Tessa  0:25  
Welcome to nanny ox book club a Discworld podcast. Join us as we read through all 41 of the fantastical and outrageous Discworld novels. I'm Tessa. This is Episode Four the light fantastic. So the light fantastic is the second Discworld novel published in 1986. Because the color of magic is the only Discworld novel but ends on a cliffhanger. I decided to have us read this one next, so we could resolve that particular storyline, as well as other story elements from the last novel. The light fantastic while still satirizing sword and sorcery elements is more in the mold of the later Discworld novels with no chapter or novella breaks like the color of magic. There has been a graphic novel adaptation of this book, as well as a mini series that adapted both the color of magic and the light fantastic with Sir David Jason playing the part of France wind David Bradley as CO in the barbarian Sean Aston as to flower Tim Curry as Treiman and Christopher Lee as death are taking over the role of death from previous miniseries.

Nigel  1:39  
That's a pretty star studded cast.

Tessa  1:40  
Yeah, it's a really good cast i i have a lot of opinions about that miniseries, but you can't fault the cast.

Nigel  1:48  
I've never seen it. The light fantastic

Tessa  1:50  
picks up right where the color of magic left off with Rincewind falling off the edge of the disk. The octavo the Grimoire with the eight spells of the universe saves him so as not to lose one of the great spells that has been stuck in rinse winds head since he was kicked out of the unseen university. But it turns out that the Discworld is in danger and ominous Red Star has appeared in the sky and magic has become unreliable as the great attune travels further into the shores of reality, the eight spells of the octava need to be said precisely at the right time in order to save the Discworld, but will rinse wind and to flower be able to return to the unseen University in time to save them. I love that I said that, like we're not going to talk about spoilers in this like,

Nigel  2:37  
that's it. That's the podcast three minutes long. There you go,

Tessa  2:40  
folks. It's just it, go go read it and then get back later. So you in your own words, were not too pushed by the color of magic. What was your initial reaction to this novel, the light, fantastic.

Nigel  2:55  
I was a significantly more pushed, I'm thinking of a good read review, I saw the light, fantastic, which is stuck in my head. Now. I think it's fantastic, which is all it says is like the first book more. So

Tessa  3:09  
there are a lot of similar story elements. And obviously, there are things that are introduced in the first book that are pulled through into this book. But it feels less contrived, I think, than the color of magic, it feels more like a cohesive novel.

Nigel  3:26  
Yeah, everything that the color of magic, like starts or tries to set up, I feel like the light fantastic is leagues better, or you know, improves it in a dramatic way. Like between books like normally, like if you have a bad series or whatever, you look at it, and it's like, oh, the writing in the first couple books is bad. But after maybe three or four books, you know, the the author really hits their stride and you know, it becomes a series we all know. Whereas this one, there's like there's fairly big a turnaround, or fairly quick turnaround between color magic and the light. Fantastic. I don't remember what year Color Magic was published, but it's, you know, a fairly quick it's a fairly quick time period as well.

Tessa  4:13  
1983. So three years previously to the color or to the light. Fantastic. Yeah, it almost feels like the color of magic is a proof of concept novel like I this is what I'm doing. This is sort of the vibe that I'm going with and then the light fantastic is like okay, here's how I can actually do something with this five, like, here's how I can.

Nigel  4:37  
Here's how rinse win could still win. Right? Exactly,

Tessa  4:40  
exactly what you know, he doesn't win that often. So you have to you have to take the wins as you find them. So the title I think the title of the book is also fascinating. So the first book, The Color of magic is a reference to Octarine which is that eight color right that that the spells are that that's what magic looks like is this color. We talked a little bit about like what that color actually is. But the light fantastic is actually a direct quote from Milton. So kind of like the Weird Sisters is a quote from Shakespeare, we get this quote from Milton, even though as far as I can tell nothing in the light fantastic is a direct parody of Milton, which is a little disappointing. I love anything that parodies Milton.

Nigel  5:24  
I think Milton deserves all of the shit he gets as an English student.

Tessa  5:29  
It's true, it's true. Have you heard the conspiracy theory that it's actually Milton's daughters who wrote a lot of Paradise Lost?

Nigel  5:38  
No, but I don't want to believe that because I really hate us. And I don't want I don't want the like, shit about women trying to make it in a predominantly male controlled society back then, you know,

Tessa  5:51  
the only good thing that I can think of the Milton wrote is like the first five pages of Paradise Lost. Those are amazing, but the rest of it is absolute shit.

Nigel  6:01  
Oh, what the shit is the Milton Sampson eigen niceties. I think it's called. I think that that was an interesting concept. Yeah, some some agonized these, where it's like Samson after being imprisoned after Delilah cuts his hair and stuff. And it's like, an interesting meditation on, like, what it means to be in his hero, you know, like this kind of prophesied person who was meant to deliver all of this people safely away from the Philistines and whatever. And then now he's in jail, and his strength is taken. But yeah, like, it's an interesting concept, but also not well executed.

Tessa  6:39  
Like a lot of Milton stuff like Paradise Lost is, what if the devil was actually kind of a tragic hero? Oh, wait, I can't actually write all of that concept because of the church like, it's, it's like he had these great ideas, but could never follow through on them.

Nigel  6:56  
Just the last thing I'm Milton, I think, first of all, props to Milton for giving us the start of the sexy Satan trend, because without him, we would not have Tom Ellis in Lucifer, and also mark Pellegrino and supernatural, but he's more of like a dill fibe. But also, like, it's really weird, like, learning about this, because there's this concept called Arianism, not the Nazi thing. This is spelt with an AI instead of Oh y, which is basically the school of Christian thought, where it's like, Well, Jesus is not actually like, divine, you know, because it basically revolves around I think, maybe you could tie this into Discworld bear with me. But it's like, for Christ's sacrifice to make sense for him to give himself up, well, then he has to not be divine, or else to put it the way my my lecture did is, stay with me for three years, the moral Max don't add up. You know, for this to make sense. Christ has to be like, Christ is the most powerful of the creative beings, but he is undoubtedly a credit created being

Tessa  8:04  
right. So almost as if to take the place of humanity, he has to be fully human.

Nigel  8:09  
Yeah, to give yourself up for something to make a sacrifice, you have to have something worth sacrificing because if he's an immortal, on dying, being well, letting himself be crucified doesn't make any sense. You know, a hero always has to sacrifice something. And I guess if we wanted to flimsily tie it into Discworld you know, Renson has given up his magic because he's got this spell in his head that he needs to say at the right time. Whereas if he were an all powerful wizards, like Gandalf, who knew the spell, he'd be able to do regular spells at the same time.

Tessa  8:42  
Yeah, he it is interesting, the way that this book sort of seeks to recontextualize Rincewind a bit, which we can talk about. The final thing I do want to say about the title is that the light fantastic comes from the poem, la Allegro. And it means like the light fantastic means to like dance lightly with extravagance.

Nigel  9:04  
Yeah, that's, that's a big phrase here in the UK, you hear that a lot to trip the light, fantastic. It just means to dance. So for the longest time, I did think this was a novel related somehow to dancing.

Tessa  9:18  
Well, it kind of is if you think about the fact that even though the main characters of this book are obviously rinse wind and to flower and Cohen, etc. The person who's actually going on the journey is the great attune. And you could think about him as sort of swimming through space towards this light, right? And so that's kind of I don't know like that's that's kind of to me what the light fantastic is it's it's a reference to what the greater to and is doing, as opposed to everybody on the Discworld who's like running around trying to figure out if the world is ending or not. Yeah, but let's let's talk a little bit let's let's dive right in here. So we talk a lot about locations in this podcast. And we see a couple of ones that we've seen before. And we see a new one. Well, new ish one, because we got glimpses of the unseen University in mort, when Albert makes his very short appearance at the unseen University, replacing his statue in the quad basically, here, we actually get to see more of like, what the, like what the politics are of the unseen University, we get to see more of like the architecture, we have a lot more wizard characters. What did you think of the unseen University?

Nigel  10:34  
I think, I think I really enjoyed the unseen University. First of all, just as a name, I think it's fantastic. Also, isn't there a book later on in the series called unseen? academicals? Right? Yes. But also, it's like, I've had this name in my head for years and years. Because when I was I want to say seven. I want to say seven. We have I don't know whether you have it in America, the Scholastic Book Fair? Yes. Yeah. Where they would bring like, basically big cases full of books, and there'd be like massive black things that would open out, like a book itself. And you would have all the books like arrayed there. And there was this one book that I got, which was about fantasy. It was about like, the creatures of it and stuff, and it had little stickers that you could put in. And so among other things, it introduced me to Ents and candles. And so that made me go Oh, from an expert that I want a Lord of the Rings. So I read those when I was eight, but then also it included rinse wind, I was like, yeah, he's a student of the unseen, like, unseen University. And I was like, Whoa, that's such a cool name. And so I am 21. Now, so that's 14 years.

Tessa  11:53  
Is it for you?

Nigel  11:56  
Yeah, novel like ruins when I've had this name in my head for bloody most of my life.

Tessa  12:01  
Yeah, it's it's been in your head scaring away all of the other other characters from the Discworld

Nigel  12:09  
all have no all of the other magical schools, because I don't want to associate with Harry Potter anymore as a trans person. But also, I think the only other magic school that's taken place in my head is Brakebills. University for the magician series, but also like they spend very little time there.

Tessa  12:27  
Yeah, for like the first, like, 40 pages of the novel.

Nigel  12:31  
Yeah. And then the TV show, there's a bit more importance put on it. But it's like, you know, this place is being invaded. And it's like one of the few locations we have on Earth. So I guess it's there.

Tessa  12:42  
You know, it's interesting, because it has unseen University as a place like as a geographical location, a school of magic on the Discworld, or really the school of magic on the Discworld it, it has such an arc because it kind of becomes something else later on in the series. So this we're seeing it kind of at the beginning of that arc in this particular novel, but I think what's really interesting about it is the idea that like, this is a much darker place than say, like something like Hogwarts, or even really Brakebills even though Brakebills does have some darkness to it, like the unseen University at this point, like all of the wizards advanced by bumping each other off, basically, like they they sort of know that they can advance in the hierarchy by killing each other. And so that kind of creates this air of paranoia in the university. What did you think about that aspect?

Nigel  13:41  
That was hilarious like, I've literally just found in the book The bit between Treiman and Guldur, what Weatherwax is, Is he any relation to particular granny pretense?

