"The only turtle to feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram": Let's Read Discworld

[Zyzzyva]

Let's celebrate Terry Pratchett's life by appreciating what he gave to the world. :smallsmile:

I've already read most of the series, so this won't be a speculation heavy thread (at least on my part: you guys can feel free to speculate about everything; please spoiler-tag everything from a later-published book, of course). But it's also been a couple of years on all of them, and I want to reread them, so let's do this thing!

Coming: one week from now: The Colour of Magic! Either the whole book or the first two parts, not sure yet. I'll probably pace myself to whatever the thread wants. The Kidby paperbacks are pretty popular in libraries, everybody read along!

[Zyzzyva]

Well, let's get this ball rolling. The first half of The Colour of Magic, away!

So first off, let me apologize to everyone who got told that the first books "aren't as good as" the later ones, including my me earlier this week (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?403469-Reading-Terry-Pratchett-books-Late-to-the-Party). Yes, fine, the later ones are better, but the first half of The Colour of Magic is pretty good. The opening joke about the citizens of Ankh bravely responding to a fire on the far side of the river by "feverishly demolishing the bridges" is pretty much where Pratchett hitting on all cylinders wants to be, as is the unexpected and brilliant "beTrobi is a weirdly idiomatic language/wet copper armour" callback towards the end of the first story. If later Pratchett stays in that zone nearly continuously, well, that's hardly knocking this book, is it?

The parody aspect, ok, that's a little weirder. I'm pretty sure the first story frame story is a parody of Fafnir and the Grey Mouser, which I haven't read, but it flows ok and isn't really reliant on anything more than having watched Conan the Barbarian once in high school. The second one is, I guess, Lovecraft, but is even less reliant on anything beyond "dark temple full of tentacles, go". So that's not so bad. We'll see how it goes after we hit Dragonlance/Dragonriders of Pern in the second half.

Also - was this originally short stories? Anyone know? It's not so much the self-containedness as the fact that "tourist" is introduced once in each story, as is the backstory about Rincewind reading the spell from the Octavo. I'd entirely forgotten that the Disc uses Vancian casting, incidentally. In general, there's some interesting worldbuilding in this part - Krullian mock-cosmology, the characterization of Ankh-Morpork, the lines about the humans and trolls mostly outcompeting the dryads and elves, all the business about the number after seven and the Octavo. The Disc is getting shaped, even if some of it's in directions that it will turn out not to end up going in. It's kinda fun, standing here at the beginning, and seeing all these open possibilities on every side. What other legs of the trousers of time could this have gone down?


Rincewind is a little out of character at the very beginning, but arguably that's just because the Lady - who is explicitly distinguished from Chance in what I can only call a colossally obnoxious piece of misdirection on Pratchett's part - hasn't promoted him to "protagonist" yet. He's drifting towards his mature characterization pretty clearly by the midpoint of this book.
The Patrician is firmly in character - I wouldn't be willing to swear that his dry, condescending speech about hyperinflation isn't repeated verbatim in Making Money - which just makes the fact that he's physically off-model all the weirder. I seem to recall he shows up like this in Sourcery as well. We'll see.
Rincewind and proto-Vetinari interact. That's just wrong.
Death is kinda a ****. :smalleek:
Twoflower wants to meet dragons and elves. I forget how the dragons go in part two, but him stumbling into the Munstrum Ridcully role in Lords and Ladies would be hilarious. :smallbiggrin:


Next up: I prove myself unable to distinguish Anne McCaffery and Weis/Hickman! Let the mocking begin!

[Eldan]

Not so much Lovecraft, really, or not directly. More Howard. Conan fought Lovecraft's elder gods or their spawn several times.

[Zyzzyva]

Not so much Lovecraft, really, or not directly. More Howard. Conan fought Lovecraft's elder gods or their spawn several times.

Fair enough. I've read Lovecraft but have never read Howard (although I have read a couple of Howard knockoffs). :smallredface: I should probably get on that at some point.

[veti]

If later Pratchett stays in that zone nearly continuously, well, that's hardly knocking this book, is it?

I'm in the minority camp that holds TCoM is actually better than many of its successors, so - no, I wouldn't say you're "knocking" anything.


The parody aspect, ok, that's a little weirder. I'm pretty sure the first story frame story is a parody of Fafnir and the Grey Mouser, which I haven't read, but it flows ok and isn't really reliant on anything more than having watched Conan the Barbarian once in high school. The second one is, I guess, Lovecraft, but is even less reliant on anything beyond "dark temple full of tentacles, go". So that's not so bad. We'll see how it goes after we hit Dragonlance/Dragonriders of Pern in the second half.

That's "Fafhrd". No, I don't know how it's pronounced either.

I love that first section. The way Rincewind tells his story in flashback to the two adventurers is the perfect device: it makes us cringe right along with Rincewind as we watch Twoflower introducing inn-sewer-ants and reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits to Ankh-Morpork, because we know where the story is headed even though we don't (yet) know Ankh-Morpork for ourselves.


In general, there's some interesting worldbuilding in this part - Krullian mock-cosmology, the characterization of Ankh-Morpork, the lines about the humans and trolls mostly outcompeting the dryads and elves, all the business about the number after seven and the Octavo. The Disc is getting shaped, even if some of it's in directions that it will turn out not to end up going in. It's kinda fun, standing here at the beginning, and seeing all these open possibilities on every side. What other legs of the trousers of time could this have gone down?

Interesting, but unreliable from the point of view of the Cosmology As Later Developed. The shape of the Disc, Great A'Tuin, the character of Ankh-Morpork, and the Broken Drum - these are about the only things that remained un-altered, I think. The nature of elves, trolls, gnomes, dragons and even magic - is changed beyond recognition in later books. (I'm not sure what kind of magic user the dragon-riding woman is, but she's clearly neither Witch nor Wizard.)

Hrun the Barbarian later gives way to Cohen, and the prohibition on wizards mentioning the number 7a - is never mentioned again, as far as I can recall.

I can't remember which book it's in - certainly one of the first four or five - but somewhere, Terry writes a preface mentioning that "there is no map of the Discworld, it's not that kind of world". The Discworld Mapp was finally published in 1995, after Interesting Times, but it had definitely taken shape before then - if I had to pin it down, I'd guess that the world started to stabilise about 1989, the year of Pyramids and Guards! Guards!.



Rincewind is a little out of character at the very beginning, but arguably that's just because the Lady - who is explicitly distinguished from Chance in what I can only call a colossally obnoxious piece of misdirection on Pratchett's part - hasn't promoted him to "protagonist" yet. He's drifting towards his mature characterization pretty clearly by the midpoint of this book.
The Patrician is firmly in character - I wouldn't be willing to swear that his dry, condescending speech about hyperinflation isn't repeated verbatim in Making Money - which just makes the fact that he's physically off-model all the weirder. I seem to recall he shows up like this in Sourcery as well. We'll see.
Rincewind and proto-Vetinari interact. That's just wrong.
Death is kinda a ****. :smalleek:
Twoflower wants to meet dragons and elves. I forget how the dragons go in part two, but him stumbling into the Munstrum Ridcully role in Lords and Ladies would be hilarious. :smallbiggrin:


I read the Lady's unspoken name as a four-letter word starting with L, and notably serenaded (by name) once by Marlon Brando.

