History Headscratchers / ThiefOfTime

** Possibly Time had been hoping to retire and be with the man she loved, all along. Placing one of the boy(s) at the Clockmakers' Guild would ensure that at least one aspect of her potential successor would acquire expertise on time, so far as a mortal upbringing could provide it. Indeed, if the Discworld had theoretical physicists, Lobsang might've wound up on ''their'' Guild's doorstep instead.

** Possibly Time had been hoping to retire and be with the man she loved, all along. Placing one of the boy(s) at the Clockmakers' Guild would ensure that at least one aspect of her potential successor would acquire expertise on time, so far as a mortal upbringing could provide it.

** Jeremy probably ''built'' the watch himself, and engineered it so that its alarm would automatically be triggered just prior to the hour. He only cares that the watch's ''face'' give accurate time; the alarm is just an add-on.

** Wen and Time had just become parents to something even more confusing than twins. Maybe they weren't quite thinking straight?

** Kaos's sword isn't the first so-cold-it-boils thing in Discworld, actually: back in ''Discworld/EqualRites'', Esk's staff became so cold when she was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions that it caused a huge iceberg to form around it in the river, with a pool of boiling-cold water at the center where it was floating. It's just the same so-extreme-it-comes-out-the-other-side phenomenon that gave Otto dark light for his iconographs in ''Discworld/TheTruth''.

*** And if that isn't enough in ''{{Discworld/Maskerade}}'' the picture Nanny had used for the cover of ''Joy of Snackes'' was a picture done by "that artist chap who used to visit in the summer"

*** And if that isn't enough in Discworld/Maskerade the picture Nanny had used for the cover of ''Joy of Snackes'' was a picture done by "that artist chap who used to visit in the summer"

** The assumptions seems to be that motion is necessarilly chaotic, and inaction necessarilly ordered. While this may appear true from a human perspective, this isn't necessarilly true from a truly objective one- after all, the Auditors, the incarnation of order, specifically involve themselves in the continued orbit of celestial bodies. Perhaps the coldness of the sword represents the breakdown of all action, and so the ability of order to manifest itself in a meaningful fashion?

** 2nd law of thermodynamics 'In a closed system, all things tend towards entropy [read 'Chaos']. Look at it on a universal scale (the only true 'closed system'. All the time the Universe is losing energy, the suns burn themselves out, etc (though we know that this happens time and time again, our sun is belived to be a '3rd generation star', so made out of bits of 2nd gen, which were made out of the ORIGINAL stars!) If we don't go 'Big Crunch' eventually all energy in the universe will be used up- as a closed system there is no way to replace it. What there will be is a uniform spread of atoms, with a overall temperature of 3'K. Chaotic/Cold enough?

* Just how old is Mrs Cosmopilite? Lu-Tze is explicitly described as being young (although not given a specific age) when he turned up in Ankh-Morpork, seeking perplexity. He's now 800 years old, and she still sends him those woolly longjohns.

** Given how the book is explicitly about rationalising away discrepancies exactly like this, the answer seems to be inherent the plot. Given how much Lu-Tze likes those thermals, I'd say he had a vested interest in seeing The Life and Times of Mrs Cosmopilite being used for as many patches in history as possible from both breakages.

* Lobsang was left at the Thieves' Guild- not necessarily an obvious choice, but one in which he was able to use his talents unobtrusively. Jeremy on the other hand was left at the Clockmakers' Guild- someplace where one would think that the son of the personification of Time might perhaps stand out. In fact, it could be argued that Jeremy having been left at that particular Guild essentially kickstarted the entire plot of the book.

* Myria LeJean's face is supposed to be based on the ''Mona Ogg.'' The ''Mona Ogg'' presumably shows a much younger version of Nanny Ogg. Even accounting for Nanny looking very different after several decades, wouldn't Susan have noticed some resemblance between the two?

** This is the most logical answer. Time and Wen cannot raise them to adulthood since time passes differently for them. Nanny suggested leaving thme as foundlings but deliberately left them at different guilds to prevent anyone from realizing that they were twins.

