Thief of Time Discussion *Spoilers*

[Lady Vetinari]

:shock: What, nothing?

Nope, nothing. I love ToT but I feel it is the one of his books where I can't really analyse and talk about ... besides you're summing things up nicely. The only thing I want answered is ... Does Lobsang and Susan end up together? (hopeless romantic that I am!) Besides it's about time Susan had something happen to her that can not be explained away with logic! Even her heritage is rather logical if a bit unusual.

[poohcarrot]

My own reading of the ending is that Lobsang and Susan stop time and shag each other senseless in the stationery cupboard!

[Jan Van Quirm]

Jeremy is Lobsang and Lobsang is Jeremy - they're not [identical or even fraternal] twins but the same person so he/they are a polarity not a paradox. By virtue of Time being their mother and Wen being an adept of existing forever through sliced time... they are a balance of physical [and instinctive/'non-cognitive'] time (Lobsang) and conceptual/cerebral/perceived time (Jeremy) set in a polarised time niche by their parents so their singular but separated actualities can exist in the same place (the Disc) at exactly same time.

They've been separated to make/end the paradox that the Auditors want to create to destroy time so they are the balancing factors to achieve the removal of the time anomaly (the glass clock) as though it had never happened (and yes it's fiction so this can be done however Terry calls it because it is quantum).

It's a story about balance in effect - Order and Chaos cancel each other out and so does the realignment of Jeremy/Lobsang in A-M and then back in the History Monk's valley where the integrated Lobsang is able to re-balance the glass clock's damage and thus repair the anomaly so it never existed - I think.

So once again we're agreeing Pooh (getting very worrying this)

It is important not to see Jeremy and Lobsang as the two sons - Time gave birth to one child who is both Jeremy and Lobsang at the same time but they are delivered separately (again another superlative slicing trick that Nanny takes as being some weird kind of twin birth) and then set in different but simultaneous 'time-streams'. Consequently, as you're saying they are destined to create and destroy the glass clock, meaning of course that the Auditors will fail even as they succeed in stopping Time.

A week ago Time and Wen pulled off all kinds of clever slicing anomalies so she gave birth to the same child TWICE with Jeremy (the intellectual and mathematically gifted portion of the duality who, as a result is socially dysfunctional because he's all brain and obsession) going to the Clockmakers Guild and Lobsang (the physically adept portion who can do all the cool slicing and the stance of the Coyote instinctively without knowing how the hell he did it) to the Thieves. Once Lobsang and Jeremy are able to converge and integrate they are the self-cancelling cause of the glass clock's paradoxical creation/destruction (for there must be one ) which means the mandala and the procrastinators can then be reset seamlessly so effectively that the whole disaster simply never happened.

As for the stationery cupboard - I suppose that's inevitable but they probably had chocolate afterwards, during and before (almost certainly with coffee beans)

[poohcarrot]

they are a balance of physical [and instinctive/'non-cognitive'] time (Lobsang) and conceptual/cerebral/perceived time (Jeremy) set in a polarised time niche by their parents so their singular but separated actualities can exist in the same place (the Disc) at exactly same time.

Wot a brill sentence!

(I think Mars bars might have been involved. )

[CrysaniaMajere]

Pooh, your romantic theorizing is "lovely and romantic" but you forget this is a novel--not an alternate reality depiction of a world.

personally, I try to forget ...

There is a danger here of forgetting that this is a novel, with a satiric basis--not a depiction of an alternate reality (as some of the fantasy/sci-fi authors do). And in a way, it is a mark of Pratchett's genius--his characters are so well developed and realistic (if occasionally quite odd) that we tend to think of them as real inhabitants of our world, rather than literary creations of the literary Discworld.

Especially when you try so hard to forget.. I do tend to forget it's just a fantasy as well as to think of them as real... I like them so much that this is exactly what i want to think...
Don't be angry, but I don't want to read a book or to write about it reminding myself that's not real... it would be kind of sad..

I'm among those who agree with Pooh

[CrysaniaMajere]

Killing Time was never part of the plan. They wanted to trap her in order to prevent anything from ever changing.

I still don't buy it. Having two babies just seem like too much effort to achieve the same end result that you'd get by not having any babies at all!

But then you'd have no babies You need to start thinking like a woman in love here

My thought exactly. What she achieves is that she has her babies. She's a woman, she's in love, and she can have her babies without destroying the world... and Lobsang is quite ok, after all, and maybe neither him or Susan will feel so lonely now they know of each other..

