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{{work|wppage=Going Postal}}
{{Multiple Works Need Separate Pages}}
{{Infobox book
| title = Going Postal
| image =
| caption =
| author = Terry Pratchett
| central theme =
| elevator pitch = The once proud Ankh-Morpork Post Office has been all but killed off by bad management and competition from the Clacks. Who better to save it than a con artist who has been all but killed off by a hangman's noose?
| genre = Fantasy
| franchise = Discworld
| preceded by = A Hat Full of Sky
| followed by = Thud!
| publication date = 2004
}}
{{quote|''Neither rain nor snow nor glo{{spoiler|o}}m of ni{{spoiler|gh}}t shall stay these mes{{spoiler|s}}engers abo{{spoiler|u}}t their duty.''}}
The 33rd ''[[Discworld]]'' book, '''''Going Postal''''' centers around the character Moist Von Lipwig, a new main character for the Discworld. A self-admitted con man, the book opens with Lipwig (under the pseudonym Albert Spangler) awaiting execution, because he finally got caught. Albert Spangler is hanged, buried, and gets a nice little paragraph in the ''Tanty Bugle''.
Moist von Lipwig, however, wakes up in Lord Vetinari's office, receives a pleasant speech about the nature of angels, and is "offered" a job as the new Postmaster in charge of the now-defunct Ankh-Morpork Post Office. True to form, the first thing he does once he's loose is to run as far away as he can. The next morning, he wakes up when the golem Vetinari set as his parole officer crashes through the door, bodily picks
Despite the complete incompetence of the existing Post staff (Stanley Howler, a slightly deranged boy obsessed with pins, and Tolliver Groat, an old man who believes very strongly in his homemade medicines), Moist manages to begin rebuilding the Post Office via the application of a liberal helping of [[Refuge in Audacity]]. It helps that the Grand Trunk clacks system (a semaphore tower chain which allows messages to be transmitted great distances very quickly) is under new management, a gang of voracious corporate backstabbers who are running it into the ground. Moist's rivalry with Reacher Gilt, the leader of the corporate moneygrubbers, and his budding romance with Adora Belle Dearheart (a cynical, chain-smoking young woman who has been known to drive her spike-heeled shoes through people's feet when provoked) provide a bit of backdrop as Moist essentially invents a new system of currency (by introducing stamps, which people start to use instead of coins), single-handedly restores the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, rescues a cat (and two men) from a burning building, summons divine intervention, and exposes the crooked dealings of Gilt and his accomplices to the world.
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Did we mention that Moist is a ''really big believer'' in [[Refuge in Audacity]]? And that he saved a cat?
{{tropelist|page={{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
* [[Actual Pacifist]]: Moist never, ever used violence in his criminal career, though Mr. Pump deconstructs his assumption that this made him not such a bad person.
* [[Addiction Displacement]]: Stanley is completely obsessed with collecting pins, to the point where even the owner of a pin store considers him to be weird. He eventually drops his pin obsession and starts up stamp collecting.
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* [[Battle of Wits]]
* [[Bavarian Fire Drill]]: Moist pulls off one or two during the course of the book.
* [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]:
** Moist asked for a horse "with a bit of fizz in its blood! Not some feagued-up old screw". Willie Hobson, offended by the implied slight against his horse-rental business, sent him a [[Hellish Horse|Hellish]] one that "fizzed" so much he needed an ice bath afterwards.
** The "just walk away" part of the choice offered by Vetinari to Moist {{spoiler|and Reacher Gilt}}.
* [[Beyond the Impossible]]:
* [[Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word]]: The Board just won't use the word embezzlement.
* [[Blatant Lies]]: I thought it was a big pigeon.
* [[Bond One-Liner]]: After killing someone with the mail sorter, a number of suitable puns are mentioned in the narration. Subverted, however, as Moist is just [[Vomit Indiscretion Shot|noisily sick]] instead.
* [[Boxed Crook]]: Moist.
* [[Brick Joke]]: A truly astounding one following a tiny moment in ''[[
* [[Brotherhood of Funny Hats]]: A secret society of postmen. Moist has joined several of these groups before, and assumes that their initiation test won't be anything dangerous, only to realise they're taking it very seriously.
