Auditors of Reality
Encyclopedia
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
series of fantasy novels. They are one of the major recurring villains in the series, although they lack the necessary imagination to be truly evil
Evil
Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good. Definitions of evil vary along with analysis of its root motive causes, however general actions commonly considered evil include: conscious and deliberate wrongdoing,...
.
The Audit
Audit
The general definition of an audit is an evaluation of a person, organization, system, process, enterprise, project or product. The term most commonly refers to audits in accounting, but similar concepts also exist in project management, quality management, and energy conservation.- Accounting...
ors of Reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
are supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
celestial
Celestial
- Science :* Sky objects, bodies and the following astronomy terms:** Astronomical objects, see for detailed description of celestial bodies and objects** Celestia, a 3D astronomy program that allows users to travel through the universe...
bureaucrats
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
. They make sure that gravity works, file the appropriate paperwork for each chemical reaction
Chemical reaction
A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Chemical reactions can be either spontaneous, requiring no input of energy, or non-spontaneous, typically following the input of some type of energy, such as heat, light or electricity...
, and so forth. The Auditors hate life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
, because it's messy and unpredictable, which makes them fall behind on their paperwork; they much prefer barren balls of rock orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
ing star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s in neat, easily predictable elliptical
Ellipse
In geometry, an ellipse is a plane curve that results from the intersection of a cone by a plane in a way that produces a closed curve. Circles are special cases of ellipses, obtained when the cutting plane is orthogonal to the cone's axis...
paths. They really hate human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s and other sentient
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
beings, who are much more messy and unpredictable than other living things, and they have attempted more than once to deal with this 'problem'.
One could almost call the Auditors collaborating "gods" of physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, except that the discworld definition of "god
Discworld gods
The Discworld gods are the fictional deities from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. The Discworld, being a flat disc supported on the backs of four elephants on top of a giant flying turtle, exists in a region of the universe where reality is somewhat less consistent than it...
" does not include them, as they do not derive their existence from human belief
Belief
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.-Belief, knowledge and epistemology:The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy....
. Indeed, the Auditors find belief inherently repulsive. Belief and imagination
Imagination
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses...
are the ultimate mess: They shape and reform the physical world in almost infinitely varied and complex ways. Where the Auditors see a fragment of carbonaceous chondrite
Chondrite
Chondrites are stony meteorites that have not been modified due to melting or differentiation of the parent body. They formed when various types of dust and small grains that were present in the early solar system accreted to form primitive asteroids...
heated by the friction of atmospheric
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
entry, imagination
Imagination
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses...
sees a falling star
Shooting Star
Shooting star is a common name for the visible path of a meteoroid as it enters the atmosphere to become a meteor.Shooting star may also refer to:* Shooting Star Children's Hospice, a UK children's charity* The Shooting Star, a 1942 Tintin adventure...
. Where the Auditors see a random cleft in granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, imagination sees a dark cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
haunted by monsters. To the Auditors, this is infuriating; after all, how can one catalogue or quantify a dragon, a basilisk
Basilisk
In European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk is a legendary reptile reputed to be king of serpents and said to have the power to cause death with a single glance...
, poetry or Justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
? The Auditors existed long before humans and would be quite happy to exist long after them.
Fortunately for humanity and every other living thing, the Auditors can't simply wipe out life, because that's against the Rules; the Auditors can't break the Rules because, in a certain sense, they are the Rules. Unfortunately, a loophole
Loophole
A loophole is a weakness that allows a system to be circumvented.Loophole may also refer to:*Arrowslit, a slit in a castle wall*Loophole , a short science fiction story by Arthur C...
exists in the Rules which allows the Auditors to influence humans into doing what they cannot do directly; in several of the Discworld novels, the Auditors hire humans to perform tasks that will make the world less "messy", paying them with the gold they created out of thin air using their abilities to manipulate reality.
Description
Being personifications of a concept, the Auditors have no fixed shape. When they manifest in the world, however, they almost always appear as empty greyGrey
Grey or gray is an achromatic or neutral color.Complementary colors are defined to mix to grey, either additively or subtractively, and many color models place complements opposite each other in a color wheel. To produce grey in RGB displays, the R, G, and B primary light sources are combined in...
cowl
Cowl
This article is about the garment used by monks and nuns. For other uses, see Cowl or Cowling .The cowl is an item of clothing consisting of a long, hooded garment with wide sleeves. Originally it may have referred simply to the hooded portion of a cloak...
ed robe
Robe
A robe is a loose-fitting outer garment. A robe is distinguished from a cape or cloak by the fact that it usually has sleeves. The English word robe derives from Middle English robe , borrowed from Old French robe , itself taken from the Frankish word *rouba , and is related to the word rob...
s, an appearance which conveys drabness and dullness rather than danger. They do not speak
Speech
Speech is the human faculty of speaking.It may also refer to:* Public speaking, the process of speaking to a group of people* Manner of articulation, how the body parts involved in making speech are manipulated...
