(EDIT: I'll leave the text that I had here but I no longer need to know what I wanted to know. The versions of Mort and Sourcery that I bought did not have the footnotes, which means that I did not purchase the rights to have them, getting them any other way than repurchasing the books with the footnotes in them is tantamount to theft, imo, so I've decided that the only way to get them is to buy versions of them that have the footnotes, not to mention that it gives me a very good excuse to reread the first five books in the Discworld series.)

Both of these books came from fictionwise and in their PDB format, I assume that the lack of footnotes is because of that format. Now, to use them on my Sony I obviously had to remove the DRM, which means that I can add in the footnotes if I knew what they were, and where they were linked to.

Is this reasonably possible (i.e. can it be done without visiting a site meant for piracy as I assume to not have anything to do with that?) or should I just go ahead and spend the $16 to get a version of them that I know will have the footnotes? I'd rather spend the money on Discworld books that I haven't read yet but I have no problem with re-buying them should that prove necessary.

And yes, I do realize that this all about a tiny bit of text, however, I've just started reading The Wee Free Men and the very first footnote in it made me realize just how important the footnotes are.

Any help will be appreciated.  

I don't know how long it's been pulled as I only noticed it yesterday, doesn't seem to make any sense as I don't recall there be any issues with the formatting. Curious to know if anyone has a clue as to why it would have been pulled.

As I’m sure you’re all aware of, people make mistakes, sometimes those mistakes are recognized too late to do anything about them. My mistakes in the “What’s the deal with Twilight?” thread being a good example.

I have had plenty of time to think about it, to fully acknowledge that I could have, should have done better, but that just isn’t enough. I simply cannot leave things as they are.


Here are the parts of BJ’s posts that I had issues with.

“Vampires are undead creatures of hell, not romantic heroes.”

“Ann Rice already destroyed the mythos. I won't encourage its further denigration.”

And

“my displeasure with authors”

Now, it would seem unfair to just to take the quotes out of context, and it is, but that’s what I unconsciously ended up doing when I had responded to his posts, which wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been clearer as to what I was responding to. Interestingly enough it was because I was so concerned with those bits that sense fled my head, and allowed me to overlook key pieces of information that would have helped me understand where BJ was coming from, but I’ll get to that later.

Back to…

“Vampires are undead creatures of hell, not romantic heroes.”

I am, above and beyond anything else, an individualist. Saying that a species, a sex, a race, anything at all that is conveniently lumped into a group are a certain thing is bound to cause a strong reaction within me. It’s not that I’d disagree that what is being said is true for the average, or even for the vast majority, but when you deal with absolutes while leaving no room for the individual, you will instantaneously put my dander up so to speak, absolutely guaranteed.

In this case we’re dealing with vampires, which happens to be one of my favorite character types, so this is essentially a double whammy.

Now, I agree that vampires are demons, but they also happen to inhabit the bodies of dead humans. It’s there that we see the first place in which people could disagree owing to the variables involved.

Does the demon who takes control of the body literally come from hell to take possession of the newly altered body? Or is the demon created when the vampire is created, and thus “born” on earth?

I believe it’s the second for a very simple reason. In every single case I’ve seen, vampires have the memories of the human that used to dwell within their body. Had a demon come from hell it would have it’s own memories, it’s own thoughts, and would not find any use in the memories of a mere human, nor would it wish to endure memories that could cause it discomfort.

The result is that the way a human was will have a direct impact on how a vampire “born” from them will be. (Possible spoiler from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Angelus, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, would be a very good example of this as both the human, and the vampire created from him cared for only one thing. Pleasure.

Next is the matter of the human soul. Most vampire stories do no touch upon this but if one were to believe that humans have souls, then one must take into account what effect they could have on the demon that would come to occupy the body. For the most part one can assume that the soul would leave upon the death of the human, but what would happen if that didn’t happen, or if there was a small vestige of the soul that remained behind?

Lastly, while I’m sure that we could all agree that demons, on the whole, are evil, I’d like to remind everyone just where demons come from, that their lineage can be traced all the way back to God, just like ours, thus giving vampires two connections to the very same creator. You see, demons didn’t come out of nowhere, rather, they were created by the Angels who had “fallen” out with God.

If Lucifer could betray God, is it so out of the question to think that one of Lucifer’s very own creations could betray him in turn? Especially when you consider that the creation was free to roam the face of the earth, rather than trapped in the bowels of hell where independent thinking would be readily squashed.

Vampires have strong urges to feed, to kill, but humans have their own urges, many of which can be just as strong, but strong minded individuals can overcome their urges. Of course, vampires who choose that path have damned themselves to a horrible fate. I don’t think that God would be much inclined to accept demons into Heaven, and you know that Satan, or more likely the lower demons, are going to have their fun with them when they leave the earthly plane behind, and arrive in Hell.