* I just realized (reading the MundaneUtility page where it says "Kaos' sword is a rule-breaking as he is"): Why is Kaos' sword's power absolute ''coldness''? Cold brings order. Adding heat energy to something would be more chaotic. Chaos [[FanWank could be]] "what happens when the fire goes out" (or "what there was before we had fire") considering how important fire was (and, in some forms, still is), but what would be less chaotic than making something's atoms go in all different directions at once, shattering molecules and turning water and ice into steam? His color theme could still be blue, since Red's taken by War and pale (pale green/clear flame) would already be taken by Death... Unless Kaos is actually Entropy, by (possibly) violating the conservation of energy? You'd think Entropy would be part of Death's job, unless Death handled only the ''actual'' ending bit and what comes after, but entropy would have made the matter of the universe less chaotic to coalesce into ordered systems of stars and planets and rocks, so that's probably out two ways. It just doesn't make sense for Kaos' power to be Cold. Oh, one last thing: He uses his ability to travel without time to [[spoiler: ''deliver dairy products every day at'']] ''the exact same time''. Rebelling against his former job, what?
** 'It was a work of art, the sword. It had imaginary velocity, negative energy and positive cold, cold so cold that it met heat coming the other way and took on some of its nature.' Basically, the thing was a hang-over from the 'bid bang' period, maybe even before, and so, of course it didn't make sense. Ronnie himself also shows this, being able to generate, stop, and even 'reverse' time independent of the rest of the world. One wonders if Ronnie is even on the same level as the others, or if he is a cut above them.
** The way I saw the cold thing, the original perception of the horsemen seems to come from Omnia. A desert. I feel that the coldness of night would be the original chaos to the people of the barren wasteland. That, and, original chaos before the world was in the cold darkness of space.
*** Well, it's given in the novels that Kaos is what existed before most other stuff in the universe, so it may be that the sword is an analogue for Absolute Zero, 0 Kelvin, the lowest temperature something can be, because this is the point that even atoms stop moving.
** Actually, think about it another way. It's so cold, that it literally loops around negative infinity and touches positive infinity temperature-wise, despite such a thing being impossible, because that's the way it works. "cold so cold that it met heat coming back the other way and took on some of it's nature". So it's possible that it loops in a similar fashion in regards to order, in that it actually goes beyond absolute order and swings right back into utter chaos.
** The sword's coldness ''is'' chaotic, by breaking the laws of thermodynamics. What ''I'' got from the description of the sword can be summed up in two words: Negative. Kelvin. It doesn't get much more impossible than that.
*** What about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number -i]] Kelvins?

*** This is the most logical answer. Time and Wen cannot raise them to adulthood since time passes differently for them. Nanny suggested leaving thme as foundlings but deliberately left them at different guilds to prevent anyone from realizing that they were twins.

*** At one point, an Abbott Lobsang of the Listening Monks was mentioned, so it is probably a fairly common name in that area, at least among monks.

*** The "Mona" in "Mona Lisa" just means "lady" or "ma'am", however. No reason it couldn't mean the same thing here.

** I've always interpreted that as his ''alarm'' being set early. Like 7:59 instead of 8:00. As long as it's telling time accurately and going off at the correct time, Jeremy's okay with it.

** Given how the book is explicitly about rationalising away discrepancies exactly like this, the answer seems to be inherent the plot. Given how much Lu-Tze likes those thermals, I'd say he had a vested interest in seeing The Life and Times of Mrs Cosmopilite being used for as many patches in history as possible from both breakages.

** Kaos's sword isn't the first so-cold-it-boils thing in ''Discworld'', actually: back in ''Discworld/EqualRites'', Esk's staff became so cold when she was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions that it caused a huge iceberg to form around it in the river, with a pool of boiling-cold water at the center where it was floating. It's just the same so-extreme-it-comes-out-the-other-side phenomenon that gave Otto dark light for his iconographs in ''Discworld/TheTruth''.

** Kaos's sword isn't the first so-cold-it-boils thing in ''Discworld'', actually: back in ''Discworld/EqualRites'', Esk's staff became so cold when she was trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions that it caused a huge iceberg to form around it in the river, with a pool of boiling-cold water at the center where it was floating. It's just the same so-extreme-it-comes-out-the-other-side phenomenon that gave Otto dark light for his iconographs in ''Discworld/TheTruth''.

*** Read ''Nanny Ogg's Cookbook'' and ''The Art of Discworld''. After reading both of them, one could very easily get the impression that Nanny being the Mona Ogg's subject is HEAVILY implied to be WordOfGod.

*** Read [[Nanny Ogg's Cookbook]] and [[The Art of Discworld]]. After reading both of them, one could very easily get the impression that Nanny being the Mona Ogg's subject is HEAVILY implied to be [[Word of God]].

* Just how old is Mrs Cosmopilite? Lu-Tze is explicitly described as being young (although not given a specific age) when he turned up in Ankh-Morpork, seeking perplexity. He's now 800 years old, and she still sends him those wooly longjohns.
** Don't assume that a History Monk ages in chronological order.

* Just how old is Mrs Cosmopilite? Lu-Tze is explicitly described as being young (although not given a specific age) when he turned up in Ankh-Morpork, seeking perplexity. He's now 800 years old, and she still sends him those wooly longjohns.

*** Read [[Nanny Ogg's Cookbook]] and [[The Art of Discworld]]. After reading both of them, one could very easily get the impression that Nanny being the Mona Ogg's subject is HEAVILY implied to be [[Word of God]].