Tessa  13:51  
No comment. This will this is this is a discussion for a later episode.

Nigel  13:56  
Okay, very good. But yeah, so I love that like weird bickering old men dynamics, so it's like, you know, a one point it's like your face shames me said Kaldur loser who captures the style would bring great honor and themselves and others said Treiman the others have used boots and all manners of elsewhere spells. Why do you propose using him master? Did I detect a hint of sarcasm there? Absolutely not master, not even a smidgen. Not even the mere smidgen master good because I don't propose to go. And then later on, we were trying to make his first attempt on Valders life with like Galder laugh and the knife left tremens hand at such speed that because of the somewhat sluggish nature of dislike, it actually grew a bit shorter and a little more massive as it plunged with unerring aim towards Kelders neck. It didn't reach it, instead of swerved to one side began a faster orbit so fast to Guldur appeared suddenly to be wearing a metal collar. He turned around and to try and it seemed that he is suddenly grown several feet tall are much more powerful. The knife broke away and shuddered into the door and we are shadows depth from tremens ear early in the morning. So again, this Gelder, pleasantly, my dear lad, you will need to stay up all night. I fell. So I love just you'll need to stay up all night, just as a pithy remark, where it's like, you know, that's a thing that we we used to try and pull one over on our mother, she would say, you know, you know, you don't get up early enough in the morning to pull one over on me.

Tessa  15:29  
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a phrase that I think is, it means something very specific. But Pratchett has this way sometimes of taking those phrases and like turning them on their head or saying something that kind of subverts them. So like this is a particularly human. This is a particularly humorous example

Nigel  15:48  
of that. Yeah. So I think it's like, well, perhaps it does is a combination of like taking things literally where it's like, well, if this phrase is a literal expression of something, what does that mean? But then also a de familiarizes it like Tolstoy does an awful lot in his work, where it's like, let's treat this as something completely alien, where we say this and then we go, Well, why do we say this? Like, it makes no sense. These objects make no sense.

Tessa  16:14  
You know, Rincewind says something similar later, when to flowers, like you're scared of heights. And he says, I'm not actually scared of heights. I'm scared of debts.

Nigel  16:22  
Yes, I want I want to touch on that in just a second. But it's like, I think what Galder Weatherwax says there is a much better. I really hate the I used to love it as a child when I read in The Da Vinci Code at 13. When leaving says, My dear, it's so late that it's early. But then I saw it crop up everyone. I was like, You know what, I hate this phrase that like juxtaposition between night and day. But may I also offer a similar phrase that my Irish mother also uses when you try to force Yeah, she says it's not in the last shower. I came down. Oh, so she didn't like she didn't come down in the last rain shower.

Tessa  17:04  
Yeah, there's one. I didn't fall off the wagon yesterday. That was that that's another one that I've heard before as well.

Nigel  17:12  
Yeah, we don't say that one, we have much more abstruse. Living in Ireland is so fun, because we have like this whole version of English called hibernal English. And it's really, really fascinating to study, I'd recommend TP Dolan's dictionary of hibernal. English to find out more, but it's like, we use all these words that you see these words on like BuzzFeed lists, or it's like, oh, here's all these here's like 10 old words that should make a comeback. And it's like, well, we use most of these on the daily here in Ireland. Things like ossified to mean drunk. That's great. I love that one. Oh, I love that. Yeah. But also, no, it's just with Renzo and saying he's afraid of depths. I have a funny association with that, where it's like I'm afraid of heights. This is not to do with me. It's to do with the animated show be cool, Scooby Doo. So are you aware of the show? I am not. Okay, so it was a follow up to Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated, which had a terrific art side of the story was much more mature. It told a cohesive story across I want to say 52 episodes of Scooby Doo. You know, the characters had profound relationships. That was death, you know, characters actually get murdered. Oh, wow. I idea. I would recommend watching Mystery Incorporated if you haven't, but then they followed it up with be cool, Scooby Doo. Because Scooby Doo is kind of like, basically an anthology show where each new show doesn't really connect any villains except for Mystery Incorporated, which I won't say anything about that. But seven was like, oh, cool, you know, more Scooby Doo. But then the art style is really, really weird. I'm going to put in a picture of it into the chat. Just so you can get a sense of what it was like. You have to forgive my googling. I wasn't I wasn't prepared

Tessa  19:05  
for weren't prepared for this to come up in a disc world podcast.

Nigel  19:09  
I remember thinking yes. When I was reading and going, huh? This is the art style that we went to.

Tessa  19:16  
Okay. Yeah, it's a little bit. It has a little bit more stylization to it. It's yeah,

Nigel  19:21  
but also, it just looks much more rough. Okay, I suppose I should put the Mystery Incorporated art style comparison. Show what we went through. I don't know how much is any of this going to make this into the final edit? Who knows?

Tessa  19:34  
That's for future Tessa to decide. Yeah. And

Nigel  19:37  
Tessa this is just tangent, Nigel. Okay, this is the art style of Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated. Yeah, so that's a lot more realistic. Yeah. And everyone was like, well, wow, this is a massive downgrade. And so naturally, I was a bit reticent going into this show, but humor is absolutely on point. It does not miss a single beep. But this is one episode where Like, Fred is chasing a ghost you, you know, Fred, right? He's the himbo of the group. Yeah, of course. And he's chasing a villain out onto the roof of this like, old building. And it's really narrow, like pointed Gothic architecture. And they're like, be careful, Freddie, you know, it's really high, you don't want to fall out. He's like, Oh, I'm not scared of heights. I'm scared of widths. And he looks then across the thing, and it's like a really narrow crossing. And he's like, No, too narrow, too narrow, and that he falls off.

Tessa  20:31  
That is very, that is a very like Pratik esque joke. We're definitely gonna see more jokes about heights and the ground and depths in future books as well.

Nigel  20:41  
Now, this just makes me want to do a Scooby Doo podcast, god dammit.

Tessa  20:45  
So many podcasts. So before we move on from unseen University, I do want to touch on a couple of other things that we see there. One is we actually get to see the librarians origin story in this book. So we had briefly seen the librarian in Weird Sisters, when well, and Tom John go to the mended drum, and they see the like the library, the head librarian of the university, drinking a beer, and he isn't a Ranga Tang, and everybody is just sort of afraid of him. And he's actually the one who sort of starts the bar fight that they get into this is where he actually turns into an orangutan we find out he was actually a wizard, like the head librarian of the unseen university. But when the octavos saved, when the octavo did the change spell which saved rents went into flour from falling off the edge of the disk. The result magic changed the head librarian into an A Ranga. Tang, and he seems okay to stay that way. What did you think about this origin story?

Nigel  21:52  
I gotta be honest. It's like, I kind of pay as much attention to it in terms of like, what's going on? I feel like it's relatively I was like, Oh, that's nice. But I think in terms of oh, people who are transformed into, okay, I don't want to say hideous monsters and stuff, because there is definitely like, a history of authoring trans people in narratives where they get changed into bodies, and they're like, Oh, this isn't my body. Oh, this is disgusting. I don't like this. But it's really affirming to see someone being like, yeah, okay, this is nice. You know, I know there, you mentioned in your hyper fixations episode, this kind of like one kind of canonical trans person. Adore right later on. Yes, yeah. But I definitely think the having trans elements to a narrative that aren't like, turf stuff, you know, this is not JK Rowling. I think that's really refreshing. I'm also I like Arang A times. I don't know how I'm going to do this now without crashing discord. But I will send a picture of my phone lock screen at some stage shoe. It's a picture of a monkey. I wonder if I could Google it. Let me Google some stuff.

Tessa  23:05  
Yeah. And what's interesting too, is that the librarian, it starts with this book. And then of course, we see it in both Weird Sisters and in later books with the librarian. He liked the luggage communicates so much through body language, he does have one thing he says he says, greatly like he makes a Ranga Tang sounds. And what's interesting is that the wizards all seem to understand him. When he says that it's kind of like an RTD to situation where he beeps and then see Threepio is like, oh, you know, Don't take that tone with me. You know, like, so it's, it's interesting. The,

Nigel  23:40  
I'm gonna take your word for I've never seen Star Wars.

Tessa  23:43  
Oh, yes. Oh, it's, I mean, I feel like there are similar situations in other properties. That's just the one that like jumps to mind. But like, like, Treiman, even like, talks to him. And like, he's like, it's this last book of about the pyramids of sorts in the library and the library and says, ooh, and he like understands what that means. Like, it's a funny gag every time I've seen it somewhere else, but it's interesting that none of them actually had to learn a Ranga Tang like sounds and linguistics. They just automatically knew what he was trying to say. Even though he had just been turned into an Ranga Tang, like six hours earlier.

Nigel  24:20  
Uh huh. A sound sound monkey. Now how do I share this thing? Sorry, I got distracted by monkeys.

Tessa  24:27  
Is that why you like monkey off my backlog? Were you attracted by the by the title first?

Nigel  24:33  
Yeah, definitely.

Tessa  24:36  
And the red monkey on our logo.

Nigel  24:40  
We go, monkey. This is my phone. Lock Screen. So cute. Yeah, I've taken it from a tweet of mine. Tweet to says it's genuinely upsetting me that I can't be this monkey's friend.

Tessa  24:52  
So you would be friends with the librarian like you too would hang out? Oh, yeah.

Nigel  24:56  
100% I think as well, a good exam. Below this with the UHC that I've just remembered a sketch from Disney's Lilo and Stitch where it's like yeah what the hell you're talking about in situ just go and then Jumbos like what? You expect me to help you

Tessa  25:12  
Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of examples but from different pop culture but yeah this idea that like there are animals that will speak in a certain language or just say one thing or group group for Marvel I can't believe that was like the last one I thought of you know, I am grew and it just they learn what that means right in different situations and different content. Yeah.

Nigel  25:30  
Until group becomes radicalized and becomes a communist. As well have you are you aware of the Cartoon Network show chowder?

Tessa  25:39  
No.

Nigel  25:39  
Okay, hold on. Just give me What's this? I'm sorry. This is become.

