digibutter.nerr

[Zelnor]

2000 / 4000 words, haven't used my sources, dunno what to write...

Well, any critiquie so far would be appreciated. My teachers were right - you take a topic you love and analyze it until you NEVER WANT TO SEE THE THING AGAIN..

WE HATE IT. IT BURNS US, THE ESSAY. but the masters said we must do it. we are a good boy. good boys do their essays. WE ARE NOT GOOD. WE SAT AT THE BOX, WE SAW THE KEYS, BUT NOTHING CAME. NOTHING. we wasted time. we lurked and had lulz. NOTHING CAME. THERE HAD ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING. IT WAS LIKE A WORLD, GONE SUDDENLY. we wrote. we have 2000 words. ALL USELESS. DO WE EVEN HAVE CONTENT? HAVE WE USED OUR RESEARCH? ALL FOR NOTHING. we wasted time WRETCHED ESSAY we must continue I HATE YOU come on, only some more points THE MASTERS WILL BE SO DISAPPOINTED they will not love you less I MUST NOT FAIL THEM you're starting to look like a lunatic WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK I'M TYPING LIKE THIS well i guess it's an extended sort of lord of the rigns reference in which you try to harvest sympathy by acting like a nitwit SHUT UP AYNWAY THERE'S STILL TOK TO WRITE hey you wanna go for a drink SURE THING, LET'S BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND


... That was weird. I feel strangely appeased.

Anyway, ladies and MENTLEGEN,

Twilight Corporation is proud to present:

THE GREAT TEXT WALL OF CHINA.

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The portrayal of religion in Terry Pratchetts’ ‘Small Gods’


A textual analysis of religion in a fictive universe in comparison and contrast to ours.

Abstract
(<300 Words)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Central thesis

3. Introduction: The Discworld and its specialties

4. Religion
4.1 How religions come to exist
4.2 Influencing characteristics
4.3 Growth
4.4 Influencing people and being influenced
4.5 Use and abuse
4.6 Death of a religion

5. Gods
5.1 Birth of a god
5.2 Small gods
5.3 Growth
5.4 Attitude
5.4.1 Towards humans
5.4.2 Towards philosophers
5.4.3 Towards atheists
5.5 Death
5.6 Specific Gods
5.6.1 Om
5.6.2 Others

6. People
6.1 Believers
6.1.1 Brutha
6.2 Philosophers
6.2.1 Didactylos
6.3 Atheists
6.3.1 Sergeant Simony
6.4 ‘Madmen’
6.4.1 Vorbis
6.5 Normal people
6.5.1 Torturers
6.5.2 Believers
6.6 And others

7. Other themes
7.1 The tortoise and the eagle
7.2 The Turtle


Introduction

This essay focuses on the analysis

Body

1. Introduction

2. Central thesis

In ‘Small Gods’ Terry Pratchett explores religion: How a religion comes to exist, what shapes it and makes it grow, how a religion influences people and people the religion, and how religions die.
Whilst he points out some of the crimes committed in the name of religion, he does not quite condemn anyone, merely shows up what religion can turn to if it is abused by people, or – this being a fantasy world- praises a god with an attitude.
These ideas are explored through:


a) the fictional religion of ‘Omnianism’, a monotheistic religion bent on conquering others and converting by force, if necessary, in contrast to the ephebian Greco-Roman religion which is more a working hazard for philosophers (the gods like to aim at people debating their existence) then a center of life
b) the followers of Omnianism, especially contrasting main characters Brutha and Deacon Vorbis, but also atheists and philosphers
c) the actual physical god Om (though trapped in the form of a one-eyed tortoise) and his development from a bossy, demanding god to an understanding one,
d) the other gods, such as Blind Io or Patina and their attitudes towards their followers,
e) the Small Gods, gods without or before any believers (mostly small, tempting voices in the desert),
f) Metaphors and allegories such as the tortoise and the eagle or the recurring argument about the Turtle the Discworld stands on.

