Interestingly, this time reading through, I'm noticing how much this book talks about status. Both Yarrun and Polyam are negatively affected by their status in their communities, although Polyam is more fatalistic about it. But they both do jobs which are necessary. The caravan needs repairs done, and can't survive without basic supplies that the wirok bargains for. Gold Ridge needs a mage who can not only suppress fires, but can keep chimneys clean and food from spoiling. But in the first instance the job is handed off to someone who is perceived as being unable to do anything else useful, and in the second instance the work is only given a middling value, even though the skill required is, as far as we know, not something anyone else who lives in Gold Ridge possesses. It's only when Polyam is bargaining for something as rare as Daja's tree or Yarrun is working during fire season that the prestige given to their roles is raised. (And in Polyam's case we are told specifically that it means not only respect, but better food.)

I'm not sure of what to make of all of it, anymore than Daja is, but I love it that we are given so complicated a world to consider.

And now it has become abundantly clear why I snagged the beginning of Guards! Guards! before there were even splits to consider. :D This book is so much fun to read! And to read aloud! I'm catching puns I hadn't quite noticed before as I'm listening.

(And learning things from the comments -- I was never sure how to pronounce "shower" either, having not caught that it was just a short version of the idiom. There's much to be said for a multinational conversation!)

Oh, now I want to play that again.

I figure the Universal Lemon is a really cheap used cart. Axles and all.

I figure that it's because in terms of years, for a dwarf he is still very much a child*. (I always forget how young he is when I start rereading these stories. I mean, what fifteen? And maybe sixteen/seventeen when he finally starts out for Ankh Morpork? In a society where you hit puberty at 55? I suspect his parents were very much taken aback by how quickly his interests changed when he discovered that Minty Rocksmacker was, well, interested in their differences.

*Also because beards do not necessarily imply long hair on top of your head as well.

Yay! I'm so happy we're finally here. Guards! Guards! was my introduction to the Discworld, and I was hooked from the footnote about really large collections of books creating genteel black holes. Not that I wasn't intrigued about dragons or amused by the Elucidated Brethren, but it was the Librarian and the library* that delighted me.

*and the footnotes.

I think there's also the factor of the cleansing and yellow paint, etc. When Polyam first met Daja, she had good reason to fear contamination from bad luck, because she's already had enough bad luck for one lifetime. Now, however uncomfortable it might be to have gone through the rituals, she is protected, and feels safe enough to be more of the person she ought to be when dealing with Daja and her friends.

I can't help wonder what story, be it myth or legend, is so deeply engrained in Trader culture that the belief that bad luck is contagious simply doesn't come into question. The custom of banishing trangshi is so severe that it feels like response to trauma, especially with a culture so very tightly knit to begin with.

Someone in an earlier chapter noted that given the number of years and the number of kings, their reigns only average out to a couple of years each.

Now we know why. Pteppic is probably not the first to question, but he may be the first to survive having done it!

I think Niko is in over his head. His magical training was the traditional sort, at University. Since then he appears to have come to the conclusion that traditional training has drawbacks, especially for certain types of magic. And he wasn't looking for Tris, unlike the others. He may not have had any foresight about her until after he met her. We saw in Sandry's book that he was kind of hoping that dumping the children at Winding Circle would be sufficient -- he didn't even expect them to land at Discipline, which we know is specifically the place where the mageborn children go to learn control. (Even the townspeople knew that!) So once he commits to the task of teaching Tris what she needs to know he's doing something he hasn't been trained to do in the way he thinks it needs to be done.

In my head Niko had a mentor who subtly (or not so subtly) tried to limit his magical gifts (out of jealousy perhaps?) And Niko doesn't want to do that to the goats. But Tris is a child and needs limits, or at least understanding of why she needs limits. The "oh, we'll let her try stopping the tide to find out why she shouldn't mess with nature and then we'll give her examples of other people who had less luck" thing irritates me. Tris LOVES to read. Niko could have given her that book BEFORE she nearly killed herself.

True. And they're (understandably) also scared and looking for weapons they can use against the pirates and the boomstones. Tris isn't the only one who saw people killed last night.

Reading one chapter every couple of days lets me see more than I would when I gulp things down, but when I slam through these chapters the way I usually do there's a beat of anxiety at my heels that I can't escape anymore than the characters can escape the siege. It's great writing, but now I'm feeling oddly guilty for handing these books to fifth graders!