#Discworld meta

[marie-mcd]

A recurring feature that I like in Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's stories is the mundane and ordinary juxtaposed and blended with the extraordinary and fantastical.

There's a lot of humour derived from this, but it got me wondering if the concept also works as a theme under the surface of the humour, so I'll explore that idea a bit here with examples from Good Omens and Discworld.

First a look at the humour side, because it's fun, and so that people know what I'm referring to:

-In the opening sequence of Good Omens S1E1: an angel and a demon (fantastical beings) are conversing like ordinary people, using idioms like "Well that went down like a lead balloon", against a setting of biblical proportions.

-The Archangels' meeting in S2E6 discussing first the Second Coming ("Nah!"), and then next on the agenda is the cleaning roster.

-The visuals of heaven and hell in general - it's the subversion of expectations on what these places "should" look and function like - offices, clipboards, contracts, bureaucracy. This is humour and seems like theme/motif at the same time; the visual cues say a lot about heaven and hell and their role in this story.

-Death from the Discworld books owns an umbrella stand and a hairbrush, likes kitty cats, and rides a white horse named Binky.

-In Small Gods, the Great God Om is incarnated as a tortoise:

And it came to pass that in that time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One:

'Psst!'

Next, looking at the concept's thematic or metaphorical potential.

The following excerpt gets me thinking about how people put outsized importance on mundane things, and about normalcy bias kicking in when a narrow mind is confronted with extraordinary events.

From Good Omens book (about RP Tyler):

It is a high and lonely destiny to be Chairman of the Lower Tadfield Residents' Association.

[…]

Your car is on fire.

No. Tyler just couldn't bring himself to say it. I mean, the man had to know that, didn't he? He was sitting in the middle of it. Possibly it was some kind of practical joke.

Next, a scene that makes me think about retreating into the mundane to cope, after being confronted with an extraordinary event.

From Good Omens S2E6:

Nina: Oh, God, I should've been open half an hour ago.

Maggie: How can you think about that after all this??

Nina: People need coffee, I sell coffee, it's my coffee shop.

And next, thinking about how the minutiae of the everyday distracts us from paying enough attention to big world issues (a bit of normalcy bias again too). 

From Good Omens book (when the horsepersons of the apocalypse arrive at the airbase):

No one stopped the four as they purposefully made their way into one of the long, low buildings under the forest of radio masts. No one paid any attention to them. Perhaps they saw nothing at all. Perhaps they saw what their minds were instructed to see, because the human brain is not equipped to see War, Famine, Pollution, and Death when they don't want to be seen, and has got so good at it that it often manages not to see them even when they abound on every side.

Next, two excerpts from Discworld books. At first I was thinking along the lines of needing to focus on the everyday because we can't spend all our time focusing on big existential stuff, or, how we take the wonders of nature for granted because of busy lives; but then I realized, I think it's actually a clever inversion of what we consider to be ordinary - that just being alive, against all odds, in the vast universe, is actually quite extraordinary.

From Small Gods:

And one of [the brain's] functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.

Because if this was not the case, then human beings, faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big stupid grins […] And no one would do much work.

Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.

Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels.

[more going on in the above than just the subject of the post, but I'm narrowing the focus here]

From Hogfather:

THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.

"Yes, but people don't think about that," said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed …

CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE'S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A … A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.

And a quote from Terry Pratchett himself, inverting ordinary/extraordinary (the whole video is great, by the way):

Within the story of evolution is a story far more interesting than any in the Bible. It teaches us amazing things: that stars are not important - there is nothing interesting about stars. Street lamps are very important, because they're so rare. As far as we know there's only a few million of them in the universe. And they were built by monkeys! Who came up with philosophy, and gods.

He also mentioned here that his impression after reading the Old Testament was: "If this is all true, then we are in the hands of a madman!" Off topic again, but relevant to some of what went into Good Omens I think.

Not sure if I've proved anything here, and that wasn't the goal, but it was fun to find some quotes for my brain to play around with!

#long post #good omens #good omens meta #good omens 2 #good omens book #Discworld meta #Discworld #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #gnu terry pratchett #hogfather #small gods #p

[twoflowersdeadwife]

...or maybe the Lady is actually Rincewind's Mother/Creator

Clues:

Rincewind's self-proclaimed middle name is Luck (first name Bad)

He is described as a "luck sink" in Unseen Academicals (and what do you do in a sink? rinse! not a clue, just a pun)

He gets into dangerous situations (bad luck) but then always survives them (good luck)

Rincewind's mother ran away before he was born-- if taken literally, then this could only occur with magic, so his mother was either a time travelling witch or a goddess

He kept encountering the Number 8, which is considered unlucky to wizards due to the Octavo; 8 looks like an infinity symbol and also sort of like a woman's body -- who is an immortal 'woman'? The Lady (this one is kind of a stretch, I admit)

The Lady has green eyes, some of the official art portrays Rincewind with green eyes

