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The blurb:
For members of the City Watch, life consists of troubling times, linked together by periods of torpid inactivity. Now is one such troubling time. People are being murdered, but there's no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene. Is there ever a circumstance in which you can blame the weapon, not the murderer? Such philosophical questions are not the usual domain of the city's police, but they're going to have to start learning fast...
Spoilers ahoy — I'm not hiding anything here.
The book opens with a little fun: a novice assassin tries to take out Vimes (the contract on him is quite a high-priced one). He's unsuccessful, naturally.
There are two stories running concurrently in Feet of Clay. The first kicks off when Samual Vimes finally gives in and goes to see the heralds; we find out that the Vimes family had a coat of arms but it's been banned because his distant ancestor beheaded Ankh-Morpork's last king — echoes of the Roundheads in English history. But Vimes also discovers that Nobby Nobbs (or Nobbes) also allegedly has a coat of arms. Nobby is the most disreputable member of the Watch and the idea that he has a coat of arms that he can display while Vimes's are banned does sting a bit, even though Vimes never wanted the coat of arms in the first place.
Once again, the rumours that a 'real' king is in hiding in the Watch start to do the rounds. Only this time, it's not Carrot; it's Nobby (they've worked out that Carrot is a bit too likely to do the right thing, which could be distinctly uncomfortable for them and they'd like something more in the 'easily controlled idiot' line). He's allegedly the descendant of the last Earl of Ankh-Morpork and that's close enough for the people who'd like to see royalty back in charge. At the same time, Vetinari starts feeling a bit poorly, and it's obvious a poisoner has been at work. In one of the book's most telling scenes, Vetinari's poisoning leads to two accidental poisonings, an old lady and a toddler who coincidentally live in the street where Vimes grew up. His reaction to the deaths of those two characters is telling; he's vehemently anti-authoritarian but he's married to the richest woman in the city and is Commander of the City Watch. He is The Man as much as Vetinari, and I think that's going to be a continuing theme, Vimes trying to reconcile those two parts of his life.
Back to the story: initially, Nobby seems to take to being a nob pretty easily — the free food and booze helps with that. So we know the Last Temptation of Nobby is coming; they're going to offer the kingship to him. Will he take it? Will he, hell. Nobby has more sense than to volunteer for something, even something that looks as attractive on the surface as being the king of the city.
Up until now, Nobby's been described as being 'kicked out of the human race for shoving' and various similar descriptors. This makes for an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the story; Cheri (nee Cheery) Littlebottom takes control of her femininity, something not traditionally shown by dwarf women, and has to deal with that, Angua's dealing with Cheri's dislike of werewolves (C doesn't know A is a werewolf), and there are ongoing ructions around the Watch's equal opportunity policy that sees them signing up anyone of any species who wants to join (except vampires). The rest of the story concerns the mystery behind the murder of two old men when there's no sign of anything living at the murder scenes. When it turns out the culprit is a golen, the questions about "who is a person" get more pointed — golems usually have no will of their own, no voice, and no choice but to follow the orders of their owners. Making new ones has been forbidden, but they're basically immortal, so there are still quite a few in the city.
The golems decide to make a king of their own, out of their own clay, and it doesn't work well. They give it many commands — to rule the other golems fairly, to teach them, to make their lives better. So many commands, in fact, that the king golem can't possibly reconcile them all (shaes of HAL from 2001?) and he goes crazy, killing people.
There's a lot in here. The golems are controlled by the words in their head — their chem, equivalent to shem on Earth, the name of god — and literally can't do anything they're not commanded to. So they are, in a way, animate tools; they have as much agency as a shovel, even if they can move themselves around. That's one view, and some characters like Vimes refer to golems as 'it'. Others, like Carrot, refer to golems as 'he', and view them as alive, although enslaved and heavily constrained, not responsible for their actions because they literally cannot disobey.
Then comes the moment Carrot buys one of the golems, Dorfl, and then puts the receipt, which refers to 'the bearer' of the receipt as the golem's owner, in the golem's head along with all its other words. Dorfl is suddenly free — no master, he now indisputably owns himself.
His first actions admit that he could do anything, but he chooses not to; he has a moral code. Although he's been viewed as an animate tool for years — possibly centuries — he has developed a moral code along the way and chooses to act in accordance with it. There's a similar conversation between Angua and Cheri, in which Angua talks about wanting to kill people when she's involuntarily in werewolf form, but chooses not to.
A fantasy world provides huge range to explore issues like who gets to be 'in' and who gets left out, and Pratchett dives into it head first. Golems are unusual, though — they're even further out than most usual out-groups because of the added wrinkle of free will. I hope to see more of the golems in future books at least, and I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be the last book dealing with free will and what we choose to do with it.
Started: 4 March 2025
Finished: 7 March 2025
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