely time. And to be fair, I didn't really do a lot. I did a cake and some pastries. Cake pastries, like decorate the balcony, had people round on a very hot day. Yeah, all right. I hosted.

You hosted. I hosted my birthday. I'm 30 now. Don't you know you are 30. No, you're redacted this redacted. Yes, the birthday banner said happy redacted birthday. So I hadn't been going on about it to literally all of our listeners for several weeks now. They were never known. You also also on Twitter.

You did also get the gift of the mental image of me trying to blow balloons up with a numb face. I did. And I will treasure that always. I very nearly recorded myself attempting to blow balloons up. I had dental work that morning. Yeah, I was trying to think of a funnier way. You might have got a numb face, but they're good. Lower quarter of my face was numb and I was still attempting to blow balloons up by just holding that side of my mouth shut.

It didn't work. And yet they were blown up. Luckily, yeah, I did that about five minutes before we turned up because that was around the time the numbing fully wore off. And that was nice. It was nice to that felt very normal, almost a few of us just hanging out. Drinking coffee and talking and of course, it's now also Freedom Day in the UK as covid cases skyrocket most some reason.

I feel they need to wait for an American flag knowing it's Freedom Day. It's Freedom Day and our health secretary has just tested positive for covid and now the Prime Minister is isolating. Yes, after one of the quickest U-turns, he's ever done which is saying something because he said he wasn't going to, didn't he? Yeah, he said he happened to have been selected for a pilot test game that he meant he didn't have to isolate just after he got pinged the day before Freedom Day. Oh, no, dear, it's too hot for me to react angrily to anything.

So I just find it funny. That's nice. Should we make a podcast? Yeah, I think we I think we'd better. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make You Fry to podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one of the timing chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. I'm Francine Carroll.

And this is part two of our discussion of Interesting Times. Oh, I still didn't break you. You're so much better at this now. The trick is to not look at you. Oh, that's usually the trick, that's fair. Yeah, second part of Interesting Times. We are getting through it. The Times are getting more interesting.

The Times are getting more interesting. Apologies, we may have also said this in the soft open, but if we're slightly foggy today, it's because we live in England and it's very hot. It's very hot. It's very hot. Very hot. We live in a very damp part of England. So the humidity is. Insane. Insane.

Yes, that's right. Oh, dearie me. So where do we usually go? Yeah, we discussed that. Oh, yes, Nathan, spoilers. This is a spoiler like podcast. Obviously, spoilers for the book. We're on Interesting Times.

But we will avoid spoiling any major feature events in the Discworld series and we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. A journey that will start by letting a 5,000 firecrackers outside of a wall. Exactly.

Where it goes next, nobody knows. Well, probably to the other side of the wall. Yeah, well, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. Although not in this case, actually. For some of us down. They went down, didn't they? They did go down. Yeah, yeah.

Anyway, anyway. I don't think we've got anything to follow up on. Thank you to everyone who sent Francine Lovely Bath Day wishes. Yes, thank you. I felt very loved. I did have a lovely day. It was very good.

And I'm now feeling a lot better about being 30 because as usual, the suspense of something is always worse and worse than the reality. Well, it's not always worse. That kind of shows up what a charmed life I've had so far. Yeah, I got I was given some quite interesting follow up on the word Oriental and the etymology thereof. But it is quite a long thing to try and summarise.

So I'm going to link to the Reddit thread. And the word Oriental, sorry, rather than Oriental, because we haven't touched on the problematic bits in it. It's just the Roman Empire side of things and all that's quite cool. All roads lead to orientation. Probably if you match the right way up. Do you do orientation and brownies?

Did you go to brownies? I didn't do brownies. I didn't do any all girls scouts or any of the. Organisations, shame, I can see you with a little session of badges. Brownies for international listeners is what the girl guides. It's girl guides for the younger lot. Yeah, so we have like what is it? Rainbows, brownies, girl guides or guides now.

And then we have cubs. Some things, scouts or whatever it is. But scouts is like is like Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts, except it can be both genders now. Yeah, all genders now because I went to Scouts when I got pulled of Girl Guides. Yeah, because, yeah. So brownies is the younger kids one

and you have a sash full of badges and you do things like crochet. And and or in tearing. That's what we were. Yeah, there we go. So I didn't do brownies, but I did Duke of Edinburgh award when I was 10, I guess. So that was very responsible for a teenage joiner.

I only did the bronze award. So Duke of Edinburgh, again, for international listeners, is an award scheme in the UK. So bronze, for example, which is the lowest tier, which is the one I did. You have to do three months of volunteering. You have to do three months of like a sports thing. School PE doesn't count.

And there was something else he had to do. And then there was an expedition where you would you be in a group. You would be told you're starting here and the campsite is here. And then the pickup point the next day is here. The campsite is one campsite. Every group ends up at right and you have to plan your route and then take the map with you and do it. You have like adult supervision for a lot of the way.

Everyone would end up doing similar routes, but there would be rules that you couldn't have a mobile phone. You'd have like some emergency rations and you'd only get the award if they were still taped up at the end. Wow. You'd have to carry all your own camping equipment and cooking equipment and things. And what was the point of it all?

Was it good on uni applications or? Yeah, pretty much you get like a certificate at the end. And then there's like a silver and gold version, like the gold one is like a weeks long exhibition, normally in Wales or something where there's some mountains. Oh, Wales, eh? Oh, I see that, yeah. Well, we live in a very flat area,

so expeditions aren't really that challenging. You just spent a few hours walking through a forest. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did orientering in Jersey. I think I did it, which was a bit. But I was much younger, so we had heavy adult supervision the whole time. But yeah.

Anyway, what the hell was that to do with that? Oh, orient, right, yeah, yeah. Orientering. Anyway, that was my only follow up. Sorry. Would you like to tell us what happened previously on Interesting Times? Certainly.

Previously on Interesting Times. Winnegade withered wind, Vince Wind is dragged from his island paradise back to Anke Moorpork and after a very short stop onwards to the Count Waite continent, where expert in everything Lord Hong has requested a visit from a great wizard.

Two zeds. He arrives without a bang, frees old friend Kohen from a group of soldiers. Soldiers. Soldiers. Oh, God, Matt Berry, soldiers. Meets the rest of the silver horde and sides he wants nothing to do

with their planned hung-hung heist. Having heard talk of rebellion, Vince Wind settles down to a dangerous book whose narrator seems awfully familiar. Da-da-da. Da-da-da. Right. And then I forgot to add, he's then taken away again.

Yeah. By someone who speaks Moporkian. Ooh, mystery. Ooh. In part two of interesting times then. The silver horde wakes and Kohen experiences a moment of doubt as they look at the wall around the Forbidden City

at the center of hung-hung. Vince Wind awakes to find himself in a cart with one of the actors from the Chaven and the luggage remains lost, though its type is a bit more common around here. Teich speculates about Chekhov's natural formation before investigating the city water supply. Vince Wind finds himself in hung-hung

with a cadre of the Red Army who expecting the prophesied Great Wizard. His captor, Pretty Butterfly, tells him of the stories of the original Great Wizard bringing an army from the earth and shares her belief that this was really a peasant uprising. Vince Wind, once again, runs away. Running through the streets of hung-hung,

he meets Dibala-san before getting knocked out again. The silver horde venture into the city and Kohen purchases an apple as Teich tries to civilize them. They take a walk around the Forbidden City before Teich acquires them some slightly more subtle outfits. Vince Wind finds himself tied to a pillar back in the clutches of the Red Army.