Many of the character details are later changed. Rincewind is described as "scrawney, like most wizards" - that's later retconned to "scrawney, very much unlike most wizards". He's also described as "an alumnus" of the university, which is later (Interesting Times, I think?) explicitly denied. The Patrician - I'm told Terry himself insists that it was Vetinari, but I find it hard to reconcile the mental images. Oh well. And Death is an entirely different character, there's just no reconciling him.

[Zyzzyva]

That's "Fafhrd". No, I don't know how it's pronounced either.

No, really. How's his name spelled? :smallsigh:


Interesting, but unreliable from the point of view of the Cosmology As Later Developed. The shape of the Disc, Great A'Tuin, the character of Ankh-Morpork, and the Broken Drum - these are about the only things that remained un-altered, I think. The nature of elves, trolls, gnomes, dragons and even magic - is changed beyond recognition in later books. (I'm not sure what kind of magic user the dragon-riding woman is, but she's clearly neither Witch nor Wizard.)

Hrun the Barbarian later gives way to Cohen, and the prohibition on wizards mentioning the number 7a - is never mentioned again, as far as I can recall.

Oh, definitely: hence my cod-philosophical musings on alternate Discworlds. I think twice four gets mentioned a couple more times, actually, just usually in footnotes. I know the Octavo spell is set up to be a massive plot point and just sorta leaks out of the series; I'm kinda curious now if it even gets mentioned in The Last Continent.


I read the Lady's unspoken name as a four-letter word starting with L, and notably serenaded (by name) once by Marlon Brando.

I think that's more or less canonically true; that's why I think mentioning "Chance" as a different party is kinda unfair.

[Dexam]

Many of the character details are later changed. Rincewind is described as "scrawney, like most wizards" - that's later retconned to "scrawney, very much unlike most wizards".
This could actually be justified, as in one of the later books Terry makes mention that wizards have fashions. In the first books, "scrawny" is in fashion among the wizarding community; post-Sourcery, the fashion has moved on1 and Rincewind has moved away, usually as fast as he can run.



1 = closer to the all-you-can-eat buffet table.

[veti]

I know the Octavo spell is set up to be a massive plot point and just sorta leaks out of the series; I'm kinda curious now if it even gets mentioned in The Last Continent.

I seem to recall the Creator loses his book in Eric, but at that point it's an unremarkable-looking exercise book. I don't recall any explicit mention of Rincewind making the connection between that and the Octavo, but it's hard to believe he wouldn't. So maybe my memory is making the whole scene up...

[Eldan]

No, really. How's his name spelled? :smallsigh:

There's a few jokes about it in the books. Fafhrd insists that this is how his name should be spelled, even if his native clan doesn't even use that writing system. Mouser proposes "Faffert".


This could actually be justified, as in one of the later books Terry makes mention that wizards have fashions. In the first books, "scrawny" is in fashion among the wizarding community; post-Sourcery, the fashion has moved on1 and Rincewind has moved away, usually as fast as he can run.
1 = closer to the all-you-can-eat buffet table.

In the earlier books, the wizards are also much more murderous towards each other, as the books move on, the university system (and later Ridcully) kick in more strongly and they become much more sessile academics of a more spheroid shape.

[BWR]

I'm in the minority camp that holds TCoM is actually better than many of its successors,


You and me both. Not that later Discworld was in any way bad (well, not most of it) but as the Disc got more used, better explored, more well-defined, it started losing its magic. When you started learning how things worked it didn't work as well. It became less making fun of fantasy tropes and more and more soapboxing.

[Eldan]

On a few other differences mentioned above:

Trolls, I think, are still quite similar to their later characterization. One thing is different: they dont' seem to grow to mountain size in later books. But apart from that: made of stone, strong, tough, diamond teeth, silicone brains.

Elves might have changed, though they are only mentioned in a half-sentence here. Perhaps they were outcompeted by industrial, iron-clad humans and became their more well-known demiplane-inhabiting magical raider-selves later.

Similarly for dragons: they actually work remarkably well with the Wyrmberg. In Guards, Guards, it is mentioned that the dragon called forth takes on characteristics of its summoner and is made stronger by their imagination. Hence Twoflower's beautiful, noble beast. And dragons aren't all that difficult to summon: it takes willpower and a bit of magic, but neither a wizard nor a witch. The Wyrmberg has a strong magical field, and the nobles of the Wyrmberg have the will, too.

[Spacewolf]

You and me both. Not that later Discworld was in any way bad (well, not most of it) but as the Disc got more used, better explored, more well-defined, it started losing its magic. When you started learning how things worked it didn't work as well. It became less making fun of fantasy tropes and more and more soapboxing.

Unless you have a pretty low bar for someone to count as soapboxing I'd say that's going over the top. The only two which I'd say have it noticeably are Jingo and Snuff, out of those I'd say Snuff is the only one where it detracts from the book.

Hell I'd say the reason the later books are better is because they actually evolve the world rather than just hit the reset button or pretend that the big event in the last book wouldn't have consequences.

[Eldan]

And the philosophizing about human nature starts pretty early too. Guards, Guards, at the latest. "If only one man stands up.." and the Patrician's "everyone is evil" speech stand out.

[veti]

Unless you have a pretty low bar for someone to count as soapboxing I'd say that's going over the top. The only two which I'd say have it noticeably are Jingo and Snuff, out of those I'd say Snuff is the only one where it detracts from the book.

We'll have to agree to differ on that.


Hell I'd say the reason the later books are better is because they actually evolve the world rather than just hit the reset button or pretend that the big event in the last book wouldn't have consequences.

One of my beefs with the later books is that despite "evolving" the world, they still do hit some kind of reset button either at the end or at the beginning, and a whole bunch of features are either added to the world out of nowhere, despite being (I would think) salient enough to have been at least mentioned at some point in the previous 30-odd books, or - which is worse - written into it for the duration of just one book, then never heard of again. And the recurring characters (most notably Granny and Nanny, but to a lesser extent also Vimes, Carrot, Rincewind, Ridcully and the entire faculty of UU) have some decent character growth in their earliest books, but then - seem to stagnate. I won't go into more details here - if you don't see it, or if it doesn't affect your appreciation of the books, then why should I try to spoil your enjoyment?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to diss the Disc, but as a literary canon - it's not without its issues. How seriously those affect your enjoyment is, of course, entirely subjective.

[Spacewolf]

Fair enough, each to his own and all that.

