The History Monks
A Note on the Theme and Graphics
We had already set our hearts on the the History Monks as a theme for 2008 before the 2006 Convention. At the 2006 Convention itself, a series of coincidences reinforced the idea. We had asked Trevor Truran to take part in a panel game, "What's My Discworld Line?"
He chose to answer questions as the Great God Om (holy horns). This kept the panel stumped for quite a long time. [1] I asked him why he chose Om, and he told me he'd just always liked Small Gods, and it started a conversation between us about why we liked it, and how glad we were that with Thief of Time we got to see more of Lu-Tze and more of what the History Monks do.
Then there was running into Lu-Tze after the Maskerade competition, which had me completely off balance. It turned out to be BriD (see Chronicle vol. 5, issue 1 for Brian Dale's story), or BriTze as he's now known. For those of us already keeping time-manipulating monks in mind, it was a bit disorienting seeing such a vivid hint of 2008 two years early. It wasn't like we'd told anyone what the theme was, yet!
The History Monks have always been favourites of some of the 2008 Convention Committee. Bruce said, "They hadn't been done. People like the History Monks. I like Lu-Tze, and how he portrays the obstinate ordinary man, the practical engineer with no time [Sic. -Ed.] for bureaucracy and pointless procedures."
We thought the History Monks would be interesting to explore, and give us an excuse to plunder all the juicy bits from all of the books. "One of the things the History Monks have done for Terry is they have provided him with a foolproof answer for any inconsistencies people have found in the books, between how an event is described in one book and how it's depicted in a later summary. He can now answer that - the History Monks were improvising and repairing history. And if it works for Terry, then it should work for us."
Before we had made any of this public, we ran the idea past Terry. That was when we found out that it was Terry's 60th birthday in 2008, and the 25th anniversary of the Discworld. That sealed it for us. History Monks it was.
We spent some time discussing images for this, and after a bit of back and forth with Graham Higgins in which various sketches of Lu-Tze were considered, he sent us an entirely different image, almost as an afterthought. It was the baby Abbot meditating, with a juggling prop known as a diabolo, only in the Abbot's case it was an hourglass. We loved it instantly. We suggested a toy next to the Abbot, and he said that was a good idea, as it'd help to establish that he was levitating. I suggested an elephant (well, you would, wouldn't you?), but Bruce found a mention of a toy giraffe in the book first, so that was added. The prayer wheel came out of discussions about what a Procrastinator might look like. We then had a final image… but no. Graham wanted to add a mandala, to tie the entire image together.
And so it did. The mandala, the hourglass, the clock around his neck and the one in his forehead, wearing saffron, smiling as any Buddha-like baby… with a prayer-wheel rattle and a giraffe toy for hitting any acolyte who comes near without a bikkit.
Wanna wanna Discworld Convention!
[1] This might be because he also chose to wear a tartan golf cap attached to a very bad, very ginger wig. No explanation for this was ever discovered by the poor panel. When I asked him why he'd done it, he said he'd found the hat-wig while on vacation, tried it on, and immediately reduced his wife Rona to hysterics, and had been looking for an excuse to use it on a stage ever since. As there aren't many theatrical applications for such a costume choice, well, a god can do whatever he wants, right? Right!
Back