The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 110: The Wee Free Men Pt. 3 (Crivens in the Air)

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 3 of our recap of “The Wee Free Men”. Thunder! Lightning! Whales! Sneebs!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Dandelion goodies [@appalachian_forager] - TikTokBad Poetry with ChatGPT - TTSMYFClerihew - Wikipedia  Author clerihews [@francibambi] - TwitterSeneca White Deer - Wiki [Note on whales: Sperm whales are the biggest toothed whales. And they’re huge. But the *very* biggest are baleen whales, so I’m calling our speculation a qualified victory.]BBC NEWS | UK | Award for tsunami warning pupil The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke - The TateElimination of a Picture & its Subject - WikiReal Dreams are Weirder - TV Tropes [ORF: OK so it’s not ever *really* too cold to snow, but it’s going to be less likely.] Too Cold to Snow? | AccuWeather Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Oh, my God, fecal and legal rhyme. We're going to blow this whole thing wide open. So something I have learned is that I cannot write like a chapter, a summary for a section of the podcast and then go work on the book like it in the same couple of hours. Do you have any idea how much fucking alliteration I had to edit? I don't see why the book shouldn't be full of alliteration.

Because some of it came off as very wanky. Okay. I feel like I can be kind of leading to that on the podcast. The podcast is wanky. I'm trying to make the book like not too wanky. Okay. I'm not going to say not wanky because of who I am as a person.

But what the book's about, which is media analysis, which is inherently wanky. Yeah. On this podcast, knowingly, inherently wanky podcast. Yeah. It is hilarious because like the world is on fire. World War Three might happen soon. Trump might get arrested like next week and I'm just sat here

like, yeah, twiddly-dee, silly book about 90 sitcoms. I think it's like, well, it might not end and you'll still have a book deadline. So yeah, no, it's not going to stop me writing the book. Just sometimes the book feels very silly. I understand that feeling. But yeah, people were talking about the fact that it's been like three years since the first lockdown.

Oh, yeah. Which was great because one of the things going around on Twitter was like, name three things that happened to you in the first lockdown since the three years ago in the lockdown. Like name three things that happened in the last three years is like, got divorced, egg donation moved to else, but that was all like one month. Yeah.

My name, my name, everything that happened. We're going to need a bigger tweet. Divorced by headed, died. Divorced by headed, survived. Any list that starts with divorce, that's where I see what's going to end. Yeah, no, same. Well done for not being beheaded.

I did manage to avoid decapitation through all three lockdowns. Right. Okay. What, what is happening? It's nearly spring. Two days and then it's officially springtime in 20th. Yep. That'll be nice.

Spring will be springing. The wild garlic, I believe is now sprouting up. I've spotted it. I've smelt it. I'll go and start my foraging soon. I saw a recipe on that, that TikTok account I sent you. Actually, that was the Appalachian girl. Yeah.

I saw her doing a dandelion, what jelly, but jam. Yeah. Thing, which I might try because we always get so many dandelions. Yeah, we, I don't get a ton of dandelions where I am. I can go like pick some on some of the little walks I do, but then I, there's a difference between picking them from like your own garden and picking them. Well, I know I haven't put any pesticide on mine. Exactly.

If I'm picking them like inside of the road, I don't know what's gone on them. Yeah. Like I'll be happy enough that I can wash off anything that's happened to my lawn. Yeah. Not so much side of the road. Speaking of Appalachia, going back a few sentences, I finished that podcast. Oh, God, it's Appalachia. And now I'm on the Patreon content for it, which is also good.

Is it shorter than Magnus Archives then? Yeah. I think maybe I've been slightly more binging even though, even then I did with the Magnus Archives, but it's definitely shorter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely respect your ability to hyper focus and binge something. Well, it works well with my other hobbies, such as playing Valheim and painting.

So that does help with fiction podcasts. There are certain things I prefer to do listening to fiction. Yeah. Or something you don't really care that much if you remember the facts. Yeah, I listen to a lot of like TV recap podcasts while I'm playing Valheim. Yeah, some of the history podcasts I listen to are very good for that kind of thing, because if I'm just listening to them as like a main activity or when I'm walking or something like that, the weird history podcast cadence starts bothering me,

you know, that when they're like, reluctant almost to say the next bit and the queen of the fairies was annoyed with that. And it starts getting to me, thought I'm doing something else. It's fine. I don't listen to a lot of that sort of history podcast. Like my main history podcast is Your Dead To Me, where they're generally very unwilling to just say the thing. Yeah, yeah.

There's a difference between when I'm in the mood for like factual binge or fictional binge with fictional binge is possibly the worst phrase I've ever said. Yeah. Well, you've also got the third category of media recap, which I don't have. Yeah. And I listen to a lot of media recap, especially at the moment that we're gearing up for the final season of Succession, which I'm very excited about. I finally started watching Wednesday.