They wanted to head to the Forbidden City to rescue the captured three-yoked oxen. This is a person, not an ox. Awesome. Definitely not three oxes. The master of protocol takes some time in the palace gardens to silently doubt the emperor and overhears the horde's satifuge

as they sneak into the Forbidden City. After a quick revolutionary song, Vince Wind heads to the city within the city with the Red Army in tow, manages to point at the wall as it miraculously explodes a bit. Guards drag him away from the rest of the Red Army soldiers. An assassin makes it to Lord Hong's chambers and meets his untimely end

on the edge of a freshly forged sword as a messenger claims to have the Red Army captive. Hong watches on as Vince Wind meets the emperor and is sent to the dungeons while Hong himself continues to plot. Vince Wind finds himself in an adjoining cell to his old friend Tufla as the horde adopt a tax collector

to guide them around the Forbidden City. The emperor wakes and Vince Wind finds himself in an unlocked cell surrounded by unconscious guards. The rest of the cadre find themselves freed and Vince Wind discovers that the revolutionary's Lotus Blossom and Pretty Butterfly are in fact Tufla's daughters. While the rest of the cadre believe

that Vince Wind's powers have set them free, Pretty Butterfly remains doubtful even as she wants to storm the city. Six beneficent winds, the tax collector, introduces the horde to the resident ninjas. A Savaloyan winds watch, the hordes take the ninjas out and teacher reminisces on his inclusion into the horde and the idea he gave them.

Vince Wind tries to convince the Red Army of the futility of rebellion as they find themselves presented with swords and a handy map to the emperor's chambers. He convinces the rest of the cadre to stay behind and heads with Butterfly to the emperor's chambers only to find him already assassinated. The horde take a bath, adopt one big river

and arrive in the throne room to officially steal their target, the empire. Sorry. But I didn't say it's dramatic enough. Perfect, thank you. Helicopter and loincloth watch. Oh wait, no, I didn't want to interrupt you at the time but I really love the idea of taking some time

to quietly doubt the emperor as a leisure activity. Yes, that's what I like to do in my free time, just doubt emperors. Yes, anyway, sorry, any loincloth, any helicopters? Loancloths obviously strongly implied, especially with the presence of the silver horde. I didn't particularly name one thing as a helicopter. I feel like it would have been a bit of stretch

in this section. Yeah, the only bit I thought you could maybe say was that Rincewind said he'd looked at some sketches in Leonard of Querm's books. Oh yeah, there we go, there's your helicopter. Rincewind probably saw one. Yeah, there we go. It's very hot, I was only so far, I can push a bit.

Oh no, you're good, yep. We found your limit finally, 58 episodes in. It'd be 58 episodes to a bit. And it's at 29 degrees at 98 cents, you betcha. That is where I can't find a helicopter. Well, goodness me. Helicopters in this humidity. Right.

Quotes, I believe I'm first. Fountains tinkled in the courts of the Sun Emperor. Peacocks made their call, which sounds like a sound made by something that shouldn't look as beautiful as that. Ornamental trees cast their shade as only they knew how. Ornamentally. Beautiful. There was a lovely bit of description

and also peacock noises are hilarious. They are, yeah, listeners, if you don't have the pleasure, if you haven't had the pleasure of listening to peacocks scream, then do you go on YouTube? Like a very colourful goose. My... It's all rage. Yes, yeah, absolutely.

My husband's aunt and uncle have a few peacocks living in their grounds and in their grounds like this. In their grounds. In the grounds of a thing quite near them and they come and roost in their tree. But, yeah, they are terrifying. The worst I've ever heard actually was in Bodrum in Turkey. There's an old castle there, whose name I've forgotten.

But there are peacocks everywhere and they're constantly screaming. It's amazing. Warwick Castle, which is quite a fun place to go if you're in the UK. Big Beach Road, historical castle. And there's lots of fun stuff. But they just have peacocks everywhere, like lying in the queue to the fast food places.

I guess it was just a castle thing, and still is just a castle thing. Yeah, but just you can't go anywhere without A, the sound of angry. But I don't think they are angry. They just always sound angry. They just will haunt your entire trip. Also, you will actually trip over a peacock at some point. And if you try it as a picnic, it will try and steal your food.

Oh, gosh, goodness me. Not quite as terrifying as swans. Seagulls. Yeah. So I have a quote also, which is on page 202 of our Corgi paperback editions. Oh, we never said what to where we're doing. I think I said last week.

Oh, yeah, but this is this week. We are going up to page 224. No, yeah, this section goes up to page 224 and ends with the line, have summoned all those buggers who think they know what the emperor looks like. Yeah, started on 113. Yeah, OK. Sorry, yes, anyway.

And then on to zero two, we've got. Cohen came into people's lives like a rogue planet into a peaceful solar system and you felt yourself being dragged along simply because nothing like that would ever happen to you again. Sticking on my vague theme of quotes of, of course, I did it. That's the interesting thing to do. Yes, started in Starter or Dark Side of the Moon or something like that. I I enjoyed having he is still one of my favorite characters

because of that, because he's not just described. It's very kind of I know show don't tell is a bit of a hacky role and writing is more complicated than that. But Cohen isn't is described as charismatic, but he also is charismatic on the page. Yeah, the start with this podcast, the episode I said you'd enjoy. I know you wouldn't have gone to it yet because you got backlog, but the woman they were interviewing on that was talking about show.

Don't tell and from the way she was saying it, it's very much meant to be like a screenwriting role, which makes a lot more sense. Yeah, obviously massive, like chunks of exposition for no reason in the middle of screenwriting doesn't make sense. And she was saying she was having a hard time of occasionally telling, not showing during. Narrative. Yeah, she was learning to.

Narrative. Yeah, she was learning to write prose. It's one of those things that's been simplified down to three words when it's a much more interesting bit of advice than that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's as as with all writing advice, it is something to consider as we're writing, like, would this be more interesting, flow better, whatever, if I showed, showed, didn't tell, told, didn't show, whatever. Yeah, it is. Yeah, one of those, especially in a medium

like screenwriting, where you have the ability to show quite a lot Yeah, that's all that pitch is worth a thousand words. Well, it's right. Anyway, enough of cliché, Bon Mott's. OK, Bon Mott, what does that mean? It's I feel like it's short for like a sort of a good motto type thing. They're just witty little sayings, aren't they? Oh, I don't think I've ever heard anywhere. I've read that before. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase.

I love it. I'm going to have to look it up when we're on a break. Return with a definition. Should we talk about characters in the meantime? Yeah, all right. Cool. He's fast. Let's talk about pretty butterfly. OK, what a name. I do. It's silly, but I like the cliché of very, very pretty name. Absolutely will fuck you up. Yeah, yeah, for sure as a character.

And I like the cynicism. In a section that has Prince Win, she was incredibly cynical about revolution. And I'll talk more about that later to have her brand of cynicism, which is very passionately believes in the revolution. It's very cynical about everything that might get them there. Yeah, for sure. She's.

She's got that kind of cynicism you get when you end up in charge of a bunch of. Yeah, earnest people. I was like, I still believe in it, but I'm now seeing that this is a little fraught. We may have to temp us and expectations. Yeah, I like a character that threatens someone with a knife a lot. Yeah, and she did the nice little reveal of why everyone was so young and that and I thought that was done quite well of basically because their parents got killed in this tyrannogority.

Yeah, it's I forgot how dark this part of the book is. In fact, I generally forget I feel bad calling this book forgettable. It's not forgettable to still a good book, obviously. But it's not one I've reread a lot. And I think I always forget a lot of details, including the fact that it's quite a dark story. I think when I do think of it, I mostly remember the coming stuff, which is comparatively quite light hearted. Yeah, for sure.

I think when I when I think of it, I usually think of the last section. Yeah. And yeah, the climactic bits. And there's a lot of fun imagery. But yeah, speaking of obviously the revolutionaries, as well as Prisprasfly, we've got Two Fire Herb and Lotus Blossom. So Two Fire Herb, we did be in the first section and he is the the plant from Luang Pong. He's quite dark.

And he has this horrible, it's very horrible to watch knowing that he's the plants and knowing the others don't because he is I think we've all kind of met this dickhead who is very insistent that the revolution must be his way and you can tell things be just as bad. Yeah, and it's interesting because you could have that character very much and not have him be a plant. Yeah, and having just ruined everything even without being the plant. But yeah, and then that extra bit of double the bed.

