History Headscratchers / DiscWorld

** CharacterizationMarchesOn and many ideas used early on[[hottip:*: such as trolls, Vimes in Guards! Guards! compared to in Thud! and the like]] disappear or are drastically changed in later books.

** Him being out of touch was the whole reason they picked him, its stated outright in his first appearance.

* How and why is Ridcully selected to be Archchancellor of the Unseen University? He was away from Ankh-Morpork (according to his L-Space Wiki profile) for nearly 40 years! Wouldn't it be better if the named someone who actually ''stayed'' in the city? Given, most senior wizards don't have a good track record at being trusthworthy, but one would think that 40 years' absence would leave Mustrum Ridcully largely out-of-touch of the institution he's supposed to be leading.

** A few of the books (CoM, Jingo, Thud, etc.) mention the busy docklands area, which implies that a lot of their food is imported by ship from neighbouring countries around the circle sea and the existence of the Pork Futures warehouse indicates that they have the ability to store food at low temperatures to stop it spoiling. Basically, Ankh Morpork is the workshop of the world. They make their money in manufacturing, then spend it on food.

*** Even the humans can rest assured that their eggs and dairy products are fresh, provided they have [[Literature/ThiefOfTime Ronnie Soak for their milkman]].

** Tulip believed if he had his potatoe and was sorry everything would turn out alright, he would come back alive. Tulip had his potatoe and was honest when asked if he was sorry, he didn't know. Tulip then was forced to relive his life from everyone elses point of view with the full knowledge of the context, so he was forced to experence his every bad deed from the other side. After that he was allowed to come back as a bug eating art, art being the one thing he was shown to care about.

*** Going through the explanations it appears that there is a lot of well-reasoned ... [[RedundantDepartmentofRedundancy reasoning]]. However, this one is best. And should ''definitely'' be canon.

** He's still rather young when he goes to AnkhMorpork - some people made an official timeline for Discworld; I forgot the details and am too lazy to search, but when he makes his first appearance, he's just 15 or 16 years old. Too young for a beard.

* This. Remember, Vimes is ''surprised'' that he recalls Soon Shine Sun's name, and is puzzled that the Garden of Inner-City Tranquility feels so familiar. He doesn't have any ''conscious'' memory of his conversation with Sweeper, just the fragmentary shadows of memory that linger after a time-loop.

** For that matter, there's technically no reason a human couldn't take out a contract on themselves, then specify a date five hundred years in the future at which it's to be carried out. So long as they pay the full fee in advance, with no refund for the person's heirs if they die of natural causes before it comes due, the Guild surely wouldn't have a problem with that: they get their money, the target gets protection from them, and they might even ''defend'' the target from non-Guild killers if they have the chance.

** Remember that taking contracts is fully optional for the assassins guild. Going by Pratchett's style, I'd assume that this happened once, and the guild bent its considerable influence into fulfilling the conditions for assassination, thus earnining a commision and discouraging smartasses in one fell swoop.