SPOILERS Jingo Discussion *spoilers*

[Jan Van Quirm]

Leonard said he had been to Leshp before - that's why Vetinari suddenly realised there was another way to sort it and hurried back to him. Who else but Leonard would even think of building an underwater boat - had already started it and possibly even used it already before putting it into storage as Tony's just said.

Leonard designed the thing. It was already built or mostly so before Leshp resurfaced. Vetinari couldn't have already had it built on his own behalf, because at that stage he'd not even thought of, or knew about Leshp in a way that mattered. It must have been Leonard's and it's the reason he designed the rotten thing that's the key here. He'd been to Leshp before on it or else been motivated to build it at that point, because he already worked out that Leshp must only surface periodically.

 

[raisindot]

Who built it? Does Leonard say he built it?

Wow...you're actually agreeing with my...ORIGINAL view.

It's never really established whether Vetinari had the boat built to Leonard's specifications, Leonard had already built it and was keeping it stored, or whether Leonard built it himself (or supervised its construction) in a week after Vetinari found out Leonard had seen Leshp before. All of these are possibilities, so the best you can do is make an inference based on Pterry's few narrative "clues."

Vetinari asked Leonard whether he knew anything about "the [something like "underseas/submerged/lost continent of Leshp," (don't have the book in front of me. Please correct me if I'm wrong)], Leonard replied, "Yes, I did some sketches there several years ago."

Note that Leonard didn't say anything like, "Submerged? Underwater? I only saw a floating island." Being a literalist, had the island Leonard seen not been underwater, he would have correct Vetinari's mistake.

2. If Leonard had indeed seen the surfaced Leshp "several years ago" (you have to determine that length of period if Leonard's version of time), one wonders why the same battle/uproar over it didn't happen. Even it surfaced a hundred years ago wouldn't there have been some kind of history in AM about it that would have prevented the battle taking place in the time of Jingo? Unless, of course, Leonard was the only one to see the surfaced Leshp? Doubtful.

3. When Leonard goes to the berth for the first time he comments that no one has been able to pick the lock. When he inspects the boat, he sees that it is in good shape and only needs minor maintenance. This suggests that the boat already existed, that he had used it at least once (and during this time did his sketches of undersea Leshp), and normally kept in under lock in key in dry dock in AM.

J-I-B

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

The other thing here is that we've once again got the Roundworld Renaissance connection working quite obviously in this.

Vetinari thought: 'A new piece of land! Where did it come from?'

He's actually being more like a scientist than a politician.

Discworld Leonard (DL) is of course a Renaissance man but so's Vetinari isn't he? Many of Roundworld Leonardo's (RL) patrons were powerful lords or politicians - the Medicis were also Macchiavelli's inspiration for the Prince although the Borgias were in fact a far better model for the more ruthless aspects and RL lived in Lorenzo II 'The Magnificent' de Medici's Palace until they were driven out of Florence by the republicans led by Soderini under whom Macchiavelli held high public office. Other patrons were Cesare Borgia, popes, other city-state lords and finally Francis I of France... Lorenzo the Magnificent, Francis I and, arguably and more darkly, Cesare Borgia were all regarded as Renaissance men, all being very well educated in both the arts and sciences.

The DL link is that his patrons paid for his ideas to be studied and realised. With Borgia in particular these were to do with military applications involving architectural aspects including siege weapons and the like - Vetinari could well have paid for/built The Boat but the point once again is that DL designed it in the 1st place. Without that input and the reason to dream it up in the first place there'd be no Boat to build would there?

 

[poohcarrot]

I do, as you know, experiment with devices...which of course, obedient to your viws on the matter, I subsequently dismantle because there are, indeed, evil men in the world who might stumble upon them and pervert their use.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Then he obviously either hadn't got around to dismantling it OR Vetinari got it built in short order if you want to ignore Tony's ref to it being in storage already... ?

Also, as Vetinari didn't know all about Leonard's earlier excursion to Leshp until the war was kicking off, and if he had built the Boat already, this was obviously before Vetinari had starting playing at being his patron/protector, so maybe Leonard simply hadn't finished using it/building it and then got distracted and forgot all about it...?

 

[snowballs]

Leonard had allready built it before he got captured and put in the attic.

He tells Colon and Nobby that he used to get quite a turn of speed out of it.
Then Vetinari was surprised that Leonard had been under Leshp.
That must mean that it allready existed before his incarceration.

 

[raisindot]

Leonard had allready built it before he got captured and put in the attic.

He tells Colon and Nobby that he used to get quite a turn of speed out of it.
Then Vetinari was surprised that Leonard had been under Leshp.
That must mean that it allready existed before his incarceration.

