Talk:Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night

Wow! Take a breath before you hurt yourself (I can't read this fast.) 8~}...--Old Dickens 21:26, 15 January 2007 (CET)

Butbutbut... it's working so fast now, and I had the time :) --Sanity 22:25, 15 January 2007 (CET)

Again I see the ghost of an annotation here... the whole business of competing secret societies with exotic names who are striving to take over the world (or to control as much of it as they can) was extensively covered by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea in their Illuminatus! trilogy of novels. Wilson and Shea were not always being serious - Pratchett certainly isn't. I'm sure there are cross-overs and homages to Shea and Wilson in the opening chapters of Guards! Guards!. I just haven't found any that conclusively stick yet - for instance a bit of wordplay, where "Elucidated Brethren" and "Illuminated Brethren" sound suspiciously similar, but it doesn't indicate, or imply, a connection.

Also, in Illuminatus! there are frequent examples of password exchanges and doors defended by bloody-minded gatekeepers... for instance the Black Power group who use the following password exchange

Doorkeeper:- "White"

Person seeking admission:- "Man"

Doorkeeper:- "Native"

Person seeking admission:- "Born"

(A sign of a cynical wit, as this is usually a KuKluxKlan formula for admittance to its meetings... in the book, the doorkeeper sardonically notes the unusually pale skin of the person seeking admittance to a Black Power meeting, and remarks "You better be kosher, boy, or you just kissed your white ass goodby!")

Again, can anyone help with cross-overs and annotations, conclusively linking Prachett's Guards! Guards! to Shea and Wilson's conspiracy theory masterwork, Illuminatus!.....--AgProv 22:04, 28 April 2007 (CEST)

I think there's no chance at all that Wonse would would allow Brother Fingers to touch The Summoning of Dragons, let alone trust him to steal it. Out of L-space. In Unseen University. (Never mind what the Guild would do to him for that.)--Old Dickens 16:24, 8 May 2007 (CEST)

This does sound like it could be a plot flaw in Guards! Guards!. How could a relative outsider navigate through the Library and find what he wants first time, when he isn't even a student wizard? Maybe the Guild of Thieves offers postgraduate courses on burglary in magical spaces? I take your point, yet pages 13-20 of the Corgi PB suggest that this is exactly what happened: that Fingers was commissioned by Wonse to do this particular theft. Perhaps Wonse hoped his acolyte would, like the rest of the Brethren, be too dim to see the consequences of his actions or to show any curiosity as to what he was stealing or why? Or maybe, if an outsider enters a contract with the Guild to the effect that a particular theft happens to order, the Thieves honour their contracts as scrupulously as the Assassins?--AgProv 16:43, 8 May 2007 (CEST)

p.16 anyway. Bloody hell! That'll take some explaining. The excuses above don't help. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards" is natural law. Assassins don't, the Patrician doesn't, nor anyone else who doesn't enjoy a diet of flies.--Old Dickens 16:12, 9 May 2007 (CEST)