Book 23: Jingo

Many casual readers see Jingo as an unsubtle diatribe about the madness and futility of war. It has been compared to All Quiet on the Western Front or Journey's End. To the serious student, however, it is a touching and thoughtful exploration of the depths of courage in the human soul, an exploration of the themes of loyalty and symbolism, and a penetrative essay on the importance of the feather in human relationships. A more apt comparison might be with Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, rather than with those brash 20th-century polemics.

Feathers have always played an important role in the Watch. When Vimes was a mere captain, he railed against the idea of wearing "plumes" in his helmet - because those would mark him as the paid lackey of someone in power, rather than as the universal protector of the people that is his own self-image. But in Jingo, he makes only token objections to wearing feathers in the procession. What has changed?

Well, first, he's much higher ranking now than he was. Second, and more importantly, there's all the difference in the world, in Vimes' mind, between feathers in a duke's hat and plumes in a watchman's helmet. The plumes are something awarded, like a gold star in school or a scout's merit badge - something to say "you've been a good watchman". The feathers in the hat, however, are an assertion of personal right. Nobody tells him to wear them, he decides that for himself. As a duke, he is entitled to wear the outfit of a duke; the fact that he sometimes has to wear them is an ironic part of the price that he pays for the privilege. He doesn't like doing it, but he considers it worthwhile in the cause of irritating the nobility.

The story opens with the appearance above the sea of a weathercock. It's no accident that a weathercock has plumage of its own; this false plumage triggers the wave of madness that sweeps around the Circle Sea. Note how the weathercocks in Ankh-Morpork themselves turn to face the new impostor, symbolising the city's own sudden fixation. Within days, respectable women are rampaging the streets, thrusting white feathers into the hands of anyone not wearing the martial plumage of the new regiments. Ossie Brunt uses an arrow trimmed with peacock feather, to magically improve his shot - this in turn symbolises his own function as a decoy, rather than an assassin.

By contrast, the watchmen see feathers as purely functional. The use of pigeons as messengers gives them regular contact with the very mundane reality of the feather. Thus Nobby is immune to the shaming effect, being quite happy to collect white feathers for his bedding. Only Colon is driven to reminisce fondly about his history in the Pheasant Pluckers, where feathers formed a badge of honour.

This difference between those who see the symbol and those who look at the substance is the root of all the differences between various parties in this book. Cadram wants to unite Klatch as a political entity, to make it a proud and mighty nation; the D'regs see only how this would actually affect their lives, and laugh his messenger away. Rust wants Ankh-Morpork to be seen to win the war; the actual fate of Leshp is a trivial detail to him.

Nobby is a particularly interesting case. For him, the symbol of womanhood (the clothes) actually seems to become the reality. With this false plumage, he finds he can achieve his wish to talk to women, although not quite as he'd imagined when he paid Mrs Cake ten pence to foresee it. But despite the gap between imagination and reality, the reality is more fulfilling than he had imagined - and so he resolves to keep the clothes.

Vetinari, as always, deals only in realities - so fixed is he in this habit that he completely overlooks the power of symbolism, which brings the city so close to disaster. His observation in the final interview with Vimes - that the war was, in fact, a "misunderstanding", and "we should try to understand one another as much as possible" - acknowledges that he has learned from the experience.

Mike Kew

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