[Zyzzyva]

Well, since I'm kinda chewing through paper here, I'm going to plow on. New schedule: a book whenever I finish it until I get bored or the library runs out of copies. Part two of The Colour of Magic away!

I still haven't read Dragonriders of Pern. But the dragons in that are telepathic but not imaginary, right? And the kalahari clicks are making fun of unpronounceable fantasy names, or am I just projecting? Eh, it's still funny. Hrun is a riot, and even if his arc is basically over and his niche gets filled by Cohen later his ludicrously pragmatic approach to heroics is fun. I'd certainly read Hrun the Cimmerian Chimerian (and yeah, now that I've embarrassed myself by not recognizing Howard, now's when he drags out the obvious names :smallmad:).

On a related note, I'm kinda disappointed that Rincewind and Twoflower have adventures that aren't explained between parts 3 and 4. I wanna hear about Rincewind's adventures in the Great Nef! At least the cliffhanger will hopefully be resolved at the start of the next one (and a Discworld book with a cliffhanger :smallconfused:).

Finally, "breakaway oxidation phenomena" is one of my favourite jokes in the whole series, just because it's the author snarking his day job. :smallwink:


Rincewind thinks a horse is better than fleeing on foot. Keep trying, buddy, you're almost there.
Death eats Greicha. :smalleek: Yeah, never showing Death's interactions with people from an outside perspective is a better approach. That said, him blowing off Fate's revenge quest to stalk the streets of Pseudopolis just because it's his job is drifting towards his mature characterization again.
Krull is, by Disc standards, ludicrously high magic. I'm going to be curious to see how the ratcheting down of the setting's magic levels goes.
The digression about "re-annuals" is a decent Pratchett footnote, except it's in parentheses in the body of the text. That's just wrong.


Next up: ...I have no idea what's next up. Everything my brain mentally classes as "the first two Rincewind books" has already happened. Maybe I never read it?

[veti]

Next up: ...I have no idea what's next up. Everything my brain mentally classes as "the first two Rincewind books" has already happened. Maybe I never read it?

The Light Fantastic is next. It's a much more conventionally linear heroic-journey story, with a villain bent on acquiring Supreme Power or something of the sort, and culminating with Rincewind saving the world through a quite remarkable act of courage, for the first (but not last) time. It ends with Twoflower gifting the Luggage to Rincewind, out of gratitude.

If any of this is news to you, then maybe you haven't read it. :smallbiggrin:

[Zyzzyva]

The Light Fantastic is next.

Well I knew that. :smallyuk: I just can't recall details, and none of your spoilers helped. Possibly I really did just never read it?

[pendell]

But the dragons in that are telepathic but not imaginary, right?


Correct. They are real dragons with a thought-out biological cycle and place in the food chain. They can achieve a telepathic link only with their rider, however, and maybe a very few other individuals. Dragonriders of Pern is SF, not fantasy in the strict sense. And it's a good set of books.

Reading this with interest.

ETA: In The Light Fantastic we discover that one reason Rincewind is such a terrible wizard is because he's got one of the Great Spells in his head, and while it's there nothing else can inhabit his brain. IIRC.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Eldan]

Is the Great Spell never mentioned in book one? I'd swear it was.

[Zyzzyva]

Is the Great Spell never mentioned in book one? I'd swear it was.

It is. From the first 15 or so pages of Light Fantastic, though, I'm guessing that this book goes into more detail as to what it means.

[veti]

It's a funny thing. Not that long ago, I could re-read the entire Discworld series in a couple of weeks. But with two kids... now it takes that long to finish one short book.

But I finally made it, and started on The Light Fantastic.

Even this early in his career, Pratchett had a way of working his title into his writing in subtle and interesting ways. In this book, "light" gets mentioned a lot, even though the "octarine glow" that's explicitly linked to the title is not all that important. We hear for the first time about the slowness of light on the Disc, the Light Dams of the Great Nef (too bad Rincewind never took us there), the great shadow of the Hub. We see the whole Disc transformed twice - once by the Octavo, with a ghostly white image and an octarine explosion, and then more gradually by the eerie glow of the approaching Star.

The principles of druidic magic (that the whole universe is powered by the four elemental forces of Charm, Persuasion, Uncertainty and Bloody-Mindedness) are never mentioned again after this book, but they inform all of Pratchett's writing to an enormous extent. If there were such a thing as a Discworld RPG, I think those would be each character's prime stats.

[Zyzzyva]

It's a funny thing. Not that long ago, I could re-read the entire Discworld series in a couple of weeks. But with two kids... now it takes that long to finish one short book.

But I finally made it, and started on The Light Fantastic.

Don't I know it. :smallfrown: I've been stalled 2/3 of the way through The Light Fantastic for days. :smallfrown:

[Eldan]

I'm actually up to Moving Pictures now on my re-read.

[veti]

It strikes me that The Light Fantastic has dated, more than most books in the series. The style of fantasy it's lampooning - with its competing "colleges" of magic, ridiculously macho men and underdressed women adventurers, and impending doom looming over the world - is a style that I, for one, don't see very much in evidence nowadays. In the 80s it was common enough, but I can't remember the last time I saw a book cover featuring one of that particular brand of impracticably-dressed females. (Of course the artwork is still out there, and still being produced... but it's rarer to see it in bookshops now.)

Then there's the skit on the rivalry between heroes and wizards, in which homophobia is not just acceptable, it's the assumed default position of both sides. It's a reminder of how quickly the social norm has shifted.

All of which is a shame, because in many ways this is a gem of a book. I'll try to write a detailed appreciation once I've finished this re-read.


I'm actually up to Moving Pictures now on my re-read.

Hah. Either you don't have kids, or they've reached the age of being part-way to civilised.:smalltongue:

[Eldan]

No kids. And a long commute, I can put in an hour of reading on the way to work, an hour on the way back and one or two hours in the evening.

[veti]

At first glance, The Light Fantastic is a fairly generic spoof of fantasy as commonly practised in the 70s and early 80s. It does to hacks like Tanith Lee, Poul Anderson and L Sprague de Camp, what Douglas Adams had previously done to Star Trek and Close Encounters. And for some time, I came to think of Pratchett as merely an imitator of Adams, just with more wizards and fewer airlocks.

But on later re-reading, I realised there was more to him than that.

First, let's deal with the obvious. Unlike The Colour of Magic, in which the four parts each take aim at a single, easily identified popular author (well... to be honest I'm making an assumption about part 4), TLF combines them all into one coherent world. (Crazy, but coherent.) Then it addresses the question: what would happen, really, if we lived in a place like this? Not some theoretical or idealised form of humanity that has grown up in this world and lives in harmony with it, nor yet "humans with pointy ears and a curious lack of flaws such as insecurity, bloody-mindedness and spite", but us, ourselves, with all our foibles and hangups.

