Maru (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yakalskovich) wrote2004-08-31 06:37 am
yakalskovich) wrote2004-08-31 06:37 am
Returned from Berlin - and canon!
Why are the German trains as iffy as the Ankh-Morpork postal service?? I was half an hour late arriving back home yesterday because of Train Related Problems. I didn't miss any event or anything, it's just that it was my time anyway, and spent enough of it on the underworldly train as it was. It was because of a bomb from World War II. being found on the rail building site near Augsburg station. It's been there for sixty effin' years, at the same place where all the trains went, and it never exploded (or people would have noticed) - so why start worrying now??
One good thing: I finished re-reading "Thief of Time", and noticed two pieces of text that have an immediate impact on what things in our![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
discworld_rpg should be like, but aren't. So I'll do a mini-Ji and put those two passages here (behind cuts, due to considerations of spoiler alerts and randomly-filling-up-other-people's-flists) so we can reconsider.
While the first one is not that decisive, just So Not Glorious for the Dysk people, the second one puts poor![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ponderstibbons in a bit of a pickle, as he obviously lied to Beth on account of something that's important to him, and if that vampire finds out (for example, by walking down Broad Way and reading a plaque on a door), he's going to mercilessly poke fun at Ponder. Or demand - reparations. Oh dear.
Lu-Tze: Ever go to the opera house?
Lobsang: Only for pickpocket practice?
Lu-Tze: Ever wonder about it? Ever look at that little theatre just ove the road? Called The Dysk, I think?
Lobsang: Oh, yes! We got penny tickets and sat on the ground and threw nuts at the stage.
Lu-Tze: And it didn't make you think? Big opera house, all plush and gilt and big orchestra, and then there's that little thatched theatre, all bare wood and no seats, and one bloke playing the crumhorn for musical accompaniment?
And now for the real whopper - how could we have overlooked it?? Well, to be honest, it's neither on the Mapp, not in the New Discworld Companion, although that has all the other new canon bits from "Thief of Time". We could have remembered, though. We'll have to retcon our way out of that in some way now.
Susan: What's that place ahead?
Lobsang: That's the back of the Royal Art Museum. Broad Way's on the other side. And that's the way we need to go.
[...]
Ankh-Morpork had not had a king for many centuries, but palaces tend to survive. A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed The Glorious Momorial To The People's Industry.
Although the last king was no oil painting himself -- especially when he'd been beheaded, after which no one looks their best, not even a short king -- it was generally agreed that he had amassed some pretty good works of art. Even the common people of the city had a keen eye for works like Caravati's Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze or Mauvaise's Man With Big Fig Leaf and, besides, a city with a history the length of Ankh-Morpork's accumulated all kinds of artistic debris and in order to prevent congestion in the streets needed some sort of civic attic in which to store it. And thus, at little more cost than a few miles of plush red rope and a few old men in uniform to give directions to Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze, the Royal Art Museum was born.
[In the following dialogue and action, we learn some additional facts about this place: there's a painting showing a battle in ancient Klatch, entitled The Battle of Ar-Gash, by Blitzt,which shows all five Horsemen of the Apocalypse coming out of some storm clouds. There is a painting by Sir Robert Cuspidor called Wagon Stuck in River, there's a department for porcelains, and one for arms and armour. There's an actual elevator for taking objects up and down, and the families of the people who sit around or tell you where things are live in the attics. There is humourous taxidermy that turns the stomach of any actual animal lover. The "Companion" so totally fails to mention any of this, neither under "A" for Art, not "M" for Museum, not "R" for Royal - where else would I effin' look??]
One good thing: I finished re-reading "Thief of Time", and noticed two pieces of text that have an immediate impact on what things in our
discworld_rpg should be like, but aren't. So I'll do a mini-Ji and put those two passages here (behind cuts, due to considerations of spoiler alerts and randomly-filling-up-other-people's-flists) so we can reconsider.While the first one is not that decisive, just So Not Glorious for the Dysk people, the second one puts poor
ponderstibbons in a bit of a pickle, as he obviously lied to Beth on account of something that's important to him, and if that vampire finds out (for example, by walking down Broad Way and reading a plaque on a door), he's going to mercilessly poke fun at Ponder. Or demand - reparations. Oh dear.Lu-Tze: Ever go to the opera house?
