Golems in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series are derived from golems in Jewish mythology; early forms of a clay robot, supposedly awakened by a spell or priestly words to do people's bidding. Pratchett's golems emphasise the similarity between golems and robots, especially Asimovian robots. Their "Chem" (the magic writing in their heads) restricts their behaviour, and is described in similar terms to the Three Laws of Robotics, except that the Chem powers the golem, as well as programming it. However, the Three Laws are considered fundamental to a robot's construction and cannot be changed: by contrast a golem's Chem is in full control of its behaviour. Thus, as Moist von Lipwig discovers, the First Law of Pump 19 (Mr Pump) begins as normal, "A golem cannot harm a human being, nor through inaction allow a human being to come to harm", but has as an addendum '... Unless Ordered To Do So By Duly Constituted Authority." Feet of Clay sees a golem whose Chem has been made over-complicated, running to hundreds of laws, the last of which is "Thou Shalt Not Die". The golem therefore goes insane. Like Hex, Golems are not alive, but act as though they are, to a certain extent. They see themselves as possessions, and, while they desire freedom, have decided that they can only get this freedom by buying themselves (a previous attempt to get freedom by creating a king proved dangerously unsuccessful). The first free golem, Dorfl, had the plan to buy other golems and give them to themselves. Since then, the Golem Trust has been established to facilitate the freeing of golems. Technically a charity, it refuses to accept donations from any other than the freed golems, because the golems are clear they must free themselves by their own work. The charity buys golems with money earned by the free golems and hires the acquired golems out in the same way as an agency might hire out butlers to the wealthy. The money earned in this way allows a Trust golem to eventually buy itself from the Trust and become free. The hiring service is run by Miss Adora Belle Dearheart from a tiny office in Ankh-Morpork; she is very, very protective of the golems' welfare. It is apparent that they are hired for Government purposes: Mr Pump is hired by the Patrician's office and programmed to act as Moist von Lipwig's probation officer, and later reprogrammed to capture Mr Reacher Gilt. Older golems have names, often somewhat Yiddish sounding, such as Dorfl, Meshugah, Bobkes, Shmata and Klutz. More recently built golems simply have descriptions such as Stitcher or Hammer, often with an associated number detailing their location in the workplace they were created for. The creation of new golems is illegal due to the ethical questions it raises. Many still exist, however, and destroying them is also ethically tricky. Golems are distrusted by many on the Discworld, particularly the undead, who dislike the fact they are (generally) more accepted, despite being less human. Traditionally they get "all the messy jobs". Golems have, apparently spontaneously, formed the Ankh-Morpork volunteer fire brigade: their volunteer operations are a moral contrast with previous human fire brigades who were paid commissions to put out fires and therefore attempted to ensure that there were fires for them to be paid for. The Golems' approach to extinguishing a fire is to simply remove any burning or flammable materials from the building. (Interestingly, this is similar to Walter Plinge's answer to the question posed by Granny Weatherwax in Maskerade: "What would you take out of a burning building?" - "The Fire!") Originally, golems were unable to speak, and instead carried around a slate and chalk with which they wrote down whatever they wanted to say. Near the conclusion of Feet of Clay, Dorfl was reforged with a tongue and the ability to talk. Since then, numerous other golems, especially free ones, have also been given voices. Like Death, those golems capable of speech have a distinctive mannerism; whereas Death's speech is represented by being printed all in capital letters, transcriptions of golem speech capitalize the first letter of every word. When Golems write, their script is a corrupted version of the Hebrew alphabet altered to appear as Roman letters, which is possibly a reference to golems' origins in Jewish mythology.
