Small Gods: (Discworld Novel 13) (Discworld Novels)

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The city of Ankh-Morpork has a Temple of Small Gods, which provides spiritual solace to those who, while they may accept the idea of a deistic presence in the universe, don't really have a clue what it might be. Its cemetery is the favoured burial ground of the City Watch. Death Glare: Brutha's first impression of Simony. The man shoots him an expression of pure and unfiltered hatred. Obfuscating Disability: Vorbis pulls a chilling example of this on Brutha as they are about to leave the desert. Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Om at the beginning, angered by people ignoring him, says many creative curses, such as "Your intestines to be wound around a tree until you are sorry!" or "Your sexual organs to sprout wings and fly away!"

Chekhov's Gun: One chapter has Urn casting metal for the Moving turtle and commenting "S’not ’n important cast anyway, ... Jus’ the control levers." Later on, the Moving Turtle fails when the lever to start it breaks. Who's on First?: Brutha's awkward name is lampshaded when Vorbis thinks of what will happen when he's Brother Brutha. Or even Father Brutha. He concludes they should promote him to subdeacon as soon as possible to avoid this. Death Equals Redemption: In the epilogue, after a hundred years in the desert with only the company of his own thoughts, Vorbis gets a chance at redemption thanks to Brutha. In such instances, you need an acolyte, and fast. Enter Brutha, the Chosen One - or at least the only One available. He wants peace, justice and love - but that's hard to achieve in a world where religion means power, and corruption reigns supreme... Non-Mammal Mammaries: Or the male equivalent, considering eagles shouldn't have certain anatomical features on the outside.Brutha is gifted with an eidetic memory and is therefore chosen by Vorbis, the head of the Quisition, to accompany him on a diplomatic mission to Ephebe as his secretary. However, Brutha is also considered unintelligent, since he never learned to read, and rarely thinks for himself. This begins to change after Brutha discovers Ephebe's philosophers; the idea of people entertaining ideas they are not certain they believe or even understand, let alone starting fistfights over them, is an entirely new concept to him. Blindfolded Trip: Anyone being brought through the trap-filled labyrinth, which is why Vorbis needs Brutha's perfect memory. Not a Game: The gods literally treat the world of mortals as a game, dice and all. Om finally realizes it is Not a Game thanks to Brutha. After that, he (brow)beats the other gods into realizing it, too.

Secret Test of Character: The desert afterlife, with judgement at the end. The judgement isn't a secret. Which end of the desert the judgement happens at is. The Ferryman of Hades. Took the newly dead people across the rivers Styx and Acheron to the Greek underworld if they paid him three obolus (a Greek silver coin). The Chosen Many: The Prophets of Om (holy horns), of which there have been several, Brutha just being the latest. Explored, and subverted, since Om didn't actually chose any of them. Half the time he never even met or talked to them, and in one case the lengthy amount of things he said was actually no more than "hey, look what I can do". And then Brutha manages to single-handedly institute a cultural and religious revolution, managing to actually play the idea relatively straight. Funnily enough, they're literally atheists on a flat planet carried by giant elephants carried by a huge turtle. Although, Discworld does make a distinction between objective knowledge and faith: sure the gods exist, but they don't believe in them, no sir.Painting the Medium: When Om regains his full power, he begins speaking in numbered verse, like a holy text. Wham Line: Throughout the book, deceased characters end up in an afterlife that takes the form of crossing a desert. They ask Death what lies at the end of the desert, and he replies Judgement. At the end of the book, Brutha dies, asks the question and considers Death's answer, and then asks:" Which end?" Heel Realization: Vorbis finally gets this after death, realizing that he'd never actually been following the commandments of a god—that the only voice he'd ever heard came from his own head. A god may become small even if it has a large following. It is well established in the novel Small Gods that while many people call themselves Omnians, only one (Brutha) actually believes. Therefore, while the following is large, the god Om himself is very small, both in size and power. Although the shape of the world controversy is clearly based on the Catholic Church vs. Galileo, Omnia is more like Iran (the most obvious example of a theocracy to the modern mind). Besides its terrain and climate being reminiscent of Iran, its capital city and seat of the Cenobiarch is Kom—compare the Iranian holy city and seat of the Grand Ayatollah, Qom. Dibbler's counterpart is also "Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah", a reference to how Sharia law punishes theft by cutting hands off. Word of God confirms this: the novel was inspired by a documentary about Khomeini's Iran.