Albert (Discworld)
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| Characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series |
|
| Character details | |
| Full name: | Alberto "Albert" Malich |
| Description: | Death's butler, formerly a wizard. |
| Associations: | Death Mort Susan Sto Helit |
| Location: | Death's Domain |
| Story appearances | |
| First seen: | Mort |
| Also in: | Reaper Man Soul Music Hogfather The Last Hero The Last Continent |
| Other details | |
| Notes: | Must remain in Death's Domain after his hourglass of life broke, leaving just 5 seconds of life left |
Albert is a character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels, first appearing in Mort.
Albert, known as Alberto Malich when he founded the Unseen University, tried to perform the Rite of AshkEnte backwards in order to gain immortality - reasoning that a spell that brings Death to you, performed backwards, would keep him away from you. Instead it brought him to Death. He succeeded in a way, since Malich was sent to Death's Domain, where Time does not flow the same as it does on the Discworld. Death now employs him as his butler. Before returning to the Disc during Mort, "Albert" had 91 days, three hours and five minutes of Time left on the Disc, most of which he spent shopping and using the soap and bath at the Young Men's Reformed Cultist of the Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth's Association (Death is not very good at making plumbing).
There was a statue of Alberto in the hallway of Unseen University, inscribed (apart from the usual student scribbles) with "We Shall Not See His Like Again". This, of course, turns out to be entirely wrong. After the destruction of the statue in Mort, and the wizards' belief that the returned Albert was the statue, it is suggested that a new one be built in a very secure place, such as the dungeon (allegedly to prevent it being defiled by students).
When Death is missing in Soul Music, Albert tries to find him on the Disc but gets robbed and his life-timer (hourglass of life) is broken. After this incident, Albert has approximately 5 seconds left, and thus cannot return to the world of the living anymore, as Death cannot make his life longer. The remaining sand is now kept in a bottle in Albert's bedroom. However, Albert was able to temporarily return to the Discworld during the events of Hogfather, although in this instance he merely inhabited the pseudo-reality created for the Hogfather to allow him to travel around the entire world in a single night, and hence was not actually in the world.
While Death and Albert seem to get on, it is a fragile relationship. In Mort, Albert returns to the world to help Death, but seems ready to attack him when it looks like he has his former job as Archchancellor back. He also seems not to trust Death with his life-timer, which is why he takes it with him in Soul Music. Frequently, Albert finds himself trying to keep Death "on course" when his master becomes too human. He and Susan do not get on very well.
Albert is also a highly idiosyncratic cook, believing everything needs to be fried to get rid of the germs, including porridge.
Within Albert's 'previous' life as Alberto Malich he was a very powerful Wizard, perhaps the most powerful a Wizard can be (though not likely a Sourceror). This is reflected in how easily Albert devised a spell to slow the passage of time (a near-impossible feat with Discworld magic) indefinitely around a small area.
Albert's past was touched upon lightly in Hogfather; he seems to have come from a very poor (even by Ankh-Morpork standards) family, and is fond of pork pies with mustard and adores drinking sherry, as suggested in Hogfather.
Albert makes a brief appearance in The Last Hero, when he tries to explain the uncertainty principle to Death, using the metaphor of placing a cat in a box and claiming that the animal only dies when someone looks at it. Death does not understand the metaphor, however, and claims that the experiment is cruel to cats.
Albert also makes a brief appearance in The Last Continent. He is assisting Death in the library as he researches the continent of XXXX (Fourecks).
[edit] Other media
In Cosgrove Hall's 1996 animated Soul Music, Albert was voiced by Bryan Pringle. In BBC Radio 4's 2004 adaptation of Mort, he was voiced by Philip Jackson.
In Sky One's live-action version of Hogfather, he was played by David Jason.
Albert also makes an appearance in the Discworld computer game, Discworld 2: Missing Presumed...!?
