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Discworld Flesh golems, to be precise. The Igors were an attempt at a more intelligent, but still obedient golem.

• Under the right circumstances, Igors are extremely, inhumanly competent, on a similar level to actual golems. In Monstrous Regiment, for example, an Igor is described as performing a series of complex surgeries (limb reattachments) in a few seconds, moving so fast that its hands are blurred and almost invisible.
• Igors follow orders unquestioningly (90% of the time), just like golems.
• Igors feel a pathological need to have a master. The closest we've seen of an unmastered Igor is the coroner in the watch (who calls Vimes master at first) and the Igor in Monstrous Regiment, who still follows orders from a master figure (Jackrum).
• The more recent trend of (sort of) unmastered Igors may indicate another golem revolution ala Feet of Clay.

Igors are not called golems because when golems were still being produced, as we're told in Feet of Clay, it was done so by priests, so a golem made of flesh — and with a voice at that — would have caused some significant problems for its "employer". Presumably, he or she passed their new creation off as a funny-looking lab assistant. The Igors' knack for surgery is due to their need for "self repair" being made of what are essentially secondhand materials.

• Except that Discworld uses the orgional ancient Hebrew rules for Golems, not the Dungeons And Dragons ones.

Because really, what else could it be?

First off, Terry Pratchett is a very big fan of They Might Be Giants. Then there's the similar titles and the fact that the book was released in 1991, one year after the song. But, there's a lot more, and nearly every line in the song is referenced. Warning: Contains lots of spoilers.

• Death is Particle Man. He's often referred to as "Little Death," and he "does things a particle can," like passing through solid objects and appearing in two places at once (spooky action at a distance). The book is about the problems that come up when he develops a personality of his own, or, in other words, "What's he like? It's not important." Particle Man.
• The Auditors are Triangle Man. They always exist in threes, and they hate both Particle Man (Death) and Person Man (Humanity). They manage to get Death laid off at the start of the book; in other words, they have a fight, Triangle wins. Triangle Man.
• Obviously, Azrael is Universe Man, as he is, indeed, the size of the entire universe, man. He's usually kind to smaller man, a reference to his taking Death's side. He has a clock with a minute hand, a millennium hand and an eon hand, and when they meet, we can presume that it will be happy land. Powerful man. Universe Man.
  • He may or may not have shrimp to go with the millennium hand.
• Even more obviously, Humanity as a whole (and Windle Poons in particular) is Person Man. He doesn't get hit on the head by a frying pan, but he's has lived his whole life in Ankh-Morpork, which many would be willing to describe as a garbage can. As well, there's is a lot of questioning whether or not Windle Poons is depressed or if he's a mess, and does he feel totally worthless. And the big question about the book is how he got into that state, or, "Who came up with Person Man?"

That's about it. It's a short song.

Everybody dies eventually, and when Vetinari's time does come, who better to take over than the Flying Postman, the Man In The Golden Suit, who's done more by winging it than many men have done through careful planning?

• Possibly, this is only because his attempts to groom Captain Carrot for the office failed. Carrot would be perfect for the job, being incorruptible, simple but with a powerful mind, and absolutely dedicated to the city. Unfortunately, he feels he can do more as a policeman than as a ruler, and is also afraid that if he became ruler, it might lead to the return of the Kingship.
  • Alternatively, it could be very well be the reverse; the Patrician and Carrot know they're fighting Narrative Causality, which will be trying to push Carrot into becoming the King, hence why finding a good replacement for the Patrician is a priority. Carrot would almost certainly not make a good Patrician — he'd make a great King, but Kings lead to ruin.
• Alternatively, Vetinari just getting things ready for Carrot; he's the only person Vetinari knows he doesn't have to manipulate. They both have an "understanding" of how the city needs to work. Carrot may have the ability to step into the position of Patrician easily, but with a properly trained Vimes and Von Lipwig at his disposal, he'd be able to keep the position.
• Drumknott may also be getting a position; Vetinari is clearly training him, at the least to be the perfect clerk.
• Vimes is a more obvious choice for Patrician, but consider. They're pretty much the same age, and Vimes works at a hazardous occupation and is a recovering alcoholic, ie. not all that healthy. Vetinari might outlive him, to be honest. As well, Vimes is a very angry guy without a great deal of political tact. He offends everyone. That's his purpose in life. In short, he'd make a terrible Patrician, but incredible Assistant Patrician.
• Yet another possibility: Vetinari would never be so short sighted as to groom a person as a replacement. He is grooming several people as replacements.
• Moist Von Lipwig has been shown to be a character who doesn't do well over long periods of time; this leads to a few options if we're still going with this idea. One, Vetinari knows that he doesn't do well over long periods of time, and thus keeps giving him new responsibilities to keep him entertained and to try to push his attention span a bit longer so that one day he will be equipped to run Ankh-Morpork. Alternatively, Vetinari knows he's a short-term type of guy, so has him in reserve as a potential temporary Patrician, should anything like the events of Feet Of Clay repeat themselves.
  • Moist could do well long-term if the job was dangerous and/or exciting enough; It's just that he manages to make things work so well they become boring to him. And Vetinari mentions that the politics of the city are so poisonous and controlling the Guilds so difficult that by comparison, nothing seems hard, indicating Moist would never run out of problems that needed solving, so he'd be a good long-term choice, despite his tendency to boredom.
• A further possibility: the actual function of the Lord Vetinari Ward from the end of Making Money is to produce the perfect replacement for Vetinari — that is, a perfect copy of Vetinari. This is the real purpose behind the eyebrow-raising competition — it's actually a Secret Test Of Vetinariness.
• Or, maybe he's grooming a council to take over for him. None of the people mentioned can fill Vetinari's shoes. But, together, Moist, Vimes, Carrot, Drumknott, and possibly one or two others could.
• Another alternative, of course, is that Moist is just a convenient distraction. Vetinari doesn't intend to ever give up the Patricianship; see below.

Lady Margalotta turned him during his great sneer.

• Problem: Veterinari walks around in the sunlight without a hat. While vampires can operate quite decently during the day, they need to wear hats or veils to ensure no strong enough sunlight hits them.
  • Solution: Vetinari is a man of unbreakable will and could have trained himself the same way Count de Magpyr from Carpe Jugulum did. This is also why he can appear in the pictures in the Ankh-Morpork Times, despite the vampire photographer dissolving into dust each time he takes one.
• Problem: Vetinari visited Uberwald as a young man, and is now clearly much older. Vampires do not age.
  • Solution: Neither does Vetinari. He merely uses cosmetics and good acting ability to appear older. His use of a cane is fake; he just started carrying it after being shot because people would expect such a serious wound to have long term effect. He also started the rumor going around that he dyes his hair. Why bother actually dying it gray to look old, when he can start the rumor that it is gray and he simply dyes it black. If only there were some precedent to vampires being vulnerable to arsenic...

Think about it Vetinari definitely has vampiric traits (which would explain the popularity of the above theory-to the point where the author included it in one of the books as an in joke) but it’s a theory that’s been almost completely jossed, which is where the latent vampirism comes in.

• Lady Margolotta bit him on the grand sneer however she didn’t complete the process for some reason (maybe it was an accident? I’m not sure, still working on this thing) leaving him with some vampire traits; a lack of a normal need for food , sleep, etc., incredibly pale skin and very sharp reflexes (for someone pushing 50) but not making him a true vampire.
• Mind you, when he actually dies who knows....
• So he's a Blood Bond?

