In the third part of Reaper Man, Windle tries to deal with being undead. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Discworld.
Trigger Warning: For discussion of oppression, suicide.
It can’t just be me. These books keep getting sadder, don’t they? Like, I can’t ignore how much this sucks for Windle Poons, y’all! I think Pratchett makes an attempt to build humor out of a dark situation here, since some of the scenes involving Windle wanting to die are surreal and absurd. I don’t doubt that this was intentional because the tone of this whole section switches between sadness and amusement. Given how Poons has behaved in the majority of this series, there’s obviously some humor to be derived from how he now behaves.
But there’s now a logistical problem to be faced within Ankh-Morpork, and it’s on many fronts. The wizards of Unseen University spend a great deal of time considering the options they have to deal with the recently dead. Or the undead. Or zombies? I don’t think they count as zombies. Let’s go with the undead. Given that Pratchett makes it clear that other people are now coming back to life (while still appearing dead), I imagine that the people in Ankh-Morpork are going to have a fairly large problem on their hands. And soon. So what do they do? How do you combat them?
And really, that’s the entire problem with the wizard’s approach: they view the undead (specifically Windle Poons) as vermin. He has to be exterminated. It doesn’t even occur to them that he’s largely the same person or that he’s human at all. They cycle through as many mythical solutions to this undead “problem” as possible, and the way they treat Poons is horrifying. No one speaks to him in any sort of respectable manner at all, and they often treat him like an object right to his face.
So it’s not hard for me to see a pretty powerful metaphor for generalized oppressive dynamics and ableism. Wouldn’t this count as an illness? Technically? Even if that’s not the case, there’s a clear revulsion expressed on the part of the wizards every time Windle is near. We see the same behavior in other random citizens who see Windle, such as the muggers. Which is why it’s so upsetting that Windle gets close to something that might make him feel better about being undead. I was utterly shocked initially that Windle drifted towards the Shades because… well, he was a wizard! The Shades is like the antithesis to everything the wizards stand for.
Which is exactly the point.
For more than a century Windle Poons had lived inside the walls of Unseen University. In terms of accumulated years, he may have lived a long time. In terms of experience, he was about thirteen.
He was seeing, hearing, and smelling things he’d never seen, heard or smelled before.
This is absolutely the most interesting part of this entire section, and it’s also the saddest. Windle Poons lived in a culture that limited his experience and now, as an undead person, he’s being haunted by that life. That has a negative connotation, sure, but Windle uses this epiphany to explore The Shades with exuberance. I was reminded of my own time in Long Beach post-graduation, when I finally had a chance to be in a city where I felt like I could belong. (Whether I actually experienced that is an entirely separate issue, of course.) Windle’s perception of Ankh-Morpork and his own life is irrevocably changed because of this:
This place! Only ten minutes’ walk or fifteen minutes’ lurch from the University! And he’d never known it was there! All these people! All this noise! All this life!
And then, in an instant, it’s all ruined. A sex worker literally runs away from him due to his ugliness, and he’s reminded that as an undead person, he no longer has the social standing he used to possess. He’s treated like the Other. It’s a common and destructive theme in the lives of marginalized people, and I don’t think you can take that out of this story. I don’t feel like this is an accident, you know? Windle’s experiences here are deliberately upsetting because Pratchett is exploring what it’s like for someone to lose the prestige of being a wizard and become… what? A monster? An undesirable? How are the people of the Discworld going to treat the rapid appearance of the undead? Can their conditions ever change, or will death forever be the problem of other people?
Also, I have no idea what the hell is going on with Dibbler’s storage area. WHAT IS HAPPENING.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IabiKHGss_Q
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