Line #16 WMG/ReaperMan


1	{{WMG}}s for Literature/{{Discworld}} / Literature/ReaperMan. Warning: Potential unmarked spoilers.
2
3	[[WMG:''Reaper Man'' is a novelization of the song "Particle Man".]]
4	First off, Terry Pratchett is a very big fan of Music/TheyMightBeGiants. Then there's the similar titles and the fact that the book was released in 1991, one year after the song. But, there's a lot more, and nearly ''every line in the song'' is referenced. '''Warning: Contains lots of spoilers.'''
5	* [[TheGrimReaper Death]] is Particle Man. He's often referred to as "Little Death," and he "does things a particle can," like passing through solid objects and appearing in two places at once (spooky action at a distance). The book is about the problems that come up when he develops a personality of his own, or, in other words, "What's he like? It's not important." Particle Man.
6	* The Auditors are Triangle Man. They always exist in threes, and they hate both Particle Man (Death) and Person Man (Humanity). They manage to get Death laid off at the start of the book; in other words, they have a fight, Triangle wins. Triangle Man.
7	* Obviously, Azrael is Universe Man, as he is, indeed, the size of the entire universe, man. He's usually kind to smaller man, a reference to his taking Death's side. He has a clock with a minute hand, a millennium hand and an eon hand, and when they meet, we can presume that it will be happy land. Powerful man. Universe Man.
8	* Even more obviously, Humanity as a whole (and Windle Poons in particular) is Person Man. He doesn't get hit on the head by a frying pan, but he has lived his whole life in Ankh-Morpork, which many would be willing to describe as a garbage can. As well, there's is a lot of questioning whether or not Windle Poons is depressed or if he's a mess, and does he feel totally worthless. And the big question about the book is how he got into that state, or, "Who came up with Person Man?"
9
10	That's about it. It's a short song.
11
12	[[WMG: The hourglass that Bill Door picks up from the desk in his dream was Ysabell's.]]
13
14	He doesn't know Miss Flitworth well enough (yet) to react so strongly to her mortality, and there was more than one lifetimer on the desk, suggesting that it was Ysabell's and Mort's pending and simultaneous deaths that his psyche was processing. It's probably Ysabell's, not Mort's, because Mort and Death didn't part on such good terms, so Death wouldn't regret his ex-apprentice's demise as much as his adopted daughter's. Plus, conversing with Miss Flitworth had reminded him of Ysabell, whom he had enough understanding of mortality as Bill Door to grieve for.
15	* As ''Reaper Man'' takes place no more than a couple of years before ''Soul Music'', it could well be Death's awareness that he'd soon have to perform the Duty for Ysabell that'd left him so distracted, the Auditors were able to petition Azrael to retire him in the first place. This makes his last words to Miss Flitworth's fiancee a case of FridgeBrilliance: it's an indication that he's accepting how his own daughter and son-in-law, too, will be going on to the afterlife ''together''.
16
17	[[WMG: Windle Poons does come back as a woman like he wants, specifically Tiffany Aching.]]
18	This is conservation of detail more than anything, but her birth would have been close to his death if time in-universe matches time between books. There's a gap of about three years, but the Aching books have time skips in them and time is a dubious thing on Discworld in any event.
19	* It also goes well with the Roundworld idea that the births and deaths of great people often coincide with each other, which like many other myths is absolutely true on the Discworld.
20	* Except Windle wasn't particularly "great", just rather determined to get a life (to the limited extent a zombie can) after spending most of his ''actual'' life sitting in a wheelchair. He and Tiffany don't really have any personality traits in common, and Poons is much more of a comedy character. More likely, Windle might have come back as one of the other trainee witches Tiffany knows ... possibly even Annagramma, as Windle was fairly bossy and self-centered pre-mortem, and Annagramma ''does'' have a remarkable knack for "wizard magic with a dress on". It'd eliminate the time discrepancy too, as she's a few years older than Tiffany.
21
22	[[WMG: Death decided he ''had'' liked the taste of the "humorous apple juice".]]
23	And that's why all the rum truffles were missing from Miss Flitworth's chocolate.
24	* Nope. On a reread it turned out the 'humorous apple juice' was brandy. (This troper - the same one who started this WMG - is hideously ignorant on alcoholic beverages.)
25	** It can still work: He "liked" the 'humorous apple juice', and thought anything with "rum" in the name would be better ... -- Tropers/CurledUpWithDakka
26
27	----

Context WMG / ReaperMan