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viktorreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Murder, Torture, and Death
bluejayreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
3.25
- The big, multi-tiered church structure with one old guy at the top who’s at least 75% figurehead
- A bunch of prescribed prayers, Important Days for feasts or fasts, and rituals that have lost any connection with the reason they are done (if they had any reason to start with)
- An all-powerful, all-knowing deity who speaks only through appointed prophets
- Scriptures, written by said prophets directly from the mouth of god (supposedly), which form the backbone of all doctrine; knowledge and memorization of these is essential to religion
- A Quisition that tortures confessions (true or not) out of heretics, complete with believing that suspicion = crime because Om wouldn’t let them have a suspicion if it wasn’t true
- And the strong conviction that their religion is the only true religion, their god is the only one that exists (which is demonstrably false in the Discworld), and the best way to deal with disbelievers is to conquer them and force Omnianism upon them
So it’s not exactly a subtle analog of organized religion and Catholicism/Christianity in particular. The disappointing thing was it didn’t really make a commentary on any of it. The Omnian church was an obvious caracature of the Catholic church, but that’s as far as it went. The idea seemed to be, “What if god, in a lowly form, came down to a caricature of the Catholic church, and also he was an asshole?”
Personally, I found it interesting enough. I think that’s mainly because I am interested in deities and religion in general, though. Brutha may not have been a spectacular character and the plot might have been weak, but there were plenty of interesting bits about Omnianism and some new tidbits about how the small gods of the Discworld work, and that was enough to keep me reading. Someone with less of an interest in religions, though, would probably find this one of the less enjoyable entries in the Discworld canon.
Graphic: Death, Religious bigotry, and Torture
Moderate: Colonisation, War, Xenophobia, and Violence
Minor: Alcohol, Misogyny, Blood, and Animal cruelty
crufts's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Small Gods is Terry Prachett's satire of gods and organized religion. It's funny, entertaining, insightful, sometimes even heartwarming, and it ends on a bang.
Something the book does really well is the selection of its main characters, which are:
- The protagonist Brutha, a young novice in the order of the god Om, who takes Omnian religion extremely seriously; and
- The god Om himself, who has been accidentally transferred into the body of a turtle, and who doesn't take Omnian religion very seriously at all.
The back-and-forth discussions of these two bring rise to all the one-liners and witty observations that the author inserts into the novel. I liked how Brutha's victory in the novel is basically the result of his good nature and sincerity. It was also a clever move to make the protagonist the most devout believer in the entire novel, as it avoids heavy-handedly placing religion as the enemy and instead explores it from the inside.
Definitely a good read.
Did You Know? The Ogg Vorbis audio codec is named after the main baddie in this book, Exquisitor Vorbis!
Moderate: Religious bigotry and Violence
Minor: Death
jodean's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Slavery, Death, Murder, Torture, and War
Minor: Blood and Animal death
rachc's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Religious bigotry
Moderate: Colonisation and Forced institutionalization
Minor: Torture, Death, Animal cruelty, Xenophobia, and War
bluejay21's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Religious bigotry and Xenophobia
Moderate: Death
Minor: Torture, Sexual content, and Racial slurs
kateworm's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Minor: Religious bigotry, War, Torture, Racism, Misogyny, and Death
s_macdonald's review against another edition
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
Graphic: Religious bigotry
Moderate: Xenophobia
Minor: Torture and Death