History Fridge / GoingPostal

** Tying this back to the first entry, Hermes, the aformentioned TricksterGod and messenger god, after whom the statue in the post office is clearly modelled? He was a psychopomp as well: one of his jobs was to lead souls to the Underworld, or at least to Charon, the ferryman. Makes it quite easy to find a man after his own heart, doesn't it?
* Why is Moist so much more of a despicable person in the movie than the book? The book is written from his perspective. He's a slightly UnreliableNarrator, and would interpret things positively for himself. The movie is an objective third person.

* It's a proven fact that dogs react to body language and vocal tones. Moist was confident in his ability to command the canines the other mailmen set on him, manifested no fear and was authoritative, which prompted the dogs to obey the "dominant male" in spite of them not actually understanding the commands he issued.

!!FridgeHorror

* Since this book establishes that particularly-talented condemned prisoners occasionally get "executed" and transferred to positions that suit their talents, this retrospectively raises the possibility that [[Discworld/NightWatch Carcer]] is currently running a civil service job somewhere in Ankh-Morpork.
** Just this tropers opinion - No. Vetinari would not disrespect those who died like that. And Carcer doesn't believe in angels.
** Plus from a practical point of view Carcer is uncontrollable. Vetinari can take steps to contain Moist and ensure that he does a good job, Carcer is much more of a wild card, you let him loose and he's liable to start murdering people for fun. Not to mention that employing him would be almost guaranteed to turn Sam against Vetinari if he ever found out.
*** 'Almost' nothing. If Vimes found out that Vetinari let a cop-killing psychopath (who directly threatened Vimes' family) back out into the world, he'd depose Vetinari himself.

* It's a proven fact that dogs react to body language and vocal tones. Moist was confident in his ability to command the canines the other mailmen set on him, manifested no fear and was authoritative, which prompted the dogs to obey the "dominant male" in spite of their breed being misidentified.

** Just this tropers opinion - No. Vetenari would not disrespect those who died like that. And Carcer doesn't believe in angels.
** Plus from a practical point of view Carcer is uncontrollable. Vetenari can take steps to contain Moist and ensure that he does a good job, Carcer is much more of a wild card, you let him loose and he's liable to start murdering people for fun. Not to mention that employing him would be almost guaranteed to turn Sam against Vetenari if he ever found out.
*** 'Almost' nothing. If Vimes found out that Vetenari let a cop-killing psychopath (who directly threatened Vimes' family) back out into the world, he'd depose Vetenari himself.

** Plus from a practical point of view Carcer is uncontrollable. Vetenari can take steps to contain Moist and ensure that he does a good job, Carcer is much more of a wild card, you let him loose and he's liable to start murdering people for fun. Not to mention that employing him would be almost guaranteed to turn Sam against Vetenari if he ever found out.

** Just this tropers opinion - No. Vetenari would not disrespect those who died like that. And Carcer doesn't believe in angels.

%% 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.

* Since this book establishes that particularly-talented condemned prisoners occasionally get "executed" and transferred to positions that suit their talents, this retrospectively raises the possibility that [[Discworld/NightWatch Carcer]] is currently running a civil service job somewhere in Ankh-Morpork.

* Since this book establishes that particularly-talented condemned prisoners occasionally get "executed" and transferred to positions that suit their talents, this retrospectively raises the possibility that [[Discworld/NightWatch Carcer]] is currently running a civil service job somewhere in Ankh-Morpork.
* This claksman who refuses to let a little girl alone with his colleagues. [[PaedoHunt What kind of man are those guys, exactly?]]

* Since this book establishes that particularly-talented condemned prisoners occasionally get "executed" and transferred to positions that suit their talents, this retrospectively raises the possibility that [[Discworld/NightWatch Carcer]] is currently running a civil service job somewhere in Ankh-Morpork.

* Vetinari's speech about believing in angels makes a lot more sense when you realize that the word "angel" is derived from the word for ''"messenger"''.

* Moist's good working relationship with the goddess Anoia might have a deeper reason. The golems, who are ''very'' good judges of character, say Adora Belle reminds them of Lela the volcano goddess. A later book reveals that Anoia ''is'' Lela. Basically, she's his type, and he hers.

* Before the advent of cheap high-speed Internet, it was a common test of lateral thinking among network engineers to ask students or newbies what the fastest method for sending [x amount of data] was. While the disciples argued at length about protocols and pipes, their more experienced colleagues would point to the ''Post Office''. In the story, cue Ridcully deciding not to send a simple, short message that the clacks would send in a matter of hours, but an entire ''book'' with ''color illustrations'' (which would translate into an enormous amount of code that would be ''even larger'' if the code also specifies typefaces, page layouts, and formatting). So even though it was ultimately unnecessary (and Moist had raised the stakes by reducing the Trunk's delivery to just thirty pages), there was a possibility, however remote, of the mail coach to actually outpace the transmission of the entire book. After all, not only would a whole book require coding into semaphore signals (color illustrations included), it would also fill up the up and down lines, require a LOT more error handling and correction, and would actually ''slow down'' at the terminal tower --where it would be forced to wait for the signal queue to be cleared as it was ''transcribed back into a book. With color illustrations.'' And then the transcription would still have to be delivered to the intended recipient. In fact, very large amounts of data are STILL quite often delivered by couriers or Fedex (and in at least one instance, carrier pigeon) on high-capacity drive rather than going through the massive trouble that downloading can represent.