(apologies for the slighly sloppy layout, I'll be back to clean it up later)

• A very Discworld theory: By looking and acting so much like a vampire, and having so many people believe he's one, he'll become a vampire on his own.

Sure, he has to die sometime, but nobody says he has to pass on. Like the books say: it may cost a million dollars to kill Vetinari, but it'll cost much more to make him stay dead.

• Alternatively, as a variation on the above theory, Vetinari is not a vampire yet (could he have been poisoned and injured by the gonne if he were?), but he is friends (and quite possibly more) with one. He will arrange to be turned near the end of his life.
• Note also that Vetinari wishes to be cremated when he dies; this seems like it would prevent any form of undeath, but if anyone could not only find a way around this but use it to his advantage, it's Vetinari.
  • This would be similar to the way the "angels" offer worked for Moist (and Owlswick in Making Money). "Lord Vetinari certainly is dead, we have his ashes right here. The new Patrician is completely different."

Think about it — Moist has become obsessed with Anoia since the whole praying-for-money incident, said incident increased her worship dramatically, and when Anoia herself shows up in Wintersmith it's exactly the same character as Adora Belle.

• Moist also points out that you're supposed to smell cigarette smoke in the presence of Anoia, and anywhere Adora Belle has been for more than ten minutes reeks of it.
• In Going Postal, Mr Pump says this about Adora Bell: "Anghammarad Said She Reminded Him of Lela The Volcano Goddess, Who Smokes All The Time Because The God Of Rain Has Rained On Her Lava." And in Wintersmith, Anoia says "I used to be a volcano goddess [...] and the god of storms was always raining on my lava."
  • Also note: God of Rain. Moist Von Lipwig. Rains on Anoia/Lela/Adora Belle's lava.
• Alternatively, Anoia appears in her current form because Moist had Adora Belle in mind when he popularized her worship.

The Nac Mac Feegle believe that Discworld is their afterlife; more specifically, their equivalent to Valhalla, because why else would it be so perfect for them? Canonically, everyone gets the kind of afterlife they believe in (so History Monks get reincarnated, the Omnians all have to cross a lonely desert, etc.). So if the Nac Mac Feegle believe the Discworld is their afterlife, then quite possibly, it is!

Granny Weatherwax has a grandmother, the legendary Alison Weatherwax. Some say she went bad, others (Granny for one, anyone within earshot of her for another) say she didn't. She left Lancre long ago, but so far we have no proof she died. We do know she killed Bela de Magpyr about 50 years ago, and would be 125 if alive today. This is not especially impossible on the Disc.

• The Discworld Companion as good as confirms this; long before Alison was mentioned in Carpe Jugulum, she had an entry commenting that Lancre's registar's office had no record of her death.
  • Of course, The Lancre registrar's office is basically just Shawn Ogg. He may have been busy being the highway department or commissioner of fish and wildlife that day.
• This may or may not have anything to do with the clock Granny is so particular to keep wound in Lords & Ladies. (If it does, it can't be as simple as "Alison dies when the clock runs out", because that's already happened, and Granny just wound it up again as soon as she had the chance.)
  • Note the similarity to the witch from Wintersmith whom everyone thinks has a rewindable clock instead of a heart.
    • quite possibly then it is everyone perceptions that alison is kept on the right side of the veil by the clock which is keeping her alive.granny of course wouldent be fazed by this so it dosent matter if she has the clock wound up so long as no one else notices its run out.
• Or maybe she is Lady Margolotta...
  • and your reasoning for that is? (im not complaining about the rarther random theory id just like to know how you got to it)

Coin's dad would have been absolutely enraged at the idea of a female wizard creating a system of magic based on not using magic. And it explains why we haven't seen hide nor hair of her since.

• Jossed by Word Of God. From The Other Wiki: "During his Wintersmith tour, in response to a question about what happened to Esk, Pratchett said that Esk might have an appearance in the next Tiffany Aching book. Prior to this, most fans assumed she had died in the destructive war featured in Sourcery."

Just as "there are no female wizards", enter Esk and the Wizards of Krull, "there are no male witches". But there are several people who have been referred to being people who are as close to be witches as possible whilst in trousers, such as Mr. Brooks and Jason Ogg. After all, 99% of magic is knowing one extra fact. Insulting Mr. Brooks (the Royal Beekeeper) is almost as dangerous as insulting a witch. Jason and Brooks both reacted in the "correct" way to elves, and seemed resistant to glamour; Jason even got warnings about the incursion. Even Granny herself considers witchcraft less about wearing pointy hats and doing magic, and more about a point of view. She considers Mrs Palm to be a "practically a witch" even though acts of negotiable affection would definitely not constitute witchcraft. The simple fact is that it is possible to be a witch whilst not being aware of that fact, so why not do that and be male?

• According to Granny, there are enchantresses (female wizards) and warlocks (male witches), but these don't really count somehow. Perhaps they have the innate abilities Wizards and Witches have, but lack the proper narrative push education/etc to use these abilities.
  • Or perhaps Granny is just a perpetrator of good old-fashioned sexism. Or, even more likely, of good old-fashioned narcissism: Them other girl wizards weren't taught by a Weatherwax, were they?
    • Maybe Granny Weatherwax is just wrong.
    • Bite your tongue!
• Who dresses in black, always seems to be thinking about six steps ahead of everyone else on average, makes knowing all the facts his job, and is dangerously Genre Savvy, and as iron-willed as Granny herself? Vetinari, of course.
  • ...I think I have a new OTCrack Pairing...

Think about it. Even if he did hand-pick the next Patrician, he'd have little influence on the office after that. Undeath is an option, but it's not perfect, since there's still ways to get rid of a zombie or vampire, and having a power behind the throne would itself negatively affect the city. And after that, who knows when the next Mad Lord Snapcase will rise to power? So instead of working on one piece, he's working on reshaping the board; the rise of the Guilds, the changes in the Watch, and the re-opening of the Post Office are just a few of the ways he's changed the city itself, and a new Patrician would be hard-pressed to reverse Vetinari's progress. His successor is his life's work; the new Ankh-Morpork.

• Note that Vetinari now has a Device which can power every machine in the city. Perhaps he's literally granting it a life and will of its own; Hex could become the City's mind, and the Device its heart.
  • The logical end of this line of thought is that Ankh-Morpork will become a Magitek Transformer.
• Another possibility: A city is a thing of bricks and masonry. A city has libraries, journals, rooms filled with laws, theologies and poetry laid out in text, and we know what the right words in a clay shell can do on Discworld...
  • And the series has some clues toward this possibility. Reaper Man introduced the concept of city predators, and lines like "So we have the cities — big, sedentary creatures, growing from one spot and hardly moving at all for thousands of years. They breed by sending out people to colonize new land. They themselves just lie there. They're alive, but only in the same way a jellyfish is alive."
    • The 'footballs' in Unseen Academicals are a variation of the 'shopping cart' eggs seen in Reaper Man.

• Another possibility is that, when Vetinari dies, people will keep pretending he exists because they can no longer take care of themselves. It'll be sort of like how Big Brother is a reassuring incarnation of authority, only (hopefully) less Dystopian.

Both are amazingly kind, competent, simple humans who were raised by non-humans. Both teach their older, culturally-human mentors about humanity. And it's implied in Stranger that Mike's bodily form is just one of the incarnations of the Archangel Michael, who goes on "assignment" from time to time.