So for instance, we see the staffing and promotion processes of Unseen University:

Behind every wizard of the eighth rank were half a dozen seventh rank wizards trying to bump him off, and senior wizards had to develop an enquiring attitude to, for example, scorpions in their bed. An ancient proverb summed it up: when a wizard is tired of looking for broken glass in his dinner, it ran, he is tired of life.
From the luckless shaman in the forest, the druids trying to sacrifice Bethan, to the cursed shopkeeper and even the star people - the people in this book hold widely differing worldviews in lots of ways, but they're all recognisably us.

All this, of course, is precisely what Adams had done in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide series. In places, you can see the shadow of Adams looming over Pratchett's prose style. Consider, for instance:

[Rincewind] was trying not to think about rocks on the ground. He was trying to think about rocks swooping like swallows, bounding across landscapes in the sheer joy of levity, zooming skywards in a --
He was horribly aware that he wasn't very good at it.
To me, this scene echoes Adams's rather more concise "The ships hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don't."

But at the same time, it also highlights how Pratchett exceeds Adams. There is a love of language, a joy in the use of words for their own sake. Where Adams is terse and cutting, Pratchett softens his jabs by knowing when to reach for a thesaurus and couch them in flights of language that occasionally approach poetry. Which goes some way to explain why I re-read Pratchett far more often.

Narratively, it's nice to see all the characters develop. Rincewind shows not only great courage and determination, but also loyalty - he's come a long way from the weaselly figure whom the Patrician had to bully into looking after Twoflower. Twoflower himself, without losing his starry-eyed optimism, concludes that he's seen enough and wants to go home. Cohen decides to settle down and get married - to a girl 70 years younger than himself, but the thought is there. Even the Luggage shows a vulnerable side.

The only major character who goes quite undeveloped is Bethan. That's a shame, and may explain why - unlike all the others - she's never mentioned again. I'm not sure how to explain this weakness in the story. That Pratchett can write decent female characters, he demonstrates amply in the very next book. (Maybe he chose the topic of that one specifically in order to practice this skill. It's possible.) But in this one, he doesn't seem to know what to do with her - how to fit her into his pastiched world.

But he'll learn. In three books' time, although we won't see Bethan again, we'll see a much more interesting version of her character. Looking forward to it.

[russdm]

and reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits to


I couldn't remember the bit in italics was supposed to refer to.

I have read most of the books and anything featuring either Rincewind or Death I enjoy most. Moist is pretty funny as well. Vimes is nice and all, though I read less of his books. I also don't have all of the books and I am intending to acquire some more at some point.

[Lethologica]

<review of The Light Fantastic>
That was a pleasure to read.

[pendell]

No kids. And a long commute, I can put in an hour of reading on the way to work, an hour on the way back and one or two hours in the evening.

Long commutes are precisely what audiobooks are for. That's how I "read" the Harry Potter series .. listened to all seven books while stuck in traffic, over the course of several weeks.

I owe it all to a certain talk radio host for polluting my AM radio dial during my evening commute. Given the choice between that and "smooth jazz" on FM, I finally sucked it up, went down to my local library, and checked out some CD audiobooks.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Calemyr]

I couldn't remember the bit in italics was supposed to refer to.

I have read most of the books and anything featuring either Rincewind or Death I enjoy most. Moist is pretty funny as well. Vimes is nice and all, though I read less of his books. I also don't have all of the books and I am intending to acquire some more at some point.

"reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits" = Echo-Gnome-ics

I'd also point out one point that certainly did change about trolls between early books and later ones: their relationship with time. In the first couple books, they suggest that they are quite literally travelling the other direction in time. In later books, this is redefined as a simple difference of cultural perspective: as a nocturnal species with very limited relation to other sentient species, they see the end of days as the "dawn of time" while everyone else would use the term to describe the beginning. Dwarfs also get this a bit, such as viewing "moving up in the world" as describing a run of bad luck since Dwarfs tend to make progress mining downward.

As for Vetinari, I think the best explanation of him I've ever heard suggested that his appearance and eating habits in the first books were him trying to do an end-run around the people. Basically, he played the bad little piggy that everyone expects a Patrician to be in order to get the position. And to lull the guilds into a false sense of security. Once everyone moves into place, he drops the jellied starfish in favor of bread and boiled water and the stupid piggy facade for the genteel ruthlessness he eventually becomes infamous for. After all, if Vetinari had started his stint as Patrician as, well, Vetinari, do you think any guild would be dumb enough to assume they were the ones taking advantage of him? I mean, of course the real answer that Pratchett readily admitted to was that he wasn't planning as far ahead back then, but for an in-narrative explanation, I find that more than satisfies.

[veti]

Equal Rites is an experimental book. It's where Pratchett learned to write female characters. It's where he first addresses the social justice issues that will preoccupy much of his later work, although with a lightness of touch that feels particularly refreshing to re-read now.

And it introduces many of his most memorable creations, although most of them will be heavily rewritten for their next appearance. Hilta Goatfounder will be reincarnated as Nanny Ogg. Archchancellor Cutangle is a prototype for Ridcully the Brown, complete with his childhood connection to Granny. Mrs Whitlow will lie dormant for almost 20 books before her next speaking part. Simon the Sourceror has aspects of Ponder Stibbons and, arguably, Captain Carrot. Even the characterless town of Ohulan Cutash - will lose three syllables to become Lancre.

At this point in the series - now that it's finally it's fair to call it a series - Pratchett has emerged definitively from the shadow of Douglas Adams, and become a master wordsmith in himself. The Discworld is no longer merely a vehicle for lampooning our world, although it is that - it's also a developing place in its own right, with spaces set aside for later growth. For instance, we meet dwarves for the first time:

The dwarf halls rang to the sound of hammers, although mainly for effect. Dwarves found it hard to think without the sound of hammers, which they found soothing, so well-off dwarves in the clerical professions paid goblins to hit small ceremonial anvils, just to maintain the correct dwarvish image.

The broomstick lay between two trestles. Granny Weatherwax sat on a rock outcrop while a dwarf half her height, wearing an apron that was a mass of pockets, walked around the broom and occasionally poked at it.

Eventually he kicked the bristles and gave a long intake of breath, a sort of reverse whistle, which is the secret sign of craftsmen across the universe and means that something expensive is about to happen.
Pratchett gives his own descriptions of witches and wizards - and their lesser derivatives and hangers on, such as enchanters and warlocks, who are described with a contempt that more than justifies their later neglect - that roots them firmly in established stereotypes, while also staking out a very distinctive version of each stereotype.

And, boldly, he talks explicitly about those stereotypes and roles. In the first act, we learn the truth of witches' shape-shifting, and get a - not so much treatise as a rant - about the differences between witches and wizards, and the ill-defined necessity that reserves each role to its proper sex.

Re-reading now, almost 30 years older than my first time, this book stands up extremely well. But not perfect. It does showcase two of Pratchett's traits that I find extremely galling, that occur again and again throughout the canon.

First, there's a pacing issue: the climax sort of sneaks up on you, and suddenly there's a change in tone as if to say "Now it's serious", which isn't really justified by anything that comes before or after. The action is still ridiculous, the solution is preposterous, but the gravity of the description makes it read as if now, for some reason, you're meant to take it seriously. It's - jarring, is about the kindest word I can find.

And second, there's a handwavy feel to the resolution. After spending a whole book illustrating the differences between witchcraft and wizardry, quite suddenly everyone seems to decide that the differences aren't that important, and perhaps women should be allowed to study wizardry and men witchery. Which would be all well and good, if anything whatever in the preceding action went anywhere even vaguely in the direction of justifying that conclusion. But it doesn't: it's directly contrary to all the worldbuilding up to that point. Perhaps that's why this innovation seems to have been quietly forgotten in all future books, and perhaps that's just as well.

[Eldan]

Mrs Whitlow is in Moving Pictures.

[Zyzzyva]

Well, after a month of all my reading time being taken up preparing a presentation for the company*, I've finally finished The Light Fantastic!

Having read it, I'm pretty certain I've read it before, but it just wasn't as memorable as Colour of Magic, I guess. Some thoughts:

The chancellor of the University is a Weatherwax? Um, wow, and now I want to see if that comes up in Equal Rites. (Also, the first appearance of the Librarian! SQEEE.)
The wizards' collective smoking habit is a bit weird form the standpoint of the fantasy it's mocking, but definitely characterizes the Discworld well.
Rincewind and Death are both basically on-model! As is the Gods and their petty bourgie squabbles with the Frost Giants. The druids, on the other hand, are really out of place, and the trolls are Discworldy but not at all compatible with, you know, Discworld trolls.
Josh Kidby continues to pay no attention to the text, as witness Herenna's depiction on the cover and the fact that he's apparently never heard the insult "four-eyes" before. Ohhh, Josh. <3
Speaking of Herenna, Pratchett's depiction of women has a bit of a way to go. Still, Ysabelle reminded me that Mort is a thing. So there's that to look forward to.

The Star People seem like a good opportunity for Pratchett to smack us with the humanism hammer: I honestly can't tell whether that gets more or less subtle as the series goes on.
I remember being confused by why the star was turning magic off, when I first read it many moons ago, but it was fairly obvious this time round it was that Great A'Tuin was going realitywards. Duh.
Tryvon doesn't get possessed by Auditors, but Rincewind's encounter with him seems Auditor-esque in places. Which comes back to Pratchett's mallet of humanism, I guess: it's a theme.
Rincewind gets a happy ending? :smalleek: The heck? I forget how he ends up on the run again, but I'm sure it will be funny.

Next up! Pratchett meets second-wave feminism! Third-wave feminism? Second-and-a-halfth-wave feminism. Also, the reader meets Granny Weatherwax, who occupies a wave of feminism all to herself**.

*This is a lie. I hacked the presentation together in three hours the Sunday before it was due. I spent my reading time reading a friends massive Dragon Magazine back catalogue. Did you know the Giant got an honourable mention in the #175 why-are-Spelljammer-gaint-space-hamsters-awesome competition?

**Look, do you want to try and share a wave with Granny? Right, didn't think so.

[Calemyr]

Well, after a month of all my reading time being taken up preparing a presentation for the company*, I've finally finished The Light Fantastic!

Having read it, I'm pretty certain I've read it before, but it just wasn't as memorable as Colour of Magic, I guess. Some thoughts:

The chancellor of the University is a Weatherwax? Um, wow, and now I want to see if that comes up in Equal Rites. (Also, the first appearance of the Librarian! SQEEE.)
The wizards' collective smoking habit is a bit weird form the standpoint of the fantasy it's mocking, but definitely characterizes the Discworld well.
Rincewind and Death are both basically on-model! As is the Gods and their petty bourgie squabbles with the Frost Giants. The druids, on the other hand, are really out of place, and the trolls are Discworldy but not at all compatible with, you know, Discworld trolls.
Josh Kidby continues to pay no attention to the text, as witness Herenna's depiction on the cover and the fact that he's apparently never heard the insult "four-eyes" before. Ohhh, Josh. <3
Speaking of Herenna, Pratchett's depiction of women has a bit of a way to go. Still, Ysabelle reminded me that Mort is a thing. So there's that to look forward to.

The Star People seem like a good opportunity for Pratchett to smack us with the humanism hammer: I honestly can't tell whether that gets more or less subtle as the series goes on.
I remember being confused by why the star was turning magic off, when I first read it many moons ago, but it was fairly obvious this time round it was that Great A'Tuin was going realitywards. Duh.
Tryvon doesn't get possessed by Auditors, but Rincewind's encounter with him seems Auditor-esque in places. Which comes back to Pratchett's mallet of humanism, I guess: it's a theme.
Rincewind gets a happy ending? :smalleek: The heck? I forget how he ends up on the run again, but I'm sure it will be funny.

Next up! Pratchett meets second-wave feminism! Third-wave feminism? Second-and-a-halfth-wave feminism. Also, the reader meets Granny Weatherwax, who occupies a wave of feminism all to herself**.

*This is a lie. I hacked the presentation together in three hours the Sunday before it was due. I spent my reading time reading a friends massive Dragon Magazine back catalogue. Did you know the Giant got an honourable mention in the #175 why-are-Spelljammer-gaint-space-hamsters-awesome competition?

**Look, do you want to try and share a wave with Granny? Right, didn't think so.

Archchancelor Weatherwax gets another brief reference in Lords and Ladies. Ridcully mentions him to Granny and she just shrugs and says "so I've heard, distant cousin, never met him".

Tryvon has the same grey morality as the Auditors, but a different motivation. Tryvon was working to accomplish something, the Auditors just want things to stay static so they can finish inventory. And let it stay finished.
Yep, Rincewind got a nice ending. It doesn't last of course. Soon he'll run afoul of a talking hat and a barberian, and the "From of Running" gets a new chapter.

I really wish I could meet Granny, but I don't think it would turn out how I expect it. Odds are I wouldn't even realize it was her, because Granny doesn't advertise her badassery. If her hat isn't advertisement enough, you get what you deserve. Instead, I'd just meet a stern old lady in a stern black dress who would walk past me like I was background. Because, to her, I would be.

[Zyzzyva]

Archchancelor Weatherwax gets another brief reference in Lords and Ladies. Ridcully mentions him to Granny and she just shrugs and says "so I've heard, distant cousin, never met him".

I think I remember that. I'm curious what Pratchett was thinking back in the 80s when he made Granny's name the same as the old Archchancellor's, though.


Tryvon has the same grey morality as the Auditors, but a different motivation. Tryvon was working to accomplish something, the Auditors just want things to stay static so they can finish inventory. And let it stay finished.