And then to put him against Lotus Blossom, who is very young and very sweet and very, very much about the revolution. With a hint of is Lotus Blossom potato me? I thought Butterfly was more potato me. I thought Lotus Blossom. I don't remember. I thought it was Lotus Blossom because I remember thinking how young she meant to be.

I'm not quite on board with this. But anyway, it doesn't matter. But either way, either way, I think they're both meant to be very pretty. They are meant to be fighting. Well, you know, Sean Aston's quite handsome if we're still picturing him as too far. No, we're not. I can't help but I don't think I ever did.

I can't help but do it slightly, having watched it. But do you now see some of what I was talking about where Two Flower was written as a stereotypical Asian tourist because he would then do this whole China Chinese allegory thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know if casting Two Flower as agent in the sky version would have been better or not. No, I don't think we came to a conclusion then.

And I don't think we're going to now. No, I feel like trying to come to conclusions on anything is quite difficult. Small aside character, Dibala-san. Yay. I like the line where obviously Rincewin recognized him as basically being Dibla. And I like the sort of acknowledgement of

there's only so many people in the world. There's lots of people, but there's only about 30 personalities, which is a nice sort of pratshit. Not even calling himself out. Obviously, he throws these different versions of Dibla around and it's always really funny when you find them. Yeah. But his way of nodding to it.

It's like a way of his wallet page. Yeah. His way of nodding to it that he keeps reusing his stuck characters across these different locations. And Dibala is a particularly useful character, isn't he? Everywhere he's popped up, as we'll find out. His hand being.

Yes. But yeah, I like that he's he's this similar kind of mix of not exactly a good guy, but definitely not a bad guy. Like he's on the right side of history here, but you know, largely for profit. Ethically dubious. Yes.

Disembowel me self-honorably. There are some things that A. San is not honorific. There's quite a few things here that are very much more we've matched some Japanese culture and Yes. to the China Library. My obscure references Japanese in fact.

Yeah, but specifically with Dibla, you've got the honorific San. Yes. Which is one of the most common Japanese. I looked it up because obviously I've heard it as honorific, but I'd never really looked at what it meant. But it's the most common one. It's used between equals.

It's not like a symbol of respect or authority or anything like that. OK. It's also but it's also used for things like conversing nouns into proper nouns and like workplace nouns and things. So you'd have like a bookshop San would be a bookseller. Oh, OK, sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, it's sort of equivalent to Mr or Mrs. And you'll sometimes use it when you're like talking about animals or cooking and it'd be like a childish thing like saying. So kind of San would be like saying Mr. Fishy. Oh, sure. OK. Which is quite like in Turkey. It's a Bay is the. So yeah.

Personalizes not personalizes. What's the anthropomorphizes? Yeah, yes. Yeah, there you go. There we go. Personalizes. He also gets he also uses the phrase Shogun. We're talking to Rince Wind, which is another Japanese term.

Yeah, I didn't like that. What's I mean? So it used to be a title for military dictators. So it's used fairly accurately here in the way it's used in the Japanese language. Now it's a colloquial thing. It's been like calling someone boss. OK. Or like a boss man.

Got it. So, yeah, that's a fairly. I think that more of a British thing, I'd say, than a US thing. I'm like sort of casually come on to calling someone boss, especially when you're selling something in America. Chief, I'd say. Yeah, yeah. Exactly the same thing.

And then obviously the disembowel myself, I'm assuming it's meant to be a bit of a obviously, because it's cut me in throat in Angkor Port, but I'm assuming it's meant to be a subcube reference. Yeah. Or subcube. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Or if I'm saying any of these, right? So apologies, listeners, if I bugged all of that up.

Anyway, who else we got? We've got the emperor. He's lovely. Oh, isn't he? In a nice and mad, nice and mad and horrible. I like the way that it's sort of described as a natural selection, slash breeding, race horses for speed type thing. I can't find the page with that specific description now.

But basically, yeah, if you keep letting the awful ones breed, then you're going to end up with distilled awfulness, basically. And he's very much distilled awfulness. And to be fair, as much as Hong is meant to be kind of the bad guy in the one manipulating the Red Army, who will eventually die. But to try and fix his own position.

I like that Hong is so disgusted by the emperor that as much as Hong is the bad guy, you can kind of see where he got there. If that's what he's had to be grand versatility for most of his life. Yes. Yeah. Especially in this very insular society within an insular society. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very, very strange thing. But I like that, you know, we barely meet the emperor.

We have like one scene with him before he dies, but it's enough to establish the horror of who he is and that no one should be sad about him dying, even though the other bad guy is plotting against him. Yeah, yeah, for sure. He's, yeah, he doesn't really stick around for long enough to be an antagonist. He's more more background information, isn't he? But yeah, two flowers back.

He is. Yay, we love to flower after his. I didn't realise that how much I liked to flower until I realised how pleased I was to have him back here. Yeah. Rincewind is a better character with two flowers, a foil. Not this. Yeah. In this in the books, we've had with him so far, like if you compare this to. Sorcery, where his foil is Canina, who is just

aggressively aggressively competent. Yeah, but here it's like the ultimate cynicism versus the ultimate. Optimism isn't quite the word, but you know what I mean, belief in goodness. Yeah, and how much two flower believes in Rincewind is lovely because you can see the moments when Rincewind starts to have a quick moment of belief in himself. Yeah. And two flowers, he'd never, that's the quote, he never really wanted to grasp

the fact that his companion had the magical abilities of the common house flight. And if you tried to dissuade him, it just meant modesty was added to the list of not existent virtues. Yeah. His absolute determination to believe in Rincewind and the fact that he's not stupid. No, no. He's perhaps a little bit naive. Yeah, because there was a couple of moments in those first books where

like. It became obvious he may be new. Yeah, it was deliberately deceiving himself or choosing to believe or just enjoying what was happening. Yeah. But also now seeing two flower in the context of family and having his two daughters. Yeah. And a little moment with the used to be married thing,

which obviously obviously retconning a bit here, but we can assume her so much he never even mentioned it during all of the massive amounts of chatting he did in the first couple of books. Yeah, the fact that he is obviously it's a record that he didn't mention the other wife and daughters before. And I obviously timeline wise, I'm assuming we to understand he had already lost his wife when he did the tourist thing. Yeah.

But the way it's or maybe not because we obviously don't know how much time actually passed. But there's a Mrs. two flowers there. There was for a while and for a moment in expression, almost of anger distorted his preternaturally, preternaturally benign countenance. Yeah. And the response of Rinswin looked away because that was better than

looking at two flowers face. And it's it's an interesting thing in like their dynamic is that Rinswin has never really had to confront two flower being anything other than happy, supportive, excited, two flower. Yeah, two flowers more than two dimensional is a bit. Confronting that moment. Yes. So I thought that was very clever writing.

Yes, I agree. And it's nice to know that his little what I did on my holidays book has caused such trouble. Such of course it has in the same way that mentioning insurance burnt down at Warpork writing a little travel journal has led to a revolution. And then who else we got? We've got six beneficent wins, the tax collector. Who is another character I enjoy.

Yes, he's. He's it's a pleasing kind of trope that I think practice may have done a couple times already, probably will a couple times in the future of just taking straight laced bureaucrat, giving him adventure and going, Oh, I see. I like it. I like it a lot without losing his straight, less bureaucratness. I mean, he's kind of already done this with teach teachers, not stopped being a teacher.

Yeah. But he's enjoying what he's doing. Yeah. But he's enjoying what he's doing now with the horde and same thing with six beneficial wins. You know, he tries to get rid of the horde in a couple of ways. He leaves a note and he takes them to the ninjas. Yeah.

But then he ends up realising the fun of creatively accounting for them. Yeah. Is that the fact they're not registered with anyone is a minor detail. He's just really enjoying the exercise. Yes. Yes, found his calling. And the allowable expenses for a barbarian hero, wear and tear on weaponry, protective clothing.