We can imagine that the idea came roughly 30 years into the Disk's past, set in motion by Lady Roberta Meserole (Vetinari's Aunt) and Lady Margolotta (Vampire). This plan included getting the peoples of the disk to become more friendly, as in the 30 years since they began the Dwarfs, Trolls and undead are all significant minorities in the fastest growing city on the Disk. They set things up so that the people hated their current ruler (Lord Snapcase) so much that they elected someone who seemed to be sensible, if not well known (Vetinari).

• With Vetinari in charge of Ankh-Morpork, the city has started to pull it's socks up, figuratively speaking. The Introduction of the guilds, the revival of the City watch and Post office, carefully setting up Moist Von Lipwig for his future place in the secret organization.
  • Don't forget he restored Ankh-Morpork's dominance of the Sto Plains, turning the other cities, it has been said, into smaller versions of Ankh-Morpork, thus making his contribution even more widespread.
• Lady Roberta Meserole (Still alive in making money, mentioned in passing my Cosmo Lavish) is running, (probably indirectly) the state of Genua, where she has numerous 'significant pause' business interests.
• Lady Margolotta is carefully running things in Uberwald, placing a (possibly female) Human friendly Dwarf into the position of Low King, and has helped to stabilize the whole area, as we can assume from various accounts, most notably Lipwigs, that until recently the whole of Uberwald had been in various states of turmoil.
• Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of the Unseen university, has single-handedly put a stop to the wizards murdering one another and has (by obfuscating stupidity) rallied the faculty, (particularly the promising Ponder Stibbons, another future candidate for a position in the illuminate) into becoming more or less useful, as well as not only contacting Fourecks, but establishing friendly relations with a country that until then had been deemed us semi-mythology.
• Now here is where my theory requires a bit of a stretch, but I feel the following should be included by necessity.
  • Mistress Esmerelda Weatherwax. Witches are forbidden to influence Kings and such but it becomes plausible when you consider the influence she has indirectly had thus far. She may be merely working as the Illuminati wants her to, whether she knows it or not, or she may be one of the members, depending on how much you feel she is actually a lot smarter than anyone ever gives her credit for.
    • It's practically canon that "witches are forbidden from interfering in politics" is as much a fiction as "witches don't have leaders (because Granny Weatherwax says so)". Verence seems quite clear that the witches will never interfere in his decisions as long as he never makes any decisions they disagree with.
    • This troper would like to point out that Granny is far too crotchety to work with a group, and thinks Nanny Ogg is a far more likely member. She could manipulate Granny into doing their will easily.
    • Granny is too arrogant to take orders or work with such a group. More likely, she knows of them and either plays along for her own reasons or simply finds that their goals and hers coincide.
  • Twoflower. When he helped Rincewind save the world for the first time, they recognized his usefulness, and decided to keep an eye on him. How much of a stretch is it to consider that Mister Saveloy was sent as an agent to the silver Hoard, to send them to the Agatean empire and get them to open up a little. After Cohen inevitably got bored and left, Twoflower was conveniently left as Grand Vizier. Is he now working as an agent for the group?
    • Alternatively, considering how long ago the first two books were (before Vetinari, certainly), it was Twoflower who set the whole cabal up, and his "vacation" around the disc was secretly a cover for doing so. Consequentially, Twoflower is effectively ruler of the Disk, and, as nobody knows this (possibly not even the group itself, which he may have manipulated into formation during his Summer Vacation without their knowledge of his manipulation), nobody can overthrow him. It goes without saying, then, that his is Obfuscating Stupidity.
    • I'm pretty sure the first books were officially not pre Vetinari. And even if they were, he was manipulating politics since Vimes was first on the watch. He'd know.
    • This troper distinctly remembers Vetinari assigning Rincewind as Twoflower's guide in Color of Magic, so the first books are not pre-Vetinari. They could conceivably be early in the Patrician's career. Small Gods is the only book this troper can think of that is pre-Vetinari, being set roughly a hundred years before the rest of the series.
    • That was "The Patrician", not Ventinari. We know it wasn't simply an uncredited Ventinari appearance because The Patrician was described as being fat, something Ventinari never was. In all likelihood, it was probably Snapcase, who was replaced soon after.
    • Pratchett himself has said it was Vetinari, just Vetinari written by a younger, stupider writer. The BBC adaptation of the first two books has a Patrician that is clearly meant to be Vetinari (thin, wears black, pets a small dog...).
• People being used by the group as tools for the furtherance of their plans for a unified Disk.
  • His Grace, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke Of Ankh, Blackboard monitor. Combined with the next person listed here, he has been instrumental in reviving, and reforging the City Watch, modernizing it, and turning it into an effective police force. He has also been instrumental in foreign affairs, stopping a war with the Klatchians, Getting Borogravia to surrender and ally itself with AM, and saving the life of the Low King, before helping to settle all that silly Koom Vally business, and not forgetting that he also got the Device for AM, so Vetinari could begin 'The Undertaking'.
    • Vetinari has more-or-less spelled out that he uses Vimes as an unwitting enforcer. Vimes's personality is so predictable that every situation he's put into becomes a Batman Gambit.
    • He messes up a few minor plans on occasion, but that sort of thing tends to work out anyway.
  • Captain Carrot Ironfounderson. Heir to the throne, natural leader, able to not only see the best in people, but bring it out in them too. He helps Vimes revive the watch, knows who he is, and what he is, and still decides that for the good of the city that he should do an honest days work. Why was he left alive by the bandits who killed his parents? Why was the royal sword left behind? It's not inconceivable that Lady Margolotta was keeping an eye on him, and had him protected, but either let his parents die, or didn't get there in time. She could also have alerted Carrot's adoptive dwarf parents to his location.
    • Or Granny. It's known that the Ironfoundersson mine is in or near Lancre (Magrat gets mentioned in Guards! Guards! as the nearest person who knows about spelling).
    • On the other hand, it could be argued that Carrot is actually using Vetinari, since it is heavily implied he's keeping his identity secret for only as long as Vetinari does a good enough job that a great king isn't actually needed as much as a good policeman.
  • Moist Von Lipwig. Single-handedly (with provocation and threats of death) revived the Royal Post Office in a matter of days, before sorting out the crumbling economy, again in a matter of mere days. This fits with the theory that he is being groomed for the patricianship, (and possibly more) by Vetinari.
  • Tiffany Aching. Recognized by the Nac Mac Feegle as possessing the potential to become the 'Hag of all Hags' it is not unlikely that she, like Lipwig by Vetinari, is being Groomed by Granny Weatherwax for a position in the group. Probably Granny's own.
  • King Verence II of Lancre. He seems quite keen to make ties with other nations and become part of the Discwide community. His most notable attempt to do this was a disaster (Carpe Jugulum), but that's because he slipped the witches' leash and attempted it on his own bat.

• As evidence, in Feet of Clay,Nobby is touted as potential king, due to his lineage showing what a real lost noble would be like, after so many years of 'Good breeding'.

