More about Ponder/Ridcully

[cimorene]

The reason that I actually started rereading old Discworld books was because of Vetinari/Drumknott. As I mentioned before, I was converted to a Vetinari/Drumknott shipper at Yuletide this year despite not having thought about the pairing before, and was dismayed to find that the recipient of both (gen, UST, short) pieces, kindkit, was also the only person writing it. She's also made a resource post-cum-manifesto for the pairing that referred to several passages particularly in the Social Improvement of Ankh-Morpork books, which inspired me to reread Going Postal, Making Money, and The Truth.

But as I mentioned a few days ago, after the epiphany begun in The Last Hero, which reached its tipping point in Unseen Academicals, those three re-reads appeared to me in an entirely different light! Suddenly it was "I see Ponder/Ridcully!" left and right. I still don't know exactly how I feel about this: I like the pairing, okay, and I want crave to read it (glurk), but I am (1.) opposed to them actually having sex, not so much because it would be gross (I don't mind old man pairings per se: old people can have sex, that's fine with me!) as because I can't really reconcile the thought of them as sexual beings with canon; and (2.) a little put off by the fact that Ridcully is basically 100% my grandfather, which is intermittently very unnerving.

After The Truth I turned my attention to books with high Ponder/Ridcully content and reread:

1. Soul Music. The book in which Hex is first introduced, and contains a sub-plot with the senior wizards getting addicted to Music with Rocks In and Ridcully and Ponder's attempts to investigate and deal with it. Cute, but the pairing would have to be at an infantile stage. They are more familiar later.



2. Hogfather. The wizards investigate the random appearance of new occult personifications, starting with the Verruca Gnome, following the excess of belief provided by the Hogfather's temporary disappearance. Hex has grown fairly large and the wizard subplot is about half sock monsters and cheerfulness fairies and half computer jokes (Anthill inside!). Hex, of course, means Ponder.
   
   
   
   

   Ponder cleared his throat. 'Sound, you see, comes in waves--'
   
   He stopped. Wizardly premonitions rose in his mind. He just knew Ridcully was going to assume he was talking about the sea. There was going to be one of those huge bottomless misunderstandings that always occurred whenever anyone tried to explain anything to the Archchancellor. Words like 'surf', and probably 'ice cream' and 'sand' were just...
   
   'It's all done by magic, Archchancellor,' he said, giving up.
   
   'Ah. Right,' said Ridcully. He sounded a little disappointed. 'None of that complicated business with springs and cogwheels and tubes and stuff, then.'
   
   'That's right, sir,' said Ponder. 'Just magic. Sufficiently advanced magic.'
   
   'Fair enough. What's it do?'

   
   
   In terms of the way the double-act works, it's a bit like Jack and Daniel, actually, with the bluff everyman charm and the folksy expressions that Ridcully uses and Ponder's, well, he's a Type.
   
   

   'We'll see what we can find out, Archchancellor,' said Ponder diplomatically.
   
   'Good man.' Ridcully put the gnome back in his pocket and looked up at Hex.
   
   'Amazin',' he said again. 'He just looks as though he's thinking, right?'
   
   'Er... yes.'
   
   'But he's not actually thinking?'
   
   'Er... no.'
   
   'So... he just gives the impression of thinking but really it's just a show?'
   
   'Er... yes.'
   
   'Just like everyone else, then, really,' said Ridcully.

   
   
   There's a definite sense of Ridcully being Ponder's boss in Hogfather and even references to cubicle-farm type situations:
   
   

   The door was thrown open. Only one person could make a door bang on its hinges like that. Ponder didn't even turn around.
   
   'Hello again, Archchancellor.'

   
   
   Here Ridcully hopes to consult Hex, who it turns out has "caught daftness off the Bursar" - the first computer virus? - and Ridcully comes up with the cure by knowing nothing whatsoever about computers, but, it turns out, his particular brand of logic is in fact right. In other words, he's not as dumb as he looks:
   
   

   'Try giving him dried frog pills?'
   
   'Sorry, sir, but that is a very uninformed suggestion,' said Ponder. 'You can't give medicine to machines.'
   