Tessa  25:42  
You're introducing me to so much like Kurt good cartoon cons. Yeah, you know how much I love cartoon I

Nigel  25:47  
do. But it's also like, I'm sorry, this is rapidly become the Nigel Google's THINGs episode. Okay, so charter was a character network show based off of the adventures of this weird looking purple dude called cheddar who works all of the characters are named after Qi are not cheeses are food. And so you have chowder and he works for a guy called Mon doll. But this guy is beige looking guy over the side. He's called schnitzel. And all schnitzel ever says is some variation on raw the raw data on so you hear me rah, rah rah, rah, rah rah rah? They're like, okay, and they understand him perfectly awesome blast from the past. I want to say the pink person's name is panini. I'm not entirely sure. There's something

Tessa  26:31  
to be said about comparing the hierarchy and the structure of the unseen University to the non hierarchy of the witches from Weird Sisters. So that was also a question I was going to ask you, I was going to refer to page 83. Or at least my page 83, where rents wind meets the Necromancer the woman who's part of the horse tribe, she starts to spread the tarot cards in front of him. Rinse wind, as it has already been noted, was the worst wizard on the disk. No other spells would stay in his mind once the spell had lodged there, in much the same way that fish don't hang out in a pike pool. But he still had his pride. And wizards don't like to see women perform even simple magic, unseen University had never admitted women muttering something about problems with the plumbing. But the real reason was an unspoken dread that if women were allowed to mess around with magic, they would probably be embarrassingly good at it. So yeah, I just think it's interesting. There's also a lot in this book about how women are, how wizards don't have sex. Like because it'll somehow like suck the magic out of them. It plays into the idea of like, women like yeah, women are like these temptresses who take all your power right? Like kind of a Samson and Delilah situation. So what do you think comparing what we know about the witches from Weird Sisters to these wizards?

Nigel  27:59  
I don't know. I like I obviously haven't read enough of the series. But it seems deliberately set up. I'm going to I'm going to assume this is intentional with what was it the you called it that Star Wars term machete Jedi Order? Action order? Yes, machete Porter, where it's like, you've put them into stuff. And I know I commented last episode about becoming death through the order of the books. But then also, it's like, we start off with more who he's apprentice to death. But that's like, we get a glimpse of the unseen University. And then we had Weird Sisters. Which is like, they're like we are entirely self based. We don't even have covens and stuff and look at all the things we can do on that we have between the color of magic and the light. Fantastic. This like, more in depth exploration of more in depth exploration of the unseen University where it's like, this is a very male coded look, men are stupid, okay. Historically, this has been proven I would accept there is no evidence to accept to the contrary that men are stupid bigots, but I think it's really funny that line that women would be embarrassing the good at it, because obviously, like, we have real world examples of like, female scientists and female creatives and stuff coming up with stuff and they don't get the credit or recognition they deserve, like heady Lamarr, created on the radar that was used in early neat Navy submarines. And she created this back in the I want to say 1920s 1930s and she let the patent expire because she thought she was never going to get any recognition for an assumed as the patent dropped basically, the United States Navy bombed up and now they patented that technology for warfare. But we've seen in the Discworld, just how powerful female practitioners of magic are, you know, like Granny Weatherwax and nanny are frighteningly powerful,

Tessa  29:55  
right? And it's interesting too, that like the witches even though Granny Weatherwax is obviously kind of someone who likes to be alone. There's no similar rule on witches having sex because nanny OG has been married like three times and has like, dozens and dozens of children and grandchildren and like, and you know, Malgrat has her her relationship with King Burness the fool. So it's interesting that it's like the it's not just that they have different kinds of magic, it's that the types of magic that they practice are just so conceptually different from each other.

Nigel  30:31  
Yeah. And also, it's like, I don't know, isn't that I've never seen Star Wars, but isn't the thing where it's like Jedi is like, don't have sex. This is a

Tessa  30:40  
funny story. Because yes, canonically Jedi are like a monastic order. And they're not supposed to, they're not supposed to have relationships. The idea is that it comes from like this Buddhist. It comes from like the Buddhist idea of like, non attachment. So you're not supposed to develop relationships with people that you get attached to, you're not supposed to develop attachments to objects, or you know, anything like that you're supposed to, because that will lead you towards like the Dark Side of the Force. So the Jedi are supposed to, you know, and that's why they take they take children right, like to train because

Nigel  31:20  
they kidnap children and indoctrinate. Well,

Tessa  31:23  
kind of Yeah, basically. And so they that's why they have they take children. And that's why in the first one, which I think you've seen the first one, well, The Phantom Menace is canonically. Number one, yes. That's why they don't want to accept Anokhin as a Jedi, because he's too old. And he's already started to form attachments to like his mother. And like, you know, all these other people. And that's it. It is the Ark of the first trilogy is yeah, actually, because he formed attachments. He turns evil, which I think is a really terrible message of any

Nigel  31:54  
Yeah, but also, if there's one thing I remember, it's, I think it's Obi Wan. I want to say saying only a Sith deals in absolutes. He says dealing and absolute only says

Tessa  32:04  
Oh, yes, yes. And so but the funny. Here's the funny part of the story. So recently, George Lucas who cannot help himself, like he literally cannot help himself from just saying random shit that like, like, from ting he can't help himself to for doing two things. He can't stop tinkering with the movies long afterwards, and he can't stop saying random shit. And recently, he said, I never said the Jedi don't have sex. I just said they can't form attachments. And so that led to the entire internet being like, Well, you heard George Lucas say it fuck buddies only. And so Jedi. Yeah, it's actually the rules about Jedi, they can have sex, they just can't have long term relationships.

Nigel  32:49  
Honestly, I want to go GA because I, I take every chance I've taken every chance I get I take it to say I've never seen Star Wars proudly. It's like, if I were the creator of a really famous franchise, I who now kind of is at the end of like creative ownership of it where the franchise is over or has been bought out for me by a soulless mega corporation. I'm not naming any names. But I would also just say random shit, I would do it just to fuck with the fandom but not in the JK Rowling way where she's trying to put in inclusivity you know, where she's like, Oh, such and such as like such such a character is canonically queer or this and it's like after the fact. And then also, she's just a horrible human being or George Lucas is a good human being. So don't hold me to that as an absolute fact. But I would just say random stuff being like, you know, Chewbacca is actually just like a fursuit made up with millions of bees. And just, you know, let the internet run wild. How about it?

Tessa  33:50  
Yeah, actually, it's funny, and this podcast is completely derailed, so I'm just leaning into it. But I What's funny is that this actually does link back to what you were saying earlier about women whose women who make these accomplishments and then men take the credit for them. So actually, there's a lot of evidence like this is actually known that the reason why Star Wars Episode Four A New Hope, which was originally just called Star Wars, because it was the first one that was made is actually as good as it is because of Marshall Lucas, George Lucas, his wife that I'm going to send you this link later, as soon as I find it. That explains what happened. But basically, George Lucas came up with all of these, like, wild ideas made a movie, that movie was unwatchable. Like nobody understood what was happening. It didn't make any sense. Marshall Lucas came in and recut that movie to make sense. Like it is actually, I wish that she was actually credited as a co director because the amount of work that she did to make that movie watchable, like nobody would even know what Star Wars is if it wasn't for her. So there you go. Tying it right Write back in.

Nigel  35:01  
Yeah, no, just similar to with the Great Gatsby, where there's a lot of evidence that points towards Zelda Fitzgerald actually writing pretty much all of it. And then F Scott Fitzgerald, just pawning it off as is.

Tessa  35:14  
Yeah. There's I think there's a lot of that. There's a lot of evidence that for an example, Harper Lee actually wrote in cold blood because she did all of the research and transcription of the interviews and Truman Capote, he just sort of was there. So yeah, that is like a definite phenomena within.

Nigel  35:32  
Yeah, I I'm, I'm going to take this opportunity to repurpose a phrase where it's like, behind every man is a great woman, but every man is going to steal the spotlight from said woman.

Tessa  35:42  
It's true. So let's, let's try to rein this in. Let's try to circle all the way back around to all the way around the disk all the way around. Most of the wizards at the NCD University are kind of hilarious, because they're these old men, mostly in dressing gowns. Gelder Weatherwax, has his fluffy slippers with pom poms, which I think are hilarious. But we also get the villain of the book from the unseen University, which is Treiman. What did you think about Treiman as a villain,

Nigel  36:11  
I think he's very Shakespearean in nature, which I appreciate it. So like, one of my main criticisms about the book is that it kind of doesn't spend enough time on any one thing at any given time to effectively develop so so you kind of have to take everything in the aggregate because just by the fact that this is a continuation from the color of magic, like very little time is spent on rinse wind, almost in comparison with, like all the other stuff that's going on. But Treiman feels very much like from King Lear, where he's kind of scheming back and like, I suppose in this analogy, Kaldur Weatherwax would be Gluster. You know, where he's scheming basically right in front of the Gluster thinks he knows what's going on, or Guldur Weatherwax does, and then you know, he ends up in power and then fortunes wheel brings him back down at the end where he becomes basically a hollowed out vessel for things which live on the other, like, on the other side of the lake fantastic.

Tessa  37:12  
The dungeon dimensions, the dungeon dimensions are a fixture in the unseen University plots. They're very eldritch. Again, I like you said I hesitate to use the word Lovecraftian. But that is the word that comes to mind. Like there are these horrors that live on the other side of that like sort of membrane between the Discworld and this other dimension? And at one point I think I don't have the page written down but it's like they always want to invade the Discworld these these eldritch beings because it's closer to the shops, which I think is really really funny. But yeah, like that's a big part of this is that the wizards are always trying to make sure that the things from the dungeon dimensions don't poke their way through into the Discworld reality.

Nigel  38:00  
Yeah, I'm thinking of like the quote here, knowledge spirit into rinse one's mind like a knife of ice, the dungeon dimensions would be a playgroup, compared to what the things could do in a universe of order. People were craving order and order, they would get the order of the turning screw the immutable law of straight lines and numbers they would take for the hero Treiman was looking at him, was looking at him. And so the others hadn't noticed could even explain it, trying to look the same as he had always done except for the eyes and a slight sheen to his skin. Where that is a fixture in Lovecraft, where he kind of like takes away the familiar aspects of stuff. There's an awful lot in Lovecraft, especially the Cthulhu Mythos of saying that people's eyes are like hollow or they have no eyes, like it's all flat skin, like it's a very dehumanizing, you know, like the phrase the eyes are the window to the soul exists for a reason. Yeah, we're like, you know, even if it were plat skin for all of it, if you had eyes, you could at least empathize with the thing. You know, once you remove the eyes, it becomes inhuman Eldridge.

