Soul Music, Susan Orphan Hero

 

huge popularisation of the orphan trope.


The hero thing seems to be quite a thing. It could be coincidence how closely TP sticks to it, but I'm more or less certain that what with the circles he mixed in and how well read he was, that he'd know of Campbell's work even if he didn't deliberately use it then invert it, subvert it and do his usual Pratchett thing on it.


I would beg to differ with him about her as a hero. I think TP is throwing sand in our eyes by making her an annoyingly arrogant teenager whose favourite word is stupid (occurs 26 times in the book, sadly I counted them, though TP's careful to echo it in othe people's voices not just hers) so she doesn't seem like a typical hero, more like an opposite of what anyone would picture. No glamour, though she rather fancies herself in black lace lol I'm glad she doesn't change too much and turn nice. I think TP's subverting anything he can lay his hands on.


been thinking about what you said about orphan heroing being too common a theme, I suppose in academia things have to have a clear influence or source. whereas TP is very eclectic isn't he. like with the vampires, hoovering up everything that's out there. You probably had to hurry through the document, but I was interested to find that Sensible Susan is a definite trope in its own right. Definitely not a fantasy thing, that, very much a girls fiction thing. He's very widely read. Maybe read what was available for his daughter to read and was parodying that too, showing just how awful some of it is.