Despite the humorous nature of Terry Pratchett’s fantasy novels, they are filled with

commentary on political, social, and religious ideas. In three of his books, Small Gods, Mort,

and Nation , he uses his worlds as counters to the real world, giving atheistic views through

books filled with gods, views on science through stories of magicians, and ideals of civilization

through tales of primitive society. The main foci of these stories are the elements of death, duty,

religion, and life. In all three of these books, there is an anthropomorphic personification of

death, whose personality gives some idea of Pratchett’s idea of death, which is surprisingly

friendly. When his works focus on religion, it is usually in a negative point of view, with

cynicism and even mockery placed very obviously on the page, but at the same time he also

comments on very important and valid points of theology that can be helpful for those who

believe in a divine being of some sort.

Faith is a many-faceted element of society. Belief in one or more deities of some sort is

almost universal. Terry Pratchett takes the idea of faith very seriously in his works, especially in

Small Gods. Small Gods is set in the Discworld universe, where gods are numerous, and gain

power with belief. More specifically, it is set in Omnia; a theocracy centered on the self-

proclaimed “Great God Om”. In Small Gods, a young man named Brutha lives in Omnia, a

country which worships the god called Om. Omnia is a combined satire of the hyper-

fundamentalist period of Christianity and the current excesses of Islamic fundamentalists. This

Brutha is called to be a prophet of the Great God Om. He was called to preach to the people, and

tell them of the great power of their god. He must lead them on to victory, and give them

guidance on matters of faith. He would be the model for Omnianism for the next two hundred

years. There were a few problems with this. Brutha was an idiot. He was a perpetual novice, who

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was only good at hoeing melons. He was not Om’s first choice. Om chose Brutha for the sole

reason that Brutha was the only one who still truly believed in him, and since he had only one

believer, Om was not powerful enough to be able to help Brutha accomplish his lofty mission.

This may seem odd, seeing as he had an entire nation devoted to him, but this seeming

contradiction is one of the most powerful ideas in the book. As Brutha finds out by reading the

works of a philosopher named Abraxes of Ephebe, “Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of

prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Laste the

Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed” (Pratchett 177). The system of rites, hierarchy,

rote prayers, and organization of the Omnian religion had become the thing that the people

believed in. They feared and worshipped the system, not the god. Each statue they erected to

Om, be it a representation of one of his noble incarnations or the beatified version of one of the

prophets, made it more difficult to remember the real god they were praying to. Each torture

chamber meant to purify the faith merely caused people to fear the system. The implications of

this problem are certainly meant to apply to real life religions of the world. The loss of faith

experienced by Om is frighteningly close to home, since it is one of the easiest things in the

world to fall into mindless memorized prayer. It can be an immense challenge to say the

words one has said so many times without forgetting their meaning. It is dangerously easy

to slip into a daydream or other unrelated thoughts, instead of remaining intent on the

prayer. Although memorizing a prayer can be helpful as a means of ensuring that prayer

actually happens at some point, it loses its usefulness if there is no understanding, no true

belief, behind the words. Thus is described a danger in a heavily organized religion, that the

people will slowly become used to the religion, and it will lose its beauty and truth, and instead

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become yet another meaningless movement. A good example of the difference between the

god of the religion, and the “shell” that forms around the said god is given by Om Himself:

“I am your god right?”

“Yes (Brutha)”

“And you’ll obey me.”

“Yes”

“Good. Now take a rock and go and kill Vorbis (head of the Omnian inquisition)”

Brutha didn’t move.

“I’m sure you heard me”, said Om.

“But he’ll… he’s… the Quisition would—“

“Now you know what I mean. You’re more afraid of him than you are of me,

now.” (Pratchett 176)

The system of Omnianism was far more obvious than Om himself, and since he had not been

performing miracles for many years and the Quisition was torturing the unbelievers left and

right, the people of Omnia feared the system more than they feared Om. Their faith was in the

system, not in the god himself. Brutha would rather disobey his god than to defy the focus point

of Church authority. If even the one true believer is not willing to obey his god, there is little

possibility that a normal and weak in faith person will be able to do so. The real meaning of the

religion has been completely lost in the crowded pews of the church. The real message, the real

truth, is hidden by the myriad details and rules.

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The lack of truth is addressed in other places. It is important to note that “The

Omnian Church holds that the world is spherical and goes around the sun, and those who

believe otherwise risk being tortured and killed as heretics. But Discworld really is flat,

and… this reversal helps to shake up the reader's thinking, giving a reminder that what is

important is to find out what really is true, regardless of what "everybody knows." (Gary

McGath). Just as the members of Omnianism blindly follow the rules of their religion, they

also believe what they are told about science, regardless of the actual truth. Instead of

finding the truth, the Omnians “know” what is truth, and accept nothing else, despite the

evidence to the contrary. This lack of open-mindedness prevents real growth or knowledge

from appearing, allowing insight into Pratchetts frustration with the hardheaded

fundamentalists found in practically any religion.