* [[Con Man]]: The way Albert Spangler, and several other aliases of Moist von Lipwig, made his living, which comes in handy when Moist runs rings around people.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: The von Lipwig family are active in the (highly schismatic) Potato Church, implying that [[
** Under the above mentioned "glo m of ni t" lettering on the post office is graffiti that says not to ask about, among other things, Mrs. Cake, who appeared in ''[[
* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: The Board of the Grand Trunk.
* [[Couldn't Find a Lighter]]: Adora Bell Dearheart lights a cigarette on a burning letter that flutters past when the post office catches fire.
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{{quote|'''Moist''': If you stick a broom up my arse, I could probably sweep the floor, too.}}
** Vetinari, [[The Comically Serious|true to form]], takes him at his word and asks his secretary for a broom.
* [[Die or Fly]]: Moist's way of problem-solving. {{Quote|The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.|Moist}}
* [[Disturbing Statistic]]: Mr. Pump calculates the damage Moist has done to peoples' lives with his cons. In total, he's effectively killed [[Ludicrous Precision|2.338]] people. It merges with [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] since Moist thinks of himself as a mere con-man when he's as good as a murderer.
* [[Dramatic Pause]]: One is required to pause before saying {{spoiler|... The Woodpecker}}.
* [[Early-Bird Cameo]]: Vetinari is repeatedly seen playing [[
* [[Emergency Stash]]: Moist keeps various tools of the trade—forgery supplies, make-up and a change of clothes, lockpicks, even safehouses--[[Crazy Prepared|stashed all over the city]]. He also has amassed 150 thousand dollars in assorted currencies over the course of his career as a con man. {{spoiler|He later digs it up, claims that it's a gift from the gods and uses it to rebuild the Post Office.}}
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Deconstructed; despite being an unashamed [[Con Man]] and criminal Moist believes himself to not be a particularly bad person because he has certain standards (never killing people, only pulling his cons on those who 'deserve' it, and so forth). During his [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]], however, Mr. Pump brutally informs him that his standards didn't stop him from ruining innocent lives, hastening deaths (he didn't need to actually hold the blade or even be aware they existed to kill people) and generally making the world a worse place; just because he didn't consider himself to be a particularly evil person doesn't mean that his actions weren't harmful and evil in their way, whether he was aware of it or not.
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** Played with in typical Pratchett style with Moist's own plan for defeating Gilt as Moist admits it is an [[Evil Plan]] too, just he is going to use it in the cause of good. And given that they're [[Evil Counterpart]]s they could have switched places
* [[The Face]]: Moist for the Post Office staff. Its what Vetinari hired him for. Stanely's thought as weird even by other pin collectors and Groat doesn't have the skills either but Moist knows how to connect with people and how to promote something and how to motivate people.
* [[Fantastic Nuke]]: In a [[Continuity Nod]] to earlier accounts of the Mage Wars, such as ''[[Sourcery]]:''
{{quote|That's why [magic] was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards -- not "not doing magic" because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn't. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to ''refrain'' from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.}}
* [[Field Promotion]]: Ridicully is a fan of this to spite any citizen who criticizes his wizards,<ref>That's his job.</ref> thus promoting Mr. Collabone to Doctor and finally full Professor.
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* [[Ironic Name]]: Adora Belle Dearheart is anything but adorable. Most people who know her call her "Killer". Her love interest, Moist von Lipwig, calls her "Spike". Mind you, [[Good Is Not Nice|she's a wonderful person, just not a very likable one]].
* [[Just Smile and Nod]]: A clacks worker tries to explain the technicals to Moist. Occasionally, as technical polysyllabic words fly past him, he catches one or two he recognizes. Like "the".
* [[Late Arrival Spoiler]]: If you read this book as one of your first Discworld books either because it was more recently published or because it's one of the most highly rated, you'll inadvertently have major spoilers from many books. First off from ''[[
* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]: Gilt, having to [[Don't Explain the Joke|explain his pun]] on "prophet" and "profit":
{{quote|''"Pro''phets'', I said, not pro''fits''. Don't worry yourselves, it will look better written down."''}}
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* [[Man Versus Machine]]: Snail Mail versus the Telegram, although it's more a case of upholding a competitive market than proving that [[Ludd Was Right]].