[CrysaniaMajere]

You know, I like ToT even more, now

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Especially when you try so hard to forget.. I do tend to forget it's just a fantasy as well as to think of them as real... I like them so much that this is exactly what i want to think...
Don't be angry, but I don't want to read a book or to write about it reminding myself that's not real... it would be kind of sad..

I'm among those who agree with Pooh

YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!YES!

I agree with you completely, they ARE real, just as real in my head as anywhere in this horrible place that we are forced to exist and try to reconcile with our own outlook on what people should do and be, Live and let Live, Stop Killing each other Constantly, Stopbeing abusive, BE NICE DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!! now ... is that too much to ask?

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

BTW, I said almost exactly the same think, yes I mean Thing/think/thought, in another thread. I have made a partition in my head that lets me think of Discworld as a Still magical place and manage to do this "Tear the book to shreds and holler at my screen when I do not agree" thing that we call discussion. Still there for me to escape to, but able to logically, like a brain surgeon, dissect and ponder and comment. I know that may not make sense, but, I DON"T CARE!!!!!

[Jan Van Quirm]

The whole point of fiction is to 'switch off' reality to some degree - with fantasy fiction it's almost mandatory, especially when you're reading something so well defined and justified as Discworld (or whichever other fantasy worlds do it for you). And as we prove on here over and over, if the author is doing their job effectively (and Terry does naturally), then the reader's imagination responds to the stimulus and we do 'believe' and visualise what we're reading as being real, because Terry makes us care about Lu Tse dying and that Death will get the regular three members of the Four ready to ride out in time despite Mrs. War's very reasonable and determined objections and that Susan and Lobsang will get it together in the end etc etc.

It's the difference between reading a good book and having a great reading experience - you do suspend reality especially with the recurring characters that you know and love so well so that, whilst you know it's a satirical book and there's any number of correlations with the plot and real life going on, you get caught up in the action and it comes to life inyour head. You enter into the spirit of the story and suddenly you're not worrying about what metaphor's being built up in there, because you need to know Lu Tse's not really dead at all. It's a book that's there to be enjoyed on several levels, but the rationale for the story is subsiduary to the actual immersion process even if you've read it before. Terry is a modern day Shakespeare, because all his tales have real meaning and heart. I can't think of a bigger compliment to a writer than to have their work perceived as 'real' if only for a few hours and he achieves this constantly and so yeah of course we talk about Lobsang and Susan like they're real people, because they've been made that well. I'll think about the allusions and Roundworld analogies afterwards thanks - for now I just want to go along on the ride with Binky

Oh yeah and the thing with Quoth - he's the Death of Rats Binky or even Albert isn't he? So he doesn't get to age either as he's out of Time whilst he's knocking around in Death's Domain

[kakaze]

But then you'd have no babies You need to start thinking like a woman in love here

What? Is that like "punch drunk"?

But even so, she's having the babies to have the babies, not save the world. The world wouldn't have been in danger if she didn't have the babies in the first place.

I could buy that she could foresee the consequences of having a baby, and then intentinally had the same baby in two bodies, so that they could balance each other. Apparently she wanted to retire too, so it fits. However, that begs the question, "why not have him in one body and raise him at home?"

Why did Time and Wen give their babies away to be adopted? Surely a demi-god (or whatever) and an intelligent History Monk, with the super powers they obviously possessed, were more than capable of raising children.

I've known plenty of intellegent people that make awful parents. And being a discworld god doesn't necessarilly make you even as intelligent as the average human. I forget which book it was (I think it was Small Gods), but I remember reading about how dumb the moon goddesses were. And strange monks who live on mountain-tops aren't known for their child-rearing abilities.

Sorry, but it still looks like poorly-planned pregnancy followed by neglect to me.

Oh yeah and the thing with Quoth - he's the Death of Rats Binky or even Albert isn't he? So he doesn't get to age either as he's out of Time whilst he's knocking around in Death's Domain

But Albert, and presumably Binky, do age whenever they go out into the world. Now, a horse normally lives 20-30 years, so if he spends an hour or two in the world each day then he'd last for between 109,575 and 219,150 years. (oops, I just found out that the common raven has a normal lifespan of 10 to 15 years, with the record at about 40 years, so I guess that answers that!)

[kakaze]

I always wonder what Miss. Susan said to what's-his-name's (Justin?) mother hit her husband with a chair...

any theories?

[poohcarrot]

"(I) always had to pause when conversations with (Jan) led (me) beyond the reaches of a decent person's vocabulary."

[Jan Van Quirm]

"(I) always had to pause when conversations with (Jan) led (me) beyond the reaches of a decent person's vocabulary."

Puh! Decency has nothing to do with it as you well know smartypants

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

smartypants

hehehehehe