Tessa  39:08  
Right. And it's interesting that Treiman is sort of a specific type of villain, even before the dungeon dimension sort of inhabit him or something inhabits him. Like there's a there's a scene it's sort of a longer quote, but it's really interesting. Where he's sitting down is this is after Galder Weatherwax is killed, like accidentally kills himself in an experiment. And so Treiman is the head of the unseen University. And the six surviving heads of the eight orders sat at the long, shiny new table in what had been Galder Weatherwax. His study, and each one wondered precisely what it was about Treiman that made them want to kick him. It wasn't that he was ambitious and cruel, cruel men were stupid. They all knew how to use cruel men, and they certainly knew how to bend other men men's ambitions. You didn't stay in eighth level. Make For a very long unless you were adapted to kind of mental judo, it wasn't that he was bloodthirsty, power hungry or especially wicked. These things were not necessarily drawbacks and wizards, the wizards were on a hole no more wicked than, say the Committee of the average Rotary Club, and each had risen to preeminence in his chosen profession, not so much by skill at magic, but by never neglecting to capitalize on the weakness of their opponents. It wasn't that he was particularly wise, every wizard considered himself a fairly hot property, wise wise, it went with the job. It wasn't even that he had charisma. They all knew charisma when they encountered it, and Treiman had all the charisma of a duck egg. That was it. In fact, he wasn't good or cruel or evil or extreme in any way, but one, which that he had elevated greatness to the status of a fine art, and cultivated a mind that was as bleak and perilous and logical as the slopes of hell. He's sort of the ultimate, like, he's taken logic to the far extreme, right, like this idea that everything should be an order, nothing that isn't orderly, should exist. And that almost allows him to be more open to the dungeon dimensions, even though the dungeon dimensions are not orderly, because they can use that extreme to inflict their will on the universe in some particularly cruel ways.

Nigel  41:24  
Yeah, I think it sort of echoes nicely. Well, in our reading order, it echoes but in this sort of what comes before sets away for the quote in Weird Sisters, where they're looking at the crown, and it's like, this is what makes monsters of men basically, is that you know, you give, give a give a man a fish, and he eats for a day, give a man a crown, and he deprives everyone else in the local area of their food while he becomes rich and bloated. You know, that common face?

Tessa  41:54  
Alright, so what we haven't talked a lot about rinse wind or two flowers. So let's, let's check in on them. So what did you think about the way in which they were saved at the beginning of the novel? To me, it felt a little contrived, but I think it was supposed to,

Nigel  42:08  
yeah, it feels contrived, like how it happens. But I think the cosmological reason of the fact that like, the universe will let one of these spells because as they say, in the unseen University, when a wizard dies, all of the magic that's inside of him that he knows, comes out, like a big ball. Whereas like these eight great spells, you know, like if a wizard dies at them, they're just gone. There's no way to retrieve them, basically. So the universe tries its utmost it reasserts itself in the face of this like, loss. And I think, was it the color of magic yet? It was with the first footnote, the only footnote where it's like, I really like cosmology and world building. And it's like how the universe ticks was a really interesting aspect.

Tessa  42:54  
Yeah. And we see that the octava itself, this Grimoire of the spells, it knows what's going to happen. It has a consciousness of its own somehow, although it's kind of a divided consciousness because they are able to talk their spells are able to talk to rinse, wind, and do on several occasions, but they also argue with each other to about how the universe was created. They don't want him to die. Like he has to come back to ONC more pork. And he has to say the spells at exactly the right time.

Nigel  43:24  
Yeah, I think the whole like, it feels almost like a running gag, but like, kind of a deep philosophical inquiry, where it's like, how did we get here? And it's like, and they say, like, oh, well, we did this and we didn't it's like, no, in the universe. How did we get here. And it's really funny to see that, because like, we don't actually know, like, in this reality, wherever we came from our where we're going really, like for all intents and purposes, we may be, we might back have a giant turtle is towards a red star. You know, we have no clear concept even like the Big Bang is kind of a theory which we've all accepted. Not to be like a big, I don't want to sound like a big bang theory, skeptic. But, you know, all the science we have suggests it, but we have, like 100% confirmed at this stage. And we also, there's so many different periods as to how the world is going to how the universe is going to end that we don't have a clear picture of the timeline of the universe.

Tessa  44:28  
Right? And that even I think it's like on the very second page of the book, the narrator tells us that the greater to and is the only being in the universe that knows where it's going. Nobody knows where they're going, or how they got here, which is another funny joke throughout the book, but the greater to it knows where it's going. And we don't really get a huge answer to that. Like, where does it where is it going? But it knows I also really loved the joke in this book. It starts on page three, but it A couple of people repeat it a couple of times. For an example it is said that someone at a party once asked the famous philosopher lighten Wheedle, why are you here? And the reply took three years. I laughed so hard when I read that part, because I think rinse when does it two or two flowers? Like why are we here? And Prince was like, Well, some people think that the creator and like, Oh, you mean like how did we get here?

Nigel  45:23  
Yeah, or they have all these different theories, where it's like, oh, they're all named Rick weird stuff, which I can't remember now. But it's all like, you know, like the big like, sneezing or sneezing one of them? I'm trying to remember.

Tessa  45:36  
Yeah. First, there was the word no, First there was the clearing of the throat. No, first there was this. Yes. Yeah. It's interesting that that's like a long running joke in this is that nobody can really say how the universe started it even the greater tuin, which is the only being in the universe, which knows where it's going. It has a very like practical mind, because we get to see somewhat the thought processes of the greater tuin in this in this book. And it's a very, like, you know, I have to go from I have to swim towards this thing, and then swim away from this thing. It's, it's very interesting.

Nigel  46:08  
Yeah, I really liked that, you know, that were there. Like we had a wizard, you know, we had a whole team of wizards where it's like, they're attempting to read the mind of the greater tune. And it's like, we had them. We had them trained to read the minds of turtles, but we didn't take into account that like this might would be so large there for for years. Following this. Yeah, following all these slow thoughts. And so I like that, I think it's a good counter to, like eldritch monsters would fill you up full of terrible knowledge where I think Pratchett does it really well. The slow mind, almost like an end, but even slower, like the ponders over aeons. What is meant to do you see this in the long Earth series as well, where he, I think this is like one of the greatest, like naming conventions ever. There's these giant I don't remember walk. Like they're analogous to, from basically these giant beings, which live on certain worlds, there's basically great minds, which are very much like the greater two and but he calls them like, first person singular, third person singular. And that's what they're known as, I think it's fantastic. Hmm,

Tessa  47:21  
yeah, it also kind of reminds me of the trolls later on in the novel, even though they're not as massive obviously, as the greater too. And there's this kind of joke about philosophy, like how eventually a troll will start thinking about, like, why am I here? And what are we doing? And that's what causes trolls to sort of, you know, go and NERT or like, become part of the landscape like old granddad, who's like this huge mountain, just sort of becomes part of the landscape because he's just sitting here sort of pondering the mysteries of the universe very slowly over like, years and years and years,

Nigel  47:55  
trying to find out the quote, where oh, ground that wakes up, which I think is like a fantastic piece of writing. Yeah, here we go old ground that awoke very slowly from his centuries old slumber, he nearly didn't wake at all. In fact, a few decades later, none of this could have happened. When a troll gets old and starts to think seriously about the universe, it normally finds a quiet spot and gets down to some hard philosophizing, and after a while starts to forget about its extremities, and begins to crystallize around the edges until nothing remains except a tiny flicker of life inside quite a large hill with some unusual rock strata. Old grounds that hadn't quite got that fire, he awoke from considering quite a promising line of inquiry about the meaning of truth and found a hot, ashy taste in what after a certain amount of thought he remembered as being his mouth, he began to get angry commands scattered along neural pathways of impure silicon. Deep within his specifications, body stones slipped smoothly along special fracture lines, trees toppled turf split us fingers, the size of ships unfolded and grip the ground to enormous rock slides high on this cliff face Mac the opening of eyes like great crusted opals. I really like that. It also reminds me of learning physics, about semiconductors, how you have to have impurities in them to make, like electricity goes through the most stuff, which I didn't like being reminded of physics.

Tessa  49:17  
Yeah, like magic physics,

Nigel  49:19  
physics is interesting to read about because it goes back into the cosmology and stuff where magic systems work, especially higher magic systems. I think Brandon Sanderson is really good. Like, especially in the Mistborn books of explaining how Allomancy works. I really love reading about that.

Tessa  49:37  
Yeah, and there's a there's a scene in light fantastic. That actually specifically reminded me of Sanderson not that the way that the magic in the Discworld works is actually that similar to Brandon Sanderson system, it's a lot less hard system of magic, but there's a scene where Galder Weatherwax when they're running up the the unseen University all the way to the tower and He tries to like he launches himself. You know, to fly, he has to drop a stone like he like severs a like one of the stone parapets and like causes the fall and that motion of falling. He uses it he redirects it to throw himself up in the air. And that really reminded me of Miss Bourne a lot. Yeah. 100% like, like the idea of you can't just create motion. You have to borrow it.

Nigel  50:26  
Yeah, like I mean, everyone throws around the whole the Arthur C. Clarke. You know, science, like, sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. I think it's a bit trice to trot that phrase out at this stage. No disrespect to Arthur C. Clarke. I think he's a fantastic writer. But I think modern pop culture has seized it and wore it out one time too many boasts? Yeah, like,

Tessa  50:52  
although I actually think about the fact that like, there are lots of things in my life that might as well be magic, like, do I actually understand how a toaster works? Not really, like, as far as I know, that is actually magic.

Nigel  51:05  
We had this conversation, the lat the last time I'd like we don't actually know how cameras work like the two of us. So it may as well have a sprite inside of

Tessa  51:14  
it. Yeah, it's like, I know that there's some scientific explanation for it. But do I care enough to like figure that out? Like, as far as my brain, my brain is just accepted that it works. So as far as I know, it could be magic.

Nigel  51:27  
Yeah, it's taken the Todd Howard approach of game design, which is just pictures.