* [[Meaningful Name]]: There's some [[Epileptic Trees]] regarding Moist and Reacher's names. Lipwig implies a false mustache, indicating that Moist is a [[Master of Disguise]]. One theory has it that the name Moist is intended to call to mind "Slippery Jim", the hero of the ''[[The Stainless Steel Rat]]'' series, who is another [[Boxed Crook]].
** Reacher Gilt is either a reference to [[Treasure Island|Long John Silver]], given how much the character looks like a [[Pirate]], or else, according to one theory, a [[Take That]] against [[Atlas Shrugged|John Galt]]. (Of course, this being a work by [[Terry Pratchett]], the name could be a reference to ''both'' characters.)
*** Though it could be also a dig at Galt, it's almost certainly a riff on "Long John" as someone with impressive, er, reach, and "Silver" versus Gilt. Plus it fits with all the other Dickens-style names.
*** Or, more basically. He is 'reaching' for your 'gilt' (gold).
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** The name Lipwig could be based on Victor Lustig, a [[Con Man]] who sold the Eiffel Tower...twice.
** Adora Belle Dearheart is supposed to call to mind Ada Lovelace, one of the pioneers of computing. The Smoking [http://www.gnu.org/ Gnu] isn't just a punny misspelling, and the whole story calls to mind the fall of Ma Bell, and IBM's days as the [[Evil Empire]]. There are a ''lot'' of [[Meaningful Name]]s.
*** The Smoking [http://www.gnu.org/ Gnu] is also a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Nomes Trilogy|The Bromeliad]]'' in which
** Stanley Howler recalls Stanley Gibbons, the London stamp dealers.
* [[Mock Millionaire]]: Reacher Gilt is arguably an example of this trope. He conducts himself in a very lavish manner, but that may be part of his masquerade. He himself teaches that wealth is an illusion, and stole the Grand Trunk through embezzlement and accounting tricks. It's never clear how much actual liquidity he actually has; in the end, {{spoiler|when he is caught by Vetinari after fleeing the city, he seems disheveled and impoverished, but that may just be a side-effect of spending an unspecified amount of time in the hands of Vetinari's Clerks before being brought before Vetinari and, quite literally, found himself "in for the long drop".}}
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* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]: Mr. Pump, demolishing Moist Von Lipwig's comforting vision of himself as a criminal with standards by pointing out that through his cons and scams he did not need to physically touch or even be aware of the existence of people to ruin their lives and hasten their deaths.
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]/[[Devil in Plain Sight]]: Reacher Gilt is so obvious about being a scoundrel that people trust him. As noted above, this quality also defines Moist, although in a somewhat different way.
* [[Retcon]]: In ''[[
** Mr Gryle is described as a wild banshee from a distant jungle, so it makes sense that nobody in the city would know about him.
* [[Running Gag]]: Hope, [[Sarcasm Mode|the greatest of life's treasures.]]
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* [[Severely Specialized Store]]: Dave's Pin Exchange sells pins, with the owner being ''very'' adamant that he doesn't sell nails.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** When the Wizards are trying to tune their Omniscope, Ridcully continually complains that they keep getting [[The Lord of the Rings|"That damn enormous flaming eye again"]] ...which turns out to be the magnified eye of the student they're trying to contact, inflamed due to his allergies.
** "This book with a red cover and it turns out they were twins" is quite possibly ''[[
** Stanley Howler, pin-fanatic-turned-stamps-guy, is named for Stanley Gibbons, a [[Real Life]] company that sells collectible postage stamps and stamp-collecting supplies.
** One of the signs that Reacher Gilt is a semi-[[Expy]] of [[Atlas Shrugged|John Galt]] is the literal stating of the question [[Arc Words|"Who is Reacher Gilt?"]] Well, that and his hatred of government interference in (his) free enterprise.
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* [[Signs of Disrepair]]: "GLO M OF NI T". The missing letters found their way onto a shop sign labeled ''HUGOS'', without the apostrophe.
* [[Smart People Play Chess|Smart People Play Thud]]: Vetinari and Gilt assess each other with their Thud! tactics. Also, Crispin Horsefry's dismissal of the game is an(other) indication of his low intellect.
