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Title:
Small Gods
Series: Discworld #13
Author:
Terry Pratchett
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Fantasy
Pages: 227
Words: 91K
Publish:
1992
I
originally read this back in 2004 and for the most part, the
humanistic belief system was brand new to me and thus it came across
as “profound”. Twenty years later, with much more experience
under my belt, this was complete garbage.
The
basic idea, and Pratchett carries this through all his books, is that
Man is the center of the universe and everything springs from him. It
is a very “mushy” philosophy and thus is used by people like
Pratchett who don’t want to get down to the nuts and bolts of
theology. It allows for everyone to feel pretty good about themselves
while being totally self-contradicting and also completely illogical.
Pratchett’s
humor is still here in the story, but man, I could not overlook such
shoddy theology. It is just plain bad.
The
more I re-read of Discworld, the less inclined I am to ever re-read
it again. There are individual books that are standing out as very
well done, but overall, the underpinnings are slop and this makes the
books themselves slop. Like this one.
★★☆☆☆
From
Wikipedia.org
The
Great God Om tries to manifest himself once more in the world, as the
time of his Eighth Prophet is nigh. He finds himself in the body of a
tortoise, stripped of his divine powers except for the ability to
singe eyebrows with tiny thunderbolts. In the gardens of Omnia's
capital of Kom, he addresses the novice Brutha, the only one able to
hear his voice. Om has a hard time convincing the boy of his
godliness as Brutha is convinced that Om can do anything he wants and
would not want to appear as a tortoise.
Brutha
is gifted with an eidetic memory and is therefore chosen by
Vorbis, the head of the Quisition, to accompany him on a
diplomatic mission to Ephebe as his secretary. Despite his
amazing memory, Brutha is illiterate and rarely thinks for himself.
This begins to change after Brutha discovers Ephebe's philosophers;
the idea of people entertaining ideas they are not certain they
believe or even understand is an entirely new concept to him.
With
the help of Ephebe's Great Library and the
philosophers Didactylos and his nephew Urn, Om learns that
Brutha is his only genuine believer. All others either just fear the
Quisition's wrath or go along with the church out of habit. After
learning that Vorbis had facilitated the death of the missionary
Brother Murduck to cover up his being mocked by Ephebian citizenry
and to provide a reason for war against Ephebe, Brutha uses his
memory to reluctantly aid an Omnian raid through
the Labyrinth guarding the Tyrant's palace. Because of his
authorship of De Chelonian Mobile (The Turtle Moves), which
contradicts Omnian dogma about the shape of the Discworld, Didactylos
is brought before Vorbis to face reprisal. Seemingly conceding his
previous views about the shape of the world and willing to write a
retraction extolling Omnian interpretations, Didactylos escapes after
hitting Vorbis with his lantern. Ordered by Vorbis to burn down the
Library, Brutha memorizes many scrolls in order to protect Ephebian
knowledge as Didactylos sets fire to the building to stop Vorbis
reading its scrolls. Completely unrelated to the story, the Librarian
of the Unseen University travels through L-Space to rescue several of
the abandoned scrolls.
Fleeing
the ensuing struggle in Urn's steam-powered boat, which is destroyed
as the price for an earlier deal made between Om and the Sea Queen,
Brutha and Om end up washed up on the desert coast. Trekking home to
Omnia with a catatonic Vorbis, they encounter ruined temples
dedicated to long-dead, long-forgotten gods, the faint ghost-like
small gods yearning to be believed in to become powerful, the
small-god-worshipping anchorite St Ungulant, and the human
cost of Vorbis's plan of leaving caches of water in the
desert to attack Ephebe. Realising his 'mortality' and how
important his believers are to him, Om begins to care about them for
the first time.
While
Brutha, Vorbis, and Om are in the desert, the Tyrant of Ephebe
manages to regain control of the city and contacts other nations who
have been troubled by Omnia's imperialistic ambitions. Sergeant
Simony, whose native Istanzia had been conquered by Omnia in his
youth, brings Didactylos and Urn to Omnia to lead the Turtle Movement
in a rebellion against the Church.
On
the desert's edge, a recovered Vorbis attempts to finish off Om's
tortoise form, knocks out and abducts Brutha, and proclaims himself
as the Eighth Prophet, elevating Brutha to archbishop to buy his
silence. After Urn accidentally activates the hydraulic system
which secretly operates the doors of the Great Temple, Brutha
interrupts Vorbis's ordainment. As a result, Brutha is to be publicly
burned for heresy but Om comes to the rescue, dropping from an
eagle's claws onto Vorbis' head, killing him. The great crowd
witnesses this miracle and comes to believe in Om, making him
powerful again. In the ethereal desert, Vorbis learns to his horror
that what he thought was the voice of Om was in fact his own voice
echoing inside of his own head, plunging him into despair and leaving
him unable to cross the desert and face judgement.
Om
manifests himself over the citadel and attempts to grant Brutha the
honour of establishing the Church's new doctrines. However, Brutha
wishes to establish a 'constitutional religion' whereby Om Himself
obeys Omnianism's new commandments and answers some of the prayers of
his followers in exchange for a steady source of belief, believing
that Om will lose his power again otherwise.
Ephebe
has allied with several other nations along the Klatchian coast and
has sent an army against Omnia, establishing a beachhead near the
citadel. Brutha attempts to establish diplomatic contact with the
generals of the opposing army, wishing to stop the war before it
starts by surrendering. Despite trusting Brutha, the leaders state
they do not trust Omnia and that bloodshed is necessary. At the same
time, Simony leads the Omnian military including Urn's 'Iron
Turtle' war engine to the beachhead in order to fight the
anti-Omnian alliance.
Om
attempts to physically intervene in the battle, but Brutha demands he
does not interfere with the actions of humans. Om is infuriated but
obeys Brutha, and instead travels to Dunmanifestin, where gods gamble
on the lives of humans in order to gain or lose belief. Om unleashes
his fury on the other gods and causing a storm that disrupts the
battle. Eventually he compels all other gods of the forces at the
battle to tell their soldiers to stop fighting and make peace.
In
the aftermath 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.
A hundred years to the day after Om's return to power Brutha dies. In
the afterlife he finds the spirit of Vorbis and, taking pity on him,
guides him to his judgement. It is 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.