But then who is Rincewind's father if the Lady is his mother? (if a father is even required in this situation) Possible candidates include:

Fate - an enemies-to-rivals-who-fuck romance that produced a child, Rincewind, whose fate is adventure and danger but who also has the good luck to survive it all. (yeah, Fate tried to get Rincewind and Twoflower killed, but maybe he didn't know or even didn't care Rincewind was his son)

Lavaeolus, the Rinser of Winds - who had to go on an oddessey (misspelling intentional) to get home. Maybe the Lady played the role of Circe in his journey, and Rincewind was born as a result (many years in the future, because the Lady decided she needed him at that time for her games with the other gods)

Bill Rincewind - who then, upon finding out he--who as a wizard is meant to be celibate--got a woman pregnant, went out for milk/cigarettes/beer and took the 'wrong' boat, ending up in Fourecks (this is a crack theory)

#rincewind #discworld #the light fantastic #the colour of magic #interesting times #unseen academicals #Discworld: Eric #Discworld: the Lady #The Lady #Discworld: Lavaeolus #discworld meta #discworld theory

[lancrewizzard]

comment on dwarf gender

O.K. from a queer pov where all roles are performative regardless of body, dwarf culture only acknowledges one to be portrayed in public, there are dwarfs that give birth and dwarfs that don't, but they all perform the same way, and THEY DON'T MENTION SEX IN PUBLIC. The gender "dwarf" is effectively Neuter. The clan that acknowledges two genders [Soul Music] was not discussed in detail so we don't know if there are trans dwarfs in that clan, but otoh there is Casanunda who is practically human, he is so Out of the closet as a Male dwarf. [And Nanny Ogg in Maskerade was said to have some dwarf ancestry, so there may have been another one like Casanunda long ago.] So we have dwarfs, generic neutral, and then we have OUT dwarfs like Cheery and Casanunda, who are openly Beings With A Gender.

ANON YOU GET IT!

Cheery is transfem and Cassanunda is transmasc, because they both are Gendered.

#submission #discworld #discworld meta #if any cis people are going to argue with this please consider removing your own tongue instead

[firstofficerrose]

That's it! That's why the Wizards books don't work as well!

All the other books are angry. The Wizards are satisfied, except for Rincewind and maybe Ponder.

The strength of the other books is how well they express Sir Terry's anger with Things that society is complacent about. The joy of those books is watching the characters do something about it, even if it doesn't always make the kind of difference they're aiming for.

But the Wizards don't have that. Ponder is constantly exasperated with the faculty, but can't do much to change anything, so he just keeps doing experimental magic and messing with Hex. Rincewind is angry, but the anger is different from Granny Weatherwax's or Sam Vimes or most of the other protagonists. Rincewind's anger is aimed at how the world tortures him specifically.

And that's not wrong, precisely, because the universe really does seem to be out to get Rincewind in particular and he's right to be upset about that. And his sheer determination to stay alive despite all of it is, in it's own way, inspiring.

But it's not... it's not the same. It doesn't shake me the way the others do. The Wizards books are mostly explorations of how British literature (and culture, and empire) has treated other countries/nations/peoples. Most of them are what I think of as Expedition Novels. And there's some points made, very sharply, in them, but it's not the same.

It's not Cheery demanding to be female. It's not Vimes demanding that both he and his city be better. It's not Granny Weatherwax standing at the edges and demanding that people not be treated as things. It's not Tiffany Aching knowing her mind and her land and demanding that those who would threaten either be gone. It's not the golems demanding freedom on their own terms and no one else's. It's not Death demanding of the universe that the Reaper Man care for the Harvest.

The Wizards have what they want. They are, as a group, content. And there's something there about having great and destructive power and not using it to destroy; but the Wizards don't use that as a stance, they just enjoy their twelve course lunches and let the Disc go on largely undisturbed.

It may be a good thing for the Disc that there aren't any properly angry Wizards who can do the sort of magic that would sort out what they're angry about. But because of it, the stories aren't as good.

#long post #discworld #anger #gnu terry pratchett #wizards novels #rose reads #rose rambles #discworld meta

[pencildragons]

ok but the jedi as parallels of the witches of discworld. slightly mystical figures that everyone’s scared of, giving people what they need, not necessarily what they want, particularly if it’s a kick up the ass. jedi and witches as forces of good, but not some wishy-washy stuff that’s preached about and only thought of as an abstract, i’m talking solid, hard goodness that breaks your teeth when you bite into it and sits in your stomach like a rockcake. they live on the edge, helping those that aren’t seen, those that society doesn’t want to see, simply because no one else will. and darkness is a choice, but not just one big one, instead a series of justifications for slowly worsening things that you keep on choosing until you think that just because you have power, you are better than other people. you have a gift, but there is a time and a place to use it, and just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

(also jedi on broomsticks/granny weatherwax with a laser sword is just absolutely *chef’s kiss*)

#sw #star wars #starwars #i am still unclear as to which is the correct one #UGH i just have so many FEELINGS about this #discworld #witches #jedi #sw meta #discworld meta

[sauntervaguelydown]

Love & Pratchett

The thing about Terry Pratchett is that he wrote about people falling in love plenty, but he never wrote about what I'd call typical romance. When love is sincere and profound it is also very... understated. Practical. Sybil & Vimes--his most famous couple--are like this. The demonstration of devotion is in small things, like wearing the horrible uncomfortable socks your wife made for you because she made them for you. There's a sense of the inevitable about them coming together.