No, I was thinking specifically of the possessed-Tryvon scene; it's clearly not the Auditors, for a bunch of reasons, but it reminded me of them a bit. Like I said, probably because both are presented as opponents of Pratchett's humanism (both of them get the "demons would torture your soul, but only because they valued souls so much" analogy, for instance).

[veti]

In the early books, the Ultimate Enemies are the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, which are basically Lovecraftian and feature to some degree in, I think, most of the books up to Moving Pictures. Thereafter they abruptly vanish from the world, and just as abruptly - in the very next book, in fact - the Auditors appear. I'd say they fill the same narrative niche.

There is no official support for this opinion, but I've always thought that the Auditors were, initially at least, Pratchett's take on his own online fandom, who would worry obsessively about continuity "errors" between books. Reaper Man was published in 1991, and I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that's the same year the Usenet group alt.fan.pratchett was founded.

[Zyzzyva]

In the early books, the Ultimate Enemies are the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, which are basically Lovecraftian and feature to some degree in, I think, most of the books up to Moving Pictures. Thereafter they abruptly vanish from the world, and just as abruptly - in the very next book, in fact - the Auditors appear. I'd say they fill the same narrative niche.

That's an interesting thought, although don't the Dungeon Dimensions keep making appearances in the Rincewind books, just in increasingly silly and debased ways? (Actual honest question, I really don't remember.) I agree that their slot as "actual serious business bad guys" is taken over pretty completely between Moving Pictures and Reaper Man, though.


There is no official support for this opinion, but I've always thought that the Auditors were, initially at least, Pratchett's take on his own online fandom, who would worry obsessively about continuity "errors" between books. Reaper Man was published in 1991, and I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that's the same year the Usenet group alt.fan.pratchett was founded.

Not so sure about this one, though. I think it's really more just that Pratchett doesn't like that kind of person, thinking, or outlook, and hasn't since well before Usenet.

[Zyzzyva]

On to Equal Rites! Man, I read faster once I no longer have ~100 issues of Dragon luring me away.

This is where it really starts to feel like Discworld to me, honestly. So much stuff gets thrown in - Mrs Palm and Mrs Whitlow, the Shades and the Thieves' Guild, the Necrotelecomnicon and the first Quantum Physics joke (no actual use of the word "quantum" yet, admittedly). The University is recognizably the one that Ridcully runs (and Cutangle, as veti noted, is basically a slightly softer Ridcully) and Lancre is basically established, plus or minus the name. Granny Weatherwax is on model right out of the gate, although it's weird her not having a coven (not least because it means Pratchett keeps letting us in on Granny's thoughts, which is weird and wrong in so many ways).

Plus we get another Pratchett day job joke! (The non-Zoons insisting they call their Liar something more respectable, like "Public Relations Officer".)

Re veti's criticisms: I'm totally down with the second - this book really does kinda slam to a halt, although it's not like the series so far has been big on denouements, and the idea of Granny working for UU is so very strange (although mercifully dropped). I'm not so sure about the first, though; it's not like Esk doesn't kick Dungeon Dimensions things in the shins and Granny & Cutangle have a humorous adventure out on the river. It doesn't have the space (or pacing) for extended comic setpieces, but it's still funny. And, likewise, it's not like Esk doesn't get lost Borrowing in the first third of the book or Esk being humiliated in front of the university isn't the most brutal part of the book.

My own criticism is that I think the presence of Simon as a character kinda muddies the message a bit. If it's about Esk Smith, female wizard and :smallfurious: if you try to get in her way, then do that, don't throw in proto-Ponder Stibbons, crazy brilliant super wizard prodigy, at the same time. I dunno. Maybe other people see it differently?

Next: The weirdest story thread begins! Also the main(ish) character I like the least (I think? Is she born here or the next one?).

[veti]

My own criticism is that I think the presence of Simon as a character kinda muddies the message a bit. If it's about Esk Smith, female wizard and :smallfurious: if you try to get in her way, then do that, don't throw in proto-Ponder Stibbons, crazy brilliant super wizard prodigy, at the same time. I dunno. Maybe other people see it differently?

I think the basic point of Simon, which gets lost along the way, is to highlight the unfairness of the discrimination. Esk and Simon are alike in many ways - they're both young, gifted, outsiders, self-taught - but Simon gets the red carpet treatment all the way, while Esk gets the door slammed in her face. I think that was the underlying idea, anyway - although if so, then Pratchett muffs it in several ways, most glaringly by writing such a disparity in their ages.


Next: The weirdest story thread begins! Also the main(ish) character I like the least (I think? Is she born here or the next one?).

If you mean Susan, then she doesn't appear in Mort. (Unless you want to describe the whole book as her origin story. Which, in a sense, it is.)

[Kato]

I think the basic point of Simon, which gets lost along the way, is to highlight the unfairness of the discrimination. Esk and Simon are alike in many ways - they're both young, gifted, outsiders, self-taught - but Simon gets the red carpet treatment all the way, while Esk gets the door slammed in her face. I think that was the underlying idea, anyway - although if so, then Pratchett muffs it in several ways, most glaringly by writing such a disparity in their ages.


It's been quite a while since I read ER. While I agree that the different treatment of a male and a female apprentice was certainly part of it, both also look at magic in a very different way, from what I recall. Esk is more the hands-on person, more grounded in reality due to her witch training, where Simon is clearly the theoretician (a distinction quite apparent among scientists in many fields).
It would have kind of made sense to have him overcome some of his illnesses and then turn him into Ponder, as he is very much alike in many respects from what I recall, but I guess with the mention in Midnight he turned out be more Hawking-like, albeit never mentioned in any story about the university. Which... seems a bit odd, but oh well.

[Zyzzyva]

I think the basic point of Simon, which gets lost along the way, is to highlight the unfairness of the discrimination. Esk and Simon are alike in many ways - they're both young, gifted, outsiders, self-taught - but Simon gets the red carpet treatment all the way, while Esk gets the door slammed in her face. I think that was the underlying idea, anyway - although if so, then Pratchett muffs it in several ways, most glaringly by writing such a disparity in their ages.

I totally buy that, and agree that if that was the intent - which seems plausible - then he failed to stick the landing. The part I was thinking of was his (and Esk's) arrival in the University; I was sort of expecting him, from his previous characterization, to be incapable of any practical magic at all, rather than effortlessly showing off.


If you mean Susan, then she doesn't appear in Mort. (Unless you want to describe the whole book as her origin story. Which, in a sense, it is.)

Yup. I forget where she first showed up, except that she makes my teeth grind in the otherwise amazing Thief of Time.


with the mention in Midnight

Having never read Midnight: everything before Guards Guards wasn't quietly decanonized? Huh.

