Discworld & Terry Pratchett Wiki - User contributions [en]

User:TNTiger

2017-10-08T09:51:28Z

TNTiger: My, the TNTiger's, User page

Was unlucky enough to get into Pratchett due to his face being all over the news after his death. Still got to meet Paul and Rob though!

Book:The Colour of Magic/Annotations

2017-10-08T09:49:04Z

TNTiger:

== [[Book:The Colour of Magic|The Colour of Magic]] Annotations ==

'''''Prefatory Note:-''''' It should be remarked here that since publication of {{COM}} and {{TLF}}, both books have been conflated into a TV movie which is reviewed and commented on elsewhere in this Wiki. The TV adaptation introduces new characters and details which were not part of the original book: for instance, those heads of the Eight Orders of Wizardry who are not mentioned in the books are given names. As a general principle, if you have an annotation to quote which is based on the TV version and not on the book, do feel free to summarise it here, but do be sure to reference it as part of the TV adaptation and not the book. Thank you.

* A general thought on Rincewind: sci-fi authors Margaret Hickman and Tracey Weiss, in their '''''Darksword''''' trilogy, came up with the idea of a parallel Earth which is governed by magic, where technology is either basic or non-existent. Everyone on this planet has some sort of innate magical ability, apart from a few unfortunate mutants who are regarded as "Dead" because they can use no magic at all and have no magical sensibility. The Dead are normally killed at birth as a kindness to them, and to prevent their passing their taint on to children. But every so often, one slips through the net and has to live a life of subterfuge and concealment in order to fit in. They are naturally drawn to science and technology as if to compensate for their lack of magic. One such, Jorum, becomes first the possible destruction of his world - he slips through the dimensions to our planet Earth and allows Earth to invade the magical world. Then Jorum becomes its salvation. While Rincewind has no conscious desire to destroy the Discworld, the rest of the description, as well as the setting, is oddly telling...

* "Death himself turns up to claim him (instead of delegating the task to a subordinate, such as Disease or Famine, as is usually the case)." - this is the only Discworld book to suggest that Famine is subordinate to Death. The non-Discworld [[Good Omens]] also suggests this. Disease may be another name for Pestilence, or perhaps a subordinate for Pestilence?

* "the combined talents of the Faculty of Medicine had been unable to coax it." - indicates that Unseen University has a medical department, which seems unusual, since {{P}} tells us that "medicine was a new art on the Disc". Of course, given the time mangling in {{TOT}}, maybe {{P}} comes before {{COM}}? Or perhaps the Faculty of Medicine specialize in curing ''magical'' diseases, such as [[Planets]].

* "Turning To Animals is an Eighth Level spell" - a reference to {{wp|Dungeons_and_Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons}}

* "I WAS EXPECTING TO MEET THEE IN PSEUDOPOLIS [...] I COULD LEND YOU A VERY FAST HORSE." - a reference to the short story {{wp|Appointment_in_Samarra|Appointment in Samarra}}, which is itself a retelling of an ancient Jewish tale from the Talmud.

* People walk through Death in this book; in {{M}}, they walk around him.

* "dispatched to the islands by the Minor Religions faculty of Unseen University" - an indication that the university dabbles in religious study at this point. I wonder how the priests feel about that?

* "stable magic aura of at least [...] several milliPrime" - here, magical aura (not an amount of magic) is measured in prime, indicating that [[prime]] is a unit of field strength, not a unit of magic.

* "His sister had told him they didn't really exist" - this is the only time we hear about Twoflower's sister. She's not even mentioned in {{IT}}.

*The Brown Islands are mentioned in this book as well as others, The joke here I think is Brown eye is slang for the "Anus", the exit hole so the brown islands become the 'Brown eye lands' Not a place to go shoeless.

* "Dr Rjinswand, 33, a bachelor" - one of the few indications that Rincewind is fairly young, despite [[Josh Kirby]]'s tendency to draw him as ancient (assuming Rjinswand is a fairly close parallel to Rincewind). Although people forget that in the book the author describes a 'years' length. Which is twice what our year is, ours being 365 days and a Discworld being 800. However, it is stated that most people use the agricultural year for age purposes.

* "Vul nut wine was reputed to give certain drinkers an insight into the future which was, from the nut's point of view, the past. Strange but true.". Interestingly, Twoflower doesn't seem to be able to see into the future after drinking this wine (perhaps because he lives entirely within his own head?) Or perhaps "certain" drinkers doesn't happen to include Twoflower, who's far from psychically-inclined.

* "'You know that I never even made it to Neophyte,' said Rincewind". Apparently, "neophyte" is another name of "level 1 wizard"? (Explanatory: the revived systems of occult magick and wizardry that appeared in the later 19th Century created a rigid formal hierarchy among the new Wizards. In the Golden Dawn and the O.T.O. systems, the lowest, least and most despised rank was indeed the '''''neophyte'''''. Slightly higher up the chain were ''zelators''. Lovers of conspiracy theory should go and discover the sign to be exchanged by which one Zelator should recognise another....)