Ummm, Snowballs, aren't you forgetting something here?



J-I-B

 

[snowballs]

Leonard had allready built it before he got captured and put in the attic.

He tells Colon and Nobby that he used to get quite a turn of speed out of it.
Then Vetinari was surprised that Leonard had been under Leshp.
That must mean that it allready existed before his incarceration.

Ummm, Snowballs, aren't you forgetting something here?



J-I-B

Like??

Floating could mean floating as in not on the sea bottom, a submarine is floating even if it is not submerged as long as it is not resting on the sea bottom.
Is my book strange or does Colon once get called Cohen around the second chapter??

 

[raisindot]

*Sigh*

I was hoping you'd figure it out for yourself, Snowballs. Has nothing to do with any WORDS you're posting.

 

[raisindot]

Has nothing to do with any WORDS you've been posting, Snowballs.

 

[snowballs]

Has nothing to do with any WORDS you've been posting, Snowballs.

If you mean Mick Dundee, He is not allowed to hang around with me anymore

 

[raisindot]

Has nothing to do with any WORDS you've been posting, Snowballs.

If you mean Mick Dundee, He is not allowed to hang around with me anymore

Ohhhhhh....I was just gettin' used to him.

 

[snowballs]

Na he got sent away, he was gutted


But was I right about Leonards submarine??

 

[poohcarrot]

That means if he went under it before, it must have risen before, so he must have done his sketches on the risen island, as I said previously.

 

[Tonyblack]

That means if he went under it before, it must have risen before, so he must have done his sketches on the risen island, as I said previously.

No it doesn't. It has risen before, but a long time ago. Hence the ancient buildings.

The suggestion, as far as I can tell, is that Leonard used the submarine to visit the island while it was still submerged. Presumably he used some sort of ingenious device for sketching underwater.

At least no one has tried to seriously suggest (as they did when I did this discussion on another site) that it was the curious squid that built the buildings.

 

[poohcarrot]

Well if it hadn't risen, he couldn't have gone UNDER it before.

The curious squid built it???

Well, how stupid! Obviously it was the octopuseseseseses.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Well if it hadn't risen, he couldn't have gone UNDER it before.

The curious squid built it???

Well, how stupid! Obviously it was the octopuseseseseses.

He would have had to go under the water though...

The easiest way to sketch underwater is go inside something with windows so you, the drawing surface and drawing instruments are dry! Trying to draw in a diving suit, even if you've waterproofed your parchments and your crayons etc and then keep hold of everything you need as you're actually doing the drawing is very, very hard...

(Most of) island is under the water - need to go underwater to draw it - drawing underwater ridiculously hard - really would be handier to have crafty going under the water boat instead - ooooo! Let's ask the curious squid to help me build a going under the water boat...

Obviously! :twisted:

From what they supposedly found with the smelly (? or was that the smell from the Boat?) undercity gas/floatation chambers below Leshp, it must go through a series of transition stages where it begins to rise and then fall as it fills and empties of gases in the 'caverns' underneath it. This surely is what Vetinari and Leonard were studying to work out how long it took for enough gas to accumulate and then disperse in order to calculate how much longer the island had left above water. Between the two of them (Leonard would be bound to have some kind of measuring system and/or device for them to use) they would certainly have been able to make a sufficiently accurate prediction, perhaps also using the existing records from the archives that Vetinari had found, to know roughly when Leshp would start to sink again... 8)

Presumably when Leonard was there before, whether or not he was at sea level or below, it would also assist in working that out as well because he could only see under it, if it was on the way up, or going down, or whilst it was at full float

 

[raisindot]

Adding another topic to this.

What does everything think about the whole "Road to Klatsch" thing with Vetinari, Colon and Nobby?

While it might have worked better than a lot of the Colon/Nobby scenes in other books (particularly TFE and Thud!), I thought a lot of it didn't work all that well.

Colon's politically incorrect toot-talking in the tavern got tiresome very fast. And Nobby's attempts to get in touch with his feminine side in his coffee-klatsch with the women was literally a drag.

The only part of this I really liked was Vetinari's juggling demonstration, a physical representation of his incomparable ability to instantly and instinctively bring under his control whatever random events are thrown his way.

 

[deldaisy]

Jan said:

The easiest way to sketch underwater is go inside something with windows so you, the drawing surface and drawing instruments are dry! Trying to draw in a diving suit, even if you've waterproofed your parchments and your crayons etc and then keep hold of everything you need as you're actually doing the drawing is very, very hard...

crayons ARE waterproof....

run awayyyyyyyy

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

yep - that's the prob - they won't stick to anything in water because of that! :twisted: