Unseen Academicals

Unseen Academicals, the 37th book in Sir Terry Pratchett's sprawling Discworld series, is basically about the sport of football (the non-American kind). But that's really just the lens it uses to examine a wealth of topics, from class and traditions to identity and love. Although I suppose you could fold all of those under the topic of prejudice and be done with it. The lines here are arbitrary, and mostly drawn between which team each character happens to support. But those groups prove rather difficult to break free of.

For the first 100 pages, the story followed the beats of Romeo and Juliet and I was fully prepared for a modernized look at that classic story. In this case the two star-crossed lovers support different teams, teams that happen to be two of the most intense rivals in the city. But then the Mercutio character failed to actually die and Juliet and her Romeo took a sharp left turn away from the source material. The love story kept going, but they managed to listen to their friends instead of making rash decisions. And because of that they managed to earn their happily ever after, rather than dying tragically.

Once the love story moved to the background, the issues surrounding the game of football became much more important. For so long people have been doing things a certain way, simply because that's how they've always done it. But now they're starting to break out of those patterns, making new friends and fighting old prejudices. The rules of the game are changing (by decree, to prevent all the death and injuries) and it's time to either change with them or get left behind.