*Rincewind talks about a spell making beautiful virgins appear in your room, and also takes many pictures of the Seamstresses, contradicting later comments about wizards and sex. But then, Rincewind isn't much of a wizard and given that the first time we meet him he's sitting in the most disreputable pub in Ankh-Morpork, it's probably safe to assume he treats the whole wizardly aversion to sex (or, at least, the pursuit of it) with a pinch of salt.

*In "The Colour Of Magic", Death or a subordinate evidently do have to make a personal appearance at a death, as he sends [[Scrofula]] to kill Rincewind. But then this could just be because Rincewind is, sort-of-kind-of-technically-more-or-less a wiz(z)ard. A similar scene occurs in the BBC Radio comedy ''The Burkiss Way''.

*Although in [[Book:Guards! Guards!|Guards! Guards!]] Carrot's sword is remarkable because it is one of the only known non-magic swords on the Disc, Rincewind comments that magic swords are expensive in ''The Colour of Magic''. Possibly ''all'' swords are expensive.

* The [[Great Nef]] Desert (mentioned) with its negative humidity and its [[Dehydrated Ocean]], plus the strange ships that sail on it. This has got to be a parody of the deserts of '''''Dune'''''. All it needs now are sandworms. Or dehydrated water worms.

* We have a continuity problem, I fear. The article on reannual plants says:-

''"the Rehigreed Province in the Agatean Empire is another. The reannual Vul Nuts are mentioned in The Colour of Magic as being grown in the latter place, and when harvested they make a drink called Ghlen Livid....."''

Ref. {{COM}}, Corgi PB, p189. Twoflower is sampling the hospitality on offer in Krull to those who are about to be sacrificed.

''"Ghlen Livid" he said. "The fermented vul-nut drink they freeze-distil in my home country....''
''"from the western plantations in, ah, Rehigreed Province, yes?"''

The clear implication from Twoflower's words are that Rehigreed Province is a part of "my home country", ie the Agatean Empire. Otherwise, he might have said it was imported?

The problem is, {{DM}} places the Rehigreed Province in the opposite corner of the Discworld from Agatea - the two could not be further apart if you tried. Either the Rehigreed is a "lost colony" on the Central Continent originally settled by Agateans, or else in between {{COM}} and {{DM}} this fine detail was lost. --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 20:37, 14 November 2010 (CET)

Or it could be that, (My personal theory), that Agatea sources the nuts from Rehigreed, but does not own it. Twoflower only said they ferment and distill it in Agatea, and the fact that Rehigreed is sending the nuts all away around the world mirrors Roundworld China's fame of importing and exporting. Also, he drinks the wine in Krull, which has little affiliation with Agatea, and probably got the nuts from Rehigreed directly (By run ashore vessel)--[[User:TNTiger]] 10:48, 8 October 2017 (GMT)

[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/the-colour-of-magic.html ''The Colour of Magic'' Annotations - The Annotated Pratchett File]

[[Category:Annotations|Colour of Magic,The ]]

Book:The Colour of Magic/Annotations

2017-10-08T09:48:44Z

TNTiger:

== [[Book:The Colour of Magic|The Colour of Magic]] Annotations ==

'''''Prefatory Note:-''''' It should be remarked here that since publication of {{COM}} and {{TLF}}, both books have been conflated into a TV movie which is reviewed and commented on elsewhere in this Wiki. The TV adaptation introduces new characters and details which were not part of the original book: for instance, those heads of the Eight Orders of Wizardry who are not mentioned in the books are given names. As a general principle, if you have an annotation to quote which is based on the TV version and not on the book, do feel free to summarise it here, but do be sure to reference it as part of the TV adaptation and not the book. Thank you.

* A general thought on Rincewind: sci-fi authors Margaret Hickman and Tracey Weiss, in their '''''Darksword''''' trilogy, came up with the idea of a parallel Earth which is governed by magic, where technology is either basic or non-existent. Everyone on this planet has some sort of innate magical ability, apart from a few unfortunate mutants who are regarded as "Dead" because they can use no magic at all and have no magical sensibility. The Dead are normally killed at birth as a kindness to them, and to prevent their passing their taint on to children. But every so often, one slips through the net and has to live a life of subterfuge and concealment in order to fit in. They are naturally drawn to science and technology as if to compensate for their lack of magic. One such, Jorum, becomes first the possible destruction of his world - he slips through the dimensions to our planet Earth and allows Earth to invade the magical world. Then Jorum becomes its salvation. While Rincewind has no conscious desire to destroy the Discworld, the rest of the description, as well as the setting, is oddly telling...