In many cases you wouldn't know it was romance except that the recognizable formula of "boy and girl" picks it out. Look at Newt & Anathema in Good Omens--that's classic Pratchett. They barely exchange a romantic word and in fact it's almost out of Anathema's hands whether she's going to hook up with this absolute soyboy (affectionate). She's not really that nice to him. I always get the impression that the core of their connection is that they're bonded by this experience that no one else can understand. Bonding through shared experience (and even trauma) is a common theme in these subplots.

There's definitely a few showier romance plots, but they're always very tongue in cheek--for example, the literal Romeo & Juliet in Unseen Academicals where Juliet is a very good hearted but basically stupid girl and the POV character is her exasperated mom-friend. There's a lot of gags in the early Discworld novels about male and female characters who Have to fall in love because that's the way narrative works. It's not that they're doomed to be unhappy or even fake or anything, they're just not that deep. Mostly, monogamy is a mundane affair and not really the business of onlookers anyway. Admittedly, the female pov characters have a tendency to wish that things could be a bit more... dramatic. Look at Angua, she's always vaguely frustrated that her boyfriend doesn't react to their relationship with a bit more angst, but ultimately she's practical too. She just wants her partner to be a bit less practical for a moment.

I just reread Nation. Nation isn't a Discworld novel, but I think in a lot of ways it's the most condensed Terry Pratchett you'll ever find in one place. Two characters who are both clever to start with, and wise by the ending, have fallen in love with each other. It's never directly stated. No one confesses to anyone. They get teased about it a little by adults around them. They rescue each other, perform feats of unasked-for heroism on each other's behalf. And at the end, although they want to stay together, they choose their responsibility to their families--and to the future of the world--over staying together. There's one kiss on the cheek as a farewell. But you know that they're still thinking of each other, because at the end of the timeline despite living worlds apart their entire lives, they ask to be buried together.

This is, in my estimation, is the most romantic thing in the Terry Pratchett catalogue. If I can be forgiven for pretending to know the mind of a stranger, I think this is what he found the most romantic. It really is just a profound friendship, between two people who maybe don't always understand each other but always respect each other. Sex really is just a bonus thing, it's nice and certain characters (Angua, Carrot come to mind) pretty clearly have a good time with it, but it's sort of taken for granted. Even kissing isn't all that important. You can't really tell who's in love with who in a Pratchett novel just by looking for physical demonstrations of affection.

Anyway, over the years of Good Omens discourse, this has been the main thing that informs my reading of Aziraphale & Crowley. I'm not widely read in Gaiman material, so I can't speak to that, but from a Pratchett-canon lens, Aziraphale and Crowley fit the vibes of a romantic relationship pretty well. The shared experience, the sense that only they really can understand each other because no one else has seen what they've seen. The heroic gesture of Crowley in the burning shop--the respect that they have for each other, despite the occasional bitching--the "ah. so it's like that." observation of people around them. And most of all, the way they come back together at the end of the novel in a poetic but understated moment, because coming back together of your own free will and going forward together is possibly the most romantic thing that a couple can do in a Pratchett novel.

#discworld #meta

[xserpx]

The scent rolled over him.

He looked up.

Overhead, a lilac tree was in bloom.

He stared.

Damn! Damn! Damn! Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn't want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart. And today, of all days ...

— Night Watch by Terry Pratchet

#discworld #night watch #GNU Terry Pratchett #it's not the 25th of may but this fits the 12th of march just as much 😔 #the prescient meta relevance of night watch is just... damn

[amuseoffyre]

I know Good Omens is a separate animal from Discworld, but I’m having so many thoughts about the way that the Metatron vibes with Vorbis from Small Gods.

In Small Gods, Vorbis is the Archdeacon of Omnia, a place loosely based on the Spanish-inquisition era, where heretics are tortured and killed and anyone who tries to bring other lines of thought in are destroyed, much like Gabriel, having his mind wiped and being stripped of everything that makes him him. It gets to the point that Vorbis will have his own people killed and frame other places to begin a religious war as an excuse to invade.

‘Everyone knows’ Vorbis is meant to be the Prophet and the Voice of God and everyone believes it, but the thing is that he’s not. He is part of the institution. There’s a wonderful line in the book that “Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.” One might say it’s an institutional problem.

This is what the Metatron is starting to feel like to me. God’s voice hasn’t been heard in the show since 2500BC. But if you try and contact Her, you always and only get the Metatron. “To speak to me is to speak to the Almighty”. And the institution is so powerful that everyone continues to believe this, just as they believe Vorbis is destined to be the Prophet.

