Panic

This page is about War's son. For the event, see panic (event)

Son of War and the (twin?) brother of Terror. Brother of Clancy.

Manifests as the sort of cheery well-scrubbed well-turned out senior prep school pupil who has been taught to be polite to his elders, considerate to old people and kind to animals.

Anyone pondering the incongruity should reflect that the public school system, at all levels from Prep to Scholarship, was designed to turn out hardy, self-sufficient young men who would be leaders of men on the field of war as well as "the playing fields of Eton" or their Discworld equivalent. (Think of Hugglestones, the school that nurtured the de Worde brothers, one of whom went on to become a line of ornamental masonry on a war memorial somewhere)

Clearly at the moment Panic would struggle to qualify as "Induces a vague sensation of generalised existential angst", but no doubt his mother has seen to it that he and his brother are enrolled at a school of the Hugglestones ilk to round them out for their future careers.

The reader should also reflect on how many British war heroes started out as keenly attentive and polite public schoolboys who have been taught to be polite to their elders, considerate to old people, kind to animals - and psychopathic maniacs on the battlefield.

ANNOTATION

Science-fiction author Harry Harrison's enduring character, the intergalactic con-man and career criminal The Stainless Steel Rat, is the proud and doting father of twin boys who are well brought up, unerringly cheerful and polite, kind to animals and old ladies, possessed of a sense of morality and decency, and where necessary rip-roaring career criminals and genteel thugs who out-do their parents in larceny and thievery. One wonders...