* "Death himself turns up to claim him (instead of delegating the task to a subordinate, such as Disease or Famine, as is usually the case)." - this is the only Discworld book to suggest that Famine is subordinate to Death. The non-Discworld [[Good Omens]] also suggests this. Disease may be another name for Pestilence, or perhaps a subordinate for Pestilence?

* "the combined talents of the Faculty of Medicine had been unable to coax it." - indicates that Unseen University has a medical department, which seems unusual, since {{P}} tells us that "medicine was a new art on the Disc". Of course, given the time mangling in {{TOT}}, maybe {{P}} comes before {{COM}}? Or perhaps the Faculty of Medicine specialize in curing ''magical'' diseases, such as [[Planets]].

* "Turning To Animals is an Eighth Level spell" - a reference to {{wp|Dungeons_and_Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons}}

* "I WAS EXPECTING TO MEET THEE IN PSEUDOPOLIS [...] I COULD LEND YOU A VERY FAST HORSE." - a reference to the short story {{wp|Appointment_in_Samarra|Appointment in Samarra}}, which is itself a retelling of an ancient Jewish tale from the Talmud.

* People walk through Death in this book; in {{M}}, they walk around him.

* "dispatched to the islands by the Minor Religions faculty of Unseen University" - an indication that the university dabbles in religious study at this point. I wonder how the priests feel about that?

* "stable magic aura of at least [...] several milliPrime" - here, magical aura (not an amount of magic) is measured in prime, indicating that [[prime]] is a unit of field strength, not a unit of magic.

* "His sister had told him they didn't really exist" - this is the only time we hear about Twoflower's sister. She's not even mentioned in {{IT}}.

*The Brown Islands are mentioned in this book as well as others, The joke here I think is Brown eye is slang for the "Anus", the exit hole so the brown islands become the 'Brown eye lands' Not a place to go shoeless.

* "Dr Rjinswand, 33, a bachelor" - one of the few indications that Rincewind is fairly young, despite [[Josh Kirby]]'s tendency to draw him as ancient (assuming Rjinswand is a fairly close parallel to Rincewind). Although people forget that in the book the author describes a 'years' length. Which is twice what our year is, ours being 365 days and a Discworld being 800. However, it is stated that most people use the agricultural year for age purposes.

* "Vul nut wine was reputed to give certain drinkers an insight into the future which was, from the nut's point of view, the past. Strange but true.". Interestingly, Twoflower doesn't seem to be able to see into the future after drinking this wine (perhaps because he lives entirely within his own head?) Or perhaps "certain" drinkers doesn't happen to include Twoflower, who's far from psychically-inclined.

* "'You know that I never even made it to Neophyte,' said Rincewind". Apparently, "neophyte" is another name of "level 1 wizard"? (Explanatory: the revived systems of occult magick and wizardry that appeared in the later 19th Century created a rigid formal hierarchy among the new Wizards. In the Golden Dawn and the O.T.O. systems, the lowest, least and most despised rank was indeed the '''''neophyte'''''. Slightly higher up the chain were ''zelators''. Lovers of conspiracy theory should go and discover the sign to be exchanged by which one Zelator should recognise another....)

*Rincewind talks about a spell making beautiful virgins appear in your room, and also takes many pictures of the Seamstresses, contradicting later comments about wizards and sex. But then, Rincewind isn't much of a wizard and given that the first time we meet him he's sitting in the most disreputable pub in Ankh-Morpork, it's probably safe to assume he treats the whole wizardly aversion to sex (or, at least, the pursuit of it) with a pinch of salt.

*In "The Colour Of Magic", Death or a subordinate evidently do have to make a personal appearance at a death, as he sends [[Scrofula]] to kill Rincewind. But then this could just be because Rincewind is, sort-of-kind-of-technically-more-or-less a wiz(z)ard. A similar scene occurs in the BBC Radio comedy ''The Burkiss Way''.

*Although in [[Book:Guards! Guards!|Guards! Guards!]] Carrot's sword is remarkable because it is one of the only known non-magic swords on the Disc, Rincewind comments that magic swords are expensive in ''The Colour of Magic''. Possibly ''all'' swords are expensive.

* The [[Great Nef]] Desert (mentioned) with its negative humidity and its [[Dehydrated Ocean]], plus the strange ships that sail on it. This has got to be a parody of the deserts of '''''Dune'''''. All it needs now are sandworms. Or dehydrated water worms.

* We have a continuity problem, I fear. The article on reannual plants says:-

''"the Rehigreed Province in the Agatean Empire is another. The reannual Vul Nuts are mentioned in The Colour of Magic as being grown in the latter place, and when harvested they make a drink called Ghlen Livid....."''

Ref. {{COM}}, Corgi PB, p189. Twoflower is sampling the hospitality on offer in Krull to those who are about to be sacrificed.

