#the nugganites
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"I expect you think I'm a silly girl," mumbled Betty after a while.
"A foolish woman, perhaps," said Polly, turning to watch the landscape intently.
"It was, you know, a whirlwind romance..."
"Sounds more like a hurricane to me," said Polly, and Betty grinned.
"Yes, it was a bit like that," she said.
Polly matched smile for smile. "Betty, it's daft to talk about silly and foolish at a time like this," she said. "Where are we going to look for wisdom? To a god who hates jigsaws and the color blue? A fossil government led by a picture? An army that thinks stubbornness is the same as courage? Compared to all that, all you've got wrong is timing!"
Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
#polly perks#shufti#the duchess#monstrous regiment#discworld#terry pratchett#the nugganites#women#friendship#romance#foolish#silly#wisdom#context#perspective#war#corruption#politics#religion#courage#stubborn#bad timing#a hurricane romance#a time like this
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Thinking about that one part of monstrous regiment where Polly talks about how both the igors and the nugganites view the body as clothing. And how that connects to the themes of the book of freedom of gender expression vs the harshly enforced gender roles of the nugganites.
The igors can change their body parts around, just like you can with clothing. "You" is not confined to the physical parts you have, but rather a more metaphysical concept. Body parts are just another facet of presentation to the igors, including gender presentation.
The nugganites share the same idea of a metaphysical soul, yet they view the clothes you wear as a part of you. A devout follower must conform to strict standards in order to not be an abomination. The clothes represent a projection of their true self, yet ultimately only fulfil a goal of not violating a strict, arbitrary code. To the nugganites, your body, sex, gender, and presentation are all unchanging truths about yourself that you must constantly project out to the world.
Do you get me.
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You're doing a lot of Pratchett posting. You've read Monstrous Regiment, yes?
I just had an insight. The Christians that think that other people's gender and sexuality are some of their business are basically Nugganites. They've latched onto a rule and are following it because it's a rule without examining whether it serves a purpose. All that matters is that the Book of Nuggan declares it an abomination unto Nuggan.
i have not read monstrous regiments! I've only read the one about a steam train and making money
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Igorina, where i’m from we have a holiday called Halloween. Is that a holiday people celebrate on the disc too?
I wouldn't think so, but I don't know what everyone celebrates. In Borogrovia, it's probably an Abomination to Nuggan and even those of us who aren't Nugganites would need to be careful celebrating something like that.
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Be the abomination unto Nuggan you want to see in the world
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Some Discworld Sortings
@missbrunettebarbie: Monstrous Regiment, The Truth, the first 3 City Watch books, Going Postal, Mort and Unseen Academicals. And I would love to read those sortings :)).
I already have most of Unseen Academicals’ Sorting written out--I just need to tweak it for publishing :)
The short version of UA
The cast of UA is a pure-House matched set, aside from some models, and the characters each swap models around and interact with each others’ primaries in interesting ways. Glenda is a Hufflepuff/Hufflepuff, Juliette is a Gryffindor, Trev is a Slytherin, and Nutt, of course, is the loudest double Ravenclaw ever (I love him).
Nutt helps Glenda realize her community’s worldview is toxic and stop seeing herself through their lens. Glenda then stops pushing the same worldview on Juliette and starts encouraging her to follow her Gryffindor instead. Nutt doesn’t remotely fit into the class framework Glenda’s used to, and he challenges her assumptions just by existing. (Glenda also picks up a Gryffindor secondary model from Juliette that’s very healthy for her, but that’s getting into a bunch more detail that I’ll save for the full post later.)
Nutt’s system is very Hufflepuffy, but he sees himself as more of a tool than a person, and Glenda consistently argues with him about this until he starts to believe her. Then she’s his champion in the community, where Nutt desperately wants to belong but keeps getting rejected for what he is. It’s such a good ship, they’re so healthy for each other--and if you’re looking for a wholesome, fuzzy romantic subplot with an autistic-coded character, it’s right here.
Trev slowly un-Petrifies as he starts to let himself care about his friends, and they in turn inspire him to contribute and make something of himself. It’s not immediately obvious that Trev is Burned, because he’s so carefree--but he’s carefree because he isn’t letting himself care. He’s an orphan, and he’s felt helpless for a long time.
We know he’s unburned when he finally prioritizes his loyalty to his living friends over the promise he made years ago to his mother (who seems to represent the last loyalty relationship Trev had, and he's still holding on to her; letting her go means Trev has accepted that he has new relationships and those are real). Juliette’s presence in particular reignites his ambition--he wants to do better for her, be better for her, and that gives him direction in a way that his previous goals of leisure and self-preservation didn’t.