In Small Gods, Om - the God - isn’t quite dead. He’s currently stuck in the body of a tortoise with a single believer who believes in him rather than the structure. Brutha, the young priest (and actual believer and now, a legit prophet because he has a tortoise nagging him), ends up as the trusted and useful companion of Vorbis and is key to Vorbis’s plans for destroying their rivals.

And wouldn’t you know now we have Aziraphale - the one person in the show who says “I don���t think that’s what God really wants” over and over - standing beside the Metatron, the person who claims to speak for God.

I just find it very interesting ;)

#good omens #discworld #good omens s2 #good omens meta

[fangirl-erdariel]

I've been thinking about Discworld again, and one thing I really have to respect in Pratchett's style of writing is that he really knew when to show and when to imply.

And he uses that a lot, implying and letting the reader's imagination fill in the blanks, for comedic effect, but I think where it shows more and is maybe even more crucial, is the dark things.

I mean, consider Pratchett's works. Especially the ones dealing with heavy themes, like racism, police brutality, the horrors of war, a dozen other things. It would be so easy to resort to explicit graphic violence to get the point across. To showing the reader the full brutality of a torture chamber, a battle-field, a gang fight. It would be so easy to show it, to talk of the blade sinking into the flesh, of the sound of breaking bones. It would be so easy that I could probably do an adequate job of hammering the point home with those.

But he doesn't, does he? What he does is he implies. He gives enough details to fill in the blanks, he might show the aftermath of wounded or scarred soldiers with missing limbs, the blood splattered on the walls. Or in some cases, he might have the characters talk of it. But he only ever shows the torture chamber, not the torture itself.

And on one hand, I think it's good because it's easier on the reader. A lot of people probably don't really want to have each act of violence described in detail. Plus, it'd really just ruin the books. Graphic violence just doesn't work that well with Pratchett's style, and it wouldn't add anything worthwhile.

But on the other hand, I think he mastered a way of making it much more uncomfortable (though not necessarily in a bad way) than showing it explicitly could have been. There's a certain way of implying things that gives imagination enough to work with to fill the blanks in with something worse than anything explicit could have been. I don't know why, perhaps it's that there's a certain kind of release in explicit brutality, in seeing the violence completely, that there isn't in only implying it and making your mind imagine it. Or maybe it is that it plants in your mind the idea that the bad things are so bad as to be unspeakable, so bad that they can't or shouldn't be put in words. (Or maybe it's just a personal thing, and I just find the merely-implied worse than the explicitly shown for the same reason as I find slasher horror to be mostly just boring in a vaguely disgusting way, but a good psychological horror can have me scared shitless for days. Maybe it's just the same reason why I like Pratchett and dislike grimdark fantasy.)

But even in cases where it's not meant to be like extremely disturbing, even in cases where it's, at least from the reader's perspective, not very bad at all, sometimes simply suggesting things just is more effective. Sometimes, it just doesn't work as well to describe in length a man walking through a door and falling screaming to his death as it is to say: "Sadly, he did not believe in angels."

Point is, there is certain mastery in that subtlety. Implying in an effective way is, quite frankly, a lot harder in my opinion than showing everything. And I just... I have to admire Pratchett, because good gods did he know how to do that right

#erdariel rambles #discworld #gnu terry pratchett #terry pratchett #writing #creative writing #meta

[jotun-philosopher]

Discworld/Good Omens parallels ramble

Exactly what it says on the tin! These are some fun little Discworld/Good Omens parallels that my brain picked up on at various times (usually 3 a.m. or thereabouts... Thanks, mum, for the persistent insomnia...)

Mild-to-moderate spoilers for Wyrd Sisters, Lords And Ladies, Men At Arms and Carpe Jugulum below the cut.

In A Life With Footnotes, the official biography of Terry Pratchett, Rob Wilkins mentions that when he was in school, a young Pterry wrote for English class a story (sadly lost to the mists of time) about orcs attacking a vicarage in full Jane-Austen-spoof fashion. Now, given how the Whickber Street Shopkeepers' Ball turned out, it seems reasonable to assume one of two things: a) Neil Gaiman did not know about this story when writing S2 and the parallel is an ineffably delightful coincidence (a bit unlikely) b) Neil Gaiman *did* know about this story when writing S2, and the nod to Pterry happened to work really well with the plot (seems a bit more likely). Either way, the parallel is there and giving me all of the warm fuzzies <3

There's an idea in Discworld, forming a significant part of the moral backbone of the series, that's very succinctly summed up by Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum: "[S]in [...] is when you treat people like things. Including yourself." This is absolutely at the core of what's wrong with Heaven and Hell and God and Satan in Good Omens; the leadership and culture of both organisations/cults treat everyone -- angels, demons and humans alike -- as disposable things to be used and toyed with and discarded or destroyed if they start having the temerity to be imperfect or form opinions or thoughts of their own.

