History Fridge / TheFifthElephant

* The Schmaltzberger dwarfs won't accept any dwarfs named Glodsson as candidates for Low Kingship. Why? In ''Discworld/WitchesAbroad'', a footnote states that thousands of copies of a dwarf named Glod were created by a curse imposed upon a human king by a dyslexic god. The deep-downers probably wouldn't see their offspring as 'real' dwarfs.

* Carrot's alarm when he asks Gaspode if the nearby villagers had killed the wolf they captured seems like an overreaction, given that it's unlikely they'd have used fire or silver against such an animal, so if (as he presumably fears) it was Angua in wolf-form, she'd potentially walk away unscathed. But if you recall the events of ''Discworld/MenAtArms'', Gaspode's report of the wolf's capture becomes a ''lot'' more alarming: [[spoiler: it took Angua ''hours'' to revive when she was shot in that novel, and she didn't revert back to human shape while she appeared to be dead. So if the villagers had, say, riddled her with arrows until she dropped, they might well have burned her remains or, worse still, ''skinned her alive'' before she could wake up. (She'd look like a genuine dead wolf to them, and warm pelts are valuable in such a cold country.)]]
* Vimes, watching the clacks at work, thinks that its inventors must be making money hand over fist. [[Discworld/GoingPostal The poor fellows]].

%% This isn't Troper Tales or a forum. Refrain from first person entries, speculation, and "replying" to entries. RepairDontRespond is in effect here as much as any other page.

* Carrot's alarm when he asks Gaspode if the nearby villagers had killed the wolf they captured seems like an overreaction, given that it's unlikely they'd have used fire or silver against such an animal, so if (as he presumably fears) it was Angua in wolf-form, she'd potentially walk away unscathed. But if you recall the events of ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Gaspode's report of the wolf's capture becomes a ''lot'' more alarming: [[spoiler: it took Angua ''hours'' to revive when she was shot in that novel, and she didn't revert back to human shape while she appeared to be dead. So if the villagers had, say, riddled her with arrows until she dropped, they might well have burned her remains or, worse still, ''skinned her alive'' before she could wake up. (She'd look like a genuine dead wolf to them, and warm pelts are valuable in such a cold country.)]]

* The dwarfish superstition regarding the Scone is that the piece of Truth in it would flash white-hot if anybody touching it told a lie. ''The Low King is supposed to sit on it while passing judgement''. Dwarfs like to keep their kings honest.
** And it would, of course, lead to a conflagration in the underwear department if he told an untruth...

* Vimes and Sybil both privately hold the opinion that Carrot and Angua's relationship is under strain because of their concerns about not being able to have children, or producing a CompleteMonster if they do. This is never brought up in either Carrot's or Angua's point of view sections, and it's made pretty clear that the problem actually stem from a completely unrelated source [[note]]Angua's anxieties that she will become more like her family and eventually turn on her non-werewolf friends, and that she can't be accepted by other species because she's neither a human nor a wolf[[/note]]. While it doesn't make much sense to apply this reasoning to Carrot and Angua, it actually makes complete sense for Vimes and Sybil to ''think'' like this, since it's a projection of their own situation: Vimes is afraid that they've missed their chance to have children by marrying in middle age; and Sybil is afraid because she's just discovered that she's pregnant with her first child, and is unsure of how Vimes will react, or the effect it will have on her health.

* Vimes telling Detritus to blow the doors off the Baron's castle with the Piecemaker isn't just a Moment of Awesome: it also gives Vimes the satisfaction of papering over the memory of one of his previous minor embarrassments. Namely, the time in ''Guards! Guards!'' when he got carried away by ''Dirty Harry'' tropes and ordered Colon to shoot the lock off a door with a bow and arrow. Turns out all he'd needed to get it right was a big enough bow.

* Carrot's alarm when he asks Gaspode if the nearby villagers had killed the wolf they captured seems like an overreaction, given that it's unlikely they'd have used fire or silver against such an animal, so if (as he presumably fears) it was Angua in wolf-form, she'd potentially walk away unscathed. But if you recall the events of ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Gaspode's report of the wolf's capture becomes a ''lot'' more alarming: [[spoiler: it took Angua ''hours'' to revive when she was shot in that novel, and she didn't revert back to human shape while she appeared to be dead. So if the villagers had, say, riddled her with arrows until she dropped, they might well have burned her remains or, worse still, ''skinned her alive'' before she could wake up. (She'd look like a genuine dead wolf to them, and warm pelts are valuable in such a cold country.)]]