Death is another major part of Small Gods. Albeit just a secondary character, when he

does appear, he is seldom without a meaningful line. Terry Pratchett has contemplated death

very thoroughly, and his statements about it are not to be taken lightly. Of the many ideas about

death explored in Small Gods is the idea of judgment. Whenever Death takes someone to The

Other Side, the person sees a huge desert before them, and he says that judgment is at the end of

the desert. For most people, the meaning of this is clear: first, they must walk the desert, and then

they will be judged. When the evil leader of the Quisition, Vorbis, dies, he sees things in this

light. He sees the infinite stretch of desert, and since he has always lived completely consumed

by himself, he can see no one else. He cannot bear to travel the desert alone. This would be a

horrific punishment worth of the horrific man who receives it. However, Terry Pratchett does not

leave the tale at that point. For when Brutha the good prophet dies, Brutha realizes the deeper

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meaning behind Death’s words. When he hears the Judgment is at the end of the desert, he asks,

“Which end?”(Pratchett 356). This unexpected question gives a valuable insight into

Brutha’s thoughts. It shows that he had realized that judgment is before the desert, and

that the desert is merely where disguises are ripped away, and the true individual becomes

apparent. At that point, Death steps aside, revealing Vorbis. Brutha, because of his goodness,

stops and takes Vorbis’ hand. Death tries to convince him otherwise, listing the many crimes of

the man, but Brutha does not care about what Vorbis has done, which he explains by

succinctly saying,

"Yes. I know. He's Vorbis," said Brutha. "Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he changed

them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph."

He sighed.

"But I'm me," he said.

Vorbis stood up, uncertainly, and followed Brutha across the desert.

Death watched them walk away. (Pratchett 357)

Brutha knows what is right. He knows what is good, and what is wrong. He knows that one of

the worst things that Vorbis did was cause others to become like himself. Vorbis would have

abandoned another man lost in the dessert. Brutha would not. The only way Brutha could remain

true to himself was to help Vorbis, no matter how much he disliked the man personally. The

most important thing is to become whom you were truly meant to be, and to allow others to be

what they were truly meant to be. Turning an innocent man evil is far worse than doing

something bad yourself. This unusual idea of death and judgment contains a very powerful truth.

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Everyone sins, or does wrong in some way, but the truly terrible thing would be to fail to become

the person you were meant to be. Just as Jesus taught to his followers, "For what will it

profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Jesus, Mt 16:26) Sin has

always and will always be a bad thing. Doing bad things hurts one’s soul. But if the soul were

to be lost completely, there is no point in trying to avoid hurting it. If a person has been

completely consumed by something incomprehensibly foreign to them, there is something

lost that is more precious than any sin or blessing could hope to compare to. Sins are

certainly bad, but a person cannot sin if that person no longer exists and so the sin is

completely irrelevant. Before one can worry about sinning, one must first ensure that they

remain true to themselves. This idea is shown throughout the book, with sailors who went

down with their ship continuing in what they had devoted their lives to, sailing, as a method of

crossing the desert. As a sign of blessing upon the voyage of men who had died doing what they

loved to do, a pod of dolphins swim up through the ethereal sand, gliding along the boat like the

good luck charms they are. Death need not be feared by those who are true to themselves.

Nation is another of Terry Pratchett’s novels that hides ponderous thoughts beneath

its seemingly lighthearted and exciting exterior. It is the story of a boy named Mau and a girl

who calls herself Daphne, who together rebuild a civilization after a tidal wave hits the home of

the Mau and destroys the ship Daphne had been on, leaving her stranded on the island. It focuses

heavily on the day to day life of the people involved, showing the little miracles, the small

difficulties and triumphs so easily forgotten by those who live those miracles every day. This is

emphasized as refugees slowly trickle in from surrounding islands, slowly changing the Nation

from two frightened children into an entire society:

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Fire, of course, was the first concern. “Fire, thought Mau. I must make fire. And

For that I need punk wood. His punk bag was a muddy mess because of the… (Tidal

wave) He was hungry, but you had to have fire. Without fire and a spear you could

never hope to be a man, wasn’t that right?” (Pratchett 37)

Something as simple as fire became Mau’s primary concern. Where once a fire had been a given,

where once there was always a fire burning, so that all one needed was to grab a few coals in

order to prepare a new one, now fire was a challenge. He needed good dry wood, which was in

short supply, since the island had been covered by the wave, and he needed a way to start a fire.