There're two characters in Discworld who parallel Aziraphale surprisingly strongly: Magrat Garlick (of the Lancre witches) and Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. -*Magrat is viewed as a bit of a soft, soppy 'wet hen' by the other witches, but she is still a witch, with all that that implies. She also has at least one scene in every book in which she appears where she does something extremely badass and witchy; for example, turning an ancient wooden door back into a tree, or (very pertinently to GO) delivering a literally iron-clad punch to the face of a villain who's mentally torturing her with her own insecurities. Likewise, Aziraphale seems to mostly be viewed as a bit dull and wimpy by the other angels we see (though Magrat still has the genuine respect of her witchy peers) but he is still an angel -- a Principality -- with all the powers, steadfast guardianship and bloody-minded stubbornness of that rank. The Metatrash might not be vulnerable to iron in the same way as Discworld elves, but you can bet that his attempt to break Aziraphale and bring him into line is going to backfire just as spectacularly! *For the parallel between Aziraphale and Captain (well, Corporal, at this point in the Discworld timeline) Carrot, the novel I have in mind is Men At Arms. At one point, Vimes is being held at crossbow-point by a villain, and has a bout of internal monologuing about how, if someone has you at their mercy, you'd better hope they're evil, because that way they'll take time to gloat and mock you so you'll have an opportunity to think of a way out; a good man will kill you with barely a word. Carrot does exactly that at the climax of the plot, putting his sword through the villain and the stone pillar behind said villain without saying a thing. Now, Aziraphale might not quite have Carrot's 'incorruptible pure pureness' tendencies, but he is -- for all his flaws -- a good person. If he knows that something needs to be done to prevent an evil outcome, he will DO it without hesitation. He knows how to use a sword, too, and if That Frickin' Elevator Smile Of Tranquil Fury is any indication, the Metatrash is in far deeper doodoo than he realises! Related to the above, The Smile also reminds me of the old adage, "beware the fury of a patient man." (Well, man-shaped being in this case...) Very appropriate for our careful, thoughtful angel -- it would not surprise me (much) if Metatron were to depart the plot of S3 with a flaming sword pinning him to one of Heaven's columns (probably won't happen, but I can dream, eh?)

Hope you enjoyed reading all that :D

#good omens #good omens meta #discworld #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #granny weatherwax #magrat garlick #captain carrot #carrot ironfoundersson #terry pratchett #sir terry pratchett #pterry #gnu terry pratchett

[three--rings]

Because it’s the Glorious 25th, I am of course thinking of Sam Vimes today. 

And the thing about Vimes as a hero is that he’s so extreme in personality, but also so deeply relatable. 

Carrot, for example, (and of course it’s not an accident that Carrot is there as comparison) is your typical fantasy hero.  And he’s not relatable at all.  He’s Good in a way that most people will never be, can never be.  There’s something God-touched about his goodness.  And his goodness isn’t...super effective.  I mean, it is a little.  But no, who is it that really creates and continues the sweeping change of Discworld, over and over again?  It’s Sam Vimes.

Sam Vimes, who spent most of his life drunk and in a gutter.  Who burnt out from his unfair job, unjust world, and unappreciated caring and gave up.  For YEARS AND YEARS he gave up. 

Until he finally met a situation that was so intense it forced him to care again.

And lord, that is so COMFORTING.  That you can fuck up your whole life for a couple decades and then still answer the call when it comes.  Save the day and push for changes.  Be the sand in the gears of industry, fight impossible odds and win over and over, while complaining about having to do it the whole time. 

Vimes as we mostly know him is a character our world desperately needed.  Someone who keeps pushing and pushing against overwhelming injustice, even when it seems like the powers that be are stacked so high against you. 

But also how much more powerful to say “this character was once a total waste of space.”  He was ground down by daily life and constant injustice.  But he didn’t stay that way forever.

And god if that’s not inspirational as fuck. 

#discworld #gnu terry pratchett #sam vimes #the glorious 25th of may #this isn't like ground breaking analysis #I just have a lot of feelings about sam vimes #my meta

[marie-mcd]

There's a specific concept from Good Omens that I really like (amongst many others), that I was chuffed to also find in a Sandman and a Discworld story!

I love that in Good Omens (both book and TV), Heaven and Hell are presented as mostly redundant and ineffectual when it comes to human morality - and that Hell in particular find some of the things humans do to be pretty shocking, and/or instructive.

Opportunities for humour aside, this idea flies in the face of the common belief that the world's worst ills are the result of outside forces influencing people to do evil (ie the devil. Or ... lizard people etc? I digress). And it's unlike other stories out there that are like, "World War II was actually caused by xyz characters!" or similar. Good Omens doesn't rewrite history like that, or let us - humanity - off the hook when it comes to the big stuff, when it could so easily have done so in a universe where Heaven and Hell are literally real.

The story, of course, also credits human cleverness to humans, and celebrates the things we should be proud of, like art, music, delicious food, craftmanship, invention, etc. And it credits humans for having a propensity for compassion and goodness.