I was like, good, I haven't watched it yet. Yeah, I think you'll like it just aesthetically. You'll like it a lot as much as anything else. Yeah, I had a feeling that would be the case. Also, quite a lot of not tropes of version, I would say, but leaning into the trope. So and some of the ones I love so high school in America, staff where it's like, that's that click and that's that click. Yeah, which I have always loved in high school movies.

Don't give a fuck. And that's because we watched Mean Girls too many times as children. Yeah, that Mean Girls and like every other film of that era. Mean Girls was just the really, really blatant one about it, where they've got the map of the tables. Yeah, again, almost to the point where I feel like they were leaning into an existing trope, but I'm not really sure because I wouldn't have watched them in the chronological. Mean Girls is such an essentially teen comedy that is effectively parodying

like teen movies, but subtly not like not another teen movie, which was a bad film. That was a bad film. Yeah, I didn't care for those. I want to do like a high school rom-com binge watch now. Like movie marathon, like Ten Things I Hate About You, She's All That. I still never watched Heather's. Oh, you should watch Heather's. I think you would like to watch Heather's.

No, I know. Oh my God, I can't believe you haven't seen Cold Classic. Just it's a fun film and you'll like it. Yeah, no, I do keep meaning to watch it. Oh, I was going to ask you something and I forgot what it was. I can't marry you, Francine. No, no, you can't. You're already married. I am already married.

Otherwise, obviously, yes, it's run away into the sunset. The timing's just been wrong for the last 10 years. You were married, now I'm married. Also my sexual orientation. Well, yes, you are tragically heterosexual. More or less. And now I've got really distracted. Oh, look, I have a screaming goat.

That's amazing. When did you get that? I want 12. I think I was a stocking filler from Jack. It's been on my desk for the last few months in the hope that I'd remember to show it to you. And you just remembered. Yeah, I was trying to change the subject, screaming goat.

Boys does the job. Oh, yeah. Well, as we're not going to run off into the sunset together, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, okay. That's a good second. Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello, and welcome to The True Shall Make You Fret,

a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one of Simon in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part three of our discussion of The We Free Men. Part three of We Free. Which I don't think I mentioned,

but good book for a name of the thing in the thing. Yeah. Not on spoilers before we crack on. We are a spoiler-like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book, The We Free Men, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion

of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there so you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. Avoiding death by falling, by using a giant pair of pants as a parachute. Very much so. Follow up, things from people. We do.

We've had some communications, some misses from the round world, as we sometimes remember to say. Albatrosses. Robert, if you can cast your mind back, not Robert specifically, but all of you, to feet of clay. We asked if anyone had their own family coat of arms

or what have you. Oh, yeah. Robert emailed us, my family, the Twin Bees, have a family crest through marriage. In the 18th century, we intermarried with the Starkies and had permission to use a form of their crest.

It's described as, upon a wreath of the colours, a stork's head cooped, holding in its beak a serpent. And he sent a picture of the signet ring he's got. So Starkies is probably an old word for storks, so it makes sense to use the verb, but unfortunately, no awful punning.

A colleague of mine has a family crest with a stork holding a serpent, so I think that must be a few different family crests. And I photoshopped the horrible goose from the unnamed goose game into his family crest holding a serpent. Incredible. That is a perfect choice.

But Robert's incorporated the family crest into some heraldry and a warhammer figure and a D&D figure, which is quite cool. I like that. Nice. What else have we got from the round world? On Reddit,

PD is doing a marvellous job posting Schrodinger's cat memes. I support this. And more relevant, we were talking about traditional shepherds instruments. Nilebinding reminded us of the existence of bagpipes. Yeah, I never heard of them. What?

Which were traditionally made using sheepskin. Is that so? Oh, I didn't know they used to be made of sheepskin. All right. They're all right. And therefore, traditional shepherds instrument. I can't believe in the book with the knackmack fecal, we didn't think of bagpipes.

Well, I just didn't know they were shepherds instrument. I thought they were a battlefield instrument, more than anything. No, they are Scottish. I understand that. On Twitter, we were talking about White Deer last week. Apparently, there's like a whole bunch of White Deer in Seneca that live in an old army depot.

Geoffrey sent us like a couple of pictures in the Wikipedia link. So I'm going to link to that in the show notes because it's quite cool. Big old family of White Deer. Nice. With what's it called? Lucism instead of albinism, I'm guessing?

Yes, I think so. Yeah. Cool. And Rianne tweeted, I'm very glad I tweeted this in time before we recorded. While the Chalk's knackmack fecal are the same species, presumably, of those in Carpe Jugulum, there must be different clans, not least

because they draw up a very complicated contract for variants to sign to secure the lake that Nanny has promised them. And of course, when we get to the end of this book, the new Kelder coming in for our Tiffany's feagles is coming from the Long Lake tribe. And that'll be that will it? I think they might be.

Super. Good stuff. That delights me. So it's a third one, then, that the original Kelder was from. The Copperhead Mountains, the Long Lake tribe, I'm assuming is the ones that get the lake in Carpe Jugulum. And our Chalk feagles. I have some small follow-up.

