Some Liz Thoughts on Discworld

Fantasy Tropes 1 Thought Experiments Thought experiments are the bread and butter of fantasy and science fiction. They are a hallmark of Terry Pratchetts’s writing style. Starting with a “what if'' and running with it. There are plenty in Soul Music. a) In creating the character of Death Terry Pratchett has already set us up with one. What might an anthropomorphic personification look and behave like? What if he became influenced by the very people he was, in a sense, serving? In Soul Music he presents us with another. What if a human child should discover that they were related to him and had inherited his role? In our cultural context this is not as fantastical an idea as it sounds. In the most common faith in Western culture the in-person appearance of the son of God is a key tenet. Christianity is a belief system based on the belief that this father from another dimension sent a representative or part of himself in human form. I don’t believe Terry Pratchett was in any wa...

  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 s...

  From Mort, some foreshadowing and descriptions "In short, Mort was one of those people who are more dangerous than a bag full of rattlesnakes. He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe." "YES? “Well, I think it was because you were up to your knees in horseshit, to tell you the truth.” Death looked at him for a long time. Mort shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, snapped Death. CLARITY OF THOUGHT. REALISTIC APPROACH. VERY IMPORTANT IN A JOB LIKE OURS." Ysabel : "She had silver hair, and eyes with a pearly sheen to them, and the kind of interesting but impractical long, dress that tends to be worn by tragic heroines who clasp single roses to their bosom while gazing soulfully at the moon. Mort had never heard the phrase “Pre-Raphaelite,” which was a pity because it would have been almost the right description. However, such girls tend to be on the translucent, consumptive side, whereas this one had a sli...

"In a beautiful, incremental sequence of images across a number of passages Terry Pratchett contrasts DEATH, plagued by these memory intrusions, his desperate need to forget, with Susan’s gradual return of memory, from creeping to flooding “feeling…no, she realised…the memory was creeping over her from somewhere that this one was not only real but on her side.” “Images rose from the mud at the bottom of her mind.” “The hippo of recollection stirred in the muddy waters of the mind.” “The hippo of memory wallowed…” “Susan sat while memories woke and yawned and unfolded in her head. “I remember about that bathroom now,” she said. “It’s all coming back to me.” “Nah, it never went away. It just got papered over.” “She stood and stared at it as memory flooded back.” In the bereavement section I mention that severely intrusive memories can be a symptom of PTSD (recalling the bad thing that happened) and in chronic unresolved grief (reliving the good things and hankering). and unresolv...

  Definition of angel.  folk belief, mystic belief version.  Sometimes it 's used like that in the bible, but it' s more complex than that. Well actually simpler.  The Greek word angel means a messenger. It can be a heavenly messanger true but in the ancient world, in fact until recently, messengers were a regular and essential part of life.  In the gospels an 'angel' is sent, ie messenger to take a message in Luke 7v22, Luke 9v52, John 13v16. All translated messenger, but the same Greek word is transliterated elsewhere just as angel. Ho hum. Not good translation practice including the religious biases.  In this I really think they should have let people decide because in fact so called angels could be a paid messanger like they had paid scribes in public places to write or read for people, no phones of course. Letters were expensive and slow. In the armed forces they called it sending a runner. Any big employer would have people waiting around to run erran...

  Fan theories and spoilers throughout.  I was chuffed to see someone else enjoying Soul Music recently.  It was one book I didn’t really appreciate until I reread it recently. I liked all the jokes and bad puns and music references, but found it a bit silly. I hadn’t spotted the bitter dark chocolate heart in the middle of the occasionally sickly sweet fun. I was too distracted. I found some amazing writing once I started looking.  1) TP is the FIRST to write orphans or boarding school themes within a short while of us hearing of the situation of the Romanian Orphans which broke in 1990 . Rowling, Pulman, Martin etc all came after TP publishing Soul Music in 1994. It turns out there was a small but growing movement discussing Boarding School Syndrome in the UK in the early 90s too - exposing the fact that children placed too young in institutions, even elite ones, could be damaged by the experience (work of Duffel, Beard, later Shcaverein).  I hadn’t seen the ...