Pratchett, Terry - Men at Arms

[oyceter]

Vimes is about to retire from the Guard, only before he can, he and Carrot have to solve a series of mysteries regarding a strange weapon that fires lead projectiles really, really fast. And we find out a wee bit more about that birthmark Carrot has...

I liked this, but I didn't like it quite as much as Guards! Guards. Part of this was because Vimes isn't in it very much; the book's most on Carrot. And I like Carrot, I do, but he verges a little too close to perfect in this book. Pratchett handwaves it a little by chalking it up to his heritage, but it means he can solve problems a little too quickly and a little too well. There wasn't this problem in GG because Carrot was a newbie. I sort of miss the newbie-ness; it gave him room to stumble.

Things I liked: The Carrot-Vetinari talk at the end. Dr. Whiteface (creepy!). Leonard of Quirm and Nanny Ogg. The mystery itself, which was nicely twisty and interesting. Cuddy and Detritus and the silicon brain (I geeked out at this). Angua as a general concept. Carrot as TCK.

Things I am ok about: Angua as she was executed... to me, she felt a little more like a collection of "cool woman" traits than an actual personality. Part of this may be because I am comparing her with other Pratchett women, who are bursting to the brim with personality. But I wanted some more -- I can't quite think of what she likes and dislikes right now, except that she was amused by Carrot's reading of the oath (as was I). I am guessing she'll get fleshed out more later though.

Things I didn't like: the racism/speciesism thing.

Now, before anyone comments defending Pratchett, let me say this. I think his portrayal of race and racism is wrong. That said, I think he's well-intentioned and somewhat clueless, but his cluelessness goes more toward institutional racism. And putting this in his book(s) means he's at least willing to think about it, which I appreciate. Also, I didn't throw this book against a wall. I know that sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise, but honestly, if I hadn't been giving Pratchett the benefit of the doubt, I would have thrown this book against a wall and probably left a frothing post here. (eta: fixed link)

So: I'm not actually offended or pissed off, I don't think Pratchett is a racist except in the sense that we are all products of institutional racism, and I still like and enjoy the Discworld books and this book. I just think he gets it wrong.

Minor spoilers!

1. I don't like the analogy he draws between racism and speciesism. It's a faulty analogy (and I get that all analogies are flawed), and the part that I find the most flawed is that species != race. As in, species are biologically different. Troll brains just do not operate the same way as dwarf brains. Dwarf brains have that sense of direction underground, and they are by nature short. Race, on the other hand, is not a biological concept, no matter how much 19th century colonialism apologists wanted it to be one. It's a social and cultural artifact. And while I think Pratchett avoids biological determinism in most cases, just using species as an analogy for race has the potential for that pitfall.



2. I don't like how Pratchett's analogy fits in with how SF/F deals with race issues. SF/F is a pretty white genre to begin with, in terms of creators, publishers, characters, and settings. When I see SF/F tackle the issue of racism, it's usually in the form of speciesism like Pratchett does. I think SF does this most often with the use of aliens as POC, though X-Men uses mutants, Kit Whitfield's Bareback uses werewolves, and etc. The point is, they all use things that are biologically different from people as POC. I don't need to point out the problem with that, right? This goes with my first point about species != race.
   
   The other reason why I dislike this is because it gives creators the ability to say that they talk about race and racism without ever having actual POC. Yes, X-Men has POC, but they are the minority. Ditto with Star Trek and Stargate and all the other alien-as-minority metaphor shows. They also allow the creators to have their cake and eat it too in that they usually don't even include POC cultures. So much as I appreciate Pratchett dealing with the subject, I'd be much less skeptical if the human cast of characters we've met were more racially diverse (werewolves and vampires and dwarfs do not count unless they are described as being black or brown).



3. I think Pratchett gets the power dynamics completely wrong. The main species conflict in this book is between the dwarfs and the trolls. True, we get to see a lot of human prejudice against them, but when it actually comes to fistfights and violence, it's the dwarfs and the trolls. Neither of them are the species in power in Ankh-Morpork, but instead of focusing on human supremacy, they're focusing on each other. Furthermore, Pratchett shows that the majority of damage done to dwarfs and trolls have been by other dwarfs and trolls (at least from what I can tell -- the mobs, the story of the ambush, etc.). And, well... if you're using that as an analogy for racism, it's like saying black people and Chinese people have been each other's worse enemies. Which goes to...



4. The humans are shown being prejudiced. And denying dwarfs and trolls opportunities. But this seems to be a fairly recent problem, given that the dwarf and troll population in A-M is increasing. Also, there's not a lot of history to this. There hasn't been a century of colonialism and attempted genocide, no humans taking over dwarf and troll cities or nations, no economic exploitation of dwarfs and trolls like slavery or forced trade, attempts to extinguish dwarf or troll cultures. So we basically get to see the humans as being ignorant and prejudiced, but the ones who aren't spouting ignorant, speciest stuff are then blameless and fine. They aren't profitting from a system based on centuries of exploitation.

The last point is my biggest beef with the [species]-as-POC version of racism in SF/F. A lot of them feel like they're taking place in the days of the first days of colonialism, in which two peoples meet, both sides don't know each other, and one side slaughters the other. It's easy to point fingers at this point. It's really easy to say "Yeah, that was wrong."

What's a lot harder is looking at the effects of centuries of institutionalized racism and saying, "Yeah, that person threatening someone with nooses is wrong, but I benefit from white supremacy as well, no matter how little I want to admit it." It's harder saying, "I'll change my lifestyle and my hobbies and my habits and what I learn and what I read and what I watch to be actively anti-racist and combat white supremacy." That's what bugs me the most.

Er, well, POC as other species and using other species in lieu of actual POC bug me a lot as well. But not acknowledging institutional racism while trying to do the racism analogy completely destroys any attempt at the analogy.

Comments

[chomiji]

Indeed, he should just have a POC in the cast ...what's funny is he has people of differing religions - you'd think it would have been easy to include different human races.

Angua starts as a placeholder for a concept and then grows as a character. I think he must genuinely have strong female people in his life whom he respects, and that flavors the way he depicts his female characters in the end. Even if he's kind of klutzy with issues.

[oyceter]

He is a little klutzy with issues, but I forgive a lot for the existence of Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, both of whom I have major love for.

Constable Visit isn't white

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

This gets mentioned in Jingo when Fred's going on about how "They" meaning the Klatchians are bad, and Nobby keeps snarkily kicking the pins out from under him - one of the differences he mentions is that "they're not the right color" and Nobby asks him what's the *right* color then, because he's never had a problem with Visit, etc, etc. But it isn't made an ongoing issue, it's just there, sort of a reminder that A-M is not monochrome any more than London or NYC.

There's also a reversal in The Truth when human-on-human racism is revealed to be there after all, in a discussion between William and Goodmountain of different marriage customs (dwarf vs. sundry human) which comes round to William's father and how he refers to "the black humans who live in Howandaland", which could be taken as on the one hand contradiction (or as LM Bujold puts it, the Author's Right To Have A Better Idea Later) or as looking harder at the Disc, without the rosy glasses, kind of like someone first going "America has always been the land of Freedom and Opportunity for All!" and then later admitting (slavery, indenture, Triangle Fire, Lowell Strikers, etc etc etc to the present) well, no, not so much...

Re: Constable Visit isn't white

[oyceter]

Oh good. I just wish there were more POC!