• But, due to the belief that the kings of Ankh were so good and pure, it means that Carrot would never take the throne while Vetinari rules, because the people believe that the kings of Ankh only did what was best for the city, and Carrot believes that that's Vetinari.
• The only sticking point I can see with it, is the fact that, if Carrot is all this because of belief, then why isn't his sword magical?
  • It is. It's not the kind of magical sword that goes 'ting' when the light hits it, which is what everyone expects at first a king's sword to do, it's what everyone, deep down, knows a king's sword really needs to be. Very very sharp, despite being left in a burned out wagon and stored in a box without maintenance for 16 years.
  • His sword is explicitly non-magical. Which leaves the other option, it's extraordinarily real, much like Death. Belief is what makes Death what he is and belief in Carrot (or Carrot's belief in his sword) make it exactly what it is.
  • That's the unusual thing about the sword - pretty much everything on the disc is magical, or at least partially, whereas Carrot's sword is very real. The more magic in something, the less real it becomes, hence what makes Carrot's sword very, very good at cutting things

As mentioned above, the nature of belief in Discworld affects the object of the belief. We have any number of examples, from Om to the Hogfather, but most pertinently Borogravia's Duchess, described (by herself, no less) as "only a rather stupid woman" when she was alive, but on her death was elevated by the prayers of her desperate subjects to a godlike force, albeit one with only the ability to move "small things". Now consider Vimes' offhand reference in 'Guards! Guards!' to the extreme unlikelihood of there being a God of Watchmen, what with it not being a very glamorous gig, and how Pratchett often likes to set these things up *decades* in advance. Then consider: Vimes as he is by the end of 'Thud!' is known to pretty much everyone as an unstoppable force. He's arrested a dragon, the Patrician, two whole countries, and he's fought trolls, werewolves, quasi-demonic dwarven rage beings, and the weight of history itself, and only lost to the last and even that was a close thing. Watchmen across the continent, in his own words, have been taught to salute him. He has earned the respect and loyalty of every Watchman in Ankh-Morpork, and they fear almost nothing quite so much as the prospect of his "going spare". It has been inferred by Angua ("Vimes puts words in his head") that a large part of the reason Carrot hasn't stepped up to claim his birthright is that "Old Stoneface" has very...specific views about kings, and Carrot is bowing to those views out of respect for the man as much as for the good of the city. He has the respect of both Diamond King of Trolls and the Low King (and the abject terror, no doubt, of any dwarf that claps eyes on the exit wound left on his arm by the Summoning Dark), and by now the majority of the smart undead, both local and Uberwaldean, have figured out that playing "les bugres risibles" with slow, plodding Vimes is a quick route to pain. And finally, he has Lady Sybil, who just plain loves and believes in him, and if he keeps his six o'clock appointments the way he's shown so far, Young Sam will probably follow suit. Likely result: Dunmanifestin is in for a very nasty surprise when Samuel Vimes bites it. Especially since, given that it's Vimes, he won't like it one little bit.

• It's also worth noting that Vimes has effectively trained most of the watch officers all across the Sto Plains and up into the Ramtops, so he's already got a hell of a lot of believers/worshippers in potentia. In fact, I believe the generic term for a watchman was (as of either Fifth Elephant or Thud!) a "sammy".

If anyone on the Disc has an iron will, It's Vimes. And, in that fight, he had everything to fight for. Revenge, home, justice, honor etc. When a man who won't quit and has a good reason to stay on earth dies, zombies tend to pop up. I'd say alternate Klatch would be in for a surprise.

• Never mind alternate Vimes. There's plenty of fans out there that think that when Vimes dies he probably won't stay dead. After all, zombies on the Disc are the result of sheer stubbornness and Vimes is bloody-mindedness incarnate.
  • Besides, given his normal opinion of undead, it would be just too amusingly ironic.
    • Actually he has no problem with zombies and werewolves. He's quoted as calling Reg Shoe and Angua (separately) "his best officers". It's just vampires.
    • You seem to have misunderstood. Vimes doesn't like any of the Disc's races. The important thing is, once you're a Watchman, you're a Watchman, and at that point it doesn't matter what race you are. Detritus said it best toward the end of The Fifth Elephant, after shaking hands with the Low King. He remarks that he's never shaken hands with a dwarf before, and Cheery mentions he's shaken hands with her. Detritus responds, "You're not a dwarf, you're a watchman."

And the Feegles themselves reincarnate there as Gerudos. Both peoples have red hair, unusually colored skin relative to the rest of the world, and are renowned for their warrior and thief abilities. More tellingly, both peoples are a One Gender Race, with the exception of one individual per generation who automatically becomes the ruler of the group. Obviously, the Feegles shrink and undergo a sex-change in the afterlife.

• By extension, when the people of Hyrule die, they reincarnate onto the Disk.
  • Gorons become trolls
  • Kokiri become gnomes
  • Dwarves stay exactly the same, but come out of hiding
  • Humans stay human, humans with more hylian blood become more magically potent humans
  • Zora, er, um...
    • Get caught in the current and are carried screaming over the edge of the Disc? Better hope they evolve into Rito real fast...
    • Alternatively, Zora end up on Tethys' world of Bathys.
    • Or they may become the Curious Squid, owners and the actual inhabitants of the usually submerged Leshp (Jingo)
  • Link ( The Twilight Princess ) was the original werewolf.

Word Of God says it is the case but many refuse to believe it. They site the unnamed Patrician's weight (it is said he has "chins") and the offering of candied sea urchins as proof that he isn't Vetinari. I disagree. I see this as part of how he got to be Patrician. No one in their right mind would back a man like Havelock Vetinari for Partician. He has all the qualities that would make a competent and efficient ruler and who wants that? What you want is a vaguely intelligent ruler you can control. And he would have needed a certain level of support to get the job. So he needed to damage his reputation and simulate a vice or two. The two best vices to simulate are Gluttony, a vice that is easy to use on a person and is socialy acceptable, and Lust, that is commonly expected. This is what happened.

• Vetinari goes off on the Grand Sneer. This is expected of him.
  • Whenever he arrives in a location that is likely to eventually trickle back news to The Big City he acts like the standard Young City Toff, drinking and partying.
• Whilst away he ensures he overeats to gain weight. He also adopts a few affectations like the black glove that make him look like a Fop.
• When he gets back to the city he holds several parties, in which the vain and selfish of The City see one of their own and the politicly savvy see a candidate for Snapcase's replacement.
  • He also "has his trousers mended" a lot in order to establish good relations with The Seamstresses and quite possibly The Beggars and The Thieves too.
• Once he gets the job he keeps up the act whilst he gets his position stable. The offering of strange foods and the doing of odd things are a carefully weighted tests of character. If an absolute ruler in a job with a history of violence offers you something that you are certain you are going to hate, what would you do?
• Once he no longer needs it, he ditches it. By then they could not get rid of him if he tried.

This would explain the rapid increase in power in books following the mirror scene in Witches Abroad. Notice how much more evident examples of non-headological magical prowess are demonstrated after the second "inside the mirror" scene. There's the business with The Swarm in Lords and Ladies and the "Weatherwaxing" of the Magpyrs in Carpe Jugulum. There are some signs, even, in Witches Abroad. For starters: there was only one Weatherwax found after the business with the mirrors, Granny finally takes a look in a mirror later on, and she manages to work the wand despite having no actual experience with it. One Weatherwax has already been shown to be quite powerful, and we've seen in Wyrd Sisters what three witches can do together. Imagine what one Weatherwax with the power of two could pull off.

• In Equal Rites, Granny is perfectly able to duel the Archchancellor of Unseen University to a standstill, and that was back when they were really enthusiastic about Klingon Promotion. She was always that powerful, probably even more powerful than Lily, she just knows the consequences of using power too well.
  • Additionally, Equal Rites showed that magically speaking, wizards are the mighty glaciers while witches are fragile speedsters. Granny's mastery of headology and all-around sneakiness means she has transcended that and become the magical equivalent to a ninja.