"[Crowley] did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. […] And just when you'd think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved."

I love this concept because I see it as an uncoupling of religion and morality. They can both exist together, but the former isn't necessary for the latter. (This isn't the only possible interpretation; the more literal reading might be more about free will, but this is where I extrapolated it to).

From Sandman: Season of Mists Episode 2 (plot context stripped out to avoid spoilers, but skip ahead to black text if you want absolutely nothing spoiled if you want to read it).

Lucifer: "And the mortals! I ask you - why? […] Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them."

And from Eric, a Discworld book (this one's related to Hell learning from humans, more than morality/free will... I won't spoil the funny by elaborating!):

"Earl Beezlemoth rubbed one of his three noses.

'And humans somewhere thought this up all by themselves?' he said. 'We didn't give them any, you know, hints?' […]

The earl stared into infinity. 'I thought we were supposed to be the ghastly ones,' he said, his voice filled with awe."

Another commonality between these two stories that isn't directly shared by Good Omens (yet...? still have another season coming …) but that I like enough to point out, is the idea that Hell is a place where people end up if they believe they deserve to go there. I like this because a lot of people are influenced to feel guilty about "sins" that are innocuous parts of normal human behaviour, so it's pretty brutal to fear going to Hell over them. There's comfort in this idea, to me. (granted, the following Sandman quote states this less explicitly but I take the same meaning from it … but lmk if I've done a reading incomprehension; I also haven't read all the books yet).

From Sandman:

Lucifer: "And then [the mortals] die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here."

From Eric (partial footnote near the beginning):

"Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go."

Eric also really leans into the idea of Hell being a bureaucratic, corporate, boring nightmare, also familiar to Good Omens fans, and the demons are so over it. The tone (you could probably guess) is very different from Sandman, and it's one of the earlier, less-serious Discworld books; it's a very fun, absurd ride of a read!

There are a few other Discworld books I'll talk about in a future post, that may also be of interest to certain Good Omens fans (I'm gearing these posts toward the fans who came to Good Omens from the TV show and haven't had the pleasure of discovering Neil's and Terry's other work yet); the ones I have in mind examine religious extremism, and the uncoupling of religion and morality too. A couple of them also have queer themes, if that is also your jam! (Less shipping opportunities but I assume some fans, like me, like the rest of the material in GO in addition to the love story).

I'll end this with a quote from a footnote from Eric that has nothing to do with anything in this post, but which took me by surprise and had me laughing days later whenever it came to mind. It's referring to books in a section of the library:

"Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken."

And another bonus one that I found while looking for the first:

"Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, 'Where's my clean socks?', no one answers."

I hope this made sense and is maybe interesting to someone ... I had fun talking about this at least!

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens 2 #sandman #discworld #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #gnu terry pratchett #crowley #eric #eric faust #rincewind #p

[twoflowersdeadwife]

Are Eskarina and Simon Rincewind's Parents?

I'm sure someone probably said all this before, but here is my list of clues:

No Experience with Either Parent

Esk says she has a son

Esk can travel through time, so it's possible she went back in time to give birth and left her son there for his own protection, returning to the future (aka: ran away before her son was born)

Esk is from the Ramtops; Rincewind had a sheep plushie as a child

The Dungeon Dimensions

Esk and Simon went to the Dungeon Dimensions, Simon getting taken there and Esk going to rescue him--Rincewind also went to the Dungeon Dimensions, saving someone from there, like Esk, and getting trapped there, like Simon

The Dungeon Dimensions called to Simon, and the Octavo called to Rincewind

Intelligence and Personality Traits

Upon arriving at Unseen University, Simon went immediately to the library-- Rincewind worked in the library

Simon is a booksmart genius and Esk says her son might grow up to be an engineer -- the Roundworld version of Rincewind, Rjinswand, was a nuclear physicist

Esk insists she is a wizard, despite being a girl--Rincewind insists he is a wizzard, despite not being able to do magic

Physical Traits

Simon is tall and gangly, Rincewind is tall and gangly

Esk has brown hair while young, much of the official art shows Rincewind with brown hair

As a child, Esk liked to run around more than most little girls (debatable: most books on little girls are written by men), Rincewind is always running

Anything else I missed? For or against?

#Rincewind #Eskarina Smith #Esk #Eskarina #Simon #Equal Rites #The Colour of Magic #Discworld #discworld meta

[nevertheless-moving]

been catching snatches of your stormlight posting. never enough to actually understand anything. should i read it

I really liked it! However it was on my reading list for many years before I finally was in the right headspace to dive in. It's a lot.

The Stormlight Archive consists of four fairly long high fantasy novels and two tie in novellas. It takes place on an alternate fantasy world called Roshar, which is part of a larger fantasy universe called the Cosmere. If you like high fantasy epics, or if you're interested in giving them a shot, then yes, definitely try out the Cosmere!