Tessa  51:32  
We should we should talk about friends wind, which i i find rince wins trajectory in this book to be a lot more interesting than his trajectory in the color of magic, mainly because he so in the color of magic, there's a big we talked about this last time, there's a big vibe of, he doesn't want to be the main character, but he keeps getting pulled into the main character position. I felt like that it was much more obvious that that was happening in this book. Because the Octavio has basically said like, No, you're the one with the spell, you're the one who has to come back to encore pork and say the spell. And Rincewind desperately does not want to be a part of this, like, he does not want to be a hero. He wants to survive. And he's not sure that he will survive for like the majority of the book. And then eventually, he only goes along with it, because he really just wants the spell out of his head. Like, he's like, You've ruined my life, you've ruined my chances of being a wizard. Like I just want you to be gone. I feel like that is a much better and much more understandable motivation than the one that he's given in the color of magic, which is basically he scared of the patrician.

Nigel  52:38  
I know you said the patrician, like, becomes almost like a beloved figure in the Watch series and stuff. But he comes off as generically evil in the color of magic. And I find that motivation, boring. I like I've read basically, what I read. It consists entirely of fantasy, I think like modern fantasy, has lots of amazing stories to read. And it's like a story that I've kind of settled into. So I see an awful lot of like, different motivations and characters for stuff where like, traditional fantasy, it's like, here is this ultimate force of evil, which needs to be stopped by an ultimate force of good, you know, like in Lord of the Rings or Wheel of Time, or whatever. But then as you become more modern, you have more nuanced motivations, that, you know, like, our thinking of Game of Thrones, where it's like all political, maneuverings, things like that. So having just a generically evil villain being like, you know, here's a threat to you, and you go and do this, and it's, you know, never really followed up on is to me, so I think, desperately trying not to be the protagonist, when reality wants you to be the protagonist is a much better, more interesting motivation for a character.

Tessa  53:55  
Yeah, and I found the climactic moment where he fights Treiman to be both really compelling, but also really hilarious because, like Treiman, who has now been inhabited by these eldritch beings is just as bad at fighting as Prince windows like, they're both just kind of like out of shape. wizards who have studied magic their whole lives and not like they're not warriors, right, which there's a really funny section at one point in the book about how magic is down, right, and magic is down. And so I just I imagined, like,

Nigel  54:26  
just like Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp.

Tessa  54:30  
Like I just kind of imagined, like, you know, those like the videos of like cats that are just like slapping at each other, but they're not really doing a really good job of it. Like they're kind of like, they're they've turned their faces away, and they're just sort of like beat like trying to slap at each other. That's kind of what I imagined this fight to be like,

Nigel  54:47  
or I can't remember what piece of media is probably money because this is kind of a trope we're exploring more and more now in films specific like action films are like the hero has to come out of retirement. And he used to be something but now he's slightly out of shape. He's got, you know, a family. It's usually men in this scenario, I don't mean to, like, eliminate female action hero movies. But it's it's very much this genre is male led where it's like, you know nobody John Wick, things like that where they go and they like wind up a big punch hit their enemy and then they're like winded for a second. I can't remember what thing it is. But then also, this is done quite well.

Tessa  55:27  
So what happens in Scott at the beginning of Skyfall? With James Bond? Yes,

Nigel  55:31  
done. I think it's done quite well in Metal Gear Solid four Guns of the Patriots were Old Snake and Revolver Ocelot, who were, you know, like aged in real time basically, are these really really old men and they have, like they have one final fistfight on top of I don't remember the name of the gear that they're on top of. I don't think it's Arsenal gear, because that's from the second one, if I remember correctly, but yet, like that one has a somatic weight behind it, where you spend most of the game going back to like the locations of the first game and everything is rundown. So I think sometimes it's done really well thematically being like, this age has passed, you know, is there any sense and trying to reclaim it? And sometimes it's like, no, you need to move on and other narratives, it's like, well, you know, like Beowulf, you can pick up the sword that you left 50 years ago, whereas I mean, like Beowulf gets killed by Dragon straight fucking way. But yeah, I think. But when it's done for comedic purposes, I find it always hilarious. So Rinzin versus Treiman. I realize I'm rambling a lot. Sorry.

Tessa  56:35  
This is again, a ramble friendly podcast, you and I were both kind of annoyed by the character of two flower in the color of magic. Did this book do anything to change your opinion of him?

Nigel  56:46  
No, it did not rehabilitate him one bit. I was just like, Oh, he's there.

Tessa  56:50  
He's super. Like, I like that this book kind of makes fun of tourism. There's this great section where they're like, there are tons of names on maps that are actually just explorers grabbing the nearest native person and asking them what's the name of that mountain? And the name that they give actually just means like, Do you not know what a mountain is? Like? You know, like, that kind of joke is very funny. But it's a real life thing that happens. Yeah, yeah, it is. And to flavor though, is very, like, I don't want to say Eurocentric because I'm pretty sure the cow Counterweight Continent is not actually supposed to be European. But he's very ethnocentric. He's very like, when things don't make sense to him. Culturally, it's wrong. And he makes these like weird comments where he's like, Oh, yes, this is very ethnic, which is just kind of feels really creepy and gross.

Nigel  57:43  
Yeah, it feels like a, like a early Victorian stuff, where it's like very much like, saying, We're, oh, isn't that ethnic, it's wonderful. And it's like, what the fuck this makes, you know, any, like, sane reader of today, very uncomfortable.

Tessa  57:59  
Right. And at first, I thought maybe he was making fun of the idea of the tourist, right? Like that person who comes in and just assumes that they know everything or that they, you know, they it's kind of this weird. I don't like modifying the male gaze as the concept to other things. But there is sort of a tourist gaze, right? Like the ways in which, like, tourists look at something and think that they understand it, or they filter it through their own preconceptions. And I think maybe that's part of why two flower is portrayed this way. But he's also kind of like heroic at the end of the book. Like he was like, the optimistic hero, the sort of counterbalances rinse wins, desperately trying not to be main character syndrome.

Nigel  58:41  
Yeah, like he runs ahead all runs when at the end towards Treiman. When both runs when and all of the other heads of the departments, you know, are like, well, there's not an awful lot we can do and then that galvanizes Rizwan to run towards it and then all of the old wizards are like well, I guess we'll go towards that then.

Tessa  59:01  
Yeah, so it's it's interesting to see him in this book. And of course at the end of the book, we see him separate from rinse wind, you know, he goes back to the Counterweight Continent he says you know, in order to have been somewhere you have to go home first right in order to talk about having been somewhere so he leaves rents wind so we see them separate say goodbye to each other which is a strangely emotional scene for two people that really didn't want to be together for most of these books. And earliest rent on rinse when side he didn't not, I think appreciate to flower for most of these books. And of course to flower at the end also gives the luggage to rinse wind, which the luggage really comes into its own in these books, or in this book, because we get more of its loyal malevolence, is what I'm going to call it out of its personality. I've never seen something that's just a box of would have so much personality as this particular character does.

Nigel  59:59  
Yeah. Like it's serves it serves like more of a purpose than it does in the first book where it's like, you know it actively saves rinse wins life on multiple occasions like jumping in front of the thing and it gets teleported away. And we have an awful lot more like POV sections. That is just like the luggage trying to find ruins wind so the luggage does not have eyes but they acknowledge that they can feel the luggage looking at them. Yeah, you know where it's like this has eyes that we just can't see and it's therefore humanized for want of a better word even though it is a wooden chest.

Tessa  1:00:35  
Right? Yeah, it has like these like emotional aspects even though it is just a box like somehow they can read its attitude without a face to read it from

Nigel  1:00:47  
Yeah, also I remembered the name of the place where the snake fights or sorry Old Snake fights Liquid Ocelot. And it's outrageous heaven where this fight you know between legacy and memory takes place in a place called ever heaven

Tessa  1:01:03  
but yeah, so we get you know the luggage is with Rincewind now so we're gonna see that in of course play out in later books. The luggage now follows and now the luggage has now transferred all its protectiveness and its loyalty to rinse wind you know we'll kill for him we'll protect him will have his you know, dirty laundry and give him clean laundry. The the luggage also is the receptacle of the octavo which falls into it at the end of the fight with Treiman. We also get introduced to another really important character in the light fantastic for the Discworld in general, so important that he has his own book that's really based on him called the last hero. We get Cohen the barbarian, which is of course a direct ripoff of Conan the Barbarian which is was a very popular sword and sorcery hero that's been in Arnold Schwarzenegger plays multiple pulp magazines. He's been adapted to books, comic books, films, the character was created by Robert E. Howard in 1932 for a series of fantasy stories published in weird tales magazine. And of course, we get what is basically the same character in Conan the Barbarian. In fact, there were Americans versions of the light fantastic that mistakenly reprinted his name just as Conan the Barbarian instead of that, you know, changing the end to the H like Terry Pratchett does. But Terry Pratchett gives us a twist on this character because he's clearly recognizable as Conan, right? He has like, he's like this sort of barbarian warrior. He's just kind of wearing this leather loincloth in the big boots, but he's old. He's like 80 years old. And the idea is, is that when you're that good, being a hero or being a warrior, like what happens when you outlive all of your enemies? Like, do you just keep going on adventures? Because that's all you know how to do. Like he doesn't even have teeth anymore. And so there's a lot of jokes about him like sort of lisping his words and Shoup right? He can only eat soup because of it. And you know, I actually really enjoyed it when he got his dentures from from to flower.

Nigel  1:03:12  
Yeah, I love as well how all of our diversions have like I like circle background to being relevant like the one about Milton relevant the one about Scooby Doo relevant the one about Metal Gear Solid relevant because yeah, the character of Cohen he's that they all figure also kind of the mountain goats quote, just to flowers quote about you have to go back home to have been somewhere to appreciate it going to Georgia is a famous one that jondor Neil will no longer play, going to Scotland going to wherever. And he kind of wrote those as like almost critiques of people who put their base their whole thing of like, I'm going to this place, and then I get there, and it's like, okay, and then you're there for like four months. And it's like, well, this place is no longer cool. It's no longer like the place it was when I was there. And so then this song, we do a different on the West Coast, that you know, it's like, we do it on the west things that are happening. And then the second verse, it has the line, and Dave went to New York. I don't care. You can't shut people up once they get back from there. I just like that sentiment

Tessa  1:04:15  
to to flower. Yeah, I feel like the two flower thing. Honestly, it kind of feels like maybe it's parroting Bilbo from The Hobbit a little bit how he's like, I just want to go home at the end of The Hobbit. But at the same time, it feels awful convenient. It feels like oh, we're getting rid of two flower because we don't want him in the next book. Which is sorcery.