* FridgeBrilliance:
** Vimes is bemused by the fact that the Low King is "crowned" by sitting on top of a sacred relic. But dwarfs regard things that are "low" to be better than things that are "high", so putting the Scone on his head would be treating it ''less respectfully'' than his perching on top of it.
** The dwarfish superstition regarding the Scone is that the piece of Truth in it would flash white-hot if anybody touching it told a lie. ''The Low King is supposed to sit on it while passing judgement''. Dwarfs like to keep their kings honest.
*** And it would, of course, lead to a conflagration in the underwear department if he told an untruth...
** Gavin and Carrot's fight with Wolfgang. Much is made of the fact that Carrot fights "by the rules"; but when Gavin jumps in, he's ''trying to fight fair, too.'' Which Gaspode notes before he [[GroinAttack jumps in to help.]]
** Vimes, despite his avowed loathing for kings, hits it off fairly well with Rhys Rhysson. This makes more sense when you consider that it's really the concept of ''hereditary'' kingship that Vimes finds repugnant - by his reckoning, it's a recipe for breeding power-crazed unaccountable bastards - whereas the Low King is ''selected'' by consensus of the movers and shakers within dwarf society, not unlike how the Patrician himself gets chosen.
* Albrecht Albrectsson refuses to trade with any dwarfs named Glodsson. Why? In Witches Abroad, a footnote states that thousands of copies of a dwarf named Glod were created by a curse imposed upon a human king by a dyslexic god. The deep-downers probably wouldn't see their offspring as 'real' dwarfs.
* FridgeBrilliance: Vimes and Sybil both privately hold the opinion that Carrot and Angua's relationship is under strain because of their concerns about not being able to have children, or producing a CompleteMonster if they do. This is never brought up in either Carrot's or Angua's point of view sections, and it's made pretty clear that the problem actually stem from a completely unrelated source [[note]]Angua's anxieties that she will become more like her family and eventually turn on her non-werewolf friends, and that she can't be accepted by other species because she's neither a human nor a wolf[[/note]]. While it doesn't make much sense to apply this reasoning to Carrot and Angua, it actually makes complete sense for Vimes and Sybil to ''think'' like this, since it's a projection of their own situation: Vimes is afraid that they've missed their chance to have children by marrying in middle age; and Sybil is afraid because she's just discovered that she's pregnant with her first child, and is unsure of how Vimes will react, or the effect it will have on her health.
* FridgeLogic: In contrast to Pratchett's usual genius with consistency and detail, the weight mechanism guarding the Scone of Stone only makes sense if you don't think about it at all. If you try to figure out how exactly it's supposed to work, you'll find its apparent principle is convoluted enough to require a computer to run it, but it would still have to be a very stupidly programmed computer.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Which might have been the point all along]], given that the overly complex mechanism proves almost idiotically easy to bypass.
** The platform is - unseen to anyone walking on it - actually floating in an underground reservoir of water, so when you step on it (entering the Scone room), it displaces a certain amount of water, which flows into a bathtub-shaped tank on rails. When you step off the platform, that tank is shunted along a bit, and replaced by an identical but empty one. The original reservoir refills using a ballcock mechanism. The next time you step on the platform (on your way out of the Scone room), the same thing happens, displacing water into the second movable tank. If you were the same weight each time, the two tanks weigh the same now. Otherwise, one is heavier. The tanks slide sideways onto a simple scale mechanism. If there's a difference in the weights, the scale tilts, knocking a switch that lowers the cage around you and sounds the alarm-bell. Simple.
*** But it would be mechanically impossible for the components to move fast enough to get separate readings for Vimes, Cheery and Dee, and the system must also be able to distinguish between which of the people who went in is now coming out.
*** The story takes place on (in?) a flat world that flies through space on the back of four (formerly five?) elephants and a giant turtle. Besides, [[AWizardDidIt undoubtedly there are dwarven wizards.]]
*** Or the mechanism is nothing more than a reasonably accurate set of scales backed up by a dwarf on duty watching the readout, taking notes and doing some quick maths. Yes, an alarm rings during the test, but there's no reason to assume it was an ''automatic'' one.
** I've just re-read the passage and there is NO indication of how the mechanism actually works - there is a short comment about a hydraulic system, but that's the "boat lift", not the scales in the corridor leading to the scone. Where are you guys even finding all that detail to argue about?
*** That's just one hypothetical solution that probably only took a few minutes to think of. The Dwarves have had centuries to work on the problem.
** Speaking of the Scone's protective mechanisms, the first part with the water-locks and boat could be FridgeBrilliance on the dwarfs' part. At first glance, it just sounds like another way of operating an elevator, but when you consider that vampires in Discworld (barring serious self-help training in the style of the de Magpyrs) have an aversion to crossing running water, you realize that it's not necessarily set up that way to keep out ''dwarf'' thieves.