Oh, in fact, there is a loincloth mentioned. They could probably claim for at least one new loincloth a year. Oh, well, there you go. Well, then I missed that one too. Yes, I'd almost missed that one. So I'm glad I spotted that there. You can take your hand off the send email button. Listen to the luggage doesn't get much to do.

I missed the luggage running around with rinse wind as well. Yeah. And obviously, he needs to be taken out of it. Yeah, it needs to be taken out of it because it's a bit of a. There's only power, isn't it, with your immortal violent luggage? Yes, it's it's it's he's he makes it rinse wind to opied. Yes, it could have. Yeah, I could have crashed through the wall and eaten the guards and.

Rinse wind would have ended up less than rinse wind. No, the luggage would have ended up messing out rinse wind before the. Yeah, or we'd have had to, like, come to terms or explain an idea that because we're in the counterweight continent, they know how to deal with these things. And then you'd have to see the luggage be like strapped down or something. And that would be too sad. And we wouldn't have it. I do like, actually, I was looking at annotated pressure

and something that people pointed out with this book is that. Why are the wire luggage it makes sense? You know, to fly, I had the luggage, which is a common in the counterweight continent, but to fly our claims in either kind of magical or fantastic, that he got the luggage in a mysterious little shop that wasn't there. And to put it out, we'll look at the difference in how many people had computers between the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, what's the technology made it to the counterweight continent? I'm sure it was recreated quite quickly. They've got a lot of safety impaired. Yes. And more to the point. Hush, this is more fun. Yes, you say it's more fun. There was one scene with luggage is I didn't really like, which is when there's lots of them corralled outside a hotel

and there's a scene with two big male luggage getting a grip. And it's just it was the same thing. I pointed out with last week's book in a purple post it moment that it's just not funny and doesn't need to be there. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's so it's showing the luggage be the hero of the day, isn't it, but didn't need to be like that. Yeah, yeah. They could have just been like just menacing each other

without it being like a weird male or female violence thing. Yeah. I feel like a killjoy for putting it out, but it did rub me the wrong way. You feel like a killjoy. Wait until next week later this week. We're going to kill all the joy. I promise when we talk about masquerade, we're just going to have fun. I don't know. Phantom of the Opera seems a bit

Phantom of the Opera is great fun. Problem. Opera is very classist, actually. Look, I mean, there's a long list of reasons why we're counselling Andrew Lloyd Webber, but yes, all right. Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, before we cancel Andrew Lloyd Webber, let's talk about Cohen. Actually, this is another slight killjoy moment.

Which is just the scene of him not really understanding how to buy an apple. And it's it's a whole thing and it's this sort of dragged out joke. He eventually manages to buy the apple that trashes the cast in the process. And I don't like this thing when you wreck on a character and make them stupid for the sake of a joke. But we've seen Cohen understand commerce. He saved up to get his teeth, right? Yeah, and bought them and had them installed.

He knows how to buy things and it's established that the Horde know how to spend money because that's why despite always stealing lots of money, they never have any because they spend it on things. Yes. Largely wine, women and song or the barbarian equivalent. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. And I get that it was trying to be funny

and it's all these jokes about civilising them, but it's just. I don't know. I don't like a lot of it. Agree. Yep. If I like, I don't like that sort of character. I get that there's millions of retcons in this world, and that's fine because there's like 40 odd books and you're going to have to change history to make the present make sense. Yeah.

I don't expect everything to fit perfectly on a shiny timeline. Yeah. And I expect there to be logical discrepancies, but sometimes you don't need to wreck on a character who's already really well written. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then last of all, again, we've already met him, but just I want to talk about him again.

So I like him as Ronald Savalloy, the teacher. I like his reminiscence about how he ended up picking up with the Horde and just his reflections on being around them. Understanding that he can't sort of put civilisation on them. They're too barbarian deep down, but he enjoys them so much more than the people he's associated with in star, star frames, because. They are honest and decent in their way of things.

Yeah. And they don't put that in his politics. Yeah, and they don't put that she's on it. They're not stealing from the poor because the poor have nothing to steal. They're not Robin Hooding it. Yeah. And there is something quite and that's why I like accidental trickle down. Yeah, economy going on, but not.

Yeah. Yes, yes, that's all enjoyable to me. And the locations, we don't really go anywhere new, but there's a couple of interesting bits. I like the reference to the Antmoor Pork Dream when talking about people trying to get out of the Council at Consonant and the Egetian Empire. Some made it to the Great Melting Pot called Antmoor Pork, and they arrived with no money,

but they had a mind-bleem in their eye. They had been shops and restaurants for like 24 hours a day and people called this the Antmoor Pork Dream of making piles of cash in a place where your death was unlikely to be a matter of public policy. Yes. At this version of the American Dream, because it's a weird narrative that's been sold and the English version as well.

But I like that the main dream is more like, let's not get executed. Yeah, yeah, I think that's that was quite often the. Motivation, wasn't it? I feel like I also like that Antmoor Pork is consistently described in every book set there as one of the most disgusting places on the disk, and yet it is the place everyone wants to be. Yeah, for sure. I always enjoy the little references to the open door policy of.

Please do not invade our city. Yes, thank you. Thank you for not invading us. Yes. And what else do we have? We have the Markets of Hung Hung. Described as very stressful to read about. I write.

I found it very. Trouted. As I was reminiscing the other day about how much I was going to borrow market, which is one of my favourite places in London, because it's a huge foodie market, right? And there's loads and loads of amazing stalls, and you can buy all sorts of amazing stuff, and it's great. But obviously I'm more stressed about it.

I've never been there when it's not been packed, and I'm more stressed about going to crowded places now because covid, like I'm still not going to go to London for a while. Yeah. But so I have this weird mix of reminiscence and all the thought of being in a packed market sounds incredibly stressful right now. Yeah.

Yeah, it's always been a bit much for me. And yeah, obviously more so now. But yes. But well done on Rince when for getting through it with a birdcage stuck on his foot. Yep. It did also sort of make me miss trying to cram through like crowded days at Camden Market and things. It was a very weird mix of stress and nostalgia that I experienced reading about it.

Yeah. And then we have the Forbidden City. Yes. Well, this is the first we've been aware of the Forbidden City at the centre of Hong Kong, home of the emperor. But it's the first time we've actually visited it. I was reading about the Forbidden City, the real one. And obviously there's quite a lot about it. But one detail I quite liked because it's relevant in its absence here

is that apparently it was built on foundations of bricks that were kind of crisscrossing to prevent tunneling. Oh, cool. To prevent enemies tunneling in. Yeah. Also, I like within the introduction to Forbidden City, we get Eureka. That's a Phoebe, and that's is it. Just give me a towel.

Yep. That's Canon. Yep. Yes, they don't quite tunnel in, they get in through the water supply. Yes, yes, of course. I am, I cannot speak to the. I'm not sure what the situation. I didn't look that up.

So. I was going to. And then I didn't. Yep. Good one. Probably goes for a lot of research details in this section, to be honest. I'm going to. But then I didn't.

It's been very hot. It's my motto. Yeah, but the Forbidden City is. Again, another example of just that the entire that the vast amounts of history that we're referencing at the same point here, because this is like the 1400s, I think the Forbidden City. And yeah, some of the details are from like the first century. And yeah, it's all there.

There are probably about a thousand years of history being compressed into one city. Yeah. But there were quite a lot of comparable imperial centres, I think, over the centuries. But yes, in fact, we're going to talk about the cyclical nature of history in it. From a writing perspective, Joanna, the idea of having kind of like the the nested locations, the location and the location. Yeah, location and being like and here the real story starts.

Is that something? Is that like a recognized device? Is that it's not something that something you kind of saw and went, oh, so it's a good idea to make make make life easier. Well, I think it's an interesting device. It's not one I've seen used a ton. There might be a proper name for it that I don't know. Obviously, my knowledge of writing is not particularly technical.