Oh, yes, sir. We were talking about just bad poetry in general, and I had a quick play around with chat GPT, see if it could write in the style of William McGonagall. And it did all right. I think it doesn't have the beauty of William McGonagall, but I got it to have a go at Tam Lynn in the style of William McGonagall.

Amazing. I'll do the last answer. Oh, Tam Lynn, a tale so dear of love and magic and no fear, a legend that will forever shine in the hearts and minds of all time. So it did pretty well, I think. It did pretty well. I'll send you the whole thing.

I'll put it up somewhere and link to it in the show. And it's also, I've been into Clara Hughes this week. Into what? Clara Hughes. Clara Hughes. Clara Hughes. They're like four-line autobiographical poems which deliberately banned me to retweet it when I did.

Oh, yeah, those. Yeah. I don't remember things. I don't just write that normally. It's on purpose. But yeah, I think the original one is Sir Humphrey Davy, Abominated Gravy. He lived with the odium of having discovered sodium.

And that's why Edmund Clara Hughes, something or other. And I managed to get the whole book for them. And I wrote a couple about Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and such because that was fun to do. Listeners, highly recommend. A delight. And yes, I remember now. I can't remember tweets from a week ago without heavy reminders.

Right, cool. Shall we go on with the podcast? Yeah. Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on We Free Men? Yeah. Oh, gather round and listen as I talk of Tiffany, young witch of rolling chalk who learnt one day when on a fateful walk up to her granny's hut

upon the hill of her brother Wentworth's fortune most ill. He had been taken to the fairyland, grasped opportunistically by the Queen's cold hand to live forever under her command. A dreadful deed, but for her not unusual to get him back immediately was crucial. The messengers of this most dreadful tale were small as stature, but their hearts ne'er did quail.

The knackback figal was their name, friends to hags o' hills, and they were fighters of great skill. But even they did worry at the thought of visiting the world the fairy queen had wrought. They took her to their leader in the mound, a treasure chamber dug into the ground, and this wise one named Artiff and her successor, all knack-mack-figles as Kelda would address her.

In this role, she called the We Free Men to arms to head back into fairyland and break the Queen's charms. Beset by dreams and dogs of fierce in size, as soon as in fairyland she did arrive, Tiff used her sight of first and thoughts of second, to find out the truth of what she reckoned. What next for our hero? Only time will tell. We can but hope and wish her well.

That was, that was honestly the greatest thing that's ever happened on this broadcast. So hearty. That was incredible, Francine. Enemies will quake in fear. Joanna, would you like to hopefully regain some of our listenership by telling them in normal tones, how this book ends?

Oh, was I not meant to do this in poetry? I mean, feel free, but... No, I did not. So in this section, which begins with chapter 10 and goes to the end of the book. In chapter 10, Tiffenie steps into heat and sees small fairies in the tall grass and a man cracking a nut.

She's looking for the Queen and the toad can't see the dream. She promises to extricate Rowland, who's just learned how much time has passed. He doesn't trust Tiffenie and won't come along. Tiffenie finds her brother and doesn't face the Queen, then does. She remembers female infant Robinson and breaks the Queen's dream with a frying pan. Things get dark, but there's the unmistakable laughter of feagles.

In chapter 11, the last nut cracks, and the feagles fight the clearing, much to went with delight. Tiffenie wakes them all back to the snow, but nightmares give chase. She heads for the trees and focuses on the sea. In chapter 12, there's crashing waves, yellow oil skins and a boat,

and they set a jolly sail for the lighthouse from the wrapper. The storm comes, the water's going up and a sharp tooth, and mopey rises from the depths, but this jolly sailor intersects. At the lighthouse, the drone is distracted and the toad's unhappy, but Tiffenie's sure she's found a way home. A rapid tide goes out

and the feagles take interest in the shipwrecks, but Tiffenie's sure the Queen's to blame as the sea comes rushing back. She gets rolling to the lighthouse, but the feagles and won't with a cause in the wave. Tiffenie's back on the chalk with rolling and the standing stones have fallen as the Queen approaches. In chapter 13, the Queen encroaches on the chalk

and belittles to Tiffenie. Tiffenie falls in the cold and into the land, the warm silence and the old seas as she seizes the responsibility of guarding the borders. Thunder lightning and granny aching come to her aid against the Queen. There's cravings in the air and the feagles return, went with in tow.

Sorry. The feagles face legal ramifications, but the toad goes on the defensive until the Queen disappears them into dreams. Tiffenie can feel the time in the turf. She stops the Queen and wakes all the way up, returning her to the stones. There's a tap on her boot.

In chapter 14, the feagles are off to sell their stolen treasure and Tiff asks Rowland to take went with home. Broomsticks arrive and Tiffenie doesn't need to explain events to the senior witches. She gets a training offer and a pointy hat before her father arrives.