* Before the advent of cheap high-speed Internet, it was a common test of lateral thinking among network engineers to ask students or newbies what the fastest method for sending [x amount of data] was. While the disciples argued at length about protocols and pipes, their more experienced colleagues would point to the ''Post Office''. In the story, cue Ridcully deciding not to send a simple, short message that the clacks would send in a matter of hours, but an entire ''book'' with ''color illustrations'' (which would translate into an enormous amount of code that would be ''even larger'' if the code also specifies typefaces, page layouts, and formatting). So even though it was ultimately unnecessary (and Moist had raised the stakes by reducing the Trunk's delivery to just thirty pages), there was a possibility, however remote, of the mail coach to actually outpace the transmission of the entire book. After all, not only would a whole book require coding into semaphore signals (color illustrations included), it would also fill up the up and down lines, require a LOT more error handling and correction, and would actually ''slow down'' at the terminal tower --where it would be forced to wait for the signal queue to be cleared as it was ''transcribed back into a book. With color illustrations.'' And then the transcription would still have to be delivered to the intended recipient. In fact, very large amounts of data are STILL quite often delivered by couriers or Fedex on high-capacity drive rather than going through the massive trouble that downloading can represent.

* Before the advent of cheap high-speed Internet, it was a common test of lateral thinking among network engineers to ask students or newbies what the fastest method for sending [x amount of data] was. While the disciples argued at length about protocols and pipes, their more experienced colleagues would point to the ''Post Office''. In the story, cue Ridcully deciding not to send a simple, short message that the clacks would send in a matter of hours, but an entire ''book'' with ''color illustrations'' (which would translate into an enormous amount of code). So even though it was ultimately unnecessary (and Moist had raised the stakes by reducing the Trunk's delivery to just thirty pages), there was a possibility, however remote, of the mail coach to actually outpace the transmission of the entire book. After all, not only would a whole book require coding into semaphore signals (color illustrations included), it would also fill up the up and down lines, require a LOT more error handling and correction, and would actually ''slow down'' at the terminal tower --where it would be forced to wait for the signal queue to be cleared as it was ''transcribed back into a book. With color illustrations.'' And then the transcription would still have to be delivered to the intended recipient. In fact, very large amounts of data are STILL quite often delivered by couriers or Fedex on high-capacity drive rather than going through the massive trouble that downloading can represent.

* Before the advent of cheap high-speed Internet, it was a common test of lateral thinking among network engineers to ask students or newbies what the fastest method for sending [x amount of data] was. While the disciples argued at length about protocols and pipes, their more experienced colleagues would point to the ''Post Office''. In the story, cue Ridcully deciding not to send a simple, short message that the clacks would send in a matter of hours, but an entire ''book'' with ''color illustrations'' (which would translate into an enormous amount of code). So even though it was ultimately unnecessary (and Moist had raised the stakes by reducing the Trunk's delivery to just thirty pages), there was a possibility, however remote, of the mail coach to actually outpace the transmission of the entire book. After all, not only would a whole book require coding into semaphore signals (color illustrations included), it would also fill up the up and down lines, require a LOT more error handling and correction, and would actually ''slow down'' at the terminal tower --where it would be forced to wait for the signal queue to be cleared as it was ''transcribed back into a book. With color illustrations.'' And then the transcription would still have to be delivered to the intended recipient.
** In fact, very large amounts of data are STILL quite often delivered by couriers or Fedex on high-capacity drive rather than going through the massive trouble that downloading can represent.

* Before the advent of cheap high-speed Internet, it was a common test of lateral thinking among network engineers to ask students or newbies what the fastest method for sending [x amount of data] was. While the disciples argued at length about protocols and pipes, their more experienced colleagues would point to the ''Post Office''. In the story, cue Ridcully deciding not to send a simple, short message that the clacks would send in a matter of hours, but an entire ''book'' with ''color illustrations'' (which would translate into an enormous amount of code). So even though it was ultimately unnecessary (and Moist had raised the stakes by reducing the Trunk's delivery to just thirty pages), there was a possibility, however remote, of the mail coach to actually outpace the transmission of the entire book. After all, not only would a whole book require coding into semaphore signals (color illustrations included), it would also fill up the up and down lines, require a LOT more error handling and correction, and would actually ''slow down'' at the terminal tower --where it would be forced to wait for the signal queue to be cleared as it was ''transcribed back into a book. With color illustrations.'' And then the transcription would still have to be delivered to the intended recipient.

* Moist is a very unfortunate name, as everyone points out in different ways. But when people get moisture on them, they can be kind of slippery...like a con man. Adora Belle's calling of Moist "Slick" works on that level, too.

* Moist is a very unfortunate name, as everyone points out in different ways. But when things get moisture on them, they can be kind of slippery...like a con man. Adora Belle's calling of Moist "Slick" works on that level, too.

* Vetinari has more than one reason to feel smug when Moist forfeits his stolen money to keep the Post Office going. Not only is he vindicated because Moist shows he's become genuinely committed to his task, like it or not, but he's also pleased that the amount of money Moist retrieved is ''exactly'' the amount the con-man had stolen in the first place. As in, Moist never squandered any of it on luxuries or vices, meaning he's likely to avoid the perennial bane of Patricians -- getting fat, spoiled, and venally-corrupt -- if (as many readers presume) Vetinari intends for Moist to be his successor.

* At several times during the book, Moist is referred to as delivering to the gods, or as the "Messenger of the Gods." And the statue formerly gracing the post office is clearly a reference to Hermes, with the winged sandals and all. Now, while Hermes was certainly known for his speed, the messenger of the Greek gods was also very much a ''trickster'' god--"excellent in all the tricks," in some translations. Appointing a con man to be Postmaster makes even more sense now.