Alternate History and Terry Pratchett. Part 4: Lords and Ladies

[David Flin]

Comment on this article by @Thande here.

 

[Charles EP M.]

The Dungeon Dimensions were big early on but don't really show up after Moving Pictures, do they? Displaced as cosmic threat by Shining Ones *spits* and even more by 'mundane' villains as Pratchett's interests shift

 

[Jared]

The Dungeon Dimensions were big early on but don't really show up after Moving Pictures, do they? Displaced as cosmic threat by Shining Ones *spits* and even more by 'mundane' villains as Pratchett's interests shift

The big shift in cosmic threats was between the Things aka Dungeon Dimensions and between the Auditors of Reality who first show up in Reaper Man. The lords and ladies weren't really recurring villains in the main series, though they showed up again in the Tiffany Aching books. Though as you note, there were more mundane villains than anything else in the later books - the shift was probably Men at Arms or thereabouts.

 

[Thande]

The big shift in cosmic threats was between the Things aka Dungeon Dimensions and between the Auditors of Reality who first show up in Reaper Man.

And "Thief of Time" implies the Auditors are the same type of being as the Things and more deadly than any of the ones with tentacles.

 

[David Flin]

Displaced as cosmic threat by Shining Ones *spits*

Is that spit because of the way they were done, or the fact of them being portrayed in a negative light?

Only British mythology at least is very clear. "They are not our friends."

 

[Thande]

Is that spit because of the way they were done, or the fact of them being portrayed in a negative light?

Only British mythology at least is very clear. "They are not our friends."

Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales (his first version of what became the Silmarillion) is an interesting take on this, as I alluded to in the article. Tolkien wanted to portray the Celtic folklore version of elves as being based on the misunderstanding of invaders directed at the original native people of the land. For example, the idea that eating their food means you have to stay with them forever is instead portrayed as drinking a specific Elvish drink causing you to empathise with their ancestral causes and grievances against Morgoth and never wanting to abandon them. When our human protagonist meets the Elves in "Lost Tales" they explicitly dissuade him from drinking it and say he doesn't know what he's getting himself in for.

 

[David Flin]

Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales (his first version of what became the Silmarillion) is an interesting take on this, as I alluded to in the article. Tolkien wanted to portray the Celtic folklore version of elves as being based on the misunderstanding of invaders directed at the original native people of the land. For example, the idea that eating their food means you have to stay with them forever is instead portrayed as drinking a specific Elvish drink causing you to empathise with their ancestral causes and grievances against Morgoth and never wanting to abandon them. When our human protagonist meets the Elves in "Lost Tales" they explicitly dissuade him from drinking it and say he doesn't know what he's getting himself in for.

Indeed. Poul Anderson's Broken Sword has another take; that Elves view humans as useful tools. Skafloc in particular. That's a version of elven mythology very much in keeping with Norse myth in particular, and British myth as well.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Is that spit because of the way they were done, or the fact of them being portrayed in a negative light?

The article reminding us to spit and touch iron

 

[David Flin]

The article reminding us to spit and touch iron

D'Oh.

I can be dense sometimes*.



* Sometimes, David? Sometimes?

 

[Alex Richards]

The fact that it's this book rather than Thief of Time or even Jingo that has all the exposition on parallel universes is one of those really interesting matters that makes it a lot easier to do the later plots because it's now a 'known' concept.

 

[Charles EP M.]

The big shift in cosmic threats was between the Things aka Dungeon Dimensions and between the Auditors of Reality who first show up in Reaper Man.

I don't know how I forgot the Auditors.

But this feels a Pratchett thing, the Lovecraftian horror pastiche phased out and "men in grey suits" becomes the recurring hellish force

 

[IanBertram]

One of Pratchett's great strengths is the way he scatters all sorts of arcane references throughout the texts - in that respect like Wodehouse - without hammering them in. If you get them, they enrich the story, if you don't, it doesn't usually matter too much.

 

[Ncw8]

One of Pratchett's great strengths is the way he scatters all sorts of arcane references throughout the texts - in that respect like Wodehouse - without hammering them in. If you get them, they enrich the story, if you don't, it doesn't usually matter too much.

Indeed. It was a minor sport on the Usenet group alt.fan.pratchett to try and report them, particularly just after a new novel was published. Most of them have been collected in the Annotated Pratchett File, if anyone wants to see what they might have missed.

 

[Avian Overlord]

Shining Ones *spits*

Honestly, Pratchett's elves are so malevolent that the nice euphemism trope stops making sense. It's rather pointless to avoid pissing them off.

The big shift in cosmic threats was between the Things aka Dungeon Dimensions

Eldritch horrors and scary elves are in some ways different spins on the same archetype. Lovecraft's work grew out of Dunsany and Machen's creepy takes on fairies, and he plays with the tropes of changelings and fairy abduction multiple times each.

 

[Ncw8]

Honestly, Pratchett's elves are so malevolent that the nice euphemism trope stops making sense. It's rather pointless to avoid pissing them off.

It wasn’t so much avoiding pissing them off as avoiding drawing their attention by saying their name. The Discworld runs on narrative causality, and the power of words, so merely saying their name can summon them. Hence Nanny touching the anvil when she has to say “Elf”.

 

[IanBertram]

Indeed. It was a minor sport on the Usenet group alt.fan.pratchett to try and report them, particularly just after a new novel was published. Most of them have been collected in the Annotated Pratchett File, if anyone wants to see what they might have missed.

Thanks for that link, I had forgotten all about it. I used to frequent alt.fan.pratchett too.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

Indeed. It was a minor sport on the Usenet group alt.fan.pratchett to try and report them, particularly just after a new novel was published. Most of them have been collected in the Annotated Pratchett File, if anyone wants to see what they might have missed.

The annotations only go as far as A Hat Full of Sky though, unfortunately.