Nigel  1:04:36  
Yeah, like they're, they're shooing him away. So Rincewind can be like on his own with the luggage. And it's like, well, what's a convenient way? Oh, we just make him want to go home. And I understand the need to like in fantasy settings where it's like, Home is where the heart is blah, blah, very trite, but the pull towards home is really interesting. You know, characters with it like it I just want to stay where I am. Or then also conversely characters who are like, well, I like it where I am now, I want to stay here is a good way I think too far falls in between and is neither here nor there where it's like we just wanted gone.

Tessa  1:05:14  
Obviously, the unseen University is not the only location that we see Rincewind as a character tends to travel a lot. So we see a lot of like the different country sides of the disk, as well as a city that's sort of inhabited by religious extremists, which is possibly the most terrifying part of the novel. But we also get to see more pork again, he returns to Ogmore porque. And we also get to see surprise surprise deaths house and a very quick cameo of Isabel

Nigel  1:05:44  
Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I'm sure I have the page book back there, I think is 134. Where they're learning to Yeah, where they're learning to play cards. And it's like, they can't think of the name of their tossing around various thing bridge or pontoon. I don't know enough about either card game to base it off of this but all of the words circled around that. So I'm saying is either bridge or or pawn to similar games,

Tessa  1:06:10  
listeners to play bridge or pontoon. Please tweet at us if you know what game they're playing in this book.

Nigel  1:06:18  
Yeah, but then as well, I think is really funny where it's like, they escape and it's like, yeah, a few seconds later, the horsemen arrived and didn't stop when they reach the edge of the rock, but simply rode into the air and wring their horses over nothingness, death looked down. That always annoys me. He said, I might as well install a revolving door. And then they go on about the about the card game. I wonder what they want to set pestilence. To me said war. Nice game, though. Right? Agreed famine compelling, I thought, we've got time for another fundal said death. Rubber corrected or rubber was, you call them rubbers said war. Right rubbers said death. He looked up at the new Star puzzled as to what it might mean. I think we've got time he repeated a trifle. And certainly, I didn't realize that it was right there. But yeah, the fact that death is uncertain about this thing, where he's kind of like, like, he knows a lot of what's going to happen. He knows like in the color magic, there's going to be a big plague and stuff off of us. And he needs to be there to reap all the souls. But this potentially, like the threat which could potentially wipe out all life on the disk. He's like, I don't know about this one.

Tessa  1:07:35  
Yeah, it's interesting what death does know about and what he doesn't know about. But here we also get the beginning of his, like attraction towards human things like in color of magic. We don't really see the version of death that we see later in mort, where he's very interested in humanity. But here we can see him becoming very interested in trying to figure out this very complex card game. Yeah,

Nigel  1:07:58  
I like interesting and complex card games, because I think they're easier for me to follow. I've given up on playing board games correctly. However, card games i i play games like a lunatic, I employ a combination of just sheer like unbridled chaos. I don't know whether this is going to make it into the podcast, but sheer unbridled chaos on the Colombo strategy, which is just pretend like you don't know what you're doing. And then pull it whammy on them. You know, you have your Oh, just one more thing moment. But I've done that. And it's like, it's really funny because I play Monopoly and Cluedo like this one time, I was playing Monopoly with my friends, I could quite clearly see like, I have the gist. I'm not saying this to be like, Oh, I'm manipulating people. Most of the time, I don't know what's going on. I have no concept of what's happening around me. And it's quite evident when you look at my face, because it's usually one step in concentration. But a monopoly, I was quite aware of the fact that two of my friends had two properties in a certain color. And then they were like, I had the other ones of those two sets. And they were like, Oh, wait, like one away from a monopoly. And they wanted to, like, buy the thing. And one of them was like, Oh, I'll give you this amount of money for this. And I was like, Huh, you know, making a big deal of it. And they were like, they changed their, their offer or whatever. And I was like, You know what? Sure, go for it. I did this twice. And all the rest of the people were like, what the, you know, like you gave them a monopoly and I'm like, Oh, it makes the game more interesting. I guess.

Tessa  1:09:32  
I'm a huge board game person, but I enjoy really complex ones as well. I enjoy ones that are cooperative like where you're working with people. Yeah, like

Nigel  1:09:43  
you know, when you've got your three other buddies who just happen to be feel they're Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Exactly. Yeah, that's a fun fun game night.

Tessa  1:09:51  
Yeah. So this is our first our first glimpse of the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We will we will see them later. They This is not a one off with them.

Nigel  1:10:00  
Oh, lovely. I would hope that I didn't break out separate new voices for pestilence, war and famine. For to have them never show up again,

Tessa  1:10:10  
they will show up we will we will get to them as well. What did you think about the the city that they come to that has decided that the people with the red stars painted on their foreheads, and they've decided that the reason the red star has appeared is because of wizards and they want to kill and purify magic from the disk.

Nigel  1:10:34  
I think this is probably the most interesting like, my favorite part about this entire book is this whole concept of like magic extremism, or I guess extremism in the face of magic is one I mean, where it's like, oh, all of our problems have been created by an I don't want to say doors this obviously not because we saw far too much of that with the whole Coronavirus pandemic, blaming it on people from different countries and stuff. And you know, like you brought the fire like, that's just shitty racism. But I think it's really interesting that it's explored through the lens of magic. Because we see an awful lot in media. With superheroes, we've gotten to the stage where we've gotten to the deconstruction of the hero where everyone needs to be gritty, and everyone needs to be really, really upset about what superheroes are doing. You know, you had Batman versus Superman, you had in civil war with the signing of the Sokovia Accords, you have it in the boys, you have it in so many other things. Even My Hero Academia is at that stage in the manga, no spoilers, but that's where it's at. I think having it with magic where it's like, gentlemen, magic users, and it's, it's completely and utterly frightening. The way Pratchett does it, where it's like, this is a mob who, like legitimately could possibly carry you limb from limb. You know, just kick the EverLiving crap out of you for being a magic user. Like there's that whole line where it's like, oh, all these wizards tried to do stuff. And, you know, they said they were big hotshot magic users. But when the time came, they couldn't do anything. You know, and it's obviously because the Red Comet is in the sky. But yeah, it's frightening. Yeah, like

Tessa  1:12:18  
the way that they talk about these wizards that they killed and like, looking like they couldn't do magic. And they were just sort of looking at their hands and horror while they're being killed by this mob.

Nigel  1:12:28  
Yeah. Now, obviously, not every magic user is good. But I think the way that's painted like you're quite clearly taking advantage of someone who's quite upset and then you're just being like, Haha, I guess I kill you. You know, it's very much like framed like a slaughter of the innocents. You know, like, in those fantasy stories, where it's or, or the Bible, which is a great fantasy story where they're like, go in and kill everyone. You know, you remember how you remember how King Herod was like, Yeah, kill all of the babies.

Tessa  1:13:02  
Yeah, there's a lot of horrible things in the Bible, people who people don't realize how much terrible stuff is in the Bible, or like, you know, the multiple genocides that are ordered in the Old Testament.

Nigel  1:13:13  
Yeah. However, just really briefly, big shout out to I think possibly my favorite biblical hero. I have only one I hate the Bible as like dogmatic but Judith from the Old Testament who, you know, just she just has enough of her law Farnese be handsome. And, you know, hold out his hand me like, Look at this. I love Judith.

Tessa  1:13:33  
So I you know, it's fine. Because this this scene in the book also coincides with one of the appearances of death and death calls the mob the death of the mind, which I thought was just to bring that

Nigel  1:13:45  
Oh, that was going to be my thing that made me think.

Tessa  1:13:50  
Oh, okay, we can we will just

Nigel  1:13:52  
No, no, no, leave that in leave.

Tessa  1:13:55  
Well, I just thought it was so interesting, like the death of the mind. Like he says, not like this the death of the warrior or the old man or the little child this I understand. And I take away the pain and the suffering. I do not understand this death of the mind.

Nigel  1:14:09  
No, just you can have this part out where I say this, but leaves on it. I think it's a funny joke. But yes.

Tessa  1:14:16  
Well also, like, I feel like that hits different now to like, I feel like there's a large part of the world. I mean, this especially in the US, I think where there has been a real death of the mind. Like, we can see that in like the ways in which American Christianity and patriotism and like anti science and anti intellectualism have all combined to create these like really for end racism and white supremacy have all combined to make this these really terrible, like anti like death of the mind.

Nigel  1:14:49  
Yeah. Like, I want to have two things. So I'm gonna I'm gonna go with like, the critical point and then a story, an anecdote. So Yeah, like, I think it ties back to what we were talking about earlier on with, like, the concept of inhuman monsters where it's like, you know, you understand the people die because they get killed, or, you know, they die of natural causes be they young, old, distinguished rich poor or whatever, you know, that's the death that death understands. But this is like people are alive. And they've entirely surrendered their mind to this like, idea which has been put into their mouth by like an eloquent speaker. And, you know, we have real world examples of how this is turned out, horribly, you know, with, like, the rise of fascism in the 20th century Europe and stuff. Like, that's a death of the mind that lead to actual deaths, you know, it's very, very deadly and worrying. And, you know, like, you know, you talk to these people, that they have their position, and they're not coming down from it, they may as well not have any volumes, because they're going to Brooke no arguments, which is fucking terrifying,

Tessa  1:16:03  
right, and even more terrifying, all of those deaths of the mind sort of, like, if you study like mobs, which is like really terrifying in and of itself, like mops, own sort of consciousness that sort of exists when, yeah, it's like when a lot of people get together, and they're angry or afraid, or whatever, but they almost act in a way that's very like, it's almost like they are one unit, like a mob is like an organism in and of itself, but it only has it has very, like simple goals. And those goals are often very violent and terrifying in this way. Yeah.

Nigel  1:16:40  
Like, yeah, like is the whole like hive mind thing, which is associated with aliens. But then, once you apply it, like we have a different name for when it's with humans, which I think seems vaguely like, apologist stick, you know, where it's like, oh, it's not as bad when humans are doing it, or whatever. But it's like, it's also really like, just as worrying just as alien. You know, like a hive mind is the same as a mob mentality. That's what I'm saying.

Tessa  1:17:11  
Yeah. Oh, yeah, that totally makes sense to me.

