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Thud!: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''Mr. Shine, him diamond!''}}
The 30th ''[[Discworld]]'' novel and the seventh in the Watch theme.
"Thud" is the Discworld equivalent of chess, with pieces portraying dwarfs on one side and trolls on the other, at the legendary Battle of Koom Valley. The anniversary of the Battle is just around the corner. Since this was a very important date for both the Dwarfs and the Trolls (No one knows who won, who started it or what the heck actually ''happened'', but everyone cries "Remember Koom Valley!" when they want to get the blood up), tensions are running high in Ankh-Morpork. Commander Vimes of the City Watch is not happy about this, nor about Salacia Von Humpeding, the new vampire recruit, nor about the Patrician's clerks poking about the Watch. Nevertheless, he takes all this in stride, and still manages to get home every day at six to read his son a bedtime story.
The situation only becomes worse when Hamcrusher, a ''grag'' (a sort of dwarven preacher and lorekeeper, a "deep-down" dwarf fundamentalist) who vehemently speaks out against trolls, is found murdered beside a troll club. Vimes visits the scene, butting heads with Hamcrusher's right-hand man Ardent and a nervous servant named Helmclever, and finding an expansive tunnel system filled with doorways stretching underneath the streets of Ankh-Morpork. While there, he catches his hand on one of the sealed doorways, and it begins to itch...
{{tropelist}}
* [[Adult Fear]]: Vimes' nightmares about his son, which involve empty cots and darkness.
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{{quote|Imagine how strong I must be.}}
** And an unexpected one from {{spoiler|A.E. Pessimal}}: Come on then, if you think you're hard enough!
* [[Badass Creed]]:
{{quote|[[Nigh Invulnerable|Him who mountain crush him no,]]
[[Implacable Man|Him who sun him stop him no,]]
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* [[Continuity Nod]]: In the barricade scene, when the Watch stands its ground between two mobs of battle-crazy dwarfs and trolls, Fred Colon asks Vimes if he remembers 'another barricade.' Colon is of course referring to the barricades erected by the Watch and the citizenry of Ankh Morpork on the night of the Glorious Revolution, at which both Colon and an 18-year old Vimes had been present. Colon also mentions Sergeant Keel, who 'pulled a trick or two that night'. The 'Sergeant Keel' Colon refers to was in fact Vimes himself, who traveled back thirty years into his own past during the events of ''[[Discworld/Night Watch|Night Watch]]'' due to a major time anomaly that was the focus of ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]''.
** Vimes also mentions, sardonically, that [[Discworld/The Colour of Magic|it's been a long time since the city burned down]].
** Mention is also made of Detritus's girl, [[Discworld/Moving Pictures|Ruby]], now his wife.
** Mr. Pony is mentioned briefly as the head of the Guild of Artificers, quite a step up since ''[[Discworld/Going Postal|Going Postal]]''
* [[Cowboy Cop]]: Vimes refuses to become this, and it is ''awesome.''
{{quote|"Because you can't call yourself a good guy and then do bad guy things."}}
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The Summoning Dark might have found it possible to take complete control of Sam Vimes if it {{spoiler|had let a dwarf assassin kill Young Sam. All it had to do was ... nothing. Instead, it '''acted''' to protect the child.}}
* [[De Fictionalisation]]: There are now official 'Thud' rules and boards available. Well worth a look.
** They were around at least a year before the book came out.
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** Once again, female dwarfs admitting they're female reminds one of homosexuality. Especially when Carrot implies that the deep-downers (very religious, set-in-their-ways dwarfs) are very hostile towards them.
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The Summoning Dark.
* [[Foreshadowing]]: Quite early in, during one of the Summoning Dark scenes, the narration mentions footsteps, slow, but the Dark knows they'll catch up. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|They do]].
** And ''Mr Shine: him diamond!''. {{spoiler|Mr Shine is a diamond ''troll''}}.
** When Vimes thinks of those guilty of the murders, he says "When I catch up with them, ''and I will'', I hope there's someone to hold me back." {{spoiler|That's exactly what happens.}}
** This exchange between Vimes and Vetinari:
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* [[Papa Wolf]]: Vimes does ''not'' react well to the thought of his son being in danger.
* [[Pardon My Klingon]]: "Why don't you go ''ghuhg'' yourself?"
* [[Plot-Triggering Death]]: Grag Hamcrusher's.
* [[Portmanteau]]: Trolls are said to be made out of "metamorphorical" rock, a portmanteau of "metamorphic", a type of rock, and "metaphorical". This is used to explain Brick: trolls tend to take on the appearance of the dominant rock where they grow up, and he grew up in a city.
* [[Powder Keg Crowd]]: Dwarves and trolls around Koom Valley Day.
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* [[Revealing Coverup]]: The dark dwarfs attempt to cover up {{spoiler|the truth of Koom Valley}}, but by trying to do so they lead Vimes right to it.
* [[Revenge]]: The Summoning Dark ''is'' this trope.
* [[Shame If Something Happened]]: After two troll thugs working for the troll crime boss Chrysophrase tell Commander Vimes that their boss wants to see him, Vimes tells them "Well, he knows where I live," to which one of them remarks meaningfully "Yeah, he ''does''." [[Berserk Button|Not a good idea.]] Later, Chrysophrase insists to Vimes that he never gave orders to make any threats, and had the infractors...[[You Have Failed Me...|dealt with.]] Later in the story, {{spoiler|the Low King of the Dwarfs}} unthinkingly does this in a moment of anger. To his credit, he ''immediately'' shuts up when he realizes what he said and is informed what {{spoiler|the fundamentalist grags}} had ordered earlier in the book (and what happened to the people who carried those orders out)...
* [[Shout-Out]]: The Long Dark rune, which simply symbolizes the entrance to any mine or delving, is a circle with a horizontal line through it - which in [[Real Life]] is the symbol of the [[London Underground]] and is displayed on signs outside the entrances to Tube stations.
** "The Gooseberry", the new Dis-organizer, is an obvious one for the [[Real Life]] Blackberry mobile e-mail device.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Thud]]
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