The Summoning Dark

A dark entity. Lurking. Waiting. Biding its time.

Eons old, the Summoning Dark is a powerful, evil force that enters the Discworld as the first dwarf is murdered in the mines beneath Ankh-Morpork. Powerful as it is, it still needs a vessel, a body, to break through and wreak havoc in the physical dimension. Thriving on aggression and hate, it finds Sir Samuel Vimes. Vimes is a man of strong emotions, whatever those emotions may be, which makes him suitable in this aspect. Now it's only a matter of breaking down his inner resistance. Should be a piece of cake, no?

The Summoning Dark can be found more or less everywhere in literature and movies; compare for instance with 'the Dark Side of the Force' in Star Wars and the influence of the One Ring in Lord of the Rings. What this represents (at least if you ask me) is of course the dark side of being human - evil thoughts, sometimes transformed into actions, that we carry with us, threatening to come out at more or less any time, but especially when we find ourselves in scary or unfamiliar situations. Doing what Pratchett does, namely putting a name to it and turning it into a one-on-one battle, serves to remind us of and clarify this struggle that we all face, on different levels, every day, as long as we live.