Rowland's taken credit and Tiffenie buries the shepherdess before dropping liniment to the mound. When Rowland visits as she does her chores, she reminds him to be a good baron. Not as big as medium-sized jock, but bigger than wee jock jocks keeping an eye, but he's off to be a gonagal for Pheon

and a new Kelders coming in. Finally, Tiffenie finishes the butter. Very good. I have some sneaky little rhymes in there. I did spot them. Don't think you'll get those parts with me. Yeah, I didn't notice I put that many in there. Yeah, can't help but gonagal, as I say.

It's a real problem. I've gone to the doctors and everything. Compulsive gonagling. Impulsive gonagling. That's why there's so many cravings in the air. Right, helicopter and lung cloth watch. Yeah. We have a two-for-one.

Going with Hamish's pants parachute. Sure. It's flying and it's underwear. It is. To me, that's a helicopter and a lung cloth all in one. All right, good job. You did it. You were slightly concerned about the rest of the book

after you used up Kiltson part one, but you did manage to find some bits of cloth to keep the bit going. And for other bits we're keeping track of, no death. No death. Death does not visit us. This is the first disc world novel in which we have not met death.

Is it? We've got this far. I think that we can sort of say, well, we've still not had a single adult disc world novel without death though. Sure, sure. Just for our ranks of keeping track. In the spreadsheet we never made

because there are limits even for us. Not many. Not many. And they are fairly arbitrary, but they're there. So, quotes. Quotes. Clouds poured across the sky like a stain. They covered the stars.

They were the inky clouds from the frozen world. The clouds of nightmare. It began to rain, rain with ice in it. It hit the turf like bullets, turning into a chalky mud. The wind howled like a pack of grimhounds. A little later there was darkness everywhere, bitter and starless. There was a speck of light along way off.

One star, low down, moving. It got bigger in the stormy night. It's exact as it came. Silence covered Tiffany and drew her into itself. The silent smell of sheep and turpentine and tobacco. Just a lovely callback through line, whatever. And the feeling he manages to convey of sudden warmth and comfort against that horrible long description of the cold and the isolation

and just beautiful contrast, beautifully done. It is fantastic. Good job, Pratchett. Well done. Well done. Well done, that man. Good job, that mammal. Ah, characters.

Characters, characters. Let's start with Tiffany. Again, again, four of her, I say. Well, she is the main, she's on the cover. She is. She's the main, she is the main character. Yeah. She wouldn't be wrong thinking that.

And it was called The We Free Men, but. Yeah. I did like the little bit where the queen is like, and Isaac, you see yourself as the main character in this landscape picture. I do like that. There's a play on, obviously, my quote from the first bit was Miss Tick saying, you know,

if you trust in dreams and wish on your star, you'll get nowhere. But then when she's there with the lighthouse and the Jolly Sailor bit, and she's kind of believing in dreams after all and hoping the Jolly or Sailor will turn up the way he does when she dreams. It's like, oh yes, I don't believe in your dreams.

That's silly. You need to take things literally, all right. I'm literally in my dreams, so I'm going to fucking believe in it. Also, the two, like the two different meanings is the word dream, I guess, which doesn't always occur immediately to a child. Yes.

My aspirations are different than my mad sugar bowl dreams. Mad sugar bowl dreams. And it's quite nice because almost immediately after that, you know, once the Jolly Sailor has turned up and she's regularly correcting Wentworth and trying to explain, it's not a fish. And she's starting to question herself and sort of, oh God, you sound like Miss Tick,

who is the person who told her not to believe in dreams. And she has this one realization of, right, but that is what I'm like. And I do think like this. I am me, I'm careful and logical and I look up things I don't understand and when I hear people use the wrong words, I get edgy. I'm good with cheese, I read books fast,

I think, and I always have a piece of string. Yep. And it's a nice prep for when she has that knowing exactly who she is at the moment, isn't it? Yeah, it's that impressive level of self-awareness that helps her fight the Queen. And it's there from the beginning, which is interesting, with our perhaps parallel characters, Margaret and Agnes.

Yes. They do get to their true self moment. In fact, fighting the Queen, Margaret has all her layers stripped asunder, isn't it, and worn away until the core of Margaret is there and then she hits the Queen. Yes. But Tiffany doesn't need that as much.

She has to open her eyes again, but she knows who she is from the start of the book at nine years old. Yeah, and she's very confident in that, I respect it. Absolutely. But the thing is, knowing who she is means she's also aware of all the negative parts of herself. So when the Queen starts belittling her and you know,

saying, oh, you dream that you're so strong, sensible, logical, but that's just your excuse for not being really properly human, you're cold-hearted, you didn't cry when Granny dies. It's an incredible way to get to the core of her because it's taking everything she has thoroughly accepted about herself and twisting it. Yeah, twisting it and also kind of pointing out

that it's not just something you know about yourself, it's something other people can observe about you. Yeah, you are being perceived horrific. Before we move on to the Queen though, I did also love the moment at the end, William bowls to Tiffany, the Gonegal. Oh, yeah. And he was the one to chastise her and tell her to stop,

you know, being rude to the feagles at the end and to treat them like equals. So to get a bow from him is quite a big... Yeah, she's earned his respect now. Yeah. So speaking of not earning respect... The Queen. This one, uh...

