Unpopular 25th of May opinion: it's hard to view the 25th of May revolution/battle as a thing that good people died for, when Sir Terry spends half the book calling leftist revolutionaries "idiots" and talking like centrism is the real goal

It's like Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" except with more fighting and deaths

For centrism

What is the point of this thing

You can't treat Reg Shoe as a hero after you've spent the book making fun of him for thinking the world could be better than it currently is and implicitly comparing him to people like Findthee Swing because they both "want people to be other than what they are" or something

the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "there's actually zero difference between being an idealist who thinks capitalism and dictatorship are wrong, and being a sadistic torturer who believes in phrenology. you imb*cile. you fucking m*ron"

SPEAKING OF WHICH are we going to talk about the ableism of making the not-technically-a-Nazi villain (the villain other than Carcer) a guy who walks with a cane and has some kind of speech impediment?

Because wow Terry what the fuck

I did like the Vimes and Carcer stuff, although I think it's... interesting that Terry Pratchett felt like he had to invert Les Mis specifically by making Jean Valjean... the actual criminal that Javert and the State claim he is.

Weird of you to do that, my guy

Anyway, "Night Watch" is not one of my favorite Discworld books, although it has a lot of interesting/cool/memorable moments in it, because of this neoliberal garbage.

"the actual criminal" I'm using the term "criminal" here to mean someone who is like... "criminally ins*ne" or "prone to criminality" like eugenicist types used to say in olden times, not just like a person who literally broke a law and is thus technically a criminal.

Weird that even though both Les Mis and Valjean/Javert, and phrenology, are both brought up, the book arguably doesn't really dive into the social construct of "criminality." I guess maybe a little bit it does, in a dystopian context?

But there's this very weird attitude of "you can't trust the law RIGHT NOW because the *bad people* are in charge, but in the future, you will be able to trust the law, because that's when Vetinari, Vimes, and the *good people* are in charge."

(1)

(2)

I guess Vimes and Vetinari etc. do actually get shown doing ethical things (trials, etc), so that's good.

Also, probably part of the issue I have with this is my normal issue with Vimes books: they're copaganda. It's just more noticeable here, for me at least.

Can I also say I really hate the "Campaign for Equal Heights" and similar bullshit - the idea that *most ordinary people* could never want progressive or leftist things, and it's always just this vocal/virtue-signaling SJW minority who don't represent the whole?

It's a common belief to run across on the internet, too, and it's very frustrating.

Like bitch... where do you think the labor movement came from? The civil rights movements?

They were *helped* by leftist activists etc, but they were primarily "everyday people."

*and leftist activists are also "everyday people."

I just mean there's this idea that professional activists/academic Marxists/whoever go around convincing people to protest about stuff, and it's like... no. People already have grievances.

I don't like how Terry Pratchett framed every successful social movement/every "good" social movement as working within capitalism and just keeping your head down and *earning* your civil rights.

And every "bad" social movement as protesting/civil disobedience.

"Good"/unobtrusive social movements:
- golem rights (buy yourself)
- other species in the Watch (just show up)
- women in the Watch (just show up, put up with macho bullshit and mild sexism)
- the Educated Rodents integrating into Bad Blintz (become tourist attraction)

"Bad"/ineffectual social movements:
- the Republic of Treacle Mine Rd. (everyone died)
- Campaign for Equal Heights (virtue-signaling/getting offended by nothing)
- Magrat's ideas about women's liberation and Marxism (she's flaky with only a superficial understanding of things)

I think Sally von Humpeding joining the Watch is literally the only time that an actual "Campaign for Equal Heights"-style social activist group was right about something in the books

Nvm Twitter has stopped being fun for the moment. This thread is over.