In the eighteenth part of Snuff<\/i>, Feeney Upshot has his day, and Wee Mad Arthur makes a terrible discovery. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of slavery, torture<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Holy shit. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all coming together, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, and IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO MUCH.<\/p>\n
Cease and Desist<\/b><\/p>\n
Like I said on video: I should have seen this coming. I really should have! The magistrates are constructed by Pratchett in a way that feels both deliberate and scathing: people of wealth and privilege will use the law to keep themselves where they are at any cost. In fact, the law only matters when it benefits them! And I found it fitting that the twist of the magistrates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cease and desist came after<\/i> Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long internal struggle with whether he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing the right thing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating because Vimes did not come from wealth, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now a part of it. And yet, he constantly<\/i> refuses to let himself fall into the trappings of wealth. He cares so deeply about being ethical, about not cheating his way to success, about making sure that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thought of all the possible angles that his case could be undone. And meanwhile, the other side is just straight-up cheating, and they know they can get away with it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Well, traditionally<\/i>. But they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never had to deal with Commander Sam Vimes. I love that his response here is not only to brilliantly disagree with Mr. Stoner, but to just leave<\/i>. Like, who has the audacity to think they can arrest Vimes? AGAIN??? Let us also appreciate that Vimes, after years of working with Vetinari, channels him here in order to keep Mr. Stoner on his toes. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s incredible seeing that happen, especially since it feels appropriate this far into the series. Vimes learned from the best at dealing with bureaucrats, aristocrats, and the rule of law in this context. Yet at the heart of it all is a strikingly emotional plea: Vimes needs these people to stop considering goblins as vermin. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, but one particular line here just took me OUT:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where will your magistrates put the ruler, Mr. Stoner? Then again we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use a ruler in Ankh-Morpork, because once the goblins are vermin, then the poor are vermin, and the dwarfs are vermin, and the trolls are vermin. She wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t vermin and she pleaded not to die.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a theme that Pratchett has seeded throughout the novel, at times challenging even the most progressive of characters with their notions of the goblins. And it leads to this powerful moment, wherein Vimes names the specific suffering that this poor woman went through. She was treated like a pest, and she died begging for her life. Chief Constable Upshot<\/b><\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to skip over everything that transpires at the lockup, but I have to start with this incredible bit:\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well done, Chief Constable Upshot, and this time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not laughing at you, Feeney, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not making fun, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not talking you down, and I cannot believe that you are the lad I met only a few days ago!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I wanted to focus on this journey because this scene is the culmination of a ton<\/i> of growth for Upshot. There is no uncertainty in this long scene as he addresses the violent mob that has come to take back Flutter. Pratchett is working with so much here: mob mentality. Privilege. The fact that the people of the Shires do what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re told and how that contributes to the insidious complicity we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen throughout the novel. Double standards. And one person who positions themselves in this moment at the center of it all is Upshot, who openly refuses to make the same mistake his father did. He isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to look the other way as goblins are mistreated and tormented, and he certainly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to let these men bully their way into denying the goblins justice. The whole thing is one of those moments that makes you want to pump your fist in the air because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so righteous<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n AND THEN THERE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S PROBATIONARY SPECIAL CONSTABLE STINKY. Holy shit, even Vimes was impressed as he watched Upshot trick all the men present into agreeing that the law applies to goblins, which therefore means they have rights, which means that Upshot has the power to make Stinky an officer. And just like that, with a single act, Upshot changes the world of the Shires. Just like that<\/i>. Now, I personally don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that this is a thing that works outside the context of this book. Like, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a really common refrain you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll inevitably hear when talking about issues around police brutality and systemic violence, which is that the solution lies in hiring more people of color in the police force. That has historically never really worked because the greater issue there is rooted in something completely different. In the Shires and in Ankh-Morpork, I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier to argue that this is DEFINITELY a good thing, you know? They need representation to deal with issues that are unique to them, and the power structure of the Watch doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t line up with the power structures we see in Roundworld.<\/p>\n Anyway! Just something I was thinking about as I was writing this. I appreciate that some of this works as a real-world analogy or reference, but it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to in every<\/i> context. The Disc is its own large, sprawling world, and this solution works here. The same goes for how Vimes deals with Mr. Stoner. Mr. Stoner is a lawyer who behaves as he does because he works for the ultra rich. He knows his actions have the slimmest basis in real<\/i> law; again, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all about what these aristocrats can get away with, and Mr. Stoner definitely enables them! So what does Vimes do? He appeals to Mr. Stoner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future; he invokes Mr. Slant! Yet that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the image he gives to the gathered crowd, and Vimes brilliantly makes it look like Mr. Stoner snitched on\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, someone<\/i>. Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really matter whom. In this is the implicit confirmation of how ferociously the people of this community hate<\/i> snitches. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Jethro disappeared in the first place! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not bad enough that these people did something monstrous years earlier and continue<\/i> to do it; they punish anyone who threatens the practice.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That does make me wonder: how many times since that moment three years ago have the goblins been kidnapped for labor?<\/p>\n Wee Mad Arthur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Discovery<\/b><\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to quote the brutal details, but this truly felt like one of the darkest moments in the Discworld<\/i> series, right up with some of the stuff in Thud!<\/i> and Tiffany Aching\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book. Arthur has found the tobacco plantation where the goblins have been enslaved, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 horrifying. That word feels so trite when I think about what he finds there and how open the evidence is of it. The overseers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even care to hide<\/i> it, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. And why should they? No one has ever tried to stop this nightmare before, so they can just leave the evidence of the immense suffering for anyone to see. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so blatant, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point. These people believed that they were entitled to the bodies and labor of the goblins. The end<\/i>.<\/p>\n And now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for justice to finally come to light. I assume Wee Mad Arthur finds the surviving goblins in the other sheds, right???<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/hUxw3PTUaRM<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now OUT!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the eighteenth part of Snuff, Feeney Upshot has his day, and Wee Mad Arthur makes a terrible discovery. Intrigued? 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\nYet it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even crack Mr. Stoner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s facade. Neither does Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to appeal to the good nature of Constable Upshot, or the invocation of the fact that both Upshot and Vimes absolutely do not consider themselves above the law. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re underneath<\/i> it. If anyone is above the law, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the magistrates, and thus, Vimes refuses to keel to their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153authority.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His refusal is both in-character and a thrilling moment in the story, especially because of what it leads to.<\/p>\n