He is the son of the richest family in Ankh-Morpork, so the nobles wouldn't be able to complain that he 'isn't one of them'. He is being raised by Vimes, so he will probably be incorruptible. With his upbringing, he will be perfect for dealing with other races (trolls/dwarfs). Drumknott is being trained to act as his regent in case Vetinari dies before Sam Jr. is old enough to become Patrician. Moist will teach him what Vimes can't about dealing with people, and will probably be the poor sod who has to find all of Vetinari's secrets in the Palace. (And how to get into them. And how the route changes each day of the week.) If Carrot and Angua have a child, he or she will probably be his most loyal friend, which will mean that the obvious alternative (the latest 'heir to the throne') is not interested in fighting him.

• Young Sam is really in the best position for this. He's got his parents, Carrot, Vetinari, and potentially Moist to learn from. You could even swing Susan Sto Helit as being part of his "education" if you wanted to. Knowing Old Stoneface, though, about the only advantage Young Sam isn't going to get is an Assassins Guild education... but his selection of role models and "tutors" more than makes up for it. And imagine if Angua and Carrot had a daughter... If they avoid the problem of Unlucky Childhood Friend, then together they've got a lock on the patricianship and the throne (even if they'd be raised to believe that monarchy isn't how things should be done, they could still take advantage of other people's tendency to "bend at the knees" to secure their power base).
  • Any child of Carrot and Angua is going to VERY powerful Charisma-wise; people find it hard not to disappoint Carrot, and Angua knows how much good you can do with a {{smile http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff800/fv00765.htm }}.

Why would so many minds make such a concerted effort to keep him down?

• So where does the name Andrews come from? None of them answer to it.
  • Burke Andrews? And sure, he may seem violent...but how would you feel in that kind of situation?
    • I always thought Altogether Andrews was just a collective name conferred by the other beggars. It's allili- alirili- ariter... they both begins with the same letter!
    • As to where it came from, this is the same group of beggars that called Death "Mr Scrub" in Soul Music. "He didn't know why. On the other hand, he was among people who could hold a lengthy conversation with a door."

Warning: Paranoia Fuel; It's even harder to keep from hearing a sound pattern than seeing a wall. One of the sounds stored in Methodia Rascal's Device was an auditory version of The Parrot from Blit. He started "hearing" the Chicken, hearing it get closer... and closer... as it honed in on his position in the realm of his mind, he becomes less and less attached to where his mind is than the Chicken does, causing increasing "errors" in not only his reality, but his painting as well. He heard the fractured Parrot/Chicken from the Device, and drew it into The Battle of Koom Valley. When it was complete, he had painted the last bit of the Chicken, and it all fell into place (causing his mind to fall out of place). The feathers were just a result of his belief in the Chicken convincing the universe too that it existed. Alternately, it could be an auditory version of the Summoning Dark, sealing the -ness, which then escaped in the actual form of a Mind-chicken. Alternately alternately, at least two Darks could be Parrot patterns, and Vimes was just Knurd enough not to be affected beyond repair.

• Being knurd, it seems, would just make it worse. The reason Vimes is fine you're looking for is pure, unadulterated, badass.

To be more specific, a chicken soul that somehow ended up being reincarnated as a human. He was crazy because he subconsciously knew he was in the wromg body. The Chicken chasing after him was really Death of the Chickens, trying to kill his human body so he could be reincarnated properly.

• Slight problem - Rascal was running from the Chicken for more than the mere amount of time covered in Reaper Man, the only period when a unique Death of Chickens could have existed. Death was alone before then, and the only survivors of his reassimilating the other, specific deaths into himself were the Death of Rats and the Death of Fleas.
• He was a chicken trapped in a man's body. He was afraid of his inner chicken, because most people saw this kind of thing as some sort of abomination. It was all very metaphorical.

In The Wee Free Men, Tiffany relates the story of Mrs. Snapperly, an old woman who was cast out of her home and eventually died because people thought she was a witch. Tiffany's response: Become a witch herself to make sure no one dares try that again. When asked by Nanny Ogg why she got into witchcraft in The Sea and the Little Fishes Granny Weatherwax responds with "I dunno... even I suppose." In her youth, Granny witnessed a similar incident. Not identical, given Lancre's respect for witches, but same in the essentials, an act of cruel stupidity that someone with respect could have prevented. Thus, she sought out the most respected position she could think of: Witch.

At the end of Maskerade, the "new and improved" Walter Plinge seems to coldly reject the talented, smart, but fat and insecure Agnes Nitt in favor of the vapid, tone-deaf but beautiful and slender Christine because the latter has "star quality". While Plinge and his "Phantom" persona do seem to be different people, it always frustrated this troper to see the once-kindly Walter do that sort of thing. But in retrospect, it's possible that maybe Walter was well aware, or at least realized after his "transformation", that Agnes wasn't really enjoying her life at the Opera, being the Only Sane Man and therefore frequently confused and/or outraged by the behavior of her fellow performers. Therefore, it seems likely that Walter is discouraging Agnes because he knows that she'd be miserable in a Dysfunction Junction like the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. Sort of a platonic version of I Want My Beloved To Be Happy.

• On the other hand, it's also true that the Ghost chose Christine over Agnes in the first place, on the grounds that "I can teach you to sing like her, but I cannot teach her to look like you" (but Christine hid under Agnes's bed when she heard the voice, and Agnes did her best Christine impression to get the lessons). The Ghost, unlike Walter, really is a bit of a git. On the third hand, if the "new" Walter is an amalgamation of his two personalities, it's possible he had both motivations at once.

His ancestry is never really discussed in the books, beyond his having an Aunt (and since Susan is part of the Sto Plains nobility, she probably has lots of distant relatives that could take care of him.) The Assassin's Guild is known as being a common place to leave infants (much like Lobsang and Jeremy were at their respective Guilds.) And really, he has a lot of characteristics from both of them- Susan's massive unflappability, ability to bend people to their will just by glaring at them, and ability to move through solid objects, which he disguises with some fake secret doors. From his father he gains the ability to predict future events, his above average reflexes, and his boundless-seeming knowledge and super-fast problem solving skills. Also, being a cross between the two of them probably explains his ability to go without sleep, exist on very little food, and never need to care out basic hygienic tasks (while anyone's watching anyway.)

• Except that is already an old man long before Susan and Lobsang ever even meet.
  • Between how messed up history is due to Monkish meddling and the fact that Lobsang is Time now, I don't think order of events matters much.
  • Well, Nanny Ogg said she had delivered Lobsang about 2 weeks prior to when the story was set, and he was somewhere in the 14-16ish age range, so Vetinari could have been sent back in time as well.
• ...I love you. This is now canon in my mind.
• Slight problem with this: her nobility goes back only one generation: Mort and Ysabel were created the Duke and Duchess Sto Helit. Ysabel was Death's adopted daughter, and as such was out of the world for at least 30 years. We never find out about her biological family except that she was orphaned at a very early age. It's possible, then, that Susan has a number of maternal great-aunts and great-uncles (and cousins from said lines of descent), but unlikely that she'd have any idea who they were. On the paternal side, the only confirmed relatives are Lezek, her paternal grandfather (who she remembered, but also remembered dying years before Soul Music), and Hamish (Susan's paternal great-uncle), who gets at best a two-page mention and is promptly forgotten about. I really can't see how she'd arrange fosterage on that side without messing up her own timeline.

