In the twelfth part of Snuff<\/i>, Vimes learns the truth. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Snuff<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For extended talk of slavery<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, all the signs were there, weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they?<\/p>\n
The Way Out<\/b><\/p>\n
This is something I briefly discussed on video: we are watching Vimes change his mind in this book. Again<\/i>. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a common motif of his characterization over the many books he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appeared in. He is a stubborn person by nature, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not impossible; he is not an immovable object. And as Vimes is led out of the goblin cave, he is exposed to more and more details that challenge his perception of this species. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean this change of heart is immediate, though, and in re-reading the split for this review, this one line stood out to me:<\/p>\n He smiled to himself. Maybe the goblins weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all that stupid, only more stupid than humans were, which, when you came to think about it, took some effort.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And while this might be a clever way to insult humans in the process, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lessen the fact that Vimes is doing exactly<\/i> what Miss Beedle chastises him for later in this scene! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not simply that he is judging them based on his perception of them. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that he can only view the goblins through a human lens. Thus, if they do something differently than humans or\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgod forbid\u00e2\u20ac\u201dVimes can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand a behavior or custom, he views it as inherently lesser<\/i> than himself. For example! The goblin smashing the unggue pot. It seems utterly sacrilegious to both Feeney and Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 at least until they inspect the pieces and discover that they turn to dust. There is a magic here, or a process, that they simply do not get. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get why the goblins seek perfection when creating these pots. (And I do wonder how much pride plays a part in this. They seem to need to create pots that they can be proud of outlasting them, right?) And this is all just the tip of the iceberg! Pratchett gives us so many tiny details along the way about the goblins, most of them incomprehensible or strange to Vimes, yet unmistakably theirs<\/i>. They have an entire culture that exists independent of humans and what humans think of them.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Which is why I respect what Miss Beedle is doing and how<\/i> she is doing it. I do understand why Vimes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first reaction to learning that she is teaching them to read and to speak is to frame it as though she is trying to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153civilize\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the goblins. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flawed! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the same problem as before. She is teaching them to communicate<\/i> with humans because they have to live with them. But she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t changing them at all. As she says, she is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153teaching them how to be goblins, clever goblins,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that means she has no intention of diluting their beliefs or their culture. Her monologue is scathing and necessary, too, The point of it, at least my take on it? We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know shit about the goblins<\/i>. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s humans<\/i> who have the limited perception here, not the other way around! Yes, this resonated so much with me, because even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a metaphorical representation, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to see how this exact phenomenon appears in the real world. Pratchett is clearly referencing it, too, and how often we judge people as the Other and as Inferior because we refuse to understand others AND judge them through the lens of our lives.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Way Through<\/b><\/p>\n And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why it is important that Pratchett makes this point, then immediately follows it up with the implications of said belief. Vimes has a stunning line here that I want to open with:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And bloody Vetinari got away with it again, because he was right: where there are little crimes, large crimes are not far behind.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If we extrapolate this metaphor to the goblins, then we can see how chief constable Upshot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s admission fits this to a T. So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the little crime? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d argue that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the kidnapping, which is the larger crime. Look how often the goblins are denied personhood and agency throughout this text, and not just from the magistrates and the aristocrats. Vimes is certainly further ahead than most, but even he slips up from time to time. From that, the people in this land easily justify their behavior when they KIDNAP TONS OF GOBLINS and say that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best<\/i> for them to be taken elsewhere to work in the sun. There are just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 so many levels of evil to that, you know? Not just the kidnapping, but the idea that they need<\/i> sun, that the work is good<\/i> for them, despite it clearly being unpaid and strenuous and deadly and forced, and that this would also help the goblins \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not bother other people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That last one is so damn telling, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. These people allowed slavery to happen to the goblins because they were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bothered\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by the goblins.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I am loathe to imagine what the even larger crimes are at this point, but clearly something<\/i> is happening elsewhere. The plot involving Colon, Gumption, and the unggue pot is definitely linked to this, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing that there are goblin slaves working on Gumption\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tobacco plantation, right? Jesus, how the hell is Vimes going to undo all of this? How do you challenge a whole system like this? I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 yes, you go to Lady Sybil first, GOOD IDEA, SAM VIMES. But I got the sense that she knew exactly<\/i> how gnarly and confusing and complicated this was going to be. And her warning is partially due to that! Sam has a delicate nightmare that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to unravel, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t guess what the next step is. Even if he confronts the magistrates, are they just going to give it all up? No, they still think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s technically legal. And it very well might be! Are there any laws protecting the goblins? What about anti-slavery laws? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know!<\/p>\n THIS IS A MESS.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=44YMCH4IWxA<\/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 twelfth part of Snuff, Vimes learns the truth. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Snuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,563,248],"class_list":["post-5071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-snuff","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}