To be precise, these aspects revolve around the following themes:

a) Omnianism shows primarily Christian traits, like a secular hierarchy with a central figure –the Cenobiarch- on top, a monotheistic religion, the God leaves commandments via His Prophets, etc., but also has properties of other religions; for example, their Citadel has prayer towers (a feature of Islamic architecture), and they have the large and very active ‘Quisition’, an allusion to the Spanish Inquisition, which is led by Deacon Vorbis, a man characterized as a complete monster. This ‘mix and match’ religion exists to widen the range of ideas Pratchett can discuss in the novel; it avoids getting too close to any real-world religion and lets the author discuss organized religion more in general.

b) The contrasting characters of Brutha (blind, solid faith) and Vorbis (only thinks he believes, ‘hears the voice of his God’ but it’s actually his own, tortures in the name of that voice) lead to an exploration of believers and how they think and feel and work. This leads to exploration about the part in peoples’ lives religion plays and what happens when religion dominates life. Atheists or antitheists like the character of Sergeant Simony, however, are played for laughs, in a world where the gods are proven to exist, and are therefore a figure of ridicule. The third point is occupied by philosophers, who do not quite agree with either side and are presented as an embodiment of human reason and inventiveness.

c) This is, so to speak, the main point of Small Gods: An actual God is physically present at all time. Flashbacks and exposition explore Om’s rise to power, and an important point of the novel is why he lost his power and why things such as that keep happening. Also important is his character development from a distant authoritative figure demanding worship to a caring God that believes in people.

d) Like Om, the other gods are portrayed similar to the gods of Greek mythology and therefore these gods are quite humanlike, with the capability of being wrong, shallow, cruel or lazy. Particularly important is their view of humans and their role and purpose, which is at first shared by Om but which he later grows to detest.

f)Throughout the novel, a multitude of characters, symbols, metaphors and other stylistic devices are employed to provoke thought as the reader follows Brutha on his journey. As he tries to find out why his God has lost his power, the reader also sees Brutha question the teachings and dogma he has known to be true since earliest childhood, up to and beyond questioning the relationships between gods and mortals, the sense and place of religion and how Omnianism turned into what it is at present. For example, the symbol of the tortoise and the eagle is often brought up. The tortoise is a slow, ground-bound creature with a horizon about four inches off the ground whilst the eagle is colloquially king of the birds. Eagles have worked out how to eat tortoises by picking them up and letting them fall, smashing them on rocks. Numerous characters or factions during the novel can be put into the position of either eagle or tortoise.


3. Introduction: The Discworld and its specialties
The Discworld is, in the words of its author, ‘world and mirror of worlds’. It is flat and round and stands on the backs of four giant elephants, which themselves stand on the shell of the star turtle Great A’Tuin. It also lies very close to being unreal, which means that reality has a very low density on the Discworld. Belief and stories have vast power on it - if enough people believe in, say, a god or goddess of extended essays, one will either appear or grow to fill this position and take power and form from the belief invested in him or her. The fact that, on the Discworld, belief is the food of the gods adds another layer to the relationship between them and humans – one that doesn’t have concrete or metaphorical meaning for our world, but strongly shapes the story and content of the novel.


4. Religion
At the core of ‘Small Gods’ is
4.1 How religions come to exist
4.2 Influencing characteristics
4.3 Growth
4.4 Influencing people and being influenced
4.5 Use and abuse
4.6 Death of a religion

5. Gods
5.1 Birth of a god
5.2 Small gods
5.7 Growth
5.8 Attitude
5.8.1 Towards humans
5.8.2 Towards philosophers
5.8.3 Towards atheists
5.9 Death
5.10 Specific Gods
5.10.1 Om
One of the main attractions of ‘Small Gods’ is the fact that the God the entire religious debate is about is actually physically present. However, he is incapable of resolving the crisis by himself, preserving the integrity of the plot and avoiding an early dues ex machina.
Having the god the religion is based on adds something unique to the novel, especially since is his a full-fledged character in his own right. At the beginning, Om is bossy, cynical (although he claims that this is because he’s stuck in a tortoises’ body and they are natural cynics) with a short temper and a tendency to curse people with cruel punishments which only do not happen because he is powerless. However, through his travels with Brutha and witnessing the struggles of humanity firsthand, he learns to be more compassionate and careful. His character gives insight into the way Gods on the Discworld view humans; when he momentarily returns to Dunmanifestin, the fortress of the gods, he look down on the Discworld and thinks “It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn’t a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off.”
During the story, Om is revealed to have risen to power with a shepherd as his first believer, which set his mind down one path: “The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.
For sheep are stupid and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”
This is a passage that not only contains lots of Christian analogies and symbols but also logically builds up Om’s character, explains his motives and character.