She's a piece of work. She has a piece of work. She is just petulant, isn't she? That's kind of highlighted here. She's petulant. She's mean. She's a 12-year-old girl. Yeah, absolutely.

It's interesting to see how much she's not evolved, I suppose, in comparison again to when we've seen her before. Yeah. Which is consistent with the in-universe rules of she learns fuck or all. In fact, I believe in the Lords and Ladies, you call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, Madam.

Nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you. And then in this book, I know what you are, said her thoughts.

You're something that's never learned anything. You don't know anything about people. You're just a child that's got old. That is a really cool parallel. Well, I'm glad you found that. There's a couple different ones like that, but I think that was my favourite. So that's the one I...

Highlight you. I had a little flick through Lords and Ladies again this week, just as a reminder. There's some nice sort of flip-flopping between Tiffany and the Queen, but when Tiffany is like first facing, slash not facing, because the Queen's behind her.

And she's sort of calls Tiffany out for this witchy selfishness. He's yours, mine, mine, mine. Which is something that's absolutely true of herself as well. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Probably why she can so easily recognise it. Like again, it's nice how Tiffany takes that and says, okay, this is something maybe I hadn't thought about myself immediately, but now, yeah, no, I get that. And I will. I'm going to use that actually. This is mine.

This is mine. You can't have it. My brother. My land. Yes. I do like the way Tiffany uses that. There's also a terrifying moment when the Queen is threatening Tiffy.

Tiffany. Tiffy. Tiffy. Look at us getting casual again. Tiffy's down. Saying, oh, do you know what colour your insides are? And Tiffany says, you're not powerful enough. She says, no, I can't do that sort of physical thing,

but I can make you think I've done the most terrible things. Which is really interesting callback to the Toad's existential crisis. Where he's like, am I a person turned into a Toad? Or did she just, the fairy godmother, just make me think I was human once? Yeah.

And it's a little kind of deviation into the core horror of the book, isn't it? Which is, if you really believed you've been disembowelled, is it any better than being disembowelled? Yeah. And apart from the fact, I suppose, as a child, you'll get better if you believe it. But still not ideal.

What is reality? There's the underlying question there. And it's, as always, the existential crisis board remains blank. Because you get that moment where Tiffany is facing the queen and realises that she's not using her eyes to look, that her appearance is just this kind of shell. Like it's a glamour, isn't it?

Yeah. And then sees the queen in Mopey the Whale's eyes, realising the queen's kind of present there in that dream. Whales don't have teeth like that, some of them do. Actually, now I'm saying it. No, I'm pretty sure some whales have teeth. Yeah, it's not just killer whales, which aren't whales. You know, most whales have that weird hair stuff

that kind of filters the little fish out. The bailing. Yeah. But there are some whales that go baby. But the big ones don't. Right, anyway. Listeners, send whale facts. Yeah, please do, actually.

I like whale facts. I like large aquatic mammals. Roland. Is he a large aquatic mammal? No, I don't think so. Oh, I'm not interested then. No, okay, fine. We'll talk about him.

We'll talk about him. Gas. Francine, there's quite a lot of stuff that happens in this book that doesn't have large aquatic mammals, but we still have to talk about this. Yeah, fine. But yeah, Roland is irritating, but it's kind of sympathetic, I guess. He gets a bit more bearable until the end

when he's a total prick. That gets put in his place. That gets put in his place, and it's a very fun read. It makes sense, doesn't it? Because, you know, outside of fairy tales or poorly written children's books, character development doesn't happen that fast. Absolutely.

He's getting better. He's better than he would have been before Tiffany helped him out. But it is core. He's still the spoiled baron's boy who went chasing after a random person on the horse. Which, by the way, as I was reading, I was thinking, oh, modern fairy tale here,

the modern equivalent of that would be like an ethereal woman driving up next to some household at a traffic light and revving her car and speeding off, and then him chasing her instead of the horse. Yeah, interfere like that. But, you know, he does get a whole bunch of, like, growth and character development, but I could also see where he's a total prick at the end.

Like, he's just come back and everyone has told him he's the hero. Like, it's very difficult not to kind of buy into his own hype a little bit. Yeah, and because I think he's a bit embarrassed and children, especially when they're embarrassed, just get angry about it. And sort of double down and do more of the stupid stuff.

Yeah, me too. This is not just children. Yeah. Oh, mate, the queen would have no problem destroying me. Oh, not even a little bit. But yeah, he gets dickhead lines. Like, when Tiffany explains the sheet parasites, and she's explained the parasite universe,

and he says, yuck, I suppose that's the kind of thing peasants have to know about. Yeah, like Tiffany had noted the word peasant. His reaction to being told how long he's been there is great. There was like finding out that one year's worse than 100 years, because if it was 100 years, I wouldn't get a thrashing when I got home, which also kind of explains why he takes the credit a bit.