, but rather alter reality so that they have already spoken. Pratchett represents this idiosyncratic form of communication in simple plain text, without quotations, and italicized in some books. They are, in a sense, similar to the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions in that they represent a higher abstract principle hostile to ordinary mortal life, but from the opposite direction of Law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
rather than Chaos
Chaos (cosmogony)
Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....
(see Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
's Eternal Champion
Eternal Champion
The Eternal Champion is a fictional creation of the author Michael Moorcock and is a recurrent feature in many of his novels.-About the Eternal Champion:...
series). The History Monks
History Monks
The Order of Wen the Eternally Surprised, better known as the History Monks, and also sometimes referred to as THE Fighting Order of Wen, the Men In Saffron and No Such Monastery , is a highly secretive religious organisation in the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett, based in the Monastery of...
categorise the Auditors and the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions as the same class of being, dhlangs or evil spirits, but see the Auditors as the most dangerous, at least according to Lu-Tze, who names them the "Enemies of Mind".
The Auditors have no discerning characteristics among themselves and function as a collective
Collective
A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
; when one speaks, it speaks for all of them, and each Auditor works uniformly with countless numbers of other Auditors. When discussing matters and making choices they work in groups of three: one to agree, one to disagree and one to mediate the two, thus covering all angles of possible debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
to find the best solution. In the rare cases when an Auditor appears to develop an individual personality
Personality psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...
(such as using a personal pronoun
Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
to refer to itself or experiencing an emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
) it instantly ceases to exist, because 'to be an individual is to live, and to live is to die'. This happens because, as far as the Auditors are concerned, to have a personality is to be a living being with a beginning and an end; the intervening time between them seems infinitely small to entities who have experienced eternity. This does not seem to have any impact on the rest of the Auditors except perhaps as an example to be avoided, because another Auditor immediately takes the place of its vanished colleague. In the Discworld novel, Thief of Time
Thief of Time
Thief of Time is the 26th Discworld novel written by Terry Pratchett, a 2002 Locus Award nominee.-Plot summary:The Auditors are upset because the human race are living their lives in - what the Auditors consider to be - an unpredictable way...
, they temporarily inhabited human bodies they had made from the constituent elements and tried to discover how and why humans act as they do. But as they soon discovered, merely taking on the forms (as Myria LeJean did before them) causes them to naturally start assuming the same 'messy' traits they had been trying to avoid—particularly emotions, a trait of particular shock to ones unused to the experience.
Relationship with Death
Interestingly, the primary opponent of the Auditors' plans for eliminating life is DeathDeath (Discworld)
Death is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and a parody of several other personifications of death. Like most Grim Reapers, he is a black-robed skeleton usually carrying a scythe...
. Death does not see himself as the enemy of life, but rather an integral part of it, giving rest to the old and weary, and ensuring that there is no build up of excessive life force, the results of this failing to happen can be seen in Reaper Man
Reaper Man
Reaper Man is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. Published in 1991, it is the 11th Discworld novel and the second to focus on Death. The title is a reference to Alex Cox's cult movie Repo Man.-Plot:...
. He has also, over the millennia of performing his function, developed a certain fondness for the humans he ushers into the world beyond
Afterlife
The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
. This conflict is all the more fascinating because Pratchett has hinted (in The Discworld Companion
The Discworld Companion
The Discworld Companion is an encyclopaedia of the Discworld fictional universe created by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs.The book compiles a precise definition of words, lives of historical people, geography of places and events that have appeared in at least one Discworld novel, map, diary,...
) that Death and the Auditors may be related beings. The Auditors are the executive arm of the Old High Ones, the eight beings who create and shape the multi-verse. Death ultimately answers to the eighth of the Old High Ones, Azrael, the Death of Universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
s, or perhaps multiverses, as Terry Pratchett sometimes refers to the universe in the Discworld.
Appearances in the Discworld novels
The Auditors of Reality have appeared in the Discworld novels Reaper ManReaper Man
Reaper Man is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. Published in 1991, it is the 11th Discworld novel and the second to focus on Death. The title is a reference to Alex Cox's cult movie Repo Man.-Plot:...
, Hogfather
Hogfather
Hogfather is the 20th Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, and a 1997 British Fantasy Award nominee.The Hogfather is also a character in the book, representing something akin to Father Christmas. He grants children's wishes on Hogswatchnight and brings them presents...
