Line #20 Fridge/GoingPostal


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12	!!FridgeBrilliance
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14	* 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.
15	** In fact, Hermes was appointed as a messenger by Zeus to keep him out of trouble. Quite similar to what happened to Lipwig.
16	* 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.
17	* Vetinari is, as ever, two steps ahead of everyone else, and during the meeting with the Grand Trunk executives indicates not only that he knows they're having people killed, but by sarcastically dismissing the stories of murders as rumours that "just ''fly'' around", also subtly indicates he knows they're employing a banshee to do their dirty work.
18	* 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.
19	* 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.
20	* 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.
21	** A funny thing said by Anghamarrad about Lela was the fact she was [[{{Pun}} fuming]] because the Rain god always rained on her lava. Adora Belle ''smokes'', and ''Moist'' enjoys riling her a bit. Looks like they found each other.
22	* 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"''.
23	* Why does the mail choose Moist as their avatar, when they had several other candidates to choose from? When Moist is lost in the post office and discovers how the other postmasters died, he decides to say his last words again: "I commend my soul to any god that can find it." The mail, sort of a godlike entity at this point, ''is listening''.
24	** Tying this back to the first entry, Hermes, the aforementioned 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?
25	* 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. Look at his attitude to his crimes, where he spends most of the book treating them as a game; from his perspective, anyone trying to catch him or going on about "you've broken the law" is being a sore loser after losing in a battle of wits. More tellingly, he doesn't ever acknowledge that a victim of his con job is harmed by falling for his tricks; it's only until Mister Pump starkly tells him that while he didn't kill anyone, he's destroyed the livelihoods of everyone relying on those banks and businesses he swindled, that he realizes what he's done. The movie is an objective third person.
26	* 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.
27	* Golems are similar to robots or computers, and the Clacks are analogous to the internet. Even though Adora Belle didn't get into the Clacks like her brother or father, her job is in some ways adjacent to theirs.
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29	!!FridgeHorror
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Context Fridge / GoingPostal