Yeah, and I mean, obviously, it's just him. Misinterpreting this because it's very upset that he's gone. I'm sure even if he'd only been gone a week, he would have welcomed him back with the same. And been relieved rather than pissed off at him. But I like Tiffany's reaction to Roland being the hero, and she was just like the stupid princess who broke her ankle and fainted all the time.

She's really frustrated that it's completely unfair. But this is after she's met the witches, so she accepts it with, we don't ask for a reward. Yes, yes. And because she has a small amount of like, a small amount of power, I suppose, a small amount of influence, she can feel like she's doing something.

It's not complete helplessness. It is unfair, but she can take it as a... All right, this is unfair, but... And because she's got just another that kind of childish pettiness left as well to make him shit himself a bit and remind him that she knows what really happened and that he did not rescue her.

Yes, and sowing the seeds of what her granny did and that I'm going to make the chalk a fairer place with a good baron under my fucking thumb. Yeah. It's possibly a bit more violent about it than Granny Aking was. But because Granny Aking didn't have to be, of course, because this is the child's version of it. Yeah, and Granny Aking had the dogs.

And Roland needs things spelling out, and Tiffany doesn't have the subtle power. Yes, very much so. Actually, speaking of... There's a character I forgot to put in this list, but Miss Female Infant Robinson, that story. Yeah, that's an interesting one, isn't it? That's...

It's a weird contrast to how the other old lady was treated. Yeah. Because even though the baron had to be persuaded not to be an ass about it, it sounds like none of the townsfolk were happy about the imminent punishment. I think the difference is... I mean, A, Miss Female Infant Robinson

has very much looked after the child that she had taken. She'd made clothes for it, whereas the suspicions on... God, I've forgotten the name, but the old lady who's died on the crime... The imaginary crimes can be as bad as you want, yeah. Yeah, and the imaginary crimes were much worse than the literal crime in front of them.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's the wives' sympathy, and it's the wives' opinions of it that I think leads to the public opinion being that she shouldn't be going to be imprisoned. Yeah, the husbands are not allowed an opinion on this one. Yeah. It's nothing to do with any of you, yeah.

And I like that feeling of, you know, the way the town gossips together, kind of having some power for good, as having seen the power for bad that it's got. Yes, it does show the... Oh, can I view this wanky? The duality of mankind, can I say that? You can, but we've already...

Do you want her to be melt out of horror immediately? I'll never say that again. We've already established this is a wanky podcast. It is. Let's lean into it. Oh, like Tiffany leans into her character flaws. We will lean into ours, which is being unbearable about media.

Right. But yeah, the Miss Female in From Robinson's story, we get the payoff for Granny Aking's whole deal with the Baron's dog, who you broke the law, all... Yes. Now you've got to break the law. And showing also that he did need your reminder. It wasn't, again, an instant character six.

Yes. He needed thunder and lightning to sit there going, remember? Hey, hey, remember us? Yeah, yeah. All right, don't be a dick. Thanks, bye. Well, good dogs.

Very good dogs. And then sneeps. Oh. F5. What the fuck? That was one of the, like, harshest moments in it. The tide of nightmares rolled over him and kept coming. I felt so bad for him.

What the fuck? I thought he was going to get out. It's just such an incredible, like, tragic short story. Just kind of haphazardly shoved in the middle of, like, one chapter. We meet sneeps. We learn that, you know, he came here and he couldn't cope with it.

And so he left and he couldn't cope with leaving and had to come back. And then he dies. Trying to escape again. Yeah. Getting destroyed by nightmares. Maybe he just gets lost in the nightmares for a while. I don't think that's better.

No, it's not. But maybe, you know, there's a chance. I suppose so. Of course needs. That was a really good bit of writing. But yeah. It was, but really harsh. Just, yeah.

Here we go. Toad. The toad. The toad. The toad comes into his own, remembers his past. Remains his lawyer past and why the fairy godmother felt the need to turn him into a toad. Yes. It's all free.

It's all free. Don't worry. We've got more cod Latin, which I didn't really try and understand. Oh, the last bit. Well, there's the do you want a face full of head, which is explained. Yes.

And the bit, which is an explain, means I hope your mother can sew or something like that. Which I think is like another threat, isn't it? Is there hope your mother can sew your face up or whatever? Yeah. Violent listeners, please explain. Violent Latin speakers. We definitely have a few of those on our listenership.

Once upon a time, there would have been so many violent Latin speakers, and now there are so few. Well, this is what happens when the Roman Empire falls once in. I know. This is what I've been saying for 2000 years or so. We're going to end up losing our resources of violent Latin speakers.

And now look where we are. Fuck. The toad. The toad. The toad. And the feagles' response are discovering that they can have a lawyer on their side. It can be just as intimidating on paperwork,

which takes away their one terrifying enemy. And so they start shouting things like 1200 angry men and no more courtroom drama. Yes. Media references. I get them. Some of them. And then thunder and lightning and granny aching,

how I've sort of put together a bit. It's amazing the moment when thunder and lightning turn up. Two streaks of black and white sped away across the turf and up towards the clouds. They herded the storm. I know. It's amazing. It's, I'm not sure if it's a fairy tale

or a folk song, really, but the idea of animals within the storm, I've always loved. Yes. Yep. It's from songs, even, isn't it? Ghost writers in the sky. But yeah, the idea of two lightning dogs herding the storm.