You want to know why vampires who love, or are heroes tend to be emo? It’s because they know that they’re (not nice six letter word.)

In summation, humans and vampires, on the whole, are not much alike, but there are humans that are every bit as capable of evil as a vampire, considering that, I’d think that there’s at least a chance that there are vampires that are every bit as capable of good as a human. After all, the physical shell only determines what someone is, the mind of the individual within a particular shell is what determines who that someone is.

“Ann Rice already destroyed the mythos. I won't encourage its further denigration.”

This one gave me trouble because I could not see how a mythos could be destroyed, or negatively affected in the least bit, but obviously my absence from reading until I got a Kindle made it all too easy to overlook all of the vampire stories that were influenced by Anne Rice.

I understand now. The popularity of Anne Rice has had tremendous amounts of influence on writers, particularly new writers. However, while the main vampire may be a hero, villains are needed, and what better villains can there be than the vampires of old?

The mythos won’t be negatively affected in the least bit, for as long as there are vampire stories there will always be the vampires of old, and there will always be vampires lurking in the dark of night waiting to take a new victim, or five.

“my displeasure with authors”

The thing that really bothers me about this is that it’s like everything an author does that may be good is completely disregarded in favor on one overriding negative.

There are things that Anne Rice did in her stories that I didn’t like, I held them against the story, but not Anne Rice.

There are a great number of things that bothered me, some things that outright p*ssed me off, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) and Angel (TV series), but I am not displeased with Joss Whedon because of the things that I dislike, or at all. I enjoyed both shows (exception being the seventh season of Buffy, very few redeeming qualities) so I can live with the negatives that I found. Rather than being displeased with him, I simply find myself wishing that he could have done a better job as I feel that the show could have been significantly better than what it was.

And let’s not forget J.K. Rowling. (warning: Blacked out parts contain major spoiler from Harry Potter) Honestly, did she really have to kill off Harry’s Godfather? I mean, of all the cruel things that she did in her story that was easily among the most cruel. I’m not displeased with her for doing it, as it‘s her story, and she obviously thought that it was necessary. I didn‘t think it was and so regardless of what‘s in print, Harry‘s Godfather returned to the world as the device he fell into didn‘t kill him, rather, it took him to another place (they were wrong about what the device does), and he simply had to find his way back, and considering that he‘d lost his wand, that was easier said than done. Harry was very happy when Sirius returned, so was Sirius. That’s my story and I can tell it anyway that I want.

The biggest issue here for me is that no matter what I think of what an author writes I will always be envious of the fact that they’ve managed to write something (I‘ve tried to write stories in the past, had one go all the way to a hundred pages, but they always collapsed on me  ).

While I’m at it “Selcien” is more than just a user name, it’s the name of a character from one of my failed stories. Not only did he have a shadow wraith (his shadow was it’s own entity), but he had a coven of witches at his disposal.


“They are incapable of love. Love is antithetical to their entire nature. I will never willingly read another novel in which vampires are treated as loving, caring heroes. ”

“I was expressing my interpretation of the vampire as a literary creature and my displeasure with authors who try to take monstrous creatures that have haunted my nightmares since childhood into tragic/romantic/heroic/cuddly figures. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!

Ok?”

And here is what I had over looked. I had mistakenly thought that his ideal had something to do with him not liking Twilight, or other vampire stories that had similar vampires, which made no sense at all as they all have some vampires that he‘d like. Going back and reading what he said while not being blinded (i.e. overly focusing on the parts that I didn’t like) I was able to see that he just cannot stand vampires that fall in love, or exhibit other “weak” human traits. That should have been very simple. *sigh*

I also wondered why he’d hold that kind of view point but I think I’ve found the answer to that. We have entirely different ways of looking at vampires.

It seems to me that he sees vampires exclusively from an external point of view, you know, from the perspective of the human. A point of view in which he is either the food, or the hunter who is hunting prey that is far deadlier than he.

I, on the other hand, have viewed them from an internal perspective as I’ve not only tried writing from that point of view, but have spun day dreams (the story that made it to a hundred pages had a main character that was a vampire, also had a werewolf that was part vampire, he was still a werewolf it’s just that his powers had been boosted, it was necessary as I needed a character that was strong enough to combat the Nesoi. Lonnie, the werewolf, was quite a cranky [illegitimate person] but still friendly in his own way. He allowed the main character to ride on his back when he was in werewolf form, not that anyone would really want to be so close to his teeth. Oh, how I wish that I had not thrown that away *sigh*, and I’ve “hijacked” stories, and spun daydreams out of them, granted, they fall apart as well, but that‘s allowed me to make changes when something really bugs me.) I think that seeing things from the internal point of view makes things different for me.

The bottom line, regardless of how house broken vampires are, they’re baser instincts always remains intact. The right circumstances, a weakening of the will, and they can be every bit as monstrous, every bit as deadly as a vampire that was never house broken.