(That’s what’s going on with their primaries. Eventually I’ll get off my butt and fix up the full post.)
A quick sampler of main characters from the other books...
Monstrous Regiment
Polly is a Slytherin primary. The whole reason she joins the army is to rescue Paul (and, secondarily, to make sure she has a stable future when her father dies--otherwise some unreliable relative of hers inherits the inn, she’s not allowed to own it because of Nugganite customs). Ravenclaw secondary, I think, for how much her narration criticizes the others for not having a plan.
Going Postal
Moist is of course a double Slytherin--he's blatantly obvious. He has a Claw secondary model but he tells us through the narration that he doesn't value it quite as much as his Slytherin. He's also very good at performing Puff secondary and seeming like a reliable people person, but the second he's asked to actually be reliable and hardworking he starts to go nuts and look for dangerous, exciting stuff to do.
The only thing that really ties him to Ankh-Morpork, aside from its general entertainment value every time Vetinari tries to give him a job where someone inevitably wants to kill him, is Adorabelle (who is also a threat to his life, just a little, enough to be interesting). She’s a double Slytherin too, but she spends most of her time in neutral state--yet she’s even managed to turn her neutral state into a game to play with Moist. Of course he’s enamored with her, lol.
City Watch series
Vimes is a Ravendor: he has very thoroughly laid out views about the law and its role in choosing the right thing to do. You could argue that he’s a burned Gryff, given how tight of a lid he has on his “inner darkness” (that shows up more later, and he’s not being entirely metaphorical), but he seems pretty stable and content with his system. Vimes doesn’t trust himself without his checks and boundaries, but he seems to be okay with that, even if he’s secretly afraid that the rules and accountability he’s laid out for himself someday won’t be enough.
His system doesn’t always match up with the law, but he uses the law to make sure he doesn’t stray too far off moral ground and into taking his wrath out on the guilty. Vimes actually gains a really useful reputation in later books as being fair and consistent and impossible to corrupt.
As for his secondary... he’s known as “Vetinari’s terrier.” He thinks he should be better at Ravenclaw secondary (putting together clues and so on) but mostly he runs off charge and intuition. There’s a really silly bit in Thud! where he’s constantly arguing with a magical Palm Pilot Sybil got for him, because he doesn’t have the patience to learn to use it. Whether he likes it or not, he’s a Gryff.
Sybil is either a Puff or Gryff primary; I lean towards Gryff for her. She’s got this very certain, intuitive core to her, and while she clearly holds a lot of Hufflepuffy values, she’s also very hard to sway or influence. She’s very solid in her morality, and I think that’s one of the things Vimes loves about her. Vimes has to work at staying moral 24/7, while Sybil just... is.
She’s a Ravenclaw secondary with a REALLY loud Hufflepuff secondary model. Hufflepuff is how she was raised to behave, and she likes it a lot, but she uses Ravenclaw without even thinking about it--the number of times she just pulls the "I happen to be prepared for this very specific situation" card out of her hat is wild, and she doesn’t even seem to think that what she’s doing is unusual.
It’s most obvious in The Fifth Elephant: not only does Sybil speak Dwarvish, but she sings a piece of a Dwarf opera to get them out of a tight corner, and then she semi-accidentally becomes an expert trade negotiator out of sheer curiosity, reading up on the notes left by the previous ambassador.
Also, it’s really cute that Vimes is a Ravendor and Sybil is a Gryffinclaw.
Carrot is hard to Sort. He gives off REALLY strong Hufflepuff vibes, of course, and he knows everyone and can be empathetic toward anyone. But he’s actually really hard to read. Angua certainly keeps expecting that he’s hiding layers of himself, but that’s probably because she’s got a lot of Slytherin to her (either Slytherdor or double Slytherin, her secondary might be a little singed; her primary definitely is).
I want to say that he’s a Hufflepuff secondary who’s really good at adapting to and mirroring other people, and Angua keeps mistaking this for Slytherin secondary. I think he’s a Gryffindor primary with a lot of Hufflepuffy values, like Sybil, and maybe he has a Slytherin model specifically for Angua (he drops everything for her early on in Fifth Elephant, possibly staking his life on the fact that she’ll come and find him when he does) --but I could be persuaded otherwise.
Phew, this is longer than I thought it’d be.
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“I read your report. Do you think it’s possible for an entire nation to be insane?”
...
“That’s a very...interesting question, sir,” he said. “You mean the people--”
“Not the people, the nation,” said Vimes. “Borogravia looks off its head to me, from what I’ve read. I expect the people just do the best they can and get on with raising their kids, which, I might say, I’d rather be doing right now, too. Look, you know what I mean. You take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.”