Absolutely gorgeous. It is very beautiful. And then you have Tiffany realising the dogs never really obeyed her commands because there was someone else who knew them what to do and realises what she might see if she turns around and she can barely bring herself to. Yeah.

And not because she's scared of what she'll see, but scared of what she might not see. And that is a wonderful vocalisation of that concept. Especially having gone through that loss earlier in the book with realising that it was the feagles watching the sheep and taking the tobacco. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, she's already she's lost this magical spirit version

of a grandmother and then has she found her again? And yeah, she has. And she's wearing the shepherdess dress, showing that her guilt about it had been misplaced. And yeah, she's still wearing her boots. And then a little bit later on, she gets complimented on her boots and there's a boots through line.

Everyone loves a boots through line. We do love a boots through line on the true show. Make you for it. Absolutely. Yeah, that delighted me. That was such a beautiful moment. Yeah. And then she smiles, gives a little granny smile.

She does. And then Tiffany gives a little granny smile at the end. Yes, because she's learned it. Yeah. Yay. Yeah, speaking of very powerful, scary women, though. Nanny, granny and mystic. I love Nanny and granny turning up.

Yes, little cameo. Little cameo moment. But important cameo. Very important cameo. It's a really nice tie. And I'll talk more about this kind of as one of the witch's books later, but it's a nice sort of reassuring tie

because so far nothing in this book has overlapped with Discworld, apart from the We Free Men. Yes. And even then as we established, they're a different clan and they're a bit differently shaped. So having granny and nanny orc turn up, so granny weatherwax and nanny orc,

not granny aching. Yes. That's going to get confusing. It's like this nice reassuring button of this is in the world of our witches that they're going to get to know each other. They're around. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll see more of them again, don't you fret. And granny's immediate sort of when Tiffany says, I don't have to tell you everything and we're on my land, granny's yes. And I will show you respect as you in turn will respect me. Literal sky darkening thing.

I don't know if you go into this later, but the whole like waving and the sounds and the stuff around the stones. I wasn't really sure what that was about. Like reading some of the information in the stones or something. I think she was getting kind of the story from the stones.

Right. Yeah. Because she's very powerful and can pick that sort of thing up. Okay. And then she sort of tidies the border up properly again as well. Make sure everything's working as it should be.

Yes. So she's probably aware of the Ring of Stones, I guess. Yes. Having had that experience with the dancers. A couple of times. Once or twice. Miss Tit gets chastised as well because she's still stuck on this.

But you can't grow a witch on chalk. And Granny explains the flint in the bones which is another really good payoff. Oh yeah. Clearly you fucking can. Look at the fucking witch. Shows what you know about geology. Teach a lady.

Yeah. I love that. I love the idea of flint being like the bones of chalk. Again, because we've got kind of a lesser version of this landscape around where we live. And I say lesser because it's all fucking flat. But we've got clay and chalk and flint. And I always delight in finding massive chunks of flint lying around.

I delight. I don't have to plough anything. Jack's not as much of a fan. As she said, the bones of the hills is flint. It's hard and sharp and useful. King of stones. That's a beautiful line. And it's such a nice payoff from Tiffany talking about

when you dig in the chalk. Sometimes you'd find hard flints and they would break things. Yeah. Yes. And then lastly, with Mystic is a kind of third of this trio. I feel like Nanny and Granny have gotten over the whether or not they need a third witch around or not.

Oh yeah. But if they've got a third witch around that third, which is the maiden, is the magra, is the Agnes. So with this, there's Mystic says, come sisters, we must away. And Nanny Ogg says, there's no need for that sort of talk. That's theatre talk, that is.

Absolutely. Yes, I'm sure Mystic and actually, I'm not sure Mystic and Magra would get on. I think maybe they wouldn't like each other. No, they would hate each other. Yeah, yeah. I feel like a magra and Agnes get on. But yeah, I go into the Agnes getting on.

What about that difference? Yeah. Agnes is kind of half magra, half Tiffany in attitude, isn't she? Yes. Well, she's our transition in the witch's stories from magra and then we get Agnes and then we get Tiffany. But otherwise we'll all die of shock is the problem.

Yes, we need a transitional witch. But yeah, I think Tiffany is definitely, she's shown here to be a proto granny instead of a growing up to be a magra outside. Yes, or an opera singer. Or an opera singer. I don't think you've ever mentioned that she has any particular affinity for opera at all.

So far, Tiffany has shown no hints of opera. We'll be watching out for this as the books continue. Yes, it's always very important to keep an eye on your loved ones for signs of opera. If they get on a mask, they start warming up. We learned this a while ago. It's very deadly. Watch for arias.

