Men At Arms
Men at Arms is the second of the City Watch books in the Discworld series. My first time through the series, I wasn't as interested in the watch, at least initially. Their stories tend towards murder mysteries and examinations of socioeconomic divisions and political corruption. It took a while for them to grow on me. But this time through, I'm enjoying them a lot more.
This book sees the expansion of the guard in a significant way. Thanks to the Discworld version of affirmative action, the guard has been forced to expand it's members beyond the human men it has so far been populated by. So we start off with the new recruits: a dwarf, a troll, and a woman/werewolf. It's a turning point for the Discworld. This is an early instance of change being accepted, being viewed as progress. Things are getting better. The watch becomes more effective as it becomes more diverse. The end of the book doesn't return to a status quo. Instead, the ramifications here are felt through the remainder of the series.
It's fun to go back to these early days. Carrot comes into his power and proves that simple isn't the same as stupid. His relationship with Angua gets off to a rocky start, and while it always remains in the background in the books to come, it was nice to get back to the beginning of it. The book also gives us the first instance of a dwarf and a troll developing a friendship, and it is a beautiful development.
There's also a lot of interesting stuff in here about gun violence that seems more relevant than ever. This is the Discworld, so the gun is a bit supernatural. In some instances, it really is the gun that kills people. But in other instances that isn't the case. It starts to poke at these ideas, at the power that guns bring and how seductive that power can be. It probably could have gone a little deeper, and I think the fact that there's only one gun and it gets dismantled at the end harms the overall metaphor a little bit. But the book still raises some really interesting issues and forces you to mull them over.
I'm excited to get to more of the watch books and to see the expansion of the force. It remains at the forefront of Ankh-Morpork's efforts to diversify, and really becomes a driving force of a lot of the changes on the Disc. Having now finished the series, and knowing how it ends and what themes Pratchett ultimately chose to highlight, I have a greater appreciation for these early books when those themes first started to show up.
This book sees the expansion of the guard in a significant way. Thanks to the Discworld version of affirmative action, the guard has been forced to expand it's members beyond the human men it has so far been populated by. So we start off with the new recruits: a dwarf, a troll, and a woman/werewolf. It's a turning point for the Discworld. This is an early instance of change being accepted, being viewed as progress. Things are getting better. The watch becomes more effective as it becomes more diverse. The end of the book doesn't return to a status quo. Instead, the ramifications here are felt through the remainder of the series.
It's fun to go back to these early days. Carrot comes into his power and proves that simple isn't the same as stupid. His relationship with Angua gets off to a rocky start, and while it always remains in the background in the books to come, it was nice to get back to the beginning of it. The book also gives us the first instance of a dwarf and a troll developing a friendship, and it is a beautiful development.
There's also a lot of interesting stuff in here about gun violence that seems more relevant than ever. This is the Discworld, so the gun is a bit supernatural. In some instances, it really is the gun that kills people. But in other instances that isn't the case. It starts to poke at these ideas, at the power that guns bring and how seductive that power can be. It probably could have gone a little deeper, and I think the fact that there's only one gun and it gets dismantled at the end harms the overall metaphor a little bit. But the book still raises some really interesting issues and forces you to mull them over.
I'm excited to get to more of the watch books and to see the expansion of the force. It remains at the forefront of Ankh-Morpork's efforts to diversify, and really becomes a driving force of a lot of the changes on the Disc. Having now finished the series, and knowing how it ends and what themes Pratchett ultimately chose to highlight, I have a greater appreciation for these early books when those themes first started to show up.
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