Talk:Reg Shoe

On a first reading of Reaper Man, Reg Shoe appears to "die" at the end of the book. (Death perhaps reflecting that if he's called in one zombie, Windle Poons, why stop there?)

Yet Reg re-appears in later books. Perhaps, when Death caught him half-way through painting a graffito on a wall, his rhetoric might have been so convincing that Death chose to leave him be? (Now THAT would have been a conversation to listen to...)

I wonder how this apparent continuity error could be explained.

--AgProv 15:05, 13 June 2007 (CEST)

Regs death

I remember him standing up right after his death, while the battle is still going on. Carcer's troops shot additional arrows at him, which stuck in his chest together with those arrows that killed him. The whole battle shouldn't have lasted more than perhabs 30min. But since my copy of Night Watch ist out of reach, I have to wait till I can verify this. --Trublu 19:11, 20 July 2007 (CEST)

Yeah - he clobbers a coupla guys with a bunch of arrows in his chest, then he looks down anhd his brain decides he's dead. It's a few hours later that his brain is in for a shock, thinks Vimes. --Knmatt 22:12, 22 July 2007 (CEST)

I have now my copy at hand. After realising that he should be dead he drops out for a few hours. But directly after being hit by arrows he died and immediatly stood up again (knocking down the bowman with one arm shows he is already zombie). --Trublu 12:34, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

No more reply :( Can I change "soon" into "instantly"? --Trublu 18:01, 26 July 2007 (CEST)

Hmm. As the events of Night Watch occur thirty years before the Discworld "present", this explains how Reg became a Zombie in the first place. But it still doesn't explain the last few pages of Reaper Man (set nearly thirty years on - this is Ridcully's second book as Archchancellor), where Reg, who is well established as a militant Zombie, is apparently claimed by Death whilst he is in the middle of painting graffiti on a wall... we are told that he got halfway through "Death Is Not The End!" only to discover that in this case it very definitely was THE END. As with Baron Samedi, death is merely deferred - not postponed indefinitely - for Zombies.

That should have been it,(unless Reg rises from the truly dead for a SECOND go at being a Zombie - one of DEATH's revolving door cases?) but the character of Reg Shoe re-appears in a chronologically later book where Carrot recruits him to the watch as its first Undead member. But if Death apparently claims him at the end of Reaper Man, this poses something of a continuity glitch.. --AgProv 14:55, 23 July 2007 (CEST)

I could SWEAR that Death never claimed Reg in RM. I don't have the book with me, but I've read it six time (and the bits with Reg about 30 times...) and he walks away after painting the graffiti. I have no idea what you're talking about. BasementOfTheMansion

I did say "appears to die"... looking at the Corgi PB, p285, it's interesting that we've both drawn totally opposite inferences from the same paragraph!

He is already dead so he cannot die again, like Slant the lawyer, it has been mentioned many times in the Discworld books that what happens after you die, depends on what you believe, so Reg BELIEVES he should be a zombie. Kev 18:52, 23 September 2011 (CEST)

I will agree that it's written fairly ambiguously:

Somewhere in the night, Reg Shoe loooked both ways, took a furtive paintbrush and pot of paint from inside his jacket, and painted on a handy wall: Inside Every Living Person is A Dead Person Trying To Get Out... And then it was all over. The End.

I'll accept I remembered it slightly wrongly, but in the context of the book, it strongly suggests (occuring immediately after Death calls in Windle Poons) that it is all over, and The End, for Reg Shoe as well. But nothing is said about Reg walking away either?

I have a suspicion TP deliberately left it open-ended, perhaps to catch us both out? (and, thinking about it, to keep his options open as to whether or not to bring Reg Shoe back?)It's nicely written - it suggests to you that Reg lived and me that he died, but conclusively supports neither outcome. That's what I call ambiguity!

--AgProv 00:07, 6 November 2007 (CET)

Reg had been a zombie for many years before Death's retirement, so presumably there's no immediate need for Death to collect him just because he's back on the job. Reg's scheduled pick-up time is probably due at some unspecified time in the future, which (as with Baron Saturday) just happens to be well after he got killed. Death did collect Windle almost immediately after he returned to work, but that's because he'd missed their original appointment, not because Death has any objection to zombies per se.

There was a case when Reg was interrupted while painting graffiti, but that was when the mall-organism got irate at his defacing its nice clean walls. Reg was still mobile when the other Fresh Start members found and rescued him.

--SharleeD

Or he could have been caught by the Watch for vandalism... 92.7.176.64 09:36, 26 March 2011 (CET)

Age

How old is Reg? It has been 30 years since is death and I would guess he was between 30 to 45 when he died, that would mean he is roughly 60 to 75. Can anyone narrow this down at all?--Zdm 08:24, 23 September 2011 (CEST)

I don't think anyone's bothered aging zombies. Presumably he 'appears' as a 30-45 year old as a zombie. Marmosetpower 12:50, 23 September 2011 (CEST)

Reg seemed to be a very young, naive revolutionary when first encountered, perhaps twenty. After near forty years of death, I expect It's hard to tell. --Old Dickens 22:26, 23 September 2011 (CEST)