Yeah, so it's like an inward journey rather than a lateral journey. Yeah. Yeah. I think it probably is more of a thing, especially in books like this, that are kind of the story of this book is a siege. Yes. Yeah. But what we're going to see in the third section, obviously, without starting to just talk about the third section, keep doing that next week is coming out again.

Yes. Is the book does take quite an interesting pattern of heading all the way to the center and then blossoming out again from the center. Yeah. And if you compare it to the nature of what's going on of the revolution heading towards the center and kind of ignoring the people on the outskirts, like the people holding water buffalo on a string. Yeah.

It's quite interesting to compare it to how it moves geographically. Yeah. That might be the wankiest thing I've ever said on this podcast. And yes, I enjoyed it. Not as I'd say about me. Let's revisit that point next week. If we remember, I'm going to write that down because yes, without going massively into next week,

I know some people are enjoying a read-along. So little little bits that we like little bits, just little bits, little things. And something I like was just a little thematic thing. And I done the wrong way. This is one of my least favorite troops in prose. But I like how it's done here, which is having a series of awakenings within a section. Right.

And it's part of why, because obviously I'm the one who chooses where we split the book up. It's part of why I split the book here is because we have the very nice thematic rinse wind waking up after being knocked out. And then we have the Silver Horde waking up and going about their day. Yeah. And all of the events in this section do happen pretty much across a single day. Yes.

So going from a jumping from awakening and up to awakening is a really nice thing. I hate it when it's overused in books like there was a great one of my favorite writers, Jenny Trout, did this series of Fifty Shades of Grey Recaps, right? Just to kind of point out all the various ways in which they're completely terrible. Sure. And one of them was that almost every chapter starts with the character waking up. I think I think the waking up thing is one of the like

top three ways not to start a book, isn't it? Yeah. And not start chapters and things like that. But yeah, you're right. If it's done in a I think it helps that these books don't have chapters. Yes. And because they don't have chapters, there sometimes need to be some divides, especially in time passing.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, like something like the explosion is good. But yeah. Yeah. It's used well as a kind of chapter break moment, especially the Silver Horde waking up and really getting ready to go about their big day of taking over the empire. The Horde's big day. The Horde's lovely day out.

Oh, and what else they have? I had paper money. Mm hmm. I like this as a moment because I got to do a little bit of research. Yeah, I researched this as well. Oh, did you? Yes. No, I didn't end up using it, but clearly we have the similar. Well, I was curious because obviously

this is Rincewind is shopping at Dibblastand and discovers the paper writing note and it's something he's never heard of. They don't have paper money in Angkor Pork. But I wanted to see like if it really did have origins much earlier in China than it it coming to Europe, the way it obviously does here. And yeah, paper money was first used in the Tang dynasty. So about between six and nine hundred AD. Do you know when it came to Europe?

Roughly, roughly the 17th century. So yeah, quite a long time. You're talking like close to about a thousand years between it starting off in China and it becoming popularised in Europe. Interesting. But I was also curious because. He refers to it as a pony. And so there's an etching of a pony,

which is what you get on 10 writing notes. And this is UK slang. It's not rhyming slang. Pony in pocket. Yeah. So there's a few different theories about where pony comes from, as if there's different rhyming. Not rhyming slang, but it's English slang for a tenner, basically. Yeah, I know for 25 quid is pony. Twenty five. Oh, my bad. Yeah.

Twenty five is a pony. A tons of 100 and a monkey's 500. Although pony is now it's interchangeably used for. But it started a slang for 25. Right. So one of the theories about tons, obvious, ton being 100. But there are lots of different theories about where pony and monkey come from.

A lot of people think they come from Indian rupee notes that had different pictures of animals on. But that's not really accurate. They there weren't Indian rupee notes with horses on. Although there was an orangutan on the 500 rupee note. Not a monkey. Oh, yes, Ike. But pony is actually believed to come from a Latin phrase.

Legum pony, which is from Sam 119, said some would always be sung at Matang on the 25th of March every year. And that's the same as one of those reaches, which is the day that debts were traditionally played. OK, so the the idea to pony up. Yes, comes from a pony in this song that was sung every every year on the day

that you would traditionally pay your debts. OK. And so it became slang for money from that. That's the most commonly accepted theory that has the most basis, in fact, for where the slang term pony came from. It may not be 100 percent accurate. It may have developed from lots of different things, but I like it as a theory. Yeah, yeah, it makes a bit more sense in the context of pony up.

I was like, there's a bit of a leap from that to 25 pounds like in a London setting. But, yeah, no, yeah, I can see how that then would have. With it traditionally, with it traditionally being the day of paying debts, that's the link to it. And something sometimes paying debts is pleasant and sometimes it's necessary for us in which takes us to your next point. Yes.

God, sorry, that was. It's never pleasant. No, I don't. I thought I thought you had something to say about that's paying being pleasant from the accountant's point of view there. But no, I'm sorry. Well, no, it is sometimes quite satisfying, because it's just something you no longer have to worry about. If you can, yes, I suppose.

Yeah, having to pay it never is. What am I doing? Pleasant versus necessary. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, this is when Too Little Vang is quietly. What was the word? What was the phrase he used? Quite quietly doubting the emperor. Quietly doubting the emperor in the gardens, yes. He realises that he in the same manner as he was saying Lord Hong has

has grown up in this environment. Therefore, he knows that the killing of dissidents and the oppression of the peasants is necessary for the working of the empire. But he does not like that the emperor in the mad villain finds it pleasant that he laughs happily while executing peasants and cuts hands off for the thing and things like that.

And I thought it was a nice little. Not referenced exactly, but it's a. Makes you think of the kind of two types of prattichet villain we've talked about one being the kind of. Bureaucratic, almost this has to happen. Therefore, we shall do it like for this. And yeah, what's his chops in the first one? You know. Oh, Trimon, that guy.

Yeah, Trimon, who tries to take over and become the arch chancellor. Exactly. And then the kind of Swidlite lunatic. Villains, we've had in a couple and we'll have a few more. Yes, I quite liked the dichotomy there. Of the two villains coming up and I think it makes a good point about why revolution isn't more widespread and common and is stayed within these small cadres, because everyone is so indoctrinated by the empire.

There's a line later on about they have something better than whips. They have the whips of the mind. Yeah, I think he's made references to that a few times already. Isn't it? Yeah. So two little one is so indoctrinated. He doesn't think that revolution is necessary. He doesn't think the workings of the empire need to change. He doesn't think the emperor just dislikes that the emperor is enjoying it. Yeah, which gives us kind of the two different types of people within the empire,

the people who see that it needs to change and the people who don't think the emperor is great, but don't see anything wrong with cutting hands off. Now, see, if I were a little less hot and sleepy, I would be saying something along the lines of growing up in the free market capitalist system, something, something. Centrists are too little and something, something. I literally have no idea how to segue from this to my next bullet point. If I was next, I'm sneaking in and and the continued wealth gap

will sneak in much like the Horde sneak in to the Forbidden City. Much like that. Actually, I'm saying I don't have a segue, but we're literally talking about this scene of two little ones that quietly disliking the emperor in the gardens. And that's the scene. Oh, yeah. Maybe we should just like step back from the metaphor. We've gone too far. We've gone too meta. Step out. Right.

Meanwhile, step out, step down. We're in the tunnels. What's going on? Meanwhile, back in the Forbidden City, as two little is out there having these thoughts about the emperor, he starts hearing these strange noises. And the noises are obviously the Horde sneaking into the Forbidden City and having this conversation. And it's a conversation that he doesn't understand, but we as readers can. Yes, it's all in italics.