Nigel  1:17:14  
Oh, May I share my store manager, my anecdote. I was walking to work yesterday. And I saw my first ever occurrence of anti mass propaganda here in Ireland. Like, I'm not saying that was never put up at walls. But this is my first time seeing any of it. And it's anti masculine. And it says, like uncovered. So it's an illustration of three heads wearing masks, and the first one says no voice on the mask, and then the head is slightly faded, and it says no face. And then the other one, the third one, the head is gone. It says no human. And the tagline of the poster says Don't cover your face. And obviously, I want to preface this with I do not believe in this. I think this is a horrific ideology. But what I think is really, really funny is that one person has written on the poster, go fuck yourself. And then the other person on top of where the third head should be has just written sorry, was, and I love how, you know, people have met this frightening, like, coldly sickly, who like whose actions actively endanger the population with mild mannered confusion, which is sorry, what like, this makes no sense. From an outsider perspective, their death of the mind makes no sense to people with actual minds,

Tessa  1:18:26  
right, but it has these like terrible violent consequences, which is, it's so strange to me that that can happen. But it does happen. And so I think that this is, it's really interesting the way that he describes this, and it almost seems like it like like I said, it seems almost more relevant. Now. There's another scene that also seems more relevant now. But it's on a much lighter note. So obviously, when we're recording this, this is a couple of days after Facebook went down for like six hours. And that was like Facebook, and Instagram and all of that. And you've already mentioned it once when talking about how the magic system goes down when they get close to the Red Star. But there's the section that really reminded me of that moment in where the mob is trying to get inside the unseen University. What reliable magic still remained to the university was being channeled into keeping the great skates secure. The Wizards were learning that while it was all fine and impressive to have a set of gates that were locked by magic, it ought to have occurred to the builders to include some sort of emergency backup device, such as for an example, a pair of ordinary unimpressive stout iron bolts, and all I could think of when I read that was the way in which the Facebook employees couldn't get back into Facebook because like the headquarters, because all of their keys were connected to the network, and the network was down and nobody had thought to have a physical key. Oh my god. Yeah, like all everything, went down with Facebook, and they couldn't even get back into the building because all of their stuff was electronic and nobody had thought to actually make a lock on the door. That was a physical lock that couldn't go down if the system went down.

Nigel  1:20:06  
Yeah, I think that's a whole other conversation, which maybe we can return to because like you say, more pork becomes more industrialized, I think it'd be a good conversation to have, like in a fantasy lens with, again, the Mistborn books because they go from like, pre Victorian to like, steampunk and stuff, but it's like, there is this whole debate over Well, innovation versus use. Like it may be very subtle well and good to have these things. But like, outside of being a hipster in are sounding like a hipster. It's like the old things existed for so long for a reason, because they actually work.

Tessa  1:20:44  
Right? Exactly. And you know, these networks can go down, you can actually lose all that information. So yeah, it's it was just funny to me again, this was written in 1986 still feels relevant. Still Still,

Nigel  1:20:57  
nearly 40 years before.

Tessa  1:21:01  
Before Facebook went down for six hours. Yeah,

Nigel  1:21:05  
to use another to use another vaguely Irish expression. Facebook wasn't even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg. I when this was written. I don't even know how I don't even know how old Mark Zuckerberg is. Like when this was released. Maybe he wasn't even a twinkle in his parents eyes.

Tessa  1:21:22  
1984 Yeah, he would have been two. He was born between the color of magic and the light. Fantastic.

Nigel  1:21:29  
Yeah. So when he was to obviously his parents read him the light, fantastic. And he said, You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to set up a social media, which is originally just to write the faces of girls who I'm in college with, which is, like, disgustingly creepy. But, you know, so then 16 years after that, he can go down and become analogous to

Unknown Speaker  1:21:53  
this scene frame of reference. Yeah.

Nigel  1:21:56  
I love how every single episode of this podcast we have some story which we have like blown the case wide open on last episode was the fact that Imagine Dragons. Dragons are Discworld inspired. And now this one, we have the great Facebook conspiracy.

Tessa  1:22:14  
This is like, you know, those people who are like trying to figure out like the Illuminati or whatever, we're like, how has Terry Pratchett infiltrated every level of our society?

Nigel  1:22:24  
Yeah, exactly. Like, it comes back. Like the stuff we touched on in the opening episode, you asked me how I got into Pratchett and it's like, I don't know, I think I was just always aware of him as a cultural concept like Stephen King. Now, obviously, like this one, I was aware of Rincewind on the unseen University from when I was like, seven or so. But it didn't really connect to me that this was Pratchett. This was just like, a part of the fact which I realized was part of

Tessa  1:22:53  
it. Right? So before we wrap up, we don't we can't end this podcast without talking about the actual plot of this book, which is, this mysterious red star appears the greater to and seems to be swimming towards it, and the closer that it gets the more the magic systems of the Discworld break down, which is terrible for the Discworld, because the Discworld operates mostly by magic, but then we discover that actually, what's happening is that the gratitude is returning for some eggs that were left 1000 years ago. And these eight eggs contain infant turtles with elephants and their own discs on their backs. What did you think about this reveal at the end of the novel?

Nigel  1:23:34  
I think it's a bit corny, to be honest, I enjoyed the small worlds as a concept because it's not like the Discworld is physically not a ball, which is floating in space, like our earth is, you know, it's on the back of living elephants, which are on the back of the living turtle. So I think that was interesting, but the whole reveal that oh, this whole catastrophe is the gratitude and basically giving birth or aiding in the birth of you know, because it talked about the whole these two first two books is like, well, everyone wants to find out what sex the gratitude is, and what would happen if they met a, like a giant space turtle of the opposite gender, what would happen, but it has the buying of children's media off of us, where it's like, oh, our pet has disappeared to pet has gone forever, and then they discover their pet cat or dog or whatever, is actually holed up and they've given birth to a litter of puppies or kittens. You know, it feels children's media. And I enjoy that in children's media, but I wasn't expecting it in Discworld. So I guess it blindsided me almost there's no other way to put it. It was like very confusing and very corny.

Tessa  1:24:48  
And that's fair. I do think that I did like that they didn't actually confirm the sex or gender or anything of the greater to and though like we still don't know Maybe we'll never know the greater to and the greater to and could be the father, mother or just parent of these babies like we have no idea. And don't Don't come at me internet saying like, Oh, well, it's only the mothers that like escort there yet no, this is a giant space turtle like we have no idea. Like what the gendered expectations of parenthood are here?

Nigel  1:25:25  
Yeah, I think that's very Pratchett. Like, I enjoy that aspect of it where it's like, we don't get an answer. Everyone expects there to be an answer, but then we just go. Oh, wow. And perhaps it gives a subtle wink.

Tessa  1:25:40  
does gender even mean anything to the greater to? And I'm not sure

Nigel  1:25:43  
that it does think gender doesn't mean anything at all, specifically to the greater to? And? No, I don't think so.

Tessa  1:25:50  
I don't think so either. All right. Before we wrap up, we have to go through our stats. So there were four death sightings in this book. There's the one at the very beginning, which is also one of the ones that I laughed the most about, where the wizards performed the write of ash kente. And they summoned death to try to figure out what's going on with the disk after the Octavio saves, rinse wind. And it actually, it actually chronologically makes sense with the end of the color of magic, because in the color of magic, you'll remember, death doesn't show up or prints wind when he's dangling off the edge of the disk. It's the demon scrofula. Because he says Death is busy with a plague in pseudo propolis. And then when they summon him in this book, he comes straight from a party. And it's very much implied that he's at a party, that the party from the mask of the Red Death, which is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, which is of course about a

Nigel  1:26:45  
plague. Isn't I've never read I am aware of the story. If you

Tessa  1:26:49  
haven't, oh my gosh, do yourself a favor read the mask of the Red Death. It is particularly terrifying in the time of COVID. But it's very much about that, like midnight is when they think I'm going to take my mask off is definitely a reference to that story.

Nigel  1:27:04  
Oh, yeah. But also just like want a line? You know? Yeah, that's, like, it's as close to, like, chilling as you get. I think it just works is it? You know, it's a very optimistic light hearted, like, satirical fantasy and stuff. But it's like, that's very chilling. You know, you could expect, like a pure evil being say it, whereas death is like chaos, or sorry, neutral. Good.

Tessa  1:27:33  
Right. But I don't think he says it in a particularly sinister way. I think he just says it in a very matter of fact way, which almost makes it more terror.

Nigel  1:27:40  
Oh, I read it as sinister But yeah, if you read it doesn't matter of fact, you just Yeah. That's when they think I'll be taking my mask off. The right of ash Kente is very much like the opening of Sandman Volume One, where yes, they try and summon death and end up with dream. And then this one they try and some a death and death is having none of us. So you know, those between

Tessa  1:28:03  
Yeah, death is to fail very much over the right of ash get Yeah.

Nigel  1:28:09  
They're like, Oh, I had all this prepared. And that's just like put by.

Tessa  1:28:14  
So the site the second instance, is on my in my book, it's page 43. But it's gray hold spoiled, who is the oldest wizard at the unseen University, he notices that death is looking at him kind of funny during the right. And so he makes he makes this like elaborate system of magical protections and spells and traps. And he locks himself in a box. Knowing like, and this is sort of the end of it, he had just set the complicated clockwork of the lock and shut the lid, lying back in the knowledge that here at last is the perfect defense against the most ultimate of all of his enemies, although as yet he has not considered the important part that airholes must play in any enterprise of this kind. And right beside him very close to his ear of voice has just said, dark in here, isn't it?

Nigel  1:29:02  
Yeah, that goes back as well to the first books conversation he has with fate where he's like, you know, I can't be denied. No one can escape me. Even if you build these things, he's just going to be in there, like, you know, making a pithy remark.

Tessa  1:29:18  
Yeah. And it also reminded me of the part in the first book where he hands the match to the innkeeper. Yes, like where it's just like in the dark, and he hands him the match. Although I think it's also funny this moment, it works on several levels, because on the one hand, yes, you can't escape death, like death will always already be there. But on the other hand, it's heavily implied that spoiled kills himself, because he hadn't thought about air holes. Yeah, we've already talked a little bit about the death sighting where he were rinsed when goes to Death House to retrieve to flower and we find death playing some sort of complex game to flower trying to teach death and the other three horsemen, some sort of complex card game and Then finally, there is the moment that I mentioned earlier, where they run across the city with the religious extremists or the anti magic, extremists and death. They see death already there in the crowd or rinse when sees death in the crowd. And there are multiple footnotes in the light fantastic under unlike the color of magic, the first footnote is on page six, in much the same way that gnats appear before a thunderstorm really heavy buildups of magic always attracted things from the chaotic dungeon dimensions, nasty things all misplaced organs and spittle forever searching for any gap through which they might sidle into the world of men. And then here's the footnote, they won't be described since even the pretty ones look like the offspring of an octopus in a bicycle. It is well known that things from undesirable universes are always seeking an entrance into this one, which is the psychic equivalent of handy for the buses and closer to the shops.