* [[Something Completely Different]]: This book introduced a new protagonist who proved very popular with fandom (somewhat revitalising the series) as well as being built around a serious point about privatisation—previous Discworld novels sometimes have serious points to make but they always took a back seat to the humour and never dominated the whole book (with the arguable exception of ''[[
* [[Stealth Pun]]: Reacher Gilt dresses like a pirate and has a parrot that says "Twelve and a half percent!" [[Don't Explain the Joke|In fractions, of course, 12.5 percent equals "pieces of eight".]]
** Also, see [[This Is My Side]]. For non-commonwealth readers, a Stanley Knife is a box cutter.
* [[Sympathetic POV]]: From Moist's point of view, ''[[
** The number of people Sam Vimes likes can be counted on one hand, and probably doesn't include himself.
* [[This Is My Side]]: Groat and Stanley's living quarters are an example of this. Stanley maintains the border with a [[Stealth Pun|very sharp knife]]. The table is divided into two halves, but since they only have one salt cellar it gets its own little 'demilitarized zone', a white circle in the middle.
* [[Title Drop]]: Notably, this is the
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: There are people in the story who mouth off to Vetinari. Twice. Incredibly, they live. Possibly.
* [[To the Pain]]: Moist von Lipwig narrates one of these to himself about what he'll do to Reacher Gilt near the end.
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* [[Requisite Royal Regalia|Vermine Cape]]: Morporkia is wearing one on some of the stamp illustrations in the book (at least the hardcover versions).
* [[Villain with Good Publicity]]: Gilt, to the point where even ''he'' is incredulous about it.
* [[Violin Scam]]: Moist mentions using the "lost ring" variant in the past.
* [[Walk, Don't Swim]]: Moist von Lipwig realises that even fleeing to a different continent would not help him to escape his Golem parole officer, as it would be able to walk any body of water eventually. Four miles an hour without stopping is [[Alternative Calendar|seven hundred and sixty eight miles in a week.]]
* [[The Window or the Stairs]]: Moist von Lipwig is given a choice by Vetinari: He can take over the job of Postmaster General, or walk out a door in Vetinari's office, and Vetinari would never bother him again. Being a [[Genre Savvy]] sort of chap, Moist goes to the door, carefully peeks through it, and finds a deep pit where the floor should be. He drops a spoon into the pit, and it doesn't make a sound for a rather long time. He takes the job. {{spoiler|At the end of the book, the [[Big Bad]] is offered the same choice with a job at the Mint. He walks straight out the door without a pause.}}
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* [[Almost Kiss]]: Happened [[Rule of Three|thrice]], between Moist and Adora. She deliberately stopped the first and third ones, a concurrence of circumstances interrupted the second one.
* [[And a Diet Coke]]: Well, in Sacharissa's case, two [[Mythology Gag|figgins]] and a skinny Klatchian coffee. Given the properties of Klatchian coffee (it makes you so sober some [[Go Mad from the Revelation]]), the figgins aren't going to help.
▲* [[Beyond the Impossible]]: deconstructed Moist knows its impossible for postal service to beat the clacks in a long distance race so instead of trying to beat the laws of physics he works with them to win the race. {{spoiler|He implants a [[Engineered Public Confession]] into the Clacks' message that gets Glit arrested.}}
* [[Big No]] (and [[Little No]]): Lipwig's reactions at his "dreams".
* [[Blackmail Is Such an Ugly Word]]:
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'''Lipwig''': M-m-manipulate. Such an ugly word. }}
* [[Broken Bird]]: Adora, who was always pretty [[Tsundere]] in the novel (her brother nicknamed her "Killer" after all).
* [[Continuity Cameo]]: Otto von Chriek, the Ankh-Morpork Times' vampire iconographer from ''[[
* [[Create Your Own Villain]]: Adora explains that her father lost his bussiness, the original Clacks system, because the bank he loaned money from was victim to fake bond fraud, that Moist started. Guess who took over the Clacks system and is trying to kill Moist?
* [[Creator Cameo]]: Terry Pratchett shows up as an unnamed postman at the end.
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{{reflist}}
{{Discworld novels}}
[[Category:Nebula Award]]
[[Category:Going Postal]]
▲[[Category:{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]
[[Category:Literature of the 2000s]]
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