And so you have him just sort of obliquely fascinated by whatever it is while we see the conversation of, you know, we didn't enter it. You enter a lovemaking city by overrunning it with a thousand horsemen. I don't know. I like this is the scene because it's one of those things I was come back to of things I'd like to translate onto screen. And I feel like that would be a fun one to translate onto a screen. I like the idea of someone completely not understanding the conversation

they're overhearing as the reader understands it. Yeah. And I like that. I don't know how you'd put it on screen. I didn't get that far. But yeah, no, it is immediately found trying to think of ways I also like the idea of staging it on screen. So we see nothing of the horde. We just hear this entire conversation

while we just watch a man look slightly perplexed in a garden. Yes. I don't know. It's it's a nice comedy moment in quite a. This isn't the most serious part of the book, but in quite a serious book. And I enjoy that bit of humor. Yes. And I prefer this kind of humor tangent than I do. Just a random, tasteless jokes of about the culture.

Yeah. This isn't anything to do with the culture, really. Yes, some of the some of the humor is obviously them speaking a language that two little one doesn't understand. Yeah, but it's not that's not a cultural joke. Some people just don't speak the same language. Yeah, in a situation like this. And then what else did I have? Oh, yeah, ninjas.

Oh, yeah, ninjas. This was just another piece of my favorite exclamation. And then ninjas. This is another bit where we've thrown some Japanese into the Chinese for chips and grins. And I can't remember if I pointed out that that's problematic already. Obviously, that's problematic. Again, blanket problematic statement for this book.

Yeah, we'll talk about it next week. It's fine. Yeah, I'm really laying a lot on future us and it's getting closer. Yeah, you know, we're recording that in like three days. No, shut up. And then I've got like six hours of babysitting between now and then it's fine. It's fine. I am I'm just refusing to pick that reality. So please continue. OK, so we're recording late again next week then ninjas also Japanese

started as a thing in feudal Japan. You also have the term Shinobi, which is another term for spies from around the 15th century. And they were covert agents. So this idea of ninjutsu as like a specific martial art, that's not really a thing. That's a very modern term. I've never heard it. Oh, right. It's it's a term people often use as if being an injurer is one specific martial art.

And it wasn't the idea as these people would be trained in lots of different things. I mean, they're the ropes to the samurai warriors on to like if we go to D and D term it as we as we too often do. They're the ropes to samurai warriors. They serve a lot of similar purposes and came about in very similar ways. Like samurai, it was quite often it was a family tradition. So it would be family lines doing these bits of training, but different people would train different aspects of it and be ninja. So there would be espionage and assassination, arson attacks, psychological warfare.

Yes, it's not it certainly for large periods of their existence. It wasn't considered an honourable profession was I know, sir. No, and it was it was a covert thing. They were very much covert agents. Yeah. And they didn't rip. But they started coming into pop culture in the Edo period, which is around the like 16 to 1800s in folk tales and plays. You quite often have some kind of ninja stock character,

and it would be a symbol of something covert that would take place within. Were they still in existence at that point? Yeah, very much so. OK. And again, as these kind of covert, operative type things. So I guess in the same way that spies became part of pop culture. Yeah. A few decades ago here. Yeah, they were, I mean, probably not quite James Bond-ish, but. But yeah, in the similarly, this profession,

which hadn't been necessarily in the public eye for obvious reasons. But yeah, as they did have that shift into pop culture, which obviously then came into movies just as much as like samurai film is very much a genre. Yeah, yeah. And Kurosawa and whatnot. And ninjas moved into pop culture in a different way, but then went off in a different direction because

from being these stock shorthand characters in folk tales and plays from the like 1800s, yeah, it was very easy for them to then become a certain sort type of stock character in other types of pop culture. Ah, which is why you still have these kind of lots of different ninja things, some probably more problematic than others. In a way, you don't samurai is very much stage. I don't know, not sacred, but it's treated very differently in pop culture, I would say.

Yeah. And I get they kind of make sense. Yeah. And some bits to do with the knowledge about the history of it as well, which is also I saw it. I think it was silly to handle a post or something the other day, but we like talking about the weird things that historically we don't realize over that. And that was about a 20 year time period where the samurai still existed as very much a formal thing.

Fax, fax machines existed before Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. So, wait, OK, sorry. Fax machines came into existence in like the early to mid 1800s. What? Early versions of fax machines. I'm enraged. Again, this is this is from a Tumblr post and they need to go and fact check, obviously. But technically, there would be a 20 year time period where a samurai could have faxed something to Abraham Lincoln.

Can't. Who's to say they didn't? They might have done. I've done. Let's not look into it too deeply in case we can in case we can say they didn't. No, because I now want to write my samurai fax machine, a Lincoln video game. What? It's a working title. I mean, no, the concept more. Well, I was thinking historical novel, but I'm studying game writing right now.

So, sure, yeah, I think we've got to have a conversation about not jamming everything into the media you're currently interested in. Yeah, all right, fine. Says me who will write a limerick about anything with the slightest provocation. Well, including someone saying this is not a challenge, but someone should write a limerick. Yeah, well, I don't understand how that wasn't a challenge. No, that was absolutely a challenge.

Fine. Sorry. This is a separate group just away from the podcast. Yeah, turns into let us write a limerick about this, which you are so much better at than me. I can't do form poetry. Well, I can't write video games. So there we go. Technically, at the moment, one of those could be profitable one day,

and I'll tell you what, it's not limerick. So. OK. Not going to suddenly become a professional limerick writer then. Shall we go on to some bigger talking points? Because I'm just talking bollocks at this point. Yeah, sure. If you want, I quite enjoy the bollocks, but I guess the audience here for the Pratchett stuff. Partly. Famed Pratchett, who never wrote bollocks.

And we're going to start off with parallels to history. Historical parallels, indeed. And as always, there are lots. So I just picked a couple that I enjoyed. I was listening to one of those fall of civilisation podcasts again, or I re-listened to this one because it was thematic, which was the Han dynasty.

Yeah. So. That was like early. Millennium, early, last millennium. Yeah. No, wait. Early AD, early AD. That's what I mean, a couple of thousand years ago. Yeah, that's what I'm very clumsily saying. And I could agree.

I'm very sorry. But towards the end of that dynasty, dynasty. Unux were very important. Ah, very important. Unux as a kind of imperial Chinese servant were a thing for many hundreds of years. And including the dynasty, the Qi dynasty before the Han dynasty

and more so within the Han dynasty. And the castration was done as punishment, usually, very occasionally, voluntarily for the kind of stable position it gave one. They were seen as kind of safe servants to have around in the closed off courts and in Pratchett's case in the Forbidden City, because, well, partly because

they can't have children. And so it was seen as they would have less motivation to kind of try and seize power. Right, because they wouldn't be able to start their own competing dynasty. Is it dynasty or dynasty, Joanna? I'm pretty sure it's dynasty. Dynasty, yeah.

I think dynasty might be the American. The TV show, right? Yeah, I think that's what I'm doing here. Okay, dynasty. Again, I've just listened to hours about something dynasty, so I'm sure it's dynasty, yeah. Anyway, the end years of this dynasty were kind of marked by a lot of these eunuchs

and a lot of the empress dowagers who we will meet briefly in the next section, having a lot of power in court and eventually far too much power and corruption. So there were 10 eunuchs called the Ten Attendants who basically had all of the useful power in the Empire at one point and incredibly corrupt and they ended up

killing a warlord who had a problem with it and then they were killed by all the other warlords and big, long, longish, complicated mess end of dynasty. So, eunuchs were incredibly important, yes. And kind of brought down that incredibly, historically impactful dynasty just through everyone being completely wrong about whether or not they were trying to see power, I guess.

Interesting. Yeah, and there was lots of power plays between them and the empress dowagers in there. It was all very cool. I'll link to that episode. Highly recommend it, highly recommend. Very good listen. I've listened to it all the way through twice

and it's a couple of hours long. So, it's clearly very interesting. The other thing I thought was worth having a quick look at was the Sammy's Dirt. Sammy's Dirt, one, eight, three, hold on. I can't read my own writing. I wrote this outside in the garden in the sun and so it's not ideal.