, Thief of Time
Thief of Time
Thief of Time is the 26th Discworld novel written by Terry Pratchett, a 2002 Locus Award nominee.-Plot summary:The Auditors are upset because the human race are living their lives in - what the Auditors consider to be - an unpredictable way...
and The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch
The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch
The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch is a book set on the Discworld, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. It is the sequel to The Science of Discworld and The Science of Discworld II: The Globe....
.
In Reaper Man, they decide that Death has become too sympathetic toward humans, and therefore force him to retire. However, following the intervention of Azrael, Death of the Universe and ruler of all Deaths, this decision is overturned, allowing Death to return to his job.
In Hogfather, the Auditors attempt to destroy the Hogfather, whom they see as a symbol of humanity's 'messy' creativity
Creativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
, and hire Mr Teatime, an Assassin
Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild
The Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild is a fictional school for professional killers in Terry Pratchett's long-running Discworld series of fantasy novels...
, for the job. Teatime steals millions of teeth
Tooth
Teeth are small, calcified, whitish structures found in the jaws of many vertebrates that are used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores, also use teeth for hunting or for defensive purposes. The roots of teeth are embedded in the Mandible bone or the Maxillary bone and are...
from the Tooth Fairy's castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
, and, through sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic
Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence.-Similarity and contagion:The theory of sympathetic magic was first developed by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough...
, takes control of the children to whom the teeth belong, forcing them to cease believing in the Hogfather, with Death taking the Hogfather's place to do his job in his absence and thus ensure that the necessary proof is provided to ensure that children continue to believe in the Hogfather. When Susan Sto Helit
Susan Sto Helit
Susan Sto Helit , once referred to as Susan Death, is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. She is the "granddaughter" of Death, the Disc's Grim Reaper, and, as such, has "inherited" a number of his abilities...
, Death's granddaughter, stops Teatime, the Auditors break their own Rules by sending a few of their number to attack the Hogfather directly. In the forms of dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
s, they pursue him through snowy mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s, but Susan saves him, leaving the Auditors stranded on the other side of a deep ravine
Ravine
A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. A ravine is generally a fluvial slope landform of relatively steep sides, on the order of twenty to...
. Death prevents them from escaping or returning to their true forms, causing them to fall to their deaths in the ravine.
In Thief of Time
Thief of Time
Thief of Time is the 26th Discworld novel written by Terry Pratchett, a 2002 Locus Award nominee.-Plot summary:The Auditors are upset because the human race are living their lives in - what the Auditors consider to be - an unpredictable way...
, the Auditors decide to stop time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, so as to stamp out humanity's 'messy' nature. One of their own, who refers to herself as Myria LeJean, assumes human form and hires Jeremy Clockson to build a clock which will halt the passage of time. With the help of Susan, Lobsang Ludd, the Horsemen of the Apocralypse and the disillusioned Myria, this plan is foiled.
In The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch
The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch
The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch is a book set on the Discworld, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. It is the sequel to The Science of Discworld and The Science of Discworld II: The Globe....
, the Auditors influence Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
to write a book entitled The Theology of Species, instead of his original book The Origin of Species
The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the...
. This is intended to cause a delay in the technological development of the humans on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, and so prevent them from being advanced enough to leave this planet when it becomes uninhabitable.
Myria LeJean / Unity
Myria LeJean makes her entrance as a stunningly attractive woman with long black hairBlack hair
Black hair is the darkest and most common of all human hair colors globally. It is a dominant genetic trait, and it is found in people of all backgrounds and ethnicities. It has large amounts of eumelanin and is less dense than other hair colors. Black hair is known to be the shiniest of all hair...
, eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
mannerism
Mannerism
Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
s and seemingly unlimited wealth. Myria, in fact, turns out to be the first of The Auditors to inhabit a human body for the purposes of manipulating Jeremy Clockson to stop Time, and to gain an understanding of humans.
She initially gives a distinct impression of being inhuman despite her looks, but as time passes she not only learns to be a better mimic, but begins to be lured into humanity. Both terrified and fascinated by such things as individual
Individual
An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
ity (something that had been completely foreign), the subconscious
Subconscious
The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a definition-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings....
, instinct
Instinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
, flavor
Flavor
Flavor or flavour is the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. The "trigeminal senses", which detect chemical irritants in the mouth and throat as well as temperature and texture, are also very important to the overall...
, culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and emotions, Myria gradually gives up her Auditorial traits.
As Jeremy's project nears completion, Myria has proceeded from discarding her vessel when not required to experimenting with eating
Eating
Eating is the ingestion of food to provide for all organisms their nutritional needs, particularly for energy and growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, omnivores consume a mixture of both plant and animal matter,...