Despite his cunning, his magnetism, the scalpel-sharp wit he employs and a dexterity to juggle virtually anything (cities included), Havelock Vetinari is quite simply a 100% mortal man. He lives simply and has no thoughts for himself; yet a corkscrew mind is required to keep the wayward clock of Ahnk Morpork ticking. The FACT that he could be— and in all likelihood, is— a mundane person is potentially more frightening than the idea of his being a vampire, zombie, Death/Time hybrid or the like. Look at what he's accomplished WITHOUT those supernatural traits. Then smile politely and back away slowly...

• Ooh, Look at you. you're so sharp you'll cut yourself.
• I don't think "ordinary" is the word you're looking for. Mortal, certainly, but given his accomplishments and skills, he is, by definition, neither mundane nor ordinary.
• Vetniari is however quite happy to allow people to believe he is a vampire as he recognises that if someone not understanding how vital he is to the city comes after him it is after all better they do so with seasoning and religious symbols than with say a sharp knife.
• Do you mean that he is like Carrot's sword?

It's actually Rorschach. Dr. Manhattan sent him there to protect Vimes, and so that he could truly become the hero he always wanted to be(or something like that).

• Rorschach? Oh, come on; Vimes is pretty much ruled by the letter of the law. Rorschach is willing to be a vigilante, which effectively makes him a special kind of criminal (i.e., he operates outside of the law, and given the way Rorschach operates, he usually commits crimes like assault in the course of his work). You could argue for Rorschach having a similar tendency to snap and attack his "perpetrators" to Vimes', but if so Rorschach's is not only on anywhere near as tight a leash as Vimes', but it's probably fairly completely uncontrolled. Vimes is way more badass than Rorschach.
  • Yeah. if anything in Vimes' mind is Rorschach, it's the Beast that the Watchman guards against.

Trolls get smarter as it gets colder — Detritus almost solved the universe when he got locked into the meat-futures freezer. The Devices are the last surviving traces of a Trollish civilization that flourished the last time the Disc went through an ice age. In Thud, it's mentioned that Devices are usually found under mountains, and in Sourcery, a long-ago ice age is mentioned.

In The Fifth Elephant, Angua mentions that one of her brothers was a yennork, a werewolf that can't change to human form, and so he went and became a sheepdog. It's possible that Thunder, Lightning, or both were really werewolves (and one was possibly Angua's brother) that went to work for a Granny Aching as sheepdogs. It's very strongly implied that they could understand complex English (Morporkian), aside from the Chalk language commands.

Only all-powerful for a short time, mind you. Hex can already look up fragments of books that don't quite exist, and L-Space has all of the books that exist and most that don't. This ability will link Hex to L-Space (with a shoutout to the L-space online community), and Hex will become far more powerful, as he is able to instantly look up the grimoires in the University library, and elsewhere. One of the nonexistent spellbooks he will look up will be the way to unlock Whoever's Fantastic Garden from the outside to release the now-20-year-old Coin with stable powers. After the events of the book are solved, Esk will accompany Coin back to his pocket dimension, and Hex will take over running the city and helping the Librarian with the increase in power from using all electronic card catalogs in existence for extra RAM.

• I thought Hex did get an L-space connection as part of the Roundworld Project?

A being so vast that nebulae are merely the glint in his eye? Yeah, that sounds like a ten million light year tall super robot to me. Basically, after the end of the events of Gurren Lagann, the residual badass left over from the battle with the Anti-spiral was so powerful that the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann became self aware and integrated itself into the very fabric of reality.

• Alternatively, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was Azrael's physical form, which the main characters were able to summon to their universe and command through the sheer power of their own badassery.

They believe organic life needs to be destroyed, and Spiral Energy plays into the whole power of belief thing.

• And at some point someone will find and use the fifty-foot-high killer golems mentioned in Making Money against them. Yes, the golems exist. Ms. Dearheart just isn't digging deep enough.
  • Does this mean that Vimes will play Kamina? Because that would be ——ing awesome.

Think about it. Ancient badass doing overlooked menial labor. Spiral Power can keep you around for quite a while(as Lordgenome proved.) At some point he decided to see how the universe he saved would turn out. So, he found a new home on an odd little planet, replaced his drill his a broom, and found a menial job in a place where living several centuries wouldn't raise an eyebrow and went about his business.

. It'd explain a couple of things. Like the fact she keeps doing things for the world's benefit in spite of arguing in Thief of Time that she does NOT have a nice nature, damn it. Besides, it's not like it's the weirdest personification out there...

• Well, she's something personified, at least.
  • maybe sarcasm?
    • Good one. Or sceptisism, maybe.
    • Pragmatism.
  • No, Helpfulness. But she gives you the help you NEED, not the help you want.

At one point Carrot says he's almost sure his mother's female. Which would leave room for doubt even if he was sure his father was male. Since traditionalist dwarfs are determinedly uninterested in each others' private lives and unaware of each others' gender, there's no reason they would subscribe to human perceptions of sexuality. As far as they're concerned, a dwarf is a dwarf. Sometimes dwarfs fall in love and get married. Sometimes they then have children. Sometimes they don't. The whys and wherefores are their business, and Carrot's parents do not seem to have children (except for the one they adopted).

• ...That's brilliant. Carrot's adopted! (Not sarcasm, it's just so easy to forget he's not biologically a dwarf, despite being over six feet tall with no beard to speak of and possible heir to the Throne of Ankh-Morpork.) In one of the earlier books where dwarf sexuality is mentioned, one of the steps (the one after getting married) is to hope they're right.
• Actually what Carrot says is that he's almost sure his stepmother is female. Whether this means that his father remarried at some point, or he's just using the term to indicate that she isn't his biological mother is unclear.

...given who he's based on, has gotta be Spearshaker.

Or, he was once upon a time. Binky is a realer-than-real, flesh-and-blood horse who is extremely intelligent and very selective about who rides him, not to mention apparently immortal. Death certainly didn't create him, so where did he come from? Clearly, Shadowfax's illustrious career didn't end with that trip to the Undying Lands.

At some point in the future, The Magic Goes Away (this process might have started already). Since the Disc as it is now can't function without magic, there is a supreme magical overhaul that recreates it in a more physically-possible form.

• Alternatively, when Hex writes ++Recursion is occurring.++ at the end of The Science of Discworld, he isn't referring to P Terry writing the Discworld books, but to the creation of the disc of Strata...

The human-ifying didn't tell him "Yer a human! Be human!" It just made his shape remember, "Oh, yeah, I'm a human..." only he had gotten used to his cat form over the last twenty years. His human side was keeping him alive and in shape (heh) for however long it was between the end of an unusually long-lived cat's lifespan (or at least end-of-prime) and at least the events of Wintersmith. He probably got convinced into being a cat after being lecherously rude in the presence of, or towards, a witch, and decided he liked being a cat (once he aged up a bit from being a kitten, anyway) because he could fight/eat/have sex with pretty much anything, since he was a cat and not a human any more.

• Impossible, I'm afraid. Greebo's eye is that of a cat, therefore he must have been born a cat; it is utterly impossible, even for the gods themselves, to change the manner or nature of a being's eyes. This is why the Duc had to wear sunglasses.

Nanny Ogg says so in Witches Abroad. (This troper thinks she was speaking metaphorically, admitting for once that he wasn't still the cute little kitten she treated him as, but the theory appears to have been lost sometime in the past six months and it may as well be replaced.)

Because the universe seems determined to make Vimes hire people he doesn't want in his Watch. Now that he's got a vampire, there is only one hurdle left to clear.