''"Ghlen Livid" he said. "The fermented vul-nut drink they freeze-distil in my home country....''
''"from the western plantations in, ah, Rehigreed Province, yes?"''

The clear implication from Twoflower's words are that Rehigreed Province is a part of "my home country", ie the Agatean Empire. Otherwise, he might have said it was imported?

The problem is, {{DM}} places the Rehigreed Province in the opposite corner of the Discworld from Agatea - the two could not be further apart if you tried. Either the Rehigreed is a "lost colony" on the Central Continent originally settled by Agateans, or else in between {{COM}} and {{DM}} this fine detail was lost. --[[User:AgProv|AgProv]] 20:37, 14 November 2010 (CET)

Or it could be that, (My personal theory), that Agatea sources the nuts from Rehigreed, but does not own it. Twoflower only said they ferment and distill it in Agatea, and the fact that Rehigreed is sending the nuts all away around the world mirrors Roundworld China's fame of importing and exporting. Also, he drinks the wine in Krull, which has little affiliation with Agatea, and probably got the nuts from Rehigreed directly (By run ashore vessel)--[[User:TNTiger_]] 10:48, 8 October 2017 (GMT)

[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/the-colour-of-magic.html ''The Colour of Magic'' Annotations - The Annotated Pratchett File]

[[Category:Annotations|Colour of Magic,The ]]

Zombies

2017-10-04T16:37:15Z

TNTiger:

[[Image:Zombie.jpg|240px|left|thumb|Drawn by [[User:Knmatt|Matt Smith]]]] Walking corpses, many of whom are still intelligent, usually from the human species. No [[dwarfs|dwarf]], [[gnomes|gnome]], [[pictsies|pictsie]], or [[trolls|troll]] zombies have been reported. Also, no zombies reported to be from ordinary animal species. Many zombies can still see, hear, smell, talk, move, think, plan, and scheme. Some can even eat. Depending on length of time since death, a zombie's flesh may look gray or green, his skin may be flaking off, he may smell rotten or smell of preservatives. When "injured", for example a finger having been cut off, a zombie does not bleed; the wound can be sewn up, but there will be no wound-healing or tissue-regeneration.

The process of death strips away all illusions, so a zombie, if he wishes, can control all his body functions extremely well, and think very clear thoughts. For this reason, a zombie can be a powerful fighter. Their bodily strength is so great that they are supposedly able to walk through walls and rip people apart just like that. Notable zombies in [[Ankh-Morpork]] include [[Mr. Slant]] the head of the [[Guild of Lawyers]], [[Mr Bendy]], the obituarist on [[Ankh-Morpork Times|The Times]], and the [[Ankh-Morpork City Watch|Watchman]] [[Reg Shoe]], also a dead rights activist. The zombie [[Baron Saturday]] makes an appearance in ''[[Book:Witches Abroad|Witches Abroad]]''.

Several reasons might cause a corpse to continue walking around and talking to people. The most prominent reason is magic. Corpses can be resurrected by application of proper spells and/or potions. Gods are also known for fiddling around with human bodies. At least one case is known, where a person ([[Windle Poons]]) continued to walk around after his death, simply because [[Death]] had not come around to collect his soul (''[[Book:Reaper Man|Reaper Man]]''). In a related fashion, some become zombies merely because their life-timers have not run out at the point of their death.

Revenants - that is, unintelligent walking corpses - have also been reported, in the [[Borogravia|Borogravian]] crypt for their military heroes (''[[Book:Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]''). Only the unfinished war with Zlobenia keeps them "alive", and it is interesting that just enough sentience remains for them to recognise the Grand Duchess [[Annagovia]] manifesting through [[Wazzer Goom]].

==Annotations==

The idea of a grim Gothic castle used as the last resting place of a nation's great generals. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler intended the Castle of Wewelsburg to be the spiritual heart of the SS organisation. To this end, he devised and had built a crypt to hold the bodies of Waffen-SS generals who died nobly in action. Assorted post-war novels and computer games have dealt with the question of what might happen if, for whatever reason, the dead Generals of Wewelsberg refused to stay dead, and returned as vampires or zombies of varying degrees of sentience...

Stories of [[Roundworld]] {{wp|Zombies|zombies}} originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of {{wp|Haitian_Voodoo|Vodou}}, which told of the people being controlled as labourers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film ''Night of the Living Dead''. Since then they have grown in popular fiction and culture into the lurching, grey-skinned, hard-to-kill, powerful creatures we find on the Disc.

It may also be noted that the difference between Zombies and Revenants are switched from their [[Roundworld]] equivalents, zombies on [[Roundworld]] are the mindless corpses while Revenants sustain much of their original sentience, being driven by revenge or some other compulsion that they were not able to complete in their first life.

[[Category:Undead characters|Zombies]]
[[de:Zombies]]
[[Category:Discworld humanoid species]]