Sammy's Dirt, Sammy's Dirt, yeah, which is the copying and self-publishing of bound material, in this case, obviously. Oh, is that actually a thing? Cause I thought it was just meant to be like same as that. No, yes, it is a thing. It's, yeah, literally, I think it is self-publishing. But yes, I didn't realize it sounded like that.

But I honestly assumed it was just a joke about like making a phrase out of it foreign, like in sewer rants. Yes, yeah. But it's, it refers to self-publishing within the Eastern blocs of Soviet era. So rather than copying it by hand, usually these things were typed by hand.

But there's quite an interesting whole section of history here about the typewriters used, because all typewriters and printing presses were accounted for under Soviet rule. And they could work out what kind of typewriter had written this or that book. And it was very fraught. And there were huge punishments

for kind of copying out these. Revolutionary texts. Yeah, it's not even revolutionary texts. It's some of them were, and some of them were politically motivated, but some of them were just novels with what was seen as kind of dissenting themes or sympathetic to the wrong place.

So the first full length book that was typed by hand in this summer step way was Dr. Zivago by Boris Pasternak, which is not like a revolutionary text. It's definitely got kind of implicit themes. And yeah, it's not very complimentary to Stalin and that. But yeah, totally banned. And then there were also political,

more overtly political texts. There was poetry and then periodicals also. So this wasn't the kind of copying thing, but it kind of, well, not the copying of banned literature. They might have been recopied and sent out again, but such as the Chronicle would be the famous one. The Xen kind of thing. There's probably more of the history

you're familiar with that, yeah, revolutionary Xen type things. And yeah, and then I started reading about various literary, what was it called? Literary inquisitions through Chinese history, and that all got very depressing and torturing. Cool. And long, so feel free to look into that yourself listeners,

but... We're gonna keep the depressing and torturing to a minimum. Anyway, safe to say, lots and lots of literary oppression and burnings and torture and such forth during the many, many hundreds of years of world history and Chinese history. Yeah, lovely.

Yeah, it does tend to be the books they go for. Yeah. There's actually quite a good book about that. I was saying to you, no, I think I was saying to Callum the other day when I was reading about the first dynasties of China, and there was a bit about a library being burnt by the first emperor of China anyway.

And there was a little line about, and of course, paper wasn't invented by then, and so all of these books were carved into the bamboo things, and they're all form of books. And I was like, Jesus Christ, it always boggles my mind that things like libraries and bureaucrats and literary suppression were going on before paper.

Yeah. It's really... With another one of those time parallels, I was like, oh, wait, yeah, fuck. You were suppressing books before we had books. Yeah, come on, guys. I could have waited until we'd have vented them. I say we'd invented them like we'd invented fuck all.

We invented... No, never mind. I invented quite a good coffee cake recipe the other day. Yeah, you did. I've still got a bit left. I've still got quite a lot left in the fridge. Anyway. Anyway.

Let's talk about the futility of revolution. Oh, okay. That's great, Bernie. Well, I mean, this is Rincewind's track through the book specifically. And I like... One thing I do like about Rincewind or I like about Pratchett writing Rincewind

is you can kind of get an idea that Pratchett sometimes really, really wants to get out some cynicism. Yeah. And so he'll use a character like Rincewind who isn't necessarily a hero to do it while still writing something of a happy ending without going into details about how this book ends.

Yeah. I think he manages to do it through Vines sometimes as well in a slightly different way. He does it through Vines very well. And in fact, the whole idea of revolution is going to come up and I think be better handled in a later book. Yeah.

Than it is in this one. But I found it interesting kind of tracking, especially through this section, Rincewind's cynicism, starting fairly early on where he's brought in front of the Red Army for the first time, especially with Two Fire Herb. And part of the reason he's not just cynical

about the revolution, but angry about them going about it. And he's specifically angry at Two Fire Herb is saying that he doesn't want to see all these young people die for the sake of a cause, especially when he's looking at one favorite pearl who is seven years old and clutching a toy rabbit. Yeah.

Oh, and she's called one favorite pearl. Like he couldn't make him all heart string tug, you could he? And part of the Rincewind being frustrated is the fact that obviously they're not very good at it. Yeah. They're not very good at having a revolution. He's trying to say, you know,

you don't win by singing songs and putting up posters and fighting bare-handed when you're against guns with real weapons. And he finds himself in front of 200 people having this run and he has to stop himself and say, I'm here to not tell you anything. That's not my job. Because he finds himself listening to it at the forefront

and he doesn't want to be, he wants to run away again. But he to a certain extent feels for them. And it comes off. There's in this bit as well as one of the good Rincewind, very Rincewind quotes, which is the, you've only got one life, but you can pick up another five courses, courses, courses on any street corner.

Good grief. How can you live with a philosophy like that? Rincewind took a deep breath continuously. Yeah, that's like a later that's on page 197. This is after he's had another run to everyone. Yeah, no, sorry. The first run I was talking about was page 155. There's a few of these.

Yes. But yeah, that's a really good one. His philosophy is that, you know, stop picking up other causes. It's not going to keep you alive. Yeah. And part of that is who he's angry at there, isn't the emperor.

It's people like Too Fire Herb. He says, look, I know about people who talk about suffering for the common good and it's never them. When you hear a man shouting forward, brave comrades, he's the one behind the big rock and wearing the only really arrow-proof helmet. And he's got, you know, as much as obviously he is overly cynical about how futile this rebellion is,

he's got a point and he's, I think, the closest to seeing who Too Fire Herb really is and that he's a plant, because Too Fire Herb's job is to get all of these revolutionaries killed or captured. Yes. Yeah, to provide a, what do you call them, fall guy? Yeah. But to go back, I think it's page 161 and this is the idea

when... Escape, that's what I meant, sorry. Yes. Lotus Blossom pointing out to him that favorite pearl, like the red army is all that they've got, all that she's got. So for them, this is a necessity. And he's trying, this is kind of where he stops running away.

He does go with them to the wall and then that's where he gets captured and the events really start to pick up. But he can see how futile this thing is and finds himself sticking with it because it's all some people have. And the least he can do is maybe see if it can make them not get killed.

Yes, and hopefully in the meantime, not get killed. Well, yes, hopefully not get killed. Where are we? Sorry, I'm trying to find, I took a million notes and then didn't actually write many of them down. Oh. Or I've marked pages and... Oh, I see, right.

Oh yeah, Lord Hong's thoughts about it. And like I said, Lord Hong's an interesting villain because he's very much on the same page but from the wrong direction as the red army and the revolutionaries. Yeah. He's got the same dream that grass is greener, dream that they have, the difference is,

the grass is greener for them. It's not really for him, he's taken up with this idea of rank more pork. Yeah. And what I did on my holidays has had as much of an effect on him as it has on the red army. Yeah.

But he finds himself almost a similar viewpoint to Rincewind, where he's furious at the fact that this rebellion's not going better because if he'd done it, he would have assassinated the emperor by now. Yes. He was really frustrated with the general state of humanity and he was pissed off with things

like they had tried to set fires to the guardhouses which was proper revolutionary activity but they tried to make an appointment first. And it's the fact that Hong is sort of so bored, he's had to organise this revolution and is playing chess against himself. Yeah. It is very, it's not very veterinary

but there's a hint of veterinary to it. Yeah, for sure. No, he's definitely kind of dark timeline, veterinary. He's veterinary but veterinary does have a certain respectful human life even as he thinks of the city as an ant hill. Yeah, and even, you also see Rincewind kind of get frustrated or bring his cynicism out

on pretty butterfly when pretty butterflies like, well, yes, of course, we'd be in charge for a little while. And this is where we get to this whips in this whole thing. He's, you know, by means of the People's Committee and there won't be many water buffalo string holders on the People's Committee. Yeah.

And butterflies say, well, yes, initially because the peasants can't read and write. And, you know, Rincewind has the race, I guess, so yes, I'm sure they don't know how to farm properly after only doing it for three or 4,000 years. Yeah. Not only have we seen that play out in many regimes, we've also been part of political groups

who pretty much think the same way. It seems to be very, yeah, it's power to the people and obviously I'll have a seat on there. Just by coincidence, I happen to be the best person to speak for the people. Yeah, the speaking for the people thing is very frustrating especially because we've seen it play out especially in British politics.