[Kato]

Yup. I forget where she first showed up, except that she makes my teeth grind in the otherwise amazing Thief of Time.
Really? I mean, yeah, she has some characteristics one would not like but that bad? Oh well... I liked her more in e.g. Hogfather as well, though.



Having never read Midnight: everything before Guards Guards wasn't quietly decanonized? Huh.
Well, not everything. Just the parts that don't make sense with the new books. Of course, this might be because it is an alternate history. Or because they were written by a less experienced author.


Esk plays... a role in it and there is a very short mention of Simon and their "relationship", but a lot is left open.

[Zyzzyva]

Really? I mean, yeah, she has some characteristics one would not like but that bad? Oh well... I liked her more in e.g. Hogfather as well, though.

The big absence on my list of read books is Hogfather. Shock! Horror! :smalleek: smileys! Maybe she looks better there, sure. I just found her irritating and author's-mouthpieceish in Thief, and it's not like she serves some huge narrative purpose.


Well, not everything. Just the parts that don't make sense with the new books. Of course, this might be because it is an alternate history. Or because they were written by a less experienced author.


Esk plays... a role in it and there is a very short mention of Simon and their "relationship", but a lot is left open.

Yeah, I know, I was being slightly snarky (Rincewind has clearly and obviously met Twoflower before Interesting Times, e.g.). And that makes me rather excited for Midnight. Only, um, 35 books to get through first!

[veti]

The big absence on my list of read books is Hogfather. Shock! Horror! :smalleek: smileys! Maybe she looks better there, sure. I just found her irritating and author's-mouthpieceish in Thief, and it's not like she serves some huge narrative purpose.

Hogfather is one of the best books. Top 25%, easily. I think that's pretty widely agreed. Thief is, IMO although obviously your mileage varies here, one of the weakest.

I've just picked up Sourcery, and it has the preface I mentioned upthread somewhere: "This book does not contain a map. Feel free to draw your own." I take that as a broad hint that Pratchett really didn't want to be tied down by considerations of "canon" and "consistency", at least not at this point. I think that's also the meaning behind his animosity towards "the Auditors of Reality" - which is to say that, although he later accepted "continuity" as a necessary evil, he never really embraced it.

[Zyzzyva]

Mort! Not so much to say about this one, because Pratchett's starting to get into the swing of things and there's less blatant weirdities to point out. That said, I haven't read Reaper Man in most of a decade, but I kept thinking "Pratchett did the exact thing but better in Reaper Man." Still, it's fun and even if Mort, Ysabell, Keli, and Cutwell all vanish off the face of the Disc after this, they're fairly well-sketched. I also really liked the Rincewind cameo (and the Bursar! :smallbiggrin: although I've read enough of Sourcery to think he's not the same Bursar we all know and love from the later books).

That said, I'm with veti on this one: the climax is petty close to having no jokes at all, and is treated with seriousness despite the lack of convincing stakes. And the ending is kind of a "eh, it turns out that all that history-cannot-be-changed talk was just talk". IIRC, again, Reaper Man does almost exactly the same climax, but better. ...Man, Reaper Man had better live up to my memories, or I'm going to look a right idiot. :smallredface:

Next up... um. Some stuff. More Rincewind and, IIRC, a cameo by a really, really, really off-model Patrician? I guess. This one's really slipped out of my brain.

[Eldan]

Interestingly, over on Mark reads, the reaction to Mort was quite different. It's seen as the worst book so far, with a lot of burning hatred for the character of Mort himself.

[tyckspoon]

Yup. I forget where she first showed up, except that she makes my teeth grind in the otherwise amazing Thief of Time.


Soul Music is the first instance I can remember, where she makes an appearance as part of the book's take on teen girl fandom. It's a rather odd fit for Susan. I think Hogfather is her first real lead character book, and she didn't have many other appearances that I recall.

[Calemyr]

Soul Music is the first instance I can remember, where she makes an appearance as part of the book's take on teen girl fandom. It's a rather odd fit for Susan. I think Hogfather is her first real lead character book, and she didn't have many other appearances that I recall.

Susan's role in Soul Music isn't really that strange, when you look at it. She's Mort's daughter, and initially portrays a much the same weakness he did: getting personally involved, putting infatuation before Duty, and such. She makes the same mistakes, only the way a girl might make them rather than a boy. She ultimately matures and, unlike her father, remains active in the Business. Sorta. When forced to.

Personally, I always liked Susan as she reminded me of Mary Poppins fused with Granny Weatherwax, who is my all-time favorite Discworld character. Two reality-bending demigods rolled into one, and none of the above take crap from anybody. Susan is what I'd imagine Granny Weatherwax would be like if she'd been happier and more emotionally balanced as a child. I rather liked Thief of Time when I realized that it was going to be mostly an ego contest between Susan and Lu Tze, and from that perspective the story did not disappoint. Might as well have pit Granny against Moist! Seriously, I wish that had been a book...

[Zea mays]

I'm not so good with the fancy literary analysis, so my thread contribution are just a few stick-art pictures of Discworld character. :smallredface:

This is from an Avatar I made from The Knid Knido sometime in the forgotten past

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e275/rima_long/Atuin_zpsaz1afqco.png

Death was an avatar made for pffh once upon a theme week, methinks.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e275/rima_long/Death4_zpswhbftajz.png

Somebody needs to give this man a potato!

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e275/rima_long/Rinso8_zpsjfmxlw3r.png

The Wyrd Sister - for me this is the first Discworld book. Not the first one I read (I've read the all in order), but the first I truly loved.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e275/rima_long/witches9_zpstagldwn0.png

[Zyzzyva]

I'm not so good with the fancy literary analysis, so my thread contribution are just a few stick-art pictures of Discworld character. :smallredface:

Well, you've blown my contributions to this thread out of the water. :smallredface: Those are great, especially the last.

[Zyzzyva]

All right! Sourcery! ...I wasn't a huge fan. :smallfrown:

So, some positives: proto-Dibbler, Rincewind perfectly on-model, Death and his drinking buddies, and, with a thunder of stupid Medici pun, Lord Vetenari has arrived! I also sort of liked (or at least appreciated the elegance of) the insight particles thing, which lets Pratchett slip in some thunderingly blunt sermonizing in a way that's almost a joke. Nijel, Conina, and Creosote are all, taken by themselves, pretty good sources of jokes.

That said: Conina makes the Cohen/Bethan thing from Light Fantastic even more skeevy in retrospect, and the Conina/Nijel thing, while funny and a bit subversive, pushes my feminism buttons in awkward ways. The Seriph is... a really weird protagonist/party member for a Discworld book. Discworld leaders tend to be antagonists and cutaway jokes. Ridcully, Teppic, and maybe Verence are the closest I can think of to being real central characters in a position of authority, and none of them have much in the way of actual power; once Vimes starts climbing the ladder, he tends to get dumped on his own resources (The Fifth Elephant) or be made a secondary character (Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal); Vetenari is always a figure in the distance that Ankh-Morpork stories get bent around rather than a protagonist.