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Golems featured in the series
Anghammarad
Anghammarad features in the novel Going Postal. He is almost nineteen thousand years old, having been baked by the priests of Upsa in the Third Ning of the Shaving of the Goat. He was also given a voice. However, Upsa was destroyed by the explosion of Mount Shiputu. He then spent two centuries under a mountain of pumice, before it eroded away. He then became a messenger for the Fisherman Kings of the holy Ult. More recently, he delivered the decrees of King Het of Thut. That is, he delivered them until the land of Thut slid under the sea. He then spent nine thousand years in the deep ocean, before being netted by a fisherman. While having returned to civilization, he still carried the message warning Het that the sea goddess is angry, and hoped to deliver it (golems believe time is cyclical, and Anghammarad thought that if he waited long enough, he'd be able to get it right the second time around). He worked for the Ankh-Morpork Post Office (in the honorary position of Extremely Senior Postman) before his briefly white-hot ceramic body was engulfed with cold water while fighting a catastrophic fire in the post office building. The resulting explosion ended his life. He asked Death to allow him to remain at the entrance to the afterlife, equating an absence of tasks to perform with perfect freedom.
Dorfl
Dorfl joined the Watch during the events of Feet of Clay, at which time he was set free by Captain Carrot, sustained considerable damage fighting the golem king, and was rebuilt to a considerable degree, granting him a voice (which is considered blasphemous for golems to possess). Dorfl quickly became the Disc's first ceramic atheist, to the displeasure of at least one god, and has been issued an official chit to label him "alive" to avoid interference in this state of affairs. He will believe in any god whose existence can be proved by rational argument. A thunderbolt to the head is deemed wholly unconvincing (in Dorfl's own words, "I Don't Call That Much Of An Argument.") He is the apparent founder of the Golem Trust, although this is never conclusively stated. Dorfl speaks 'With The Beginning Of Every Word Being Capitalized', and like most golems he is quite literal in his choice of words. Some of his lines take a considerable amount of inspiration from RoboCop, such as his description of his own duties: "To Serve The Public Trust, Protect The Innocent And Seriously Prod Buttock".
Gladys
While no golem is really female, no golem is really male either and when Miss Maccalariat, the head cashier at the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, demanded that only females could clean the female toilets, a golem was given a cotton blue print dress and a woman's name to do the job. Over time, largely due to "her" interaction with the counter girls, who frequently handed her rather old fashioned books on female etiquette, Gladys began to assume more feminine characteristics until, by Making Money, her employer, Moist von Lipwig, was fairly certain she had begun to develop a rather disturbing romantic obsession with him. Fortunately, Moist's fiancee, Adora Belle Dearheart, who understood that golems tended to believe what they read, cured her by handing her a "modern" book by a radical feminist. Appeared in Going Postal and Making Money.
Pump 19 (Mr. Pump)
Appeared in Going Postal. More commonly referred to as Mr. Pump, he received his name from his previous position, where he spent over two hundred years operating one of a series of underwater pumps. He has since entered the employ of the Patrician, who uses him as a parole officer. He has been extremely successful in this, as he can follow his target anywhere by tracking their Karmic signature, and though he cannot run, golems never need to stop, or rest, or eat: as the Patrician put it: "Four miles an hour is 672 miles in a week. It all adds up" - although as a Discworld week has eight days rather than seven, golems are apparently obliged to stop on the eighth day as their holy day to ensure that their words still work. Mr. Pump has an unusual behavior for a golem. Due to his interaction with the Patrician, he bends the rules occasionally; lying, being capable of hurting and threatening people. He is the first seen golem doing such. A reference from Asimov's laws of robotics, at one point Moist Von Lipwig states that a golem "cannot harm a person, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm." As it turns out, Mr. Pump continues this line by saying "...Unless Ordered To Do So By A Duly Consented Authority." How much so is unknown because Mr. Pump never actually harms anyone.
The Golem standard
In Making Money, 4000 golems are found by the Golem trust, headed by Adore Belle Dearheart. When brought to the city, much is questioned about what to do with them. These Golem's have no chem, and so cannot be freed, nor can they be given orders. They do however, possess much skill; they were able to create a city and sustain a civilisation, under the orders of their original creators. After much discusion it is decided that, because of their worth, they are to be buried. Their worth would help form the new paper currency of Ankh Morpork. It becomes known as the Golem standard.
Bibliography
- Pratchett, Terry: "Maskerade", Victor Gollancz, 1995
- Pratchett, Terry: "Feet of Clay", Victor Gollancz, 1996
- Pratchett, Terry: "Going Postal", Doubleday, 2004
