The Captain Of The Watch

Plot Exposition That Can Be Gently Wound Out By The Authorial Voice And Internal Monologue Of A Character In The Length Of A Page Has To Be Delivered In A Matter Of Seconds On The Stage.

Oh, My Dear Vimes, History Changes All The Time. It Is Constantly Being Re-examined And Re-evaluated, Otherwise How Would We Be Able To Keep Historians Occupied? We Can't Possibly Allow People With Their Sort Of Minds To Walk Around With Time On Their Hands.

Why Not? If Enough People Believe, You Can Be God Of Anything.

Whatever Happens, They Say Afterwards, It Must Have Been Fate. People Are Always A Little Confused About This, As They Are In The Case Of Miracles. When Someone Is Saved From Certain Death By A Strange Concatenation Of Circumstances, They Say That's A Miracle. But Of Course If Someone Is Killed By A Freak Chain Of Events -- The Oil Spilled Just There, The Safety Fence Broken Just There -- That Must Also Be A Miracle. Just Because It's Not Nice Doesn't Mean It's Not Miraculous.

Certainly The Americans Want To Buy Rights, But Have No Idea What To Do With Them.