Oh man, you are going to find so much hiding in plain sight when you do your next read through. I'd love to know if MWT had everything planned out in advance, or if she just decided, bit by bit, to take a secondary or tertiary character, make them the star of the next act, and see where the story took her. There do seem to be some elements (e.g., the volcanic eruption) that seem to have been teased as having greater significance than they ultimately did.

Costis and Kamet are such great characters, aren't they? I have so many plot bunnies for them, and really hope we get some more canon for them too. Thanks for the heads up about the snippet, BTW--I hadn't known about that!

I started reading Discworld on the recommendation of mon pere, who thought I would love the first two. (He was pretty wide of the mark on that count.) I'm not even sure why I kept reading them, but I liked each successive book more and by the time I got to Mort Pratchett had definitely won me over. The later City Watch books and the Tiffany Aching arc are some of the best fantasy-slash-social commentary out there.