“It’s a fascinating idea, sir,” said Clarence diplomatically.
...
[Vimes] leafed through the pages and stopped.
“The color blue?”
“Correct, sir.”
“What’s abominable about the color blue? It’s just a color! The sky is blue!”
“Yes, sir. Devout Nugganites try not to look at it these days. Um...” Chinny had been trained as a diplomat. Some things he didn’t like to say directly.
“Nuggan, sir...um...is rather...tetchy,” he managed.
“Tetchy?” said Vimes. “A tetchy god? What, he complains about the noise their kids make? Objects to loud music after nine PM?”
“Um...we get the Ankh-Morpork Times here, sir, eventually, and er, I’d say, er, that Nuggan is very much like, er, the kind of people who write to its letter columns. You know, sir. The kind who sign their letters ‘Disgusted with Ankh-Morpork’...”
“Oh, you mean he really is mad,” said Vimes.
“Oh, I’d never mean anything like that, sir,” said Chinny hurriedly.
“What do the priests do about this?”
“Not a lot, sir. I think they quietly ignore some of the more, er, extreme Abominations.”
“You mean Nuggan objects to the dwarfs, cats, and color blue, and there’re more insane commandments?”
Chinny coughed politely.
“All right, then,” growled Vimes. “More extreme commandments?”
“Oysters, sir. He doesn’t like them. But that’s not a problem because no one there has ever seen an oyster. Oh, and babies. He Abominated them.”
“I take it people still make them here?”
“Oh, yes, Your Gr--I’m sorry. Yes, sir. But they feel guilty about it. Barking dogs, that was another one. Shirts with six buttons, too. And cheese. Er...people just sort of, er, avoid the trickier ones. Even the priests seem to have given up trying to explain them.”
“Yes, I think I can see why. So what we have here is a country that tries to run itself on the commandments of a god who, the people feel, maybe wearing his underpants on his head. Has he Abominated underpants?”
“No, sir,” Chinny sighed. “But it’s probably only a matter of time.”
--Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
lately every time I go to check the news I find myself thinking, “Has he Abominated underpants?”
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“And you are...?” said Offler.
“The Almighty Nuggan. I’m worshiped in parts of Borogravia. The young man was raised in my faith.”
“What do Nugganiteth believe in?”
“Er... me. Mostly me. And followers are forbidden to eat chocolate, ginger, mushrooms and garlic.”
Several of the gods winced.
“When you prohibit you don’t meth about, do you?” said Offler.
“No sense in forbidding broccoli, is there? That sort of approach is very old-fashioned,” said Nuggan. He looked at the minstrel. “He’s never been particularly bright up till now. Shall I smite him? There’s bound to be some garlic in that stew, Mrs McGarry looks the type.”
Offler hesitated. He was a very old god, who had arisen from steaming swamps in hot, dark lands. He had survived the rise and fall of more modern and certainly more beautiful gods by developing, for a god, a certain amount of wisdom.
Besides, Nuggan was one of the newer gods, all full of hellfire and self-importance and ambition. Offler was not bright, but he had some vague inkling that for long-term survival gods needed to offer their worshipers something more than a mere lack of thunderbolts. And he felt an ungodlike pang of sympathy for any human whose god banned chocolate and garlic. Anyway, Nuggan had an unpleasant little moustache. No god had any business with a fussy little moustache like that.
“No,” he said, shaking the dice box. “It’ll add to the fun.”
-- on Nuggan, and Nugganites, and the mercy of the gods | Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero
#the pity of Offler may rule the fate of many#nuggan#offler#the singer#the last hero#discworld#terry pratchett#quote
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“The color blue?”
“Correct, sir.”
“What’s abominable about the color blue? It’s just a color! The sky is blue!”
“Yes, sir. Devout Nugganites try not to look at it these days.”
Monstrous Regiment, pg. 15
Terry Pratchett
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As far as Polly could tell, Igors believed that the body was nothing more than a complicated kind of clothing. Oddly enough, that's what Nugganites thought, too.
Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
#polly perks#igor#the nugganites#monstrous regiment#discworld#terry pratchett#belief#body#identity#selfhood#science#scientism#religion#religious fundamentalism#similarities#a complicated kind of clothing#oddly enough
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They were losing the war. Everyone knew that, but nobody would say it. It was as if they felt that if the words weren't said out loud then it wasn't really happening.
Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment
#polly perks#the nugganites#monstrous regiment#discworld#terry pratchett#war#soldiers#military#win#lose#superstitious#denial#power of words#everyone knows#it's not happening
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