“It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”
Speaking of Pratchett; I recently re-read the last continent and I was amazed at how there was a mention of drag queens (probably alluding to Priscilla; Queen of the Desert?) but it was handled very tastefully, no obvious/lazy jokes.
This struck me since most media from 20 years back hasn’t aged nearly so gracefully.
Between that and your comment I’m starting to realise that Terry Pratchett was probably a very wise very kind man who happened to write funny books. Which makes me so happy because the bromeliad trilogy were the first books that really got me into reading as a child.
yeah he really is incredible, you would think across forty one books (and that’s just the ones from discworld) in the time that he came from there would be at least a couple bad takes but he never misses.
i started mort as my first from him and got halfway through it but misplaced it :(
think I’m gonna get it on my kindle i really love his personification of death as a kind being who loves cats and desperately wants to understand humans haha
“It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”
-pratchett, once again
Speaking of Pratchett; I recently re-read the last continent and I was amazed at how there was a mention of drag queens (probably alluding to Priscilla; Queen of the Desert?) but it was handled very tastefully, no obvious/lazy jokes.
This struck me since most media from 20 years back hasn’t aged nearly so gracefully.
Between that and your comment I’m starting to realise that Terry Pratchett was probably a very wise very kind man who happened to write funny books. Which makes me so happy because the bromeliad trilogy were the first books that really got me into reading as a child.
I should re-read the discord series 🙂
yeah he really is incredible, you would think across forty one books (and that’s just the ones from discworld) in the time that he came from there would be at least a couple bad takes but he never misses.
i started mort as my first from him and got halfway through it but misplaced it :(
think I’m gonna get it on my kindle i really love his personification of death as a kind being who loves cats and desperately wants to understand humans haha