High fantasy, as I define it — sorry if you know this already anon also sorry if my definition differs from other's reading this — is...bigger than life. High fantasy is two main things. First, the setting— magic creatures and fantastical architecture and folks with super cool magic powers. Second, High Fantasy is the way people behave, which verges into Mythology and Fairy Tale. I'll explain.

Don't get me wrong, when well written, and Cosmere is very well written, the people still feel real. I mean the glowing guys wearing vaguely renaissance faire clothing who are fighting the giant rock monsters still have complex relationships with their fathers. But it's also an idealization — people saying the right words at the right time, people being their noblest version of themselves. Read and/or Watch the Lord of The Rings and take notes on Aragorn's speech at the Black Gate. It's the fantasy of people at their best, noble in all the ways we want the word to mean.

Low fantasy, by contrast, is a bit more grounded, both in the setting and the people. The places in low fantasy look more like your day to day on earth — dive bars with bouncers and crude jokes on bathroom doors. The dive bar bouncer in low fantasy is just a massive rock troll and the graffiti has penises of many different fantasy races. The people are a bit more like some guy you know. It can still be a good some guy you know. Just if they have to fight a nightmare monster they're probably ugly crying and maybe peeing themselves a little. People can still be good and bad, they just maybe have a bit less polish.

There's obviously lots of grey area — Game of Thrones has a lot of high fantasy setting elements, being a vaugely mideval europe pastiche with dragons, but the way it focuses on brothels and people trudging through mud is a bit more low, the reality of a world without indoor plumbing, as opposed to the dream of a world without cellphones. It has epic speeches and larger than life figures, but they get bogged down by stuff like taxes and dehydration, which high fantasy doesn't generally linger on. I'd argue some of the worst behavior fits right in with high fantasy — the red wedding is just a much graphic version than we're used to of the ol' scheming advisor trope, but still fits into the archetypes. Anyway.

Discworld by Terry Pratchett is an excellent low fantasy series, and if you're looking for a fantasy book recommendation and haven't read/watched/ didn't really enjoy lord of the rings, or if you did and want to read my favorite series, then read these 100%. If you've read them already — nice.

(I think having some more familiar touchstones makes fantasy novels more enjoyable for folks who aren't into their recreational reading being Very Unlike real life . Discworld is incredibly funny, while also being full of heart. The turns of phrase are adult without being crazy dense. I'm not a personally big grimdark person; I prefer my stories with a core belief that people who are good deep down, which is at the heart of Pratchett's writing. I laughed, I cried. I recommend Guards, Guards as a first book but you can start lots of places.)

To get back a little closer to your initial question — I started reading the Cosmere with Mistborn, which consists of three novels, a several hundred year time gap, and then four more, slightly shorter but still pretty long novels. It takes place on a completely different world from Stormlight. The planets are only tentatively connected, but there the very solid promise that they will interact a lot more soon.

By soon I mean in the next decade as far as book publishing goes, because the author, Brandon Sanderson, is a madman. And by madman I mean he fucking writes like a machine. I checked his website and he posts things like "23% percent through my next book." "45% through" "82% through" who writes like that??? He's also a massive prude, which is hilarious. I love him in a non parasocial way. He's got the next 20 years of book releases mapped out. Whom the fuck??

Anyway if you like high fantasy epics, or want to try one, then yes, definitely try out the Cosmere! It's funny, I've always had a hard time listening to audiobooks, but either things clicked in my head or the narrators, Michael Kremer and Kate Reading, are just that good.

I...actually liked Mistborn more than Stormlight. The first Stormlight book I found a little hard to get through at the start, because the main characters seriously go through it, but I had trust in the author at that point and things DID get better. Mistborn hooked me start to finish and every plot twist felt perfectly executed in a way that Stormlight didn't completely nail for me. I mean, Stormlight Archive is still a great series, with compelling characters and well structured romances and interesting world building and super, super rad fight scenes.

I'm posting obsessively about Stormlight partially because I'm scrambling for more cosmere content (I didn't actually expect to reach the end) and partially because there are things in the books that weren't 100% satisfying, and those spaces are where fandom lives. Again, it's still really, really good. Just long, and sometimes fairly heavy in how much the main characters struggle with mental illness while fighting crab monsters.

In the stormlight archive, your personal fight with depression and PTSD and drug addiction is actually inextricably linked to your super rad glowing magic power fight with rock monsters and crab people. The crab people who also have a lot of trauma and mental illness.

Honestly, I'm not sure how Sanderson is going to resolve that.

But fuck it, TLDR, Stormlight is good but long, and the next book is supposed to resolve a bunch of stuff and it comes out this December, and the way he wrapped up things in his other books was really satisfying! So this is a pretty good time to get into the series!

#discworld #cosmere #lord of the rings #terry pratchett #brandon sanderson #stormlight archive #nevertheless meta #ask

[mathmusicreading]

Currently thinking about the title of Supernatural season 4 episode 1 "Lazarus Rising". It's so simple and so evocative. I think I get something extra from it because I love Terry Pratchett, Discworld, Hogfather, Discworld's Death, and the quote "where the falling angel meets the rising ape". (Do the Destiel shippers go wild with this? The Cas fans supporting his love for humanity and even creating free will? They should.) But just on it's own, it's referencing coming back to life and the phrasing has connotations of ascension and empowerment. It also avoids connotations of zombies or likening Dean to Jesus Christ.