Well, there's a really good quote where people who can read and write start fighting on behalf of people you can't. You just end up with another kind of stupidity. If you want to help them build a big library and leave the door open. Yeah, yeah. And he's got a point.

This is, I don't like finding myself agreeing with Rincewind because I'd love to be very much, yes, rebellion and down with the oppressive regime. And obviously the oppressive regime in this book is bad. Yes. But I completely see his cynicism. No, absolutely. Yeah, I agree completely with Rincewind

throughout most of this book. Yeah. I must say, I don't feel bad about it either. It's very obvious to me that a bunch of well-meaning teenagers would probably not be the best governors of something. It's best that the empire gets taken down because cruelty and tyranny and everything. But we've seen it many times in history.

Not necessarily with teenagers, but yeah. But again, I think it's something Pratchett writes really well. He writes cynicism really well without undermining himself. Yeah, yeah. And he writes best when he's got characters like this and with foils against them. It's like with the witches, you know,

Granny Weatherwax is furiously cynical about everything. Well, and then she has Nanny Ogg to play against her as an eternal optimist slash realist. Yeah, or Magrat as the... Yeah, Magrat the optimist. Yeah. And Nanny Ogg's somewhat straddling the divide but being able to have fun with the straddling.

Yep. I felt where the sentence was going and I couldn't really stop it. No, yeah, there was no stopping at once it started. It's all my eyebrows are wiggling. Well, I was trying to make some interesting nuance points but I got onto straddling. So I think I'm gonna move on to cyclical history

if that's all right, Francie. Sure, that sounds less depressing. Yeah, it's not really depressing. I was trying very intentionally to not look at this from a depressing point of view. Okay. But as we were talking about the fact that similar systems have cropped up over

and over again in dynastic China, it's interesting here to have two-flower talk about history going in cycles and specifically the belief in the Ectian Empire that history comes around once every 3,000 years. Yeah. Obviously not the star's notions and intelligent life thing.

That's just stuff, but proper history starting with the founding of the empire and it comes around in cycles. And there's lots of cultures that have cyclical philosophies around history, both cosmic history and human history. And it develops from a fairly obvious place of observing the cyclical nature of the environment,

seasons going around in a cycle every year. And it has a lot of links, especially with Chinese history and a lot of Chinese philosophy, especially when you start to get Confucianism and the ancestor veneration, which gets talked about here again. It's kind of played for comedy,

but it is very much a thing. And Confucianism is very, very big on the concept of filial piety and owing a lot to your parents and by sort of by rope to your ancestors. To the point it creates some very strict social norms. Yeah, no, Confucianist rulers not always very nice in the Chinese history.

Yeah, and in fact, early in Chinese history, and I can't find, I can't cite an exact period, but we're talking in the BCs somewhere. The observation of the cycle of seasons involved a traditional ceremony in which the emperor of China would plow the first furrow of the year. And there would be this ceremonial furrow plowing.

And then that would spark this across the entire continent. Okay, that's cool. And there's also this very interesting theory of Chinese political history called the Dynastic Cycle. Yes. This is something that's talked about a lot

and it's definitely something that's considered across these huge dynasties in over thousands of years. And so the cycle as sort of described by political historians, and not Western political, Jesus. This is not specifically Westerners looking at China. This is something studied within China.

A new ruler founded dynasty and gains the mandate of heaven. And the mandate of heaven is the right to rule from God, which started to become really popular around 400 BC during the Warring States period. Yeah. Sorry, I like the idea that just the getting the right to rule from God became really popular.

It's not a... Well, no, okay. It's the concept. No, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, the concept specifically, I think I believe there is a word for it, but fuck me if I can pronounce it, mandate of heaven as part of this cycle.

So a new rule of fancy new dynasty against the mandate of heaven. China under the new dynasty then achieved prosperity because of that, the population increases. Corruption then becomes rampant in the imperial course as population increases and the empire begins to enter decline in instability. Then usually there's some sort of natural disaster.

Flood. Yes, floods and stuff that would lead to famine, which would probably help with corruption and overpopulation. Famine causes the population to rebel, a civil war ensues, ruler loses the mandate of heaven, the population decreases because of violence. A warring States period happens again.

One state emerges victorious, that state starts a new empire, the empire against the mandate of heaven. Right. And so this is this domestic cycle. And partly because natural disasters just do happen every few hundred years, it is very much what happened

across Chinese political history for a very long time. Yes. In fact, it's still discussed as happening now and there's quite a lot of debate around political historians about exactly where in the cycle China is right now. Well, I think there's a kind of tendency probably in all across history

to kind of see yourselves as apart from history and kind of forget the fact that the hundred year bit we're in that seems so important will fade very much into obscurity when you look at it in a few hundred years. Yeah, very much so. And history does. Hopefully, I guess.

Going back to the interesting times thing. I was gonna say, I feel like it's very weird at the moment because we've both talked quite a lot about the fact that we're very much living through a huge historical event that will be studied. Yeah, but again, like maybe not that much because depends on how far in the future you look if we're one of the things that kind of is highlighted

by reading all this Chinese history. It's like all these incredible events and things that affected vast, yeah, vast populations or whatever. It's like, it's a sentence now and... Yeah, but yeah. That's a very good point. But still, I didn't think living through history

would be this dull, very boring historical event. Anyway, that's what I had to say on it. I hadn't read much about the dynastic cycle before so I thought that was very interesting. It is interesting, yeah, for sure. I hadn't heard it put in that term before. I kind of actually had to take it back a little bit. I'd kind of in my head imagined the fracturing

and re-centering of the empire very much in an out thing that we were talking about with the narrative structure of this book. Yeah, there we go, bit more civil war and natural disasters. Military coup, all of that, all of that good stuff. All of that good stuff, right. Do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me?

I do, I do. It's sorry, the notes for this are still on my phone. On account of the puppy gets very angry with the printer. On page 215, they were talking about the Nightingale floors in the Fulvin City, which is the idea that the floorboards were chirped in a way that sounded just like, you know, the floorboards making a noise

but would in actual fact alert the guards to somebody's presence. So I had a quick look into that. And disappointingly, considering I had definitely read and heard stuff about these before that made them sound very real, it sounds like they may be at least partly legendary. It's a Japanese thing again.

So there's a castle in Kyoto where the way that the floors were built kind of made the nails rub against another metal part, like a jacket, which caused little chirping noises, which sounded quite a lot like common Japanese, but yeah, I think we call the Nightingale, I'm not sure if it's actually Nightingale as well, but yeah, maybe a similar species.

And it's possible that this was kind of like not actually intentional, that it said they'd make that noise for sure. And then once the guards had realized that, they realized they could use it in a way rather than it being built into, which is a shame because I'd heard it before, I'd heard the story before in that they'd done it

intentionally and not only that, a certain way of walking would let people know that you were safe and then if the rhythm was off, someone would come and check it and all that stuff, which is a lot more pleasing, but I didn't have a lot of time to go into it, but I can't find that that has a lot of grounding in reality, which is sad.

So it sounds more like they realized that the floors preaked and went, ooh, this is a feature, not a bug. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That's still interesting, isn't it? Yeah, no, it is, definitely. But yeah, so that's my obscure reference for Neil. Excellent.

Well, we've said everything that we wrote down to think about, say, for Interesting Times Part Two. We will be back hopefully on Monday next week with part three of Interesting Times, one where we plan on being nuanced because it's not going to be quite so humid. Well, you say that, actually, we're recording on Thursday, it's going to be just as humid.

Brave Thunderstorms listeners, Brave Thunderstorms. Brave for dramatic background noises that will piss me off while editing, but at least I'll be happy of our recording. So in the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram, the True Shall Make Keyfret, you can find us on Twitter at MakeyFretPod

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