"Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness"
About this Quote
Pratchett takes a venerable moral platitude - "better to light a candle than curse the darkness" - and spikes it with accelerant. The joke lands fast because it’s a perfect Pratchett move: he respects the impulse behind the original (agency over whining) while refusing its comforting scale. A candle is tidy virtue. A flamethrower is mess, risk, collateral damage. The line laughs at the fantasy that all problems can be met with gentle symbolism, especially when the darkness isn’t just a mood but an institution.
The intent isn’t simply "do something". It’s "stop mistaking politeness for effectiveness". In Pratchett’s world, power rarely yields to well-mannered illumination; it yields to disruption, to the threat that the rules can be rewritten. The flamethrower also parodies macho solutions - the kind that confuse force with progress. That double edge is the subtext: yes, take action, but notice how easily action becomes performance, or worse, arson dressed up as righteousness.
Contextually, it fits his broader project: using comedy to smuggle in political realism. Discworld treats bureaucracy, policing, and class as systems that reproduce themselves; earnest slogans bounce off them. So he offers a deliberately ridiculous escalation that exposes the inadequacy of passive virtue-signaling and the seduction of righteous violence. You can hear the wink, but you also feel the warning: if you won’t confront the dark seriously, someone else will, and they might bring fuel.
The intent isn’t simply "do something". It’s "stop mistaking politeness for effectiveness". In Pratchett’s world, power rarely yields to well-mannered illumination; it yields to disruption, to the threat that the rules can be rewritten. The flamethrower also parodies macho solutions - the kind that confuse force with progress. That double edge is the subtext: yes, take action, but notice how easily action becomes performance, or worse, arson dressed up as righteousness.
Contextually, it fits his broader project: using comedy to smuggle in political realism. Discworld treats bureaucracy, policing, and class as systems that reproduce themselves; earnest slogans bounce off them. So he offers a deliberately ridiculous escalation that exposes the inadequacy of passive virtue-signaling and the seduction of righteous violence. You can hear the wink, but you also feel the warning: if you won’t confront the dark seriously, someone else will, and they might bring fuel.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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