On that note, I wonder how much Supernatural meant to parallel Dean Winchester to Lazarus of Bethany, and Castiel to Jesus for that matter. (With how little I engage with Supernatural canon, I think my thoughts on Chuck's relationship with Castiel are mixed and not set, but for fun right now: Castiel is Chuck's favorite angel, and Chuck hates it and hates him for it!)

Dean was dead for four months, much like Lazarus was dead for four days. (Dean was also in hell for 40 years, a significant number and amount of time in the Bible. And moving away from the Christianity angle, four is a fitting motif with Dean's death given "four" sounding like "death" in Mandarin Chinese.)

Dean is "the righteous man", while part of the title with which Lazarus is venerated is "Righteous Lazarus".

If "risen dead" evokes zombies and "risen from the dead" invokes Jesus, then "Lazarus rising" conveys that the subject of resurrection is a normal human, and the key is that they are resurrected by a great power who is good. Specifically, Lazarus is resurrected by Jesus, the Son of God, and Dean is resurrected not by a necromancer or demon, but by the angel Castiel, sent on a holy mission.

Jesus did not immediately save Lazarus, rushing to heal him upon hearing of his illness, but waited two days before traveling to and resurrecting Lazarus after he died. I can't help but feel like this is similar to Castiel's not rescuing Dean until 40 years into Dean's sentence in Hell, after he had broken on the rack and become a torturer shedding blood in Hell.

Jesus did not merely heal Lazarus when he was sick, but resurrected him after death, for God's glory and that people might believe in Jesus' own coming resurrection. (God resurrecting Castiel, anyone?) I think Supernatural canon is not explicitly clear, and it may be widespread fanon or a popular fan head canon that Castiel was sent immediately to rescue Dean, but wow the similarity to Jesus and his mission if Cas couldn't reach Dean or wasn't sent until after Dean broke because of heaven's ultimate plan to carryout the apocalypse, rescuing Dean not being about saving a righteous man but about breaking the first seal to Lucifer's cage.

Not full of meaning, but Jesus resurrected Lazarus in his tomb and still wrapped in his grave cloths. So for the people jokingly asking why Castiel left Dean in his coffin, six feet under, instead of zapping him out, it's because we're really leaning into the Jesus angle. (Is Cas lobotomized Jesus?!)

And the kickers now that we've gone through all that: Jesus wept. He was moved with compassion for Lazarus' sisters and friends. He mourned Lazarus' death even while on the way to resurrect him. It was well known by all that he loved Lazarus. Take that how you will and run with it, Cas fans and Destiel shippers!

Last thing not being included with the rest because you can't as easily get it just from reading John 11:1-44 or doing an internet search for Lazarus. DiscIaimer that above, I got the title with which Lazarus is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church from Wikipedia, and so too the following Biblical interpretation/theological commentary.

The miracle of the raising of Lazarus is the climax of John's "signs". It explains the crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, and leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin to plan to kill Jesus. Theologians Moloney and Harrington view the raising of Lazarus as a "pivotal miracle" which starts the chain of events that leads to the Crucifixion of Jesus. They consider it as a "resurrection that will lead to death", in that the raising of Lazarus will lead to the death of Jesus, the Son of God, in Jerusalem which will reveal the Glory of God.[17]

Dean's resurrection led to Castiel's death. Castiel died because he saved and loved Dean. When Castiel first laid a hand on [Dean] in Hell, he was lost! Castiel died because Chuck is a Pharisee that can't accept his manly everyman main character (sorry, Sam) is bisexual instead of straight. Chuck can be bisexual, but the manly everyman main character has to be straight, and so he killed Castiel for it. Dean too if you believe Chuck won.

And if the point of Lazarus' resurrection is Jesus' divinity, then the point of Dean's resurrection is that the angel is gay and Dean is bi!

#Supernatural #SPN #Destiel #Dean Winchester #Castiel #4x1 #Lazarus Rising #Lazarus #Jesus #Terry Pratchett #Discworld #Hogfather #Death (Discworld) #meta #Christianatural #Christianity #Given that this meta had an argument and conclusion I will make the joke #Thank you for coming to my TED Talk #I apologize to Jupernatural #but Christianity is my lense #and I do feel like I was invited to use it by the episode title being a reference to the New Testament in the Bible

[bobauthorman]

As a result of their experiences, Team Remnant have become Discworld-Atheists; They know gods exist, but refuse to pray to them.

#RWBY #Greenlight Volume 10 #Support CRWBY #Discworld #Atheism #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Jaune Arc #Nora Valkyrie #Lie Ren #Oscar Pine #Meta #The Two Brothers ruin religion