Mostly, though, it's just deadly and apocalyptic, and that's weird. I don't want to say definitively this has the highest non-joke body count of any Discworld book, but it's certainly up there, and in a way that's unusual for Discworld. I'd probably throw Monstrous Regiment up there, although I'm not sure how many people actually die on-camera, as it were; but that book's whole secondary theme is How Much War Sucks, whereas Sourcery just sorta kills people. Jingo has even less on-camera death, not counting THE TROUSERS OF TIME!, but it has weird, superficial resemblances to this one that I thought earned it a mention. Conina and Nijel's treatment at the end is creepy and bad, it's unclear how much has actually permanently changed on the Disc, given the massive death and destruction, and in general this book getting dropped down the memory hole is about what it deserved. ...That sounded harsher than I think I meant; I enjoyed it while reading it, it just seems... not very Discworldy to me.

Still, Rincewind is on the road now! That's always worth a cheer. Sucks to be you, man, but you get to see strange, exciting new places and run away from them.

Next time: I take a break! Followed by Granny Weatherwax getting a proper named home and a coven, and also the world's most extended Shakespeare parody.

[Calemyr]

Sourcery is definitely one of the darker books, mainly because it genuinely is the end of the world as it was. The world post-Sourcery is much lighter and more stable. We get Ridcully, a man so cheerfully unkillable that the Unseen University's whole "klingon promotion" thing gets stalled long enough for people to get used to peace, resulting in a more static and entertaining cast of wizards where they used to be darker and decidedly expendable. We get Vetinari stepping up to his true purpose, modernizing a crude port city into a shining gem of the sea (or at least a pearl, as the books point out how apt it is to describe Ankh-Morpork as a piece of filth coated in the diseased secretions of a dying mollusk).

Sourcery basically made the modern books possible by tearing down much of the world he'd already built, and there's a brutal finality to the way he did it. It was still funny, it was still weird, but it was definitely dark.

Conina and Nijel was personally one of my favorite parts of the book, because it didn't follow the traditional path. Conina wanted what she thought a normal girl would want (a good husband, a pleasant job, a quiet life) but her circumstances kept getting in her way by giving her a strong personality, kleptomania, and very literally killer instincts. She's as isolated from her dreams as the girl kept down simply for being female, so I can see why she'd be doubly upsetting to some as she both reflects that powerless and a yearning for what others wish to grow beyond. And I liked that their relationship didn't work out. The two weren't a good match, and simply pairing up protagonists regardless of their natures is entirely too common a trait among fantasy stories.

[veti]

I haven't finished my read of Sourcery yet, but I think it's a book about Destiny. Ipslore the Red introduces the word early on, when he asks Death about his son's destiny: Death replies that SOURCERORS MAKE THEIR OWN DESTINY.

And that's what all the sympathetic figures in this book try to do. Conina, Nijel and the Seriph all have an obvious life path that's open and would be easy for them to follow, and they all choose instead to kick against that and try to pursue something completely different.

Poor Rincewind has the toughest deal of all. He just wants to be like the other wizards in the university, eating and drinking lots and staying where he is, but his Destiny is to be a hero, and it never lets him go. Not for long, anyway. In the end he embraces it - the book ends with him performing possibly the bravest and most selfless act ever seen on the Discworld, before or since.


That said: Conina makes the Cohen/Bethan thing from Light Fantastic even more skeevy in retrospect, and the Conina/Nijel thing, while funny and a bit subversive, pushes my feminism buttons in awkward ways. The Seriph is... a really weird protagonist/party member for a Discworld book. Discworld leaders tend to be antagonists and cutaway jokes. Ridcully, Teppic, and maybe Verence are the closest I can think of to being real central characters in a position of authority, and none of them have much in the way of actual power; once Vimes starts climbing the ladder, he tends to get dumped on his own resources (The Fifth Elephant) or be made a secondary character (Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal); Vetenari is always a figure in the distance that Ankh-Morpork stories get bent around rather than a protagonist.

What about Moist? William de Worde? Granny? ("one of the most respected leaders [witches] don't have"). And it's hard to see Vimes as anything but a leader in Jingo and Night Watch.

I don't think I understand the problem with Conina. We already knew Bethan was young enough to be Cohen's great-granddaughter... my only issue with the two of them is that Conina comes across as at least a mildly interesting character, whereas Bethan is pure cypher.

[Eldan]

I remember thinking one way about Rincewind when reading Sourcery this time around: it would have been a perfect end for the character.

He has an arc in those first few books. He goes from cowardly, cynical and friendless, to less cowardly, cynical and a friend to twoflower, to actually risking himself to save the world to actually sacrificing himself to save Coin and the entire world. He had a nicely done heroic sacrifice, and I think he could have ended there.

Of course, that would have meant no Interesting Times and especially no Last Hero, which would be a crying shame.

[veti]

I remember thinking one way about Rincewind when reading Sourcery this time around: it would have been a perfect end for the character.

He has an arc in those first few books. He goes from cowardly, cynical and friendless, to less cowardly, cynical and a friend to twoflower, to actually risking himself to save the world to actually sacrificing himself to save Coin and the entire world. He had a nicely done heroic sacrifice, and I think he could have ended there.

Of course, that would have meant no Interesting Times and especially no Last Hero, which would be a crying shame.

No Eric, no Last Continent... that's my idea of a crying shame. Rincewind is dispensible in The Last Hero - pretty much any other lowly but perceptive character, e.g. Ponder Stibbons or Nobby Nobbs, could fill his niche there as far as the plot is concerned.

I think Rincewind has a lot of work yet to do, and bringing him back was a good thing. Rincewind is a type of hero I approve of - the type who will do heroics only when it's absolutely unavoidable.

[Eldan]

There's also the fact that Pratchett didn't want to bring him back.

[Zyzzyva]

What about Moist? William de Worde? Granny? ("one of the most respected leaders [witches] don't have"). And it's hard to see Vimes as anything but a leader in Jingo and Night Watch.

Yeah, I know, it's not a perfect argument. I'm just groping around for reasons why it felt that Creosote was an atypical party member.


I don't think I understand the problem with Conina. We already knew Bethan was young enough to be Cohen's great-granddaughter... my only issue with the two of them is that Conina comes across as at least a mildly interesting character, whereas Bethan is pure cypher.

Yeah, that's about it: it just makes me feel really skeevy about the whole thing.


There's also the fact that Pratchett didn't want to bring him back.

Did not know that, but can believe it. It's a good arc, now that it's been pointed out to me.

[Eldan]

Yeah. Apparently, Eric was a bit of a disaster. Fans wanted more Rincewind, Pratchett didn't really want to write him and the artist apparently told Pratchett something along the lines of "I paint the pictures, you don't get to tell me what the characters should look like, you just write the story."