There were dangerous predators in the places where he could find what he needed and it was a

long walk as well. On top of all this, he had to do it on an empty stomach. Creating a fire had

turned into a difficult and dangerous job, with the threat of failure containing the possibility of

death. When he was finally able to build a fire, his response was completely different than what

it had been after making a fire, before the disaster. Because the simple task of making a fire was

no longer easy and commonplace, he was grateful for the miracle of warmth and light, protection

and comfort. He realized the wonderful gift it was to be able to make fire, and how hopeless he

was without it. The same thing happened with other basic tools. An ax became a symbol of

possibilities, allowing for a level of living impossible without one. Pottery allows for the storage

of drinks, and the creation of the ritual alcohol of the Nation’s religion. The “God stones”

believed to keep the gods near the island were found and brought back. All of these things were

accepted as commonplace before the wave. None of them caused any sense of wonder or awe

with a mere glance before the catastrophe. Afterwards however, the true value of each of the

object was revealed. Huts could be made, allowing comfortable shelter and privacy. Drinks were

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stored, allowing protection from periods of lack. Alcohol was produced, both as an offering for

the gods and as a drink which would not spoil. As the Nation grew, each advance which had

once been an everyday thing had become a thing of wonder and beauty. With this, Terry

Pratchett brings to light the fact that modern life is filled to the brim with miracles.

Electricity, running water, air conditioning and heaters, all these things would have seemed

like magic to the inhabitants of the Nation. Yet modern society merely accepts these

fantastic conveniences and moves on to other things without a second thought. The simple

act of turning on a light bulb is an advance in technology that took many inventors racing each

other years in order to accomplish. It took the harnessing of electricity, the creation of the

dynamo, creation of underground cables, creation of the power grid, and the invention of the

light bulb, ignoring all the steps necessary to each of those advances. The awe inspiring

magnitude of the simple light bulb is such that Terry Pratchett insists that a part of our brain is

devoted to “reality damping”. He says that, “(Without reality dampers) they’d say ‘Wow!” a

lot. And no one would do much work.” (Pratchett 76) Most members of modern society go

about their lives, blissfully unaware of how absurdly amazing every moment really is. In

fact, there are people who use drugs in order to be able to see reality without those

dampers, and they are looked down upon by others. But there may be too much reality

damping going on. The epidemic levels of depression in America show that a huge numbers

of Americans have completely lost track of the miraculous in their day to day lives.

Perhaps the world would be happier and more functional is everyone just remembered a

little about how fantastic the world is.

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But although he sees how wonderful the world is that he lives in, Mau is not always filled

with happiness. He does not understand why the gods would allow something as terrible as the

wave to happen. He thinks that the gods should have been able to avert the catastrophe. As he

rebuilds the Nation, Mau searches for a suitable reaction to the lack of protection by the gods. He

becomes a sort of “angry atheist”, who claims that he does not believe in the gods, but is angry

at them for not existing. This leads to strife between Mau and the more religious people of the

Nation, but since he is the leader, there are no major breakouts of violence over this. He argues

with a priest constantly, who tells him that he blames the gods for bad things, but takes

responsibility for the good. These problems come to a climax when it is found that “the god

stones” stones used for keeping the gods on the island, were really not given by the gods, but

were made by an earlier people. At first, when this is discovered, there is much anger. However,

ironically, the god stones turn out to have been made by the forefathers of the people of Nation.

What they feared was a shame turned out to be proof of their fathers’ skill. But this pulls Mau

further away from his former faith. This was science, not a god. If his people could do all this

without their gods, why even have those gods? The gods were obviously worthless. In the end,

Mau decides that if Imo, (their creator God) wants to build a paradise, he wants it on earth. In

this way, he walks the balance between atheism and faith, but his desire to create a better world

to live in far outweighs whether or not he believes in the gods or not. He wishes to do the right

thing, and that will have to be enough.

Death is very present in Nation His name is Locaha, and he is a more frightening Death

than in the Discworld series. Unlike his sincere, kind but perplexed counterpart, Locaha is

fearsome. He is the Voice of Death and Destruction. He has no mercy, or even a visible love for

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humanity. He is the enemy of Mau, constantly seeking to overwhelm his work. Mau must

constantly fight against the destructive force of Locaha, with his battle cry of “Does not

happen!” used both as a challenge and as his reason for continuing to fight (Pratchett 177).

Mau would not give up the fight, because doing so would mean the end of Nation. This

possibility was completely foreign to him. To him, it did not happen that way. It could not

happen that way. So for that reason he must fight. Despite hunger, fear, sorrow, pain, and

betrayal, Mau does not give up, because it does not happen. He would not let death be the victor.