Nigel  1:30:53  
Yeah, so yeah, as someone who has to rent in the city, you know, I quite appreciate that.

Tessa  1:30:59  
What was your favorite footnote? So which so that was the first one but what was your favorite,

Nigel  1:31:04  
so no one knows why. But all the most truly mysterious and magical items are from shops that appear out after after trading life even briefer than the double glazing company vanish, like smoke. There have been various attempts to explain this, all of which don't fully account for the observed facts. These shops turn up anywhere in the universe and their immediate nonexistence at any particular city can normally be deduced from crowds of people wandering the streets clutching defunct magical items, or neath guarantee carts and looking very suspiciously at brick walls. That might seem like like their other ones to do with, like how things work like the explanation of a foam. But I really enjoyed this one just because it's like it speaks to an awful lot of like stores in Dublin or you see them where it's like they have a closing down sale for ages and ages and they pay for they sell the most odd assortment of items. But then also, I think it's a fun turning on the head of the like monkey's paw cursed vendor thing that you see and things like needful things where it's like the store is gone and everyone is just like, well, we've got nothing really and we're just going to look at these brick walls because it might be there.

Tessa  1:32:10  
It's kind of like the shop also in the beginning of Gremlins, even though that characterization, that characterization is super Orientalist. So yeah, Gremlins is a great movie, but that shop is very rooted in those types of discourses, but it's still like that magical shop where things just sort of exist. Yeah.

Nigel  1:32:29  
Hey, Tessa, I never seen grandma's.

Tessa  1:32:32  
You've never seen gremlins. It is both somehow an adorable movie and also a terrifying movie.

Nigel  1:32:40  
I know the concept of Grandma's but that's

Tessa  1:32:43  
yeah, that's it. I only watched it for the first time a couple years ago, it does hold up for the most part besides the beginning, Orientalism stuff. But my favorite footnote is on page 132 In my book, where they're talking about. So there's this joke throughout the whole book that I found very funny about descriptive language. And it almost becomes like this meta commentary about how we describe things in fantasy novels. And it turns out like descriptive, overly descriptive language is outlawed by one of the rulers of Ogmore porque. Like, you have to actually prove that what you're describing is like, the simile that you're using or the metaphor that you're using to describe it. I found that whole gag very funny, but there's a footnote that kind of references that, where they're talking about the disk light and how it poured like molten gold. And then there's the footnote. Not precisely, of course, trees didn't burst into flame, people didn't suddenly become very rich and extremely dead, and the seas didn't flash into steam. A better simile, in fact, would be not like molten gold.

Nigel  1:33:47  
Yeah, you have that as well. And several other ones like you know, for an interesting metaphor to nocturnal trolls. Of course, the dawn of time lies in the future.

Tessa  1:33:56  
What's something that made you laugh out loud in this book?

Nigel  1:33:59  
I'm going to go for something very early on which you kind of you kind of touched around, but which is the description of the great attune, great to the star turtle shell for us and the frozen methane pitted when is your craters and scour with asteroidal just great attune with eyes like ancient seas and a brain the size of a continent through which thoughts moved like glittering like little glittering glaciers, greater to and of the great slow slough, SAP flippers and star Polish car pace, laboring through the galactic night under the weight of the disk, as large as worlds as old as time as patient as a brick. Actually, philosophers have got it all wrong. Gratitude is in fact having a great

Tessa  1:34:41  
time. I like to think that the greater to and is happy in like a very slow, giant turtle sort of way.

Nigel  1:34:48  
Yeah, I really enjoy the word ponderous. I feel like yeah, it's fits very well for the greater tune.

Tessa  1:34:56  
So the thing that made me laugh out loud several things in this book made me laugh. out loud. But one of the things that I think is particularly relevant since we had this whole conversation about sex and gender for the greater tuin is this line on it's, it's when Treiman is trying to explain that he's getting rid of all of these like archaic systems of magic and artifacts from the university. And he's trying to like run this meeting, that the wizards are just not understanding what he's trying to do. What's this paper CJ glad word of the hood winkers waving the document that had been left in front of him and waving it all the more forcefully because his own chair back in his cluttered uncomfortable tower was anything more if anything more ornate than Calder's had been. It's an agenda Jake lad said Treiman patient patiently, what does a gender do? And I laughed so hard. I don't think that the point of this was to actually say what does a gender do? Like it's supposed to be like a wordplay on agenda, a gender, but also I kind of just want to tweet what does the gender do?

Nigel  1:36:00  
Fucking I'll do it now. restricts things.

Tessa  1:36:05  
Yeah, and then the other moment because I couldn't choose between that one. And the other one was on page 103. When, when Rincewind does is debating whether or not to jump from death's house down into like the, the like, void that connects him into flour to the disk. And he says he paused uncertainly, although that isn't precisely true, because he was totally certain of several things. For example, he didn't want to jump, and that he certainly didn't want to face whatever was coming up behind him. And that in the spirit world to flower was quite heavy, and that there were worse things than being dead. Named to he muttered and jumped. I just named to name two things that are worse than pig dead in depths house.

Nigel  1:36:51  
I haste the fact that the first thing that came to my head was Hermione Granger saying expelled from the first Harry Potter, I think what what could be worse than being dead? The loss of identity.

Tessa  1:37:06  
I mean, I personally think there are worse things than being dead. But I think in this situation rents when was thinking about being killed by death. And the three horsemen in deaths house?

Nigel  1:37:17  
Oh, yeah, obviously. But it's a fun. It's a fun little hypothetical to play.

Tessa  1:37:24  
So what was the thing that made you think besides the death of the mind section?

Nigel  1:37:29  
That's really like, it's, I don't, nothing else really springs to mind other than the whole, like conversation about, like fanaticism and stuff, how that works, and especially in a fantasy setting. So can I go with that?

Tessa  1:37:45  
Yeah, in fact, mine is very similar to that it's later on in the same section. So it kind of ties into what you were saying. When two flower asks a shopkeeper where all of the the people in this mob come from? And the shopkeeper responds, inside every sane person, there's a madman struggling to get out. That's what I've always thought no one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person. That doesn't make sense, said Batman, or if it makes sense. I don't like

Nigel  1:38:15  
it. Yeah, very much like the Shirley Jackson. You know, no being can exist for long under conditions of absolute reality.

Tessa  1:38:24  
Yeah, I think that that's part of it. Yeah, this idea that like, if you don't accept that the universe is chaotic. If you try to like hang on to this order, it does lead to things like fanaticism in that way. So next week, we are you said you said you wanted to spend more time and knock more pork so next week, we are going to stay in ONC more pork and join the City Watch for Guards, guards. Feel free to read along with us or listen in to get a feel for Pratchett's books or to remind yourself of why you love Discworld so much in the first place. Nigel, where can people find you online and on their headphones?

Nigel  1:39:01  
Mainly on Twitter? I suppose Nigel, very recently, as you may have heard, I've tweeted out what does agender do? Still always in responses? We Yes, to tie it into? Where can people find me? On headphones, I have a podcast called hyper fixations where each episode, a new guest comes on to talk about a subject they're passionate about. But we have recently teased the upcoming episode, which is it'll be out later anyway. So it's on global cuisine with the cover I did. And Finn responded with a picture of Galactus and we're like well guess cats out of the bag. But then Tessa interacted with it and said that I would ask Alexis What if he ate the Boss Baby? Which I hate that little fucking baby.

Tessa  1:39:47  
I stand by that joke. Yeah,

Nigel  1:39:48  
I thought that was hilarious. That made me laugh for like 10 minutes straight. But yeah COVID virus which is a fortnightly relisten discussion of the Magnus archives by Rusty quill. Both of those are available wherever you Get your podcasts.

Tessa  1:40:01  
All right, you can find me on Twitter at Swehla. Tessa Swehla is spelled SW e HLA. You can find my other podcast monkey off my backlog on Twitter and Instagram at monkey backlog. We just launched a new monkey off my backlog website that's at WWW dot monkey off my backlog calm visited to find all sorts of writings and ideas about pop culture as well as other spin off podcasts like this one. You can also find nanny OGS book club on Twitter at nannies book club you can find us on Instagram along with that really brilliant cover art that Nigel designs for us every week at nanny ox book club. You can email us at nanny ox book club@gmail.com Especially if you know what game to flower is teaching death and the other three horsemen or if you know what agender does. All right, Nigel, read us out.

Nigel  1:40:58  
Well, that's about it then. So to flower he held that. Goodbye rinse when I'll send you a postcard when I get home or something. Anytime you're passing. There's bound to be someone here who knows where I am. Yes. Well, that's it them. That's it right enough. Right? Yeah. To Thoreau walked up the gang flag, Gangplank was the impatient crew holed up behind him to rolling drum started its beach and the ship was propelled slowly out onto the turbid waters of the ONC. Now back to their old level where it caught the tide and turn towards the open sea. Or in swin watched it until it was a dock that I looked down at the luggage. That stared back at him. Look, he said, Go away. I'm giving you to yourself. Do you understand? He turned his back and stalked away. After a few seconds. He was aware of the little footsteps behind him. He spun around. I said I don't want you he snapped and gave it a kick. The look at sagged ruins when stopped away. After he had gone a few yards he stopped and listened. There was no sound. When he turned the luggage was where he had left. It looked sort of huddled rinse with thought for a while. All right, then he said come on. He turned his back and strode off to the university. After a few minutes the luggage appear to make up its mind extended its legs again and padded after him. It didn't see that it has a lot of choice. They headed along the key and into the city. Two dots on the dwindling landscape which as the perspective broadened included a tiny ship starting over across a wide green sea that was that was a part of a bright circling ocean on a closed world disk on the back of four giant elephants that themselves through the shell of enormous turtle, which soon became a glint among the stars and disappeared. The End

Transcribed by https://otter.ai