(no subject)

[skygiants]

I read Small Gods for the first time when I was pretty young - probably around ten, if I had to make a guess. I know that because it turns out that Tiny Becca left some presents in my copy for Adult Becca to discover.







(Unfortunately, Tiny Becca was not very good at drawing wings. Or skulls. BUT SHE TRIED, man, she tried.)

The thing about knowing for sure that I read Small Gods that young is that I kept coming across this idea, this idea that is basically what the book is about:

What have I always believed?

That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, more or less, turn out all right. (89)

"I think . . . you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so." (314)

That's the point of Small Gods. It's what makes the book work - the idea that there is a sense of right and wrong that humans can figure out and act in accordance with, independent of commandments or laws; that the threat of hell shouldn't be what makes people good. It's also something that I've believed for about as long as I can remember, and now I don't know: did I always think that, and is that why I liked Small Gods to begin with? Or did Terry Pratchett put that there?

(There are things about Small Gods, I realize on the reread, that don't actually quite work. Brutha, much as I love him, does not quite work. Terry Pratchett tells us that Brutha's brain doesn't work quite like other people's, that he remembers everything and thinks in very straight lines. Brutha is not stupid. The way he is described, he's also not neurotypical. Unfortunately, Terry Pratchett only writes him this way about half the time, and the other half the time he writes him like any other Terry Pratchett POV protagonist. I understand the urge! Snappy dialogue is very tempting! But it means that Brutha doesn't really come together until the desert, when he becomes almost a different person altogether.

Even thinking that, though, the desert still works, and everything after. It really does.

. . . also and completely unrelatedly, TVTropes tells me that there are people who ship Brutha/Om, which I just felt the need to share so that other people can share my ?!?!?!?! I mean, fandom has some inevitabilities, I guess, but . . . . TORTOISE!)

Comments

[opusculasedfera]

I am terrified of the idea of Brutha/Om. Though apparently not terrified enough to not wonder what exactly that entails. (Non-sexual Brutha/tortoise!Om? Sex only with post-canon no-longer-a-tortoise!Om (though what he would be, I'm not perfectly sure)? Sexy tortoises? The mind rebels, but I kind of want to know now, though not actually to read it. D:)

[skygiants]

This is one of those instances where curiosity is DANGEROUS. (Which is not enough to stop me being curious, but hopefully I will maintain enough of a sense of self-preservation not to actually seek the answers . . .)

[opusculasedfera]

DAMNIT. (I also have just enough self-preservation, but was sort of hoping you hadn't. Because of course learning it third-hand makes it less ridiculous. >__>)

[skygiants]

(There is still hope that someone else may answer the call! >.>)

[schiarire]

I love Small Gods SO MUCH. And I don't have a problem with Brutha/Om ... as an emotional ship ... as a physical ship, I have some questions. But I guess anything is possible. Or at least that centurion in Lamb said it was.

I don't remember it being a big problem that Brutha's characterization is somewhat inconsistent; I think because, in the scenes in which snappy dialogue comes out of not-so-snappy Brutha's mouth, he's so much not the focus or point of that scene that you don't necessarily notice or care. It's almost a way of backgrounding him. In the foreground, I think Brutha usually makes sense... my memories are very old, though (at least eight years) and can't be too reliable.

The other great thing about Small Gods is seeing its trickled-down heritage in the other books.

[skygiants]

I just cannot actually conceive of shipping Om with anyone. He's so . . . tortoise-y! His main concern is lettuce. :O

I don't remember having problems with Brutha's characterization on any other prior rereads, to be fair -- I sort of wonder if part of the problem was reading so much Terry Pratchett in such a short time, so the parts where Brutha sounds a lot like every other Pratchett protagonist stick out more.

I am SO EXCITED to reread the bits with other Omnians. Mightily Oats! <33333

[genarti]

I agree about Brutha's inconsistency, and also about how it picks up after the desert. It's been a while since I read it; I tried rereading it a while ago, and to be honest, I kind of bogged down on early all-over-the-place Brutha. (And on lack of time; I don't think I'd've bogged down without that, but the fact does remain that it's a very rare Terry Pratchett book that doesn't grab me by the ear and force me to keep reading in spite of all other commitments.)

And yet I honestly, deeply love the second half, and the message. But I do have to push through the first half to get there, and to remember why it does work so well in the end. But that's why I don't recommend it to new readers as much as many people do, I think, or at least not without qualifications. It's a great book, but if you bounce off it, it doesn't necessarily mean you're bouncing off Pterry entirely.

[skygiants]

It's kind of a shame, to be honest, because I think he's really trying to write a very unusual-for-him (and-for-fiction-in-general) protagonist, and it's almost there but not quite. It doesn't make the rest of the book less awesome! But it does make me sort of wistful for what could have been.

[surexit]

I was scarred by the torture scene in Small Gods at a young age, and have never reread. :( Which is a shame because I think I would like it.

[skygiants]

The torture scene is pretty intense! I don't blame your tiny self for being traumatized. :O

[surexit]

Dammit, I was hoping you were going to tell me that it's actually quite negligible. :( I WANT TO REREAD, BUT IT SCARES ME.