   'Don't see why not,' said Ridcully. He banged on the tube again and bellowed, 'SOON HAVE YOU BACK ON YOUR...your...yes, indeed, old chap! Where's that board with all the letter and number buttons, Mr Stibbons? Ah, good.' He sat down and typed, with one finger, as slowly as a company chairman:
   
   D-R-Y-D-F-R-O-R-G-½P-I-L-L-S
   
   Hex's pipes changled.
   
   'That can't possibly work, sir,' said Ponder.
   
   'It ought to,' said Ridcully. 'If he can get the idea of being ill, he can get the idea of being cured.'
   
   He typed: L-O-T-S-O-F-D-R-Y-D-F-R-O-R-G-P-½-L-L-S
   
   'Seems to me,' he said, 'that this thing believes what it's told, right?'
   
   'Well, it's true that Hex has, if you want to put it that way, no idea of an untruth.'
   
   'Right. Well, I've just told the thing it's had a lot of dried frog pills. It's not going to call me a liar, is it?'
   
   There was some clickings and whirrings within the structure of Hex.
   
   Then it wrote: +++ Good Evening, Archchancellor. I Am Fully Recovered And Enthusiastic About My Tasks +++

   
   
   Also worth noting in this scene: Ponder rolls his eyes at Ridcully; Ridcully challenges Ponder's pretentious use of acronyms and euphemisms for Hex.
   
   Later Ridcully wades into Hex-wrangling again with similarly good results (there's a misogynist and rather distasteful joke to make about parenting styles here I suspect):
   
   

   Despite his dislike of what was going on, there was a part of Ponder Stibbons that was very, very impressed.
   
   In the past, when Hex had been recalcitrant about its calculations, when it had got into a mechanical sulk and had started writing things like '+++ Out of Chees Error +++' and '+++ Redo From Start +++' Ponder had tried to sort things out calmly and logically.
   
   It had never, ever occurred to him to contemplate hitting Hex with a mallet. But this was, in fact, what Ridcully was threatening to do.
   
   What was impressive, and also more than a little worrying, was that Hex seemed to understand the concept.
   
   'Right,' said Ridcully, putting the mallet aside. 'Let's have no more of this "Insufficient dates" business, shall we? There's boxes of the damn things back in the Great Hall. You can have the lot as far as I'm concerned--'
   
   'It's data, not dates,' said Ponder helpfully.
   
   'What? You mean like... more than dates? Extra sticky?'
   
   'No, no, data is Hex's word for... well, facts,' said Ponder.
   
   'Ridiculous way to behave,' said Ridcully brusquely. 'If he's stumped for an answer, why can't he write "You've got me there" or "Damned if I know" or "That's a bit of a puzzler and no mistake"? All this "Insufficient data" business is just pure contrariness, to my mind. It's just swank.'

   
   
   Of note at the end of this same scene:
   
   

   'Mr Stibbons... would you be so kind as to step over here for a moment?'
   
   He beckoned him up close.
   
   'There's got to be a lot of belief sloshing around to let her be created,' he said. 'She's a good fourteen stone, if I'm any judge. If we wanted to contact the Hogfather, how would we go about it? Letter up chimney?'
   
   'Yes, but not tonight, sir,' said Ponder. 'He'll be out delivering.'
   
   'No telling where he'll be, then,' said Ridcully. 'Blast.'
   
   'Of course, he might not have come here yet,' said Ponder.
   
   'Why should he come here?' said Ridcully.

   
   
   Of note in the next scene: a hilarious parody of the X isn't actually a Y thing where Ponder explains to Ridcully that a banana is really a kind of fish.
   
   And in non-Ponder/Ridcully items, this book contains
   
   
   1. Ridcully's bathroom including the organ-connected shower designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson and the mysteriously traumatizing built-in bidet (?) and
   
   
   
   2. The first Discworld gay reference I remember noticing, in which Ridcully questions the placement of mistletoe amid UU's Hogswatch decorations and the Senior Wrangler defends it on the grounds of symbolizing green and whiteness, then remarks (apropos the arrival of wassailers) "I always have always liked 'The Lily-white Boys', you know", gaining a sharp look from Ridcully.