Making Money Discussion *Spoilers*

[DaveC]

"Well favoured"? Not by me it isn't.

Oops! I knew that! It was meant to read 'not well favoured'. This is what comes of posting using my phone. I started reading the book with a sense of fear!

[DaveC]

Finished it yesterday. Dont have very much to bed to the extensive comments apart from to say how much the necromancey scenes slowed down the race so much that i started to feel sleepy! I did like it more than I expected to, but didn't love it.

[rockershovel]

I'd tend to go with the general view that MM is generally similar but inferior overall, to GP.

There are quite a few loose ends that could be discarded to no great loss, especially the necromancy and CoC scenes. The golden golems are an interesting issue, though. They are effectively a deus ex machina which provides the answer to a problem which otherwise has no apparent solution, that the Bank of Ank-Morpork has no gold and hence the $AM is effectively worth nothing, being unbacked.

Clearly this can't be the answer, if only because (a) Moist will have failed through events beyond his control, (b) the various hints about "The Undertaking" become irrelevant, and (c) the whole background plot device of A-M being the effective head of an informal, financial empire among the cities of the Sto Plains falls down.

Quite how effectively this works is a matter of opinion

[inca]

I have a question about that gold. Because Mr Bent states the gold has been gone for a long time, spent by the father of Cosmo. And yet, at the beginning mr Bent and Moist go to the vault and see the gold. Apparently it is not a lot but it is there - supposedly ten tons. Mr Bent says he always convinced himself the gold was there as long as he didn't look - but he did look at the beginning of the book, so then it wouldn't be effective selfdeception / suppression (=in character for mr Bent) but an outright lie (which feels out of place.)
It feels I've missed something?

[Tonyblack]

Hi inca and welcome to the site!

The simple answer is that the gold that Moist sees is actually bars of lead that wave been painted gold.

[LilMaibe]

Hi inca and welcome to the site!

The simple answer is that the gold that Moist sees is actually bars of lead that wave been painted gold.

Which leads to the question: who put it there and why? and when? and who took the leadbrs away as in the end there room is pretty much empty.

[inca]

Thank you for your welcome, I enjoy it already

Is the painted lead mentioned in the book (because then I've read over it several times, even when looking), or is it the most logical explanation? And as the vault is broken, even the goldpainted lead isn't there, is it?

[Tonyblack]

I've found the passage - it's page 266 in my UK hardback:

No gold in the vault. Well, even that wasn't entirely true. There was five pounds of it, at least, covering the lead ingots.

So, not painted, but gold leaf - or gold plated lead ingots.

[deldaisy]

Welcome Inca

[Penfold]

Hellooo and welcome Inca!

[DaveC]

Welocme Inca!

[raisindot]

Thank you for your welcome, I enjoy it already

Is the painted lead mentioned in the book (because then I've read over it several times, even when looking), or is it the most logical explanation? And as the vault is broken, even the goldpainted lead isn't there, is it?

The more interesting conundrum here is the whole issue of whether Igor's manipulations of the Glooper had anything to do with the gold disappearing.

Remember that he 'perfects' the device so much so that it not only perfectly reflects the state of the AM economy but that any adjustments to it will adjust the economy as well. That the Glooper reflected that the gold was no longer in the bank's vault suggests either that the Glooper WAS showing the state of the vault as it was OR that Igor's adjustments of the Glooper CAUSED the gold to disappear..in effect, it changed the present by creating a "new" past where the Lavishes stole all the gold.

It's a great example of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle at work (and much better than the belabored treatment in the boring scenes at UU).

[LilMaibe]

Honestly I'm sad to see how the plotdevices, plotthreads left hanging and deus ex machina moments are start to pile up in the stories

[rockershovel]

I'm inclined to agree to some extent. I'd have preferred MM to have been left unwritten until the plot made more sense. There are some good ideas in it but on the whole it's difficult to see, by about half-way through, how the various plot threads COULD be brought to a conclusion.

I like the whole Mr Bent / Miss Drapes sub-plot but some aspects of it, such as the hanging sheds in the caves under the Bank, don't work for me. Gladys the love-lorn golem is a good joke, as is Mr Fusspot's new toy, but Professor Flead could have been omitted entirely since Moist appears to solve the problem of controlling the golems without his assistance and he doesn't really tell Adora Belle Dearheart anything useful, either.

The protracted and elaborate Cosimo/Vetinari sub-plot isn't worth it for the gag about the "Vetinari" ward at the asylum.



Ultimately, all the DW books are joke-driven. If the basic joke or premise is good enough, the whole book works but if not, and in MM it isn't, then piling more secondary gags in won't rescue it. This has always been the reason that Carpe Jugulem has always been my least favourite book; the basic joke isn't strong enough to sustain a whole book. The Last Hero has a touch of this, but is saved by its brevity and the illustrations. Thief of Time has always struck me as having too many, and un-necessarily complex sub-plots ( especially the Yeti ) culminating in a notably contrived deus ex machina ending



I'm also unclear as to quite what DOES happen regarding Igor, Hubert and the Glooper. There seems to be a continuity error regarding the situation regarding the gold, or possibly the different sub-plots require inconsistencies which have been left in as the plot requires. There are various continuity errors or simply changes from book to book, usually driven by the requirement of the plot of the moment, and so what? But in one book, not so good.

[Tonyblack]

It occurred to me that gold, being fairly rare, it probably gets used and reused more than most metals. So your gold wedding ring may once have been Spanish doubloons or Aztec treasure. The same goes for gold fillings.

When Igor and Hubert decide to put the gold back, it must have (presumably) been used for other things - at least some of it. So, how many people found their rings missing and their teeth empty of fillings?