5.10.2 Others

6. People
6.3 Believers
6.3.1 Brutha
Brutha is the central character of ‘Small Gods’ and the focus of the story. He starts off as a novice in a small garden in the temple when per chance his god is dropped next to him by an eagle.
Character-wise, Brutha is a slow and completely obedient person with eidetic memory who is working in a melon garden because he was told to. He grew up with his grandmother, who was completely unshakeable in her faith, and so “[…] didn’t just believe. He really Believed.” (Pratchett, p. 21) During the course of the novel, the reader follows Brutha as he is taken along to the nation on Ephebe – a take on ancient Greece – and learns how Gods rise and fall in power, what crimes are committed in the name of his religion and how much his God, still in the form of a tortoise, really cares.
Brutha, as main character and center of the viewpoint for most the novel, is the character readers are supposed to empathize with. His change from blind and obedient to thoughtful, human-oriented faith span the novel and the more thoughtful approach to religion is what the author wants to suggest to his readers; of course, the religions on our world have more distant deities.
At first, Brutha can be thought of as an everyman, a figure for any reader to sympathize and identify with to easy understanding and coax the reader into the novel. However,

6.4 Philosophers
6.4.1 Didactylos
6.7 Atheists
6.7.1 Sergeant Simony
6.8 ‘Madmen’
6.8.1 Vorbis
Deacon Vorbis is characterized as a cold, calculating man who believes what he is doing is what his God demands of him but actually only listens to “his own voice bouncing off the inside of his skull.” He supervises, but never executes, the multitude of cruel punishments administered by the Quisition, all whilst planning how to overrun other countries and add them to Omnia. The death of his own men in his schemes means nothing to him.
Later on in the story, Vorbis is revealed to have planned the invasion and forced conversion of Ephebe from the start, having sent a missionary, having the missionary murdered for a casus belli,sending a fleet of ships to attack Ephebe, and have a large amount of soldiers start to clear a way through the apparently impassable desert, leaving water caches, even before the fleet started. Once the fleet is destroyed, Vorbis himself traveled to Ephebe, taking Brutha and his photographic memory with him in order to trick the Labyrinth around the palace in order to let in the Army that came over the desert.


6.9 Normal people
6.9.1 Torturers
6.9.2 Believers
6.10 And others

7. Other themes
7.3 The tortoise and the eagle
7.4 The Turtle

~~~~

Critique would be appreciated.

[Anti-Guy]

>:C Give me back 15 minutes of my life >:C


...But in all honesty, it seems to be well structured, although I have no idea what your organizational system, with the table of contents means,

5. Gods
5.1 Birth of a god
5.2 Small gods
5.7 Growth
5.8 Attitude
5.8.1 Towards humans
5.8.2 Towards philosophers
5.8.3 Towards atheists
5.9 Death
5.10 Specific Gods

because you would list topics such as "Towards Atheist," yet I never read any such mentioning, so explanation of that would be appreciated...

...After admitting that I haven't read any of Pratchett's work, I can't thoroughly examine such an essay, but one small question, Did you choose to read and examine this book, or were you assigned it. Meaning, does whoever is going to be reading your essay already have knowledge of this book?...

...Because, if he has the same standpoint as everyone who hasn't read it, then we could possible attempt to give advice similar to his disposition...
~White Shy Guy

[Zelnor]

Thanks for reading. I chose the topic myself because I like Pratchett and I'm pretty up to date on religions.

Or at least I used to like the topic. :[

The essay will be sent to some random IB dude is a random spot on the Earth. It's more probably that I'll be hit by a toilet falling from orbit (in wihch case my last words will be either "Oh shit.", "Strangely I'm not surprised" or "What an impossibly stupid way to die.") that that that person has read the book.

[Anti-Guy]