• That does seem possible, although the universe would have to work quite a bit harder even though Vimes is not strictly prejudiced against wizards the way he is against vampires. As wizards try not to interfere with the ordinary working of the city anymore, and Vimes (and presumably Vetinari) would not like magic used in policing in the sense of 'magic [criminals] into cells...wave a wand to find out who's guilty...magic men good' (from Thud), then a wizard in the Watch would only need be used as a sort of liason, to step in whenever a magical crime occurred in the city. As this is presumably something the wizards would already come down on, or the Watch would inform them of if it happened, there would seem no need for such an officer. I wouldn't be surprised if Ridcully joined the citizen's militia though (I still love how the President of the Guild of Thieves is a special constable of the Watch via the militia).
• Already done. The Librarian is an auxilliary member of the Watch, and if you've read Light Fantastic, then you know he IS a wizard, albeit morphed.
  • It'll be Rincewind. Technically a wizard, but no fear of abusing magic at all!
  • Only it'll be one of those honorary paper badges, like they give little kids, and the Librarian currently has. Although, mentioning the Librarian...
  • Not only is the Librarian a Special Constable, it is mentioned in Men at Arms that the University Dean tried to join the Militia. If a wizard does get involved in the Watch, the Dean is not to be ruled out.
  • Then again, Vimes has mentioned before that he likes the Wizards, mainly because the problems they cause tend to have nothing to do with the city's laws, and don't lead to paperwork.
• CSI: Ankh-Morpork

Similar to the situation in Interesting Times. Fate takes the stronger position, the Klatchian Empire, while the Lady uses Vimes and the Patrician to stop the war. Him getting the wrong Dis-organizer and the freak weather conditions are a side effect of her influence. Klatch was gearing up for war against them already, so the Lady created the Leshp situation to provide a method by which the war could be defused.

• Aren't all major events on the Disc a result of the gods' games? I thought one of the books kinda implied something like that.
  • Mostly it's just the ones involving Rincewind. The gods aren't that imaginative a bunch, so they stick to the old favourites.

If I'm right, some people are born with innate magic; but there is not anything keeping the individaul from being a with (or warlock) or wizard (or enchantress) except psychology, since the two schools of magic require a particauler mindset you can't be both. Witchcraft and wizardry are almost exclusivly practised along gender lines because of predudice, a person thinks they must conform to the magical norm. And I have proof, in the Colour Of Magic, the archchanncelor is a Weatherwax a brother a cousin, who knows, but he is related to everyones favourite witch, suggesting that the weatherwax clans magic isn't any specific sort it's just magic.

• How is that proof of anything? Granny doesn't use Weatherwax magic, she uses witch magic. And whatever Lily th de Tempscire uses isn't witch magic at all, and not really wizard magic either, so 1) this is pretty much proof that the typoe of magic you're naturally adept at, if anything, has nothing to do with the family you were born into, and 2) enchantress magic isn't necessarily female wizard magic, as Granny implied in Equal Rites, especially since warlock magic (the other magic she referenced in the hand wave) has nothing to do with witch magic or headology.

...Terry Pratchett

• He's an only child.
  • In this world, maybe, but he was really born on the Disc, which couldn't handle that much magic, and the laws of reality were forced to extrude him into another world (ours) in the role of supreme god of the Disc.

The recurring Death-summoning ritual is described as requiring a vast amount of the typical magical summoning apparatuses, or more simply with several sticks and an egg or mouse blood. But even the method used by the wizards has been toned down. After all, if the proper rite was cast, Death would truly be bound in Unseen University, potentially causing worldwide problems and irritating him in general. Thus they use one of the lesser methods instead, one that costs them a great lesser deal of resources and doesn't actually bind Death (he's made it somewhat clear that he sticks to his part of the rite out of politeness), though being significant enough to require his attention. Incidentally, Albert went through the whole shebang when trying to invoke the rite backward. He couldn't be too cautious.

• On the one hand, Susan in Soul Music is summoned and can't get out of the circle until Ridcully lets her out. On the other, on at least one occasion Death has shown up outside the summoning circle surprising the wizards. Maybe he just has a better sense of his schedule and shows up early to disrupt the ritual?
  • Alternatively, Ridcully knows the right Rite but none of the new wizards do. Would YOU teach younger wizards how to summon Death?

Spoilers for Discworld/Maskerade: He was the one to whom Mrs. Plinge referred by "he said he wanted someone to watch the opera" (emphasis Nigel Planer's, if it wasn;t in the hardcopy). This likely started back when the Opera House was comparatively new, likely around the time The Disk was built, and "singing-plays based on Dwarfish theater" would be even more of a risk of customer unavailability than the commoner plays. He always stayed in Box 8, even when the Opera House became popular amongst the rich of Ankh-Morpork. He wore the disguise so that the members of the Opera would feel better having a Mystery Patron than just the janitor watching them. Once Walter was old enough to be away from his mum and keep quiet for a few hours, he brought him along, and started teaching him the words to the Opera. Walter sang along without thinking thanks to being an operatic virtuoso, and eventually, once Mr. Plinge died, sang to himself (hence why the music "came from the walls").

Because of the way it had been implied that the young Gytha Ogg "committed treason with a leg of mutton" (assuming "his life above stairs" was an Unusual Euphemism, and not literal). The Land accepts him because he acts properly kingly, rather than like an usurper.

Because:

• All charecters played by the same actor are obviously the same character.
• We just need a "those two characters are the same" theory.
• Both are wizards, but we rarely see either of them doing any magic. Both are very much afraid of dying (but not quite that much of Death). Time Travel is possible.
  • At some point in the future Rincewind is sent back to the distant past and "becomes" Albert.
  • If nothing else, this does explain how Albert's childhood memories in Hogfather work with the timeline—the toy shop nose-freezing incident happened when he was still Rincewind.

How can we not already have this? Anyway, starter suggestion:

• 'ak seems to be a negating ending (cf. drudak'ak). When designated progressive Bashfullson uses ha'ak towards Ardent in Thud!, it at first seems out of character, since ha'ak has so far been implied to be a term of abuse used by reactionary types against "out" females. In context, though, it seems to connect with his (?) challenge to Ardent to "Show yourself! What do you believe in?". Which suggests that ha'ak literally just means something like "not hiding" or possibly specifically "not hiding their sex/gender", even if it has acquired negative connotations, and also that Ardent is female. (Which would also make some sense given some of the similarities in characterization between Ardent and the unhappily closeted female Dee from The Fifth Elephant). This is all assuming, of course, that nobody, including Pratchett, has come up with an official explanation (or a whole worked-out Dwarfish à la Tolkien) that I've somehow missed.
• I had a theory that explained it as a corruption of d'harak (not-dwarf, including humans and trolls rather than specifically dwarfish blood traitors), the "d'-" noun prefix meaning "something that is" (as opposed to "something that isn't" or "something that is so not I don't even what"), and "-'ak" or "-ak" being a negative (so [drud][ak]'[ak] literally translates to "[surface-seeing][not]'[not]", assuming Dwarfish negatives stack instead of cancel, or "one who does not get out in the fresh air enough" for a less respectful translation)... Anyway, I went from that to working out the basis of possibly the entire Dwarfish language. The short of it is, it's a very, very rude way to call a dwarf not-dwarfish, which in itself is a powerful offense and, if not contested, dishonor. This is why it has mostly been applied to female dwarfs (as opposed to those whose gender equals "Dwarf" and just happens to have what I would assume is a uterus. See Lady Sybil's "they're both dwarfs" in regards to Bloodaxe and Ironhammer. For example, a very rude dwarf might call Casanunda a "ha'ak".)
  • Then again, Casanunda seems to advertise his male gender (unless we really need to go back and do a serious double take for all his scenes, let alone the admittedly broad-minded Nanny Ogg's reactions to them) pretty overtly, so wouldn't that still be covered by the idea that "ha'ak' means something like "uncovered", "out of the closet", "unduly advertizing their gender"? If there is a whole worked-out account of the dwarfish language somewhere, though, a link would be great (canon or fanon, but it would be nice to know which).
    • Here is a not-quite-exhaustive list of canonically explained phrases ("not quite exhaustive" not including the two terms introduced in Unseen Academicals, at least one of which is almost definitely a loanword from Morporkian, there are a few words from older books not on the list- it's a pretty good resource, though).

