The Discworld Thread

Just finished Good Omens and Reaper Man.

...Is it strange to finish the latter with teary eyes?

I certainly cried as I finished it. It was a very sweet and sorrowful ending.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

No, it is not. Reaper Man and Small Gods both have very good endings.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Oh, yes. The ending of Small Gods is beautiful. Don't think I cried when I read it, but I definitely felt a lump in my throat.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Okay, so, I finished Equal Rites a few days ago and I came to a conclusion: The wizards were right not to acknowldege Esk and shouldn't have given her the staff at the end. She failed to perform proper magic when given a chance, worked as a servant still without using magic or being able to read and in the end was allowed to be a wizard because her teacher proved that witches weren't useless. I see no reason that they should have given her the staff other than it being the 'right' thing to do.

a while ago that i read it but wasn't the point that Esk was allowed to join the UU as Wizard in order to LEARN Wizard Magic? I mean, incapable to produce magic in front of a bunch auf old wizards as audience may be really common for novice wizards (Erectile Disfuntion and Staff Jokes etc etc pp). Given what we see in I Shall Wear Midnight she seems to have gotten the hang of Wizard Magic

edited 28th Jun '11 5:59:55 AM by 3of4

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Yeah, but wizard candidates are supposed to display that they can actually do stuff first, aren't they? They were given no reason to believe that she was a wizard.

I'm not saying that she isn't a wizard, I'm saying that while the wizards were obviously kind of dicks about it they did not in fact make the wrong choice by rejecting her, and accepting her at the end was the thing that didn't make sense.

Rincewind got a -5 grades and he's still considered a wiz(z)ard.

Not sure how things works for them, since I haven't read any of the Witches book.

Yeah, but when there has never been a female wizard before and then a little girl comes in and claims to be one but can't do wizard magic, how do find out for sure?

I thought they mentioned female wizards (enchantress) and male witches (warlocks) at some point; I'm sure someone said it in the Discworld WMG page.

I believe it was said that Enchantresses weren't wizards in Equal Rites. Also, I doubt a wizard would think himself incapable of doing witch magic*

as they generally assumed women would be unable to do wizard magic. They would think it beneath him. Thus, the archancellor guy growing to respect witchcraft would be completely justified from dueling with Granny Weatherwax, but no more.

I think Pratchett's ideas about magic and its role in his world changed from the early books like Equal Rites to the later ones. But it seems to me that the wizards and witches eventually emerge as two different ways to solve the same problem. The problem is, what do you do when you are much smarter than everyone else? Both wizards and witches have the temptation to simply step up and seize control of their neighbors' lives (the wizards in Sourcery, the witches in Witches Abroad). The wizards try to control this tendency by clumping together and giving themselves lots of meaningless busy-work (Ponder Stibbuns finds out how to make these studies useful, but he wasn't supposed to). The witches split up, one to each village, and focus on helping the people in their charge in non-magical ways. I think it's an excellent metaphor for how people choose to use their native talents in real life.

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Do you think that there are going to be any more Susan books?

Searching for meaning in meanings

I suspect not, but... that's probably what I would have said before Thief of Time came out, too. (And I loved Thief of Time.)

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Me too, funnily enough, she didn't do all that much in that one.

Searching for meaning in meanings

Good point. It was really more centred on Lobsang and Lu-Tze.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Yup. As a character Susan was at her best and her worst in Soul Music, to me at least. She was also at her most significant, I'd say.

Searching for meaning in meanings

Huh. I guess that kind of puts me in a minority- I really didn't like Small Gods as much, although that's probably mostly because of my dislike of the Gods Need Prayer Badly trope :/ That and Vorbis (that was the High Inquisitor's name, right?) felt like he'd inadvertently wandered in from a Mercedes Lackey novel, honestly. *shrug* Good ending though, I'd have to agree.

Esk gets a shrug and a Characterization Marches On from me- I mostly liked Equal Rites for the intro of the Dungeon Dimensions and the demented Merlin/Madam Mim parody-battle. And while I'd agree that the first couple of books weren't as... well, sharp... as most of the later ones, I wouldn't say they were as bad as all that. They did have some typical Pterry moments with the beggars and the gold.

Honestly, I think Pterry mostly has a pretty good handle on things, as far as characters go- he usually has a solid sense of when it's time to 'retire' the characters as protagonists, or at least POV protagonists- Discworld is a bit more solidly rooted in reality (despite all protests to the contrary) than, say, Dr. McNinja, and increasingly-absurd attempts to top the last Crowning Moment Of Awesome just wouldn't work on the Disc.

Come to think of it, that may be why one of my very favourite moments in the series involves one character being retired- Cohen and the Silver Horde mugging the Valkyries to steal their flying horses after they went 'boom'... and then go off and free the Disc's Prometheus-alike and give him a pointy surprise for the liver-eating eagle was utterly, absolutely classic

Good point about Crowning Moment of Awesome. That sort of thing is fun at the beginning, but can get you painted into a corner.

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It's funny you should mention The Last Hero, because it lets me ramble about a pet theory of mine. I believe that Pratchett was really attached to Cohen's character and maybe found it hard to finish his story. Just look at the last two novels where he appears. At the end of Interesting Times, he gets as good a send-off as any barbarian hero could possibly get, becoming emperor. I don't think anyone would have complained if his story had ended there. And yet, Pratchett brought him and his cohorts back for yet another (awesome) adventure, ending with their epic deaths. Not in any way gratuitous or tacked-on, just a paean to a very beloved character.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

So, is anyone else excited for Snuff?

Bite my shiny metal ass.

I am, actually. I say "actually" because I think the series has lost a lot of steam since Going Postal (though the Tiffany books seem to have been spared), but turns out the day will never come when I'm not excited about a new Discworld book. If it's at least as good as Unseen Academicals, it'll be value for the money.

edited 2nd Sep '11 2:02:06 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

DAMN! Give me a date, I almost forgot!

edited 2nd Sep '11 2:07:10 AM by ryzvonusef

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