Lobsang: Only for pickpocket practice?
Lu-Tze: Ever wonder about it? Ever look at that little theatre just ove the road? Called The Dysk, I think?
Lobsang: Oh, yes! We got penny tickets and sat on the ground and threw nuts at the stage.
Lu-Tze: And it didn't make you think? Big opera house, all plush and gilt and big orchestra, and then there's that little thatched theatre, all bare wood and no seats, and one bloke playing the crumhorn for musical accompaniment?
And now for the real whopper - how could we have overlooked it?? Well, to be honest, it's neither on the Mapp, not in the New Discworld Companion, although that has all the other new canon bits from "Thief of Time". We could have remembered, though. We'll have to retcon our way out of that in some way now.
Susan: What's that place ahead?
Lobsang: That's the back of the Royal Art Museum. Broad Way's on the other side. And that's the way we need to go.
[...]
Ankh-Morpork had not had a king for many centuries, but palaces tend to survive. A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed The Glorious Momorial To The People's Industry.
Although the last king was no oil painting himself -- especially when he'd been beheaded, after which no one looks their best, not even a short king -- it was generally agreed that he had amassed some pretty good works of art. Even the common people of the city had a keen eye for works like Caravati's Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze or Mauvaise's Man With Big Fig Leaf and, besides, a city with a history the length of Ankh-Morpork's accumulated all kinds of artistic debris and in order to prevent congestion in the streets needed some sort of civic attic in which to store it. And thus, at little more cost than a few miles of plush red rope and a few old men in uniform to give directions to Three Large Pink Women and One Piece of Gauze, the Royal Art Museum was born.
[In the following dialogue and action, we learn some additional facts about this place: there's a painting showing a battle in ancient Klatch, entitled The Battle of Ar-Gash, by Blitzt,which shows all five Horsemen of the Apocalypse coming out of some storm clouds. There is a painting by Sir Robert Cuspidor called Wagon Stuck in River, there's a department for porcelains, and one for arms and armour. There's an actual elevator for taking objects up and down, and the families of the people who sit around or tell you where things are live in the attics. There is humourous taxidermy that turns the stomach of any actual animal lover. The "Companion" so totally fails to mention any of this, neither under "A" for Art, not "M" for Museum, not "R" for Royal - where else would I effin' look??]
no subject
Of course, the part of me that is critically noticing details such as these is the part of me that wants to write up a history of the rpg, complete with links and lists of pairings, for the poor newcomers. O.o
no subject
I don't think the thing about the Dysk is all that bad; it made me just go "neener" a bit.
no subject
Maybe for the art museum bit, we could pass it off as a well-kept secret. As for the former... really fast construction, maybe? XD
(As to where else to look in the book, my sarcastic streak suggests T for 'the.')
no subject
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cpt_tantony/10637.html?thread=249485#t249485
In so many words - and we will have to retcon that away. And it's not even new canon. It's just not in the companion, and we both didn't remember from "Thief of Time" when we had that conversation. Which is funny, as a longish sttretch of action takes place in that museum.
no subject
Alternatively, the temporal accident from ToT and/or the Trousers of Time theory can usually be used to wallpaper over cracks in the storyline.
That's what Pterry does.:)no subject
Yes, it's fun how Pterry explains away his own temporal inconsistencies with that time-patching stuff, especially the very iffy timing of Brutha, whom he finally and firmly places 100 years in the past in ToT.
But unfortunately, the museum is not so much temporal as spatial. It is supposed to always have been there. Ponder will either have ignored it on purpose because he doesn't like it for some odd, Ponderish reason, or he's lied to Beth because he wanted to avoid looking at pictures.