Small Gods: (Discworld Novel 13) (Discworld Novels)

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The gods, much like the Greek goddesses of history, have very exaggerated personalities and they are plagued with personal flaws and negative emotions despite they immortality and superhero-like powers. Guardian god of the ancient city Lamark, where wounded heroes could find comfort and heal after battle. He was the son of Aphrodite.

Vorbis, the Exquisitor in charge of the Omnian Quisition. He wants to be the Eighth Prophet of Om. The Great God Om cannot speak to Vorbis, whose mind seems like a hard steel ball. Vorbis boasts to the Tyrant that in the Omnian language, there is no word for 'slavery'. The Tyrant muses that this is likely similar to fish having no word for 'water'.Grandpa God: Discussed and justified. A common personification for gods is "A big beard in the sky," because all a baby can see of his father is a big beard hovering over them, and if a god is one's heavenly father, and one is to believe with the faith of a child, it stands to reason that god looks... like a big beard in the sky.

And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn't in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere. This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn't looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts' Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country. In such instances, you need an acolyte, and fast. Enter Brutha, the Chosen One - or at least the only One available. He wants peace, justice and love - but that's hard to achieve in a world where religion means power, and corruption reigns supreme... She used to give me a thrashing every morning because I would certainly do something to deserve it during the day," said Brutha.Messianic Archetype: Brutha. He's the only one who can directly talk to his god, he survives a life-changing journey through the desert and he reforms the religion of his country. A few Ephebian philosophers mention that it's not a good idea to start pondering whether the gods exist or not, because the poor bugger who does gets hit with one that has a note tied to it saying "yes, we do". The Goddess of Interminable Opera. She is one of the many gods and goddesses recognised in the Temple of Small Gods. Mentioned in Discworld Noir. Doomed Moral Victor: When Brutha is about to be executed, Simony argues that they can't save him, and if they do nothing, his death will become a "symbol for people". Urn is disgusted by this, telling him that now he thinks like Vorbis. He even muses that the most horrible thing about Vorbis is that he makes other people like himself. Chess Motifs: Brutha becomes a bishop, which (the narrative reminds us) moves diagonally to crop up in unexpected places.

Small Gods is particularly renowned for its Zelda-like havoc-wreaking with the always-spotty Discworld timeline due to the appearance of Pyramids characters in the "young Brutha" segments yet the fact that the Omnianism that appears in later books is the more tolerant post-Brutha version. This was eventually explained in Thief of Time as being due to the Timey-Wimey Ball. It's also been said by Pratchett that he was here able to more fully explore ideas he first introduced in Pyramids. Message Board: Small Gods Radio Play". terrypratchettbooks.com. Archived from the original on 6 October 2011 . Retrieved 9 May 2009. A household god on the Discworld is a small god that has a limited number of committed believers, perhaps only one, but nonetheless enough to manifest in a specific visible form. The Unseen University was plagued by a plethora of household gods in Hogfather when a surfeit of belief caused by the Hogfather's absence led to their uncontrolled random generation. It could be argued that the great god Om, having been reduced to just one true believer, was a household god for most of Small Gods.Urn, Didactylos's technically-minded nephew whose knowledge of steam power leads him to build a steam-powered boat and an Iron Turtle, a steam-powered war engine intended to aid the Turtle Movement. Steam powered machines contradict Omnian dogma, which states that such devices cannot perform work as they have neither minds nor muscles. In the book's conclusion Brutha becomes the Eighth Prophet, ending the Quisition's practice of torture and reforming the church to be more open-minded and humanist, with the citadel becoming home to the largest non-magical library on the Discworld. Om also agrees to forsake the smiting of Omnian citizens for at least a hundred years. The last moments of the book see Brutha's death a hundred years to the day after Om's return to power, and his journey across the ethereal desert towards judgement, guiding the spirit of Vorbis whom he found still in the desert and upon whom he took pity. It is also revealed that this century of peace was originally meant to be a century of war and bloodshed which the History Monk Lu-Tze changed to something he liked better. Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: Done with crossbows when Didactylos is on the run from Vorbis's soldiers. One of the soldiers lines up an easy shot, there's the twang of a crossbow bolt, and... the soldier falls, having been shot by another soldier who's a member of the resistance. Afterlife Angst: At the end of the book, Vorbis is revealed to have spent nearly a hundred years in "the desert", a place where some souls are seen to go for Judgement (according to Death) because he was afraid to go on. Lean and Mean: Vorbis is tall, lean and ascetic, in contrast to the good-hearted and fleshy Brutha.