The main social issue in Interesting Times is oppression. Rincewind the Wizard meets with it everywhere he turns during his adventures in the Agatean Empire.

When he meets up with his old friend Ghenghiz Cohen, a ninety-year-old barbarian who has been captured and placed in a chain gang, he sees firsthand how embedded subjugation has become in the culture of the Empire. Upon freeing himself, Cohen kills the five guards and frees the other slaves. The former slaves, however, regard Cohen as their new master, an idea reinforced when Rincewind feeds them real meat instead of entrails. Cohen encapsulates the problem with a comment on the popular pig's ear soup: "What's that tell you about a place, eh? . . . Some other bugger pinches the Pig" Although the inept wizard runs away from any involvement in events, Rincewind inevitably sees for himself the truth of Cohen's statement. The...