* FridgeHorror: Carrot's alarm when he asks Gaspode if the nearby villagers had killed the wolf they captured seems like an overreaction, given that it's unlikely they'd have used fire or silver against such an animal, so if (as he presumably fears) it was Angua in wolf-form, she'd potentially walk away unscathed. But if you recall the events of ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Gaspode's report of the wolf's capture becomes a ''lot'' more alarming: [[spoiler: it took Angua ''hours'' to revive when she was shot in that novel, and she didn't revert back to human shape while she appeared to be dead. So if the villagers had, say, riddled her with arrows until she dropped, they might well have burned her remains or, worse still, ''skinned her alive'' before she could wake up. (She'd look like a genuine dead wolf to them, and warm pelts are valuable in such a cold country.)]]

* FridgeHorror: Carrot's alarm when he asks Gaspode if the nearby villagers had killed the wolf they captured seems like an overreaction, given that it's unlikely they'd have used fire or silver against such an animal, so if (as he presumably fears) it was Angua in wolf-form, she'd potentially walk away unscathed. But if you recall the events of ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Gaspode's report of the wolf's capture becomes a ''lot'' more alarming: [[spoiler: it took Angua ''hours'' to revive when she was shot in that novel, and she didn't revert back to human shape while she appeared to be dead. So if the villagers had shot her on sight and riddled her with arrows, they might well have burned her remains, or worse still, unknowingly ''skinned her alive'' before she could wake up. (She'd look like a genuine dead wolf to them, and warm pelts are valuable in such a cold country.)]]

* FridgeHorror: Carrot's alarm when he asks Gaspode if the nearby villagers had killed the wolf they captured seems like an overreaction, given that it's unlikely they'd have used fire or silver against such an animal, so if (as he presumably fears) it was Angua in wolf-form, she'd presumably walk away unscathed. But if you recall the events of ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Gaspode's report of the wolf's capture becomes a ''lot'' more alarming: [[spoiler: it took Angua ''hours'' to revive when she was shot in that novel, and she didn't revert back to human shape while she appeared to be dead. So if the villagers had shot her on sight and riddled her with arrows, they might well have burned her remains, or worse still, unknowingly ''skinned her alive'' before she could wake up. (She'd look like a genuine dead wolf to them, and warm pelts are valuable in such a cold country.)]]

* Vimes notes that Igors tend to walk with a limp, [[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Igor Discworld wiki]] claims they do this intentionally, but given their tendency toward [[MixAndMatchMan self improvement]] and how they're described as "good catches" there may well be an [[GagPenis alternate explanation]].

* Albrecht Albrectsson refuses to trade with any dwarfs named Glodsson. Why? In Witches Abroad, a footnote states that thousands of copies of a dwarf named Glod were created by a god. The deep-downers probably wouldn't see their offspring as 'real' dwarfs.

* FridgeBrilliance: Vimes is bemused by the fact that the Low King is "crowned" by sitting on top of a sacred relic. But dwarfs regard things that are "low" to be better than things that are "high", so putting the Scone on his head would be treating it ''less respectfully'' than his perching on top of it.

* Vimes notes that Igors tend to walk with a limp, [[http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Igor Discworld wiki]] claims they do this intentionally, but given their tendency toward [[MixAndMatchMan self improvement]] and how they're described as "good catches" there may well be an [[GagPenis alternate explanation]].

*** I've just re-read the passage and there is NO indication of how the mechanism actually work - there is a short comment about a hydraulic system, but that's the "boat lift", not the scales in the corridor leading to the scone. Where are you guys even finding all that detail to argue about?
** Vimes notes that Igors tend to walk with a limp, [[http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Igor Discworld wiki]] claims they do this intentionally, but given their tendency toward [[MixAndMatchMan self improvement]] and how they're described as "good catches" there may well be an [[GagPenis alternate explanation]].

** I realized this while reading ''Thud!'', but here's where we first heard of him - a famous ancient dwarf king was known as B'hrian Bloodaxe. [[BrianBlessed Try saying his first name out loud.]]

** Vimes notes that Igors tend to walk with a limp, [[http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Igor Discworld wiki]] claims they do this intentionally, but given their tendency toward "self improvement" and how they're described as "good catches" there may well be an [[GagPenis alternate explanation]].

*** The story takes place on (in?) a flat world that flies through space on the back of four (formerly five?) elephants and a giant turtle. Besides, [[AWizardDidIt undoubtedly there are dwarven wizards.]]