Locations. Is that a tabarrasch? Drone world. Drone world. The worst theme park. All the best. It depends on how vivid your dreams are. And how hungry you are.

Vividity? Vividy Bobbity Boo? Yeah. The vividty is not a sign of enjoyability, I would say. Very true. However, the description, it's all red like a sunset, a huge sun on this horizon and a red sea that hardly moves and red rocks and long shadows.

And those horrible creatures living off crabs and spidery things and little scribity creatures. Scribbity. That's a word. That's a fucking word. Absolutely. There's word that's almost automatic. The thing we were talking about last week

that I'm not going to try and say again. Yeah. But I think it's closer to automaticity, I think. Yeah. But yes, scribity. What a word. So it's like, and as the Queen says later, it's a dying world. It's a dying world.

You can tell, you know, the huge red sun is the, what's it, red giant, I guess, sun going on there. And then then the cross-stations are the only things, I'm guessing again, that have survived and it's very sea-full world. And so then when the, in Tiffany's seedry, and obviously there's a dream there, and it's sitting on the beach, not bothering them.

It's distracted. It's just kind of staring at the sea and completely ignoring them. It thinks it's home. Yeah. It was fantastic how Fracture manages to elicit real sympathy there for what's kind of a villain of the story.

Although he's already shown us that kind of chained up and made to do a lot of this, but. But we were literally talking about last week about the fact he managed to invent something terrifyingly horrific. And now we hear we are a couple of chapters later feeling sorry for it. Yeah.

What a fucking masterful thing. And then, oh, it was the sea I was talking about. But yeah, it's kind of Tiffany's first time seeing the sea. Oh, yeah. Because, you know, she's heard that she can see it in the distance, but she's never really noticed it. Obviously, there's no call to see the sea around the chalk. She's been told about it.

She's only seen paintings. And so obviously, and she's seen it on the Jolly Sailor wrapper. And it's, going back to the drone, obviously, it's shown that she realises that it wouldn't be so realistic and well done if the drone didn't know what the sea was. Yes, it's the drone that's made like the realistic ocean. I thought that was a really amazing detail. Yeah.

Very sweet. Oh, and the little detail about the suddenly the tide had gone out is like, is this how the tide goes out? This doesn't seem normal. And obviously, that's like the classic start of a tsunami. Yes. Suddenly, the fish are all flapping around on the bottom of the sea. It's like, did they die every day?

That doesn't seem right. I've always loved the story of that 10-year-old girl, the boxing day tsunami, who managed to clear that whole beach out because she had learned in geography what a tsunami was and the signs of it. And she saw the water go out like that and everybody was looking around like, oh, that's weird and cool. And she was like, no, tsunami, fucking tsunami,

get out and the beach got cleared. And like that whole area got saved because of her. Oh, amazing. I didn't know that story. Oh, yeah. I'll try and find a link about it. That's really cool. I think Tiffany would approve.

I think she would be a briefing on the tide going out. I'm not sure that's how tides work is another kind of defamiliarization thing. Yeah. Yeah. Because we know tides. Tiffany's not experienced tides. We learned all about tides last week, last month.

Last month. I don't remember any of it, but we definitely learned about tides. The moon. Ah, yeah. Oh, and then the land under wave bit when Tiffany actually kind of goes into it. And this is time and space and all. This is mostly just me stream honing in more quotes, but this is the million year rain under the sea.

This is the new land being born underneath an ocean. It's sort of a dream. It's a memory. What a fucking line. I know. And the way he just portrays it being all of time existing at once somehow. Yes. Very cool.

And goes back in some of the existential time warps we add in design for this world. Yeah. Along with all the literal stuff about chalk being made up of fossils and Rentswin specific existentialism about chalk. Yes. Clearly this was on his mind. Little bits we liked. Yes.

Shall we talk about the painting? Can we talk about painting? Yes. Tell us about the painting, John. So you may have noticed that there's an author's note at the end of the book, which explains that the mysterious fairy painting in Tiffany's book of fairy tales that she enters when she walks into summer is a real painting. It's the Fairy Fellows Masterstroke by Richard Dadd and is in the Tate Gallery in London.

And it's only about 21 inches by 15 inches. It was painted in the middle of the 19th century. So I'm not going to go into Richard Dadd's life. Like Pratchett briefly mentions it in the author's note. It's all very depressing. He was institutionalized at the point he wrote the painting. I do briefly want to reference the description when Tiffany walks into it because it's amazing. The heat struck like a blow lamp so sharp and sudden that she gasped,

which is a great line. But yeah, the painting itself is really interesting. I have seen it, but it's been a long time since I've been to the Tate, so I had to look it up. It's got all these different fairy figures in it. So it features Titania and Oberon from It's a Nice Dream. There's also the Fairy Fellow, who's kind of central in the painting, is cracking these nuts to construct a new coach for Queen Mab. We know, thanks to Mekushia and Romeo and Julia,

her chariot is an empty hazelnut made