She seems to be a grown up vampire, but is actually only in her fifties, much younger than the "teenage" Lacrimosa. Since you can either be born a vampire or become one after being bitten by one, the most reasonable explanation is that Sally was bitten as an adult or teenager.

• she cant be: vimes asked her about her family history and she specificly mentions that the only thing that runs in her family is biting.
• I believe Count Magpyr was the reason Lacrimosa never aged past her teenage years, I can'r remember the quote but Lacrimosa argues with her father when she finds outr she'll be a teenager forever.

Death, humanized beginning in Color of Magic due to Rincewind's escapes, is and isn't bound by time. The initial time and place of death was right in an Arthur Dent sort of way. Only because he lives past, before and sideways to said event simultaneously due to his strange travels the timer began filling up again implying a false positive. Rincewind will be sent back in time to that spot to die. Eventually.

They are, after all, basically the same person. Both of them are inclined towards badness and force themselves towards good. They both see the world as it really is, rather than how it's expected to be. Their respective mottos: "I can't be having with this," and "Not in my godsdamned city," express a more or less identical sentiment. They're both rather cautious about using magic. Both of them have a rather more optimistic counterpart/subordinate who's also just a bit better at what they do: Word Of God says that Nanny Ogg is more powerful than Granny, but she has the good sense to keep it to herself, and Carrot is, in essence, singularly responsible for the modern Watch. There are a few differences, of course; Vimes isn't nearly as concerned with being right or winning as Granny is, and Granny doesn't have the same respect for the Rule of Law that Vimes does. But reincarnations don't have to be identical.

• wait a minute, Nanny is more powerful than Granny? Could you provide a link to that, as it doesnt make sense. If Nanny was more powerful then why was she not able to defeat Lilly in Witches Abroad, or resist the Elve's Glamour in Lords and Ladies?

They're not just psychopaths (which is a somewhat heritable trait anyway), but the same kind of psychopath: where the rest of the series' villains are either Well Intentioned Extremists or obviously threatening psychos with a Red Right Hand, Carcer and Andy are both described as fundamentally normal-looking, sadistic, and the kind of person who'd kill a man in the middle of a crowd and expect to get away with it. Provided that Carcer's at least in his early thirties in Night Watch and Andy's not past twenty in Unseen Academicals, the ages work out plausibly. The only real problem with this is that there are a few mentions of Andy's dad, who is most definitely alive, well, and not (exceptionally) wanted by the Watch five or six years after Night Watch, but all that absolutely has to indicate is that he believes he's his wife's son's father.

• Alternatively, Mr or Mrs Shank is Carcer's child with a woman he met while in the past, making Andy Carcer's grandson instead.

The witch books seem to be the ones most concerned with endngs,and the end of an era and passing of the torch in particular.

Both loved and feared. People (both individuals and as in "a people") love him for who he is, and fear him for what he is (a superintelligent read-the-book-and-find-out). He has potential to be an even better Chessmaster than Vetinari, since people are less predictable than chess pieces and he uses that to his advantage.

Somewhere in his future, he is forced to adopt a human who ends up practically (and possibly literally) living in the scripts. The elder is killed by a collapsing pyramid or something, and the "apprentice" takes up the post of Moderately Appreciable Vizier.

See American Gods, or (better) Axis Powers Hetalia. Djelibeybi stagnates because he does.

• Or, quite possibly, he stagnates because Djelibeybi does. He ultimately disappears becuase he's so rooted in the old ways, a changing of the ways means a new Anthropomorphic Personification is needed.

Knurd is a concept mentioned in several of Terry Pratchett's earlier Discworld books, and is defined as the opposite of being drunk: All of your comforting illusions about the world are stripped away, and you see the world as it really is. Vimes is mentioned by Sergeant Colon as suffering from this condition, requiring about two pints to get back up to the human norm, and this is used to explain his extreme cynicism. It is also defined as being an incredibly unpleasant experience.

Vetinari seems to fit the qualifications for Knurd quite well; He is incredibly cynical about humanity, and the world in general. His expectations about the world are also generally fulfilled. Vetinari is nigh-impossible to surprise, and there is only one example that comes to mind when he was even mildly surprised, when the Night Watch at the end of Guards! Guards! only asked for a small bonus, a new kettle and a dartboard. Therefore, it seems that Vetinari's view of the world is quite accurate, fitting in with the 'sees the world as it really is' aspect of Knurd (although his exceptional predictive abilities would probably also come from his network of spies, and his brilliant mind). Additional evidence is found in 'Unseen Academicals', where Vetinari, after consuming enough alcohol to make some Ankh-Morporkian football team captains (Tough even by the standards of Ankh-Morpork) pass out, does not in fact appear even mildly drunk that day or the next, other than finding the crossword slightly more difficult, but does act in a slightly more normal and human manner. Of course, given the amount of alcohol he consumed, he would have to be incredibly knurd not to have reached drunkeness, certainly far more knurd than Samuel Vimes, who was quite capable of becoming drunk after a few drinks.

This also provides an explanation for his attempts to improve the city; Since he sees the world as it really is unless he consumes massive amounts of alcohol, he can either attempt to consume enough alcohol to bring himself back to the normal level of drunkeness, or try to make the world a better place, so that seeing it as it really is becomes less unpleasant. Given the amount of (apparently incredibly strong) beer he consumed without becoming drunk, the amount of alcohol he would have to consume to bring him to sobriety would probably kill him long before it cured his knurdness. Therefore, Vetinari set out to improve the world, and started in Ankh-Morpork, arguably the most unpleasant city on the Disc (as well as the city where he holds a decisive advantage, having been trained here as an assasin, and doubtless possessing many connections with fellow Assassin's Guild-trained noblemen.)

• He was, however, very surprised that A.E. Pessimal attacked a troll with his teeth. Gobsmacked, even.
  • His surprise could have been faked. After all, Vimes needed someone to do the paperwork, but would probably not react well to yet another person being forced into his department by Vetinari, particularly when he had just been forced to accept a vampire into the Watch.

Like Solid Snake, he's highly intelligent, skilled, multilingual, badass (eventually), and is a rather horrible flirt. Like Liquid, he has serious self-worth issues and unnatural durability. Throwing in a little Otacon DNA could account for the technical prowess and adorkability.

He specializes in love songs and ballads, just like an early rocker, and at the end he is heavily implied to invent heavy metal. One of the two glass clocks resulted in him returning to Llamedos and being a bard, but Music With Rocks In already (sort of) existed (Vetinari mentions it in The Truth). So he invents Heavy Metal instead.

Thus neatly explaining both why the rest of the Agatian empire sees people from there as weird and why Twoflower was an American-style Hawaiian Shirted Tourist in the movie adaptation.

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The Dark Tower

Wild Mass Guessing

Dracula