. She finds herself increasingly dismayed with, and eventually in open rebellion against, the 'collective' of The Auditors. Forming an unlikely alliance with Susan Sto Helit and Lu-Tze, she contributes her knowledge of her former 'race' to the trio. Susan immediately recognizes Myria's name as a crude pun on "Myrios" - "innumerable" and "Legion
Legion (demon)
Legion is a group of demons referred to in the Christian Bible. The New Testament outlines an encounter where Jesus healed a man from Gadarenes possessed by demons while traveling, known as Exorcising the Gerasenes demonic.- In the Bible :...
" and partially overcomes her hatred of the Auditors to rename her Unity - "the state of being one."
While the Auditors are foiled, Unity is left a traitor and in her own estimation "hideously insane
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
". All her attempts to understand a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
she had joined as an adult
Adult
An adult is a human being or living organism that is of relatively mature age, typically associated with sexual maturity and the attainment of reproductive age....
without any kind of childhood
Childhood
Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood , early childhood , middle childhood , and adolescence .- Age ranges of childhood :The term childhood is non-specific and can imply a...
having failed, and with Jeremy, the object of her affections, permanently out of the picture, she finally chooses to die. With the assistance of the personification of Kaos, she commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by drowning in a giant vat of chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
; for an Auditor, even an ex-Auditor such as Unity, the powerful experience of the flavour of chocolate is fatal.
She explains that she was always an individual, even as an Auditor, her evidence being that she survived her dreams
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
, when all other Auditors would perish. As they are creatures of order and perfection, the chaos of the human mind when it is left to wander will kill them. After she dies, she is met by Death, indicating that she has become a genuine person with a soul and possibly faced with reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
.
Mr White
Mr White is the second Auditor to take human form, preceding five others by only a few seconds. He is originally called Mr. Green, but decides to change his name because he believes that whiteWhite
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
(being a 'more senior' color
Color
Color or colour is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, green, blue and others. Color derives from the spectrum of light interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors...
) is more fitting. After Myria rebels against the Auditors, Mr. White assumes leadership of his incarnate fellows as they attempt to discern the origin of humanity's problematic tendencies. However, having always operated by consensus, the Auditors are unused to following the orders of a single being, and many begin to resent Mr. White's position.
As he develops emotions, Mr. White gradually grows more and more unstable, to the point that he becomes obsessed with maintaining order, not realising that his own actions are the most disorderly of all. He arms himself with an axe
Axe
The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...
and terrifies his colleagues into submission, ultimately beginning to decapitate
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
them for defying his orders or even far more minor infractions, such as asking him annoying questions. His rampage is ended when Lu-Tze tricks him into tasting a piece of chocolate, which (as is mentioned above) is instantly fatal to Auditors.
His name, like the names of the other incarnate Auditors, was a color, a clear reference to the film Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs
Reservoir Dogs is an American crime film marking debut of director and writer Quentin Tarantino. It depicts the events before and after a botched diamond heist, but not the heist itself. Reservoir Dogs stars an ensemble cast: Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, and...
.
Others
Over the course of Thief of Time, many Auditors assume human form and begin to explore the DiscworldDiscworld (world)
The Discworld is the fictional setting for all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld fantasy novels. It consists of a large disc resting on the backs of four huge elephants which are in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle, named Great A'Tuin as it slowly swims...
. This is originally done to supervise Lady LeJean's meetings with Jeremy Clockson, a task requiring only six Auditors to incarnate (including the one which later calls itself Mr. White). However, after time is successfully halted, up to 700 Auditors descend upon the world in human form, and begin to examine the aspects of human culture which they find most threatening (art, irregularity in the size of paving slabs
Pavement (material)
Road surface or pavement is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past cobblestones and granite setts were extensively used, but these surfaces have mostly been replaced by asphalt or concrete. Such...
, etc.) These Auditors name themselves after various colours, which ultimately results in the problem of there being insufficient names for all those seeking them. Some of them (like Mr. White) are driven insane by the experience and start murdering their own. Many more are killed by Susan, Myria and Lu-Tze (using chocolate), and the remainder are almost all destroyed when they attempt to sleep and are overwhelmed by the chaos of their dreams. A few appear to have survived in Ankh-Morpork, but remain alive for very little time after they attack History Monk
History Monks
The Order of Wen the Eternally Surprised, better known as the History Monks, and also sometimes referred to as THE Fighting Order of Wen, the Men In Saffron and No Such Monastery , is a highly secretive religious organisation in the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett, based in the Monastery of...
Marco Soto, while he is armed with an exploding begging bowl.