Sometimes it seems that death is always out to get us, always searching for a way to pull us

down. Sometimes it seems that with all of us doomed to die, there is no point in continuing. But

there is always reason to continue. There is always a reason to continue on with the fight, and to

push on. Every day we live adds to the complexity of live, a beautiful thing that must be

cherished. Even though it seems that death itself is fighting against us, we have all of humanity

working on our side. We will survive, and press on.

The courage to press on is increased when we remember that death is not truly the

enemy. Throughout our lives we must struggle with the destructive elements, but that does not

make death evil. Pratchett shows this near the end of story, when Locaha reveals that he is the

gatekeeper to paradise. He does this with an offer to Mau, after he has proved himself worthy of

the gift. However, Mau says, “I think that if (God) wants a perfect world, he wants it down

here” it turns out that this is exactly what Locaha had wanted him to say (Pratchett 320). One

of Locaha’s jobs was to teach people to become able to create a paradise on earth. In the same

way, the prospect of death is frightening, but it also encourages us to work to improve the world,

and to find happiness in it while we can. Although death is frightening, it is at the same time

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something beautiful, like a black widow in a web, or a shark in the sea. Neither is something you

especially want to encounter, but they make the world a much richer place than it would be

otherwise.

Mort is a novel about Death. More specifically, it is a story about Death’s apprentice,

Mort. Mort is an intelligent but awkward child, and Death is the only one who will

apprentice him. He is a very justice minded boy who wishes the world to be a fair and

happy place, with the bad guys dying painful deaths, and the good guys living to a ripe old

age. He wants the murders of children to be avenged, and the lives of hard workers to be

blessed with joy. This causes him to end up having a highly unsuccessful and very short

lived career as deputy of Death, because that just isn’t how Death works. Young heirs are

slain in bloody coups, and sometimes the murderers manage to create stable and effective

governments, dying of old age, tired but happy. Individual justice is sometimes not in the

picture, and Mort cannot stand this. He tries to change things to fit his beliefs and so “He

turned the scythe, not toward Keli, but to the assassin” (Pratchett 77). Mort killed the

assassin who was supposed to kill the princess, because he thought it was fairer. Later he

found out that his actions had stopped a benevolent government from being set up that

would help the people immensely. His sense of justice had made things worse. This is

painful for him, since he feels terrible either way, but the experience teaches Mort a few

important things about Death, and about death.

The primary focus of the story is justice, especially the justice regarding who lives, who

dies, and how. Death explains the reality about this with a very succinct and to-the-point phrase.

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“THERE’S NO JUSTICE. THERE’S JUST ME. (Death speaks in all capital letters)” (Pratchett

184) Throughout the story, Mort finds situations in which good people die, or bad people

become rulers, or an innocent child dies for no reason. Each time he is faced with situations like

these, he hears the same phrase. The phrase contains a few different meanings, some positive,

and some negative. A negative and somewhat shallow interpretation of the phrase would be the

old adage that life’s not fair. This interpretation hardly does justice to Pratchett. Surely he means

something more than that basic pessimistic idea. A more positive thought is that death is the

great balancer. There is no fairness in life, where good people die and evil men become wealthy.

There is no justice to children being massacred in Darfur while Americans live in luxury. But

everyone dies eventually. No matter how powerful a man is, they cannot overcome death. Death

catches everyone in the end, no exceptions. You cannot bribe death, or trick death. Death will

always be there, waiting to even out the scales. This can be a frightening or comforting

thought, depending on your point of view, but there is a comfort in the knowledge that no

matter what happens, death is inevitable and it comes to every person, great and small. All

humanity has at least this one thing in common. Death comes to everyone.

Faith, Life, and Death: three things which are the most constantly thought about in the

world. Terry Pratchett covers all three insightfully but humorously in his fantasy novels Small

Gods, Nation, and Mort. There are traces of each element in each book, but Small Gods has a

focus on faith, attempting to discover the true nature of religion, as well as some of the dangers

and pitfalls that religions can fall into. Nation focuses on life and death: the beauty of daily life,

and the danger, mystery, and eventual purpose of death. Finally, Mort focuses on death, and

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what justice has to do with it. Death is not a source of fear for Terry Pratchett, but a strange and

wonderful mystery to be discovered.

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Works Cited

Pratchett, Terry. Small Gods. New York, Harper, 1992.

---Nation. New York, Harper, 2008.

---Mort. New York, Harper, 1987.

McGath, Gary. Small Gods. Gary McGath. Gary McGath, 2000. Web. 12 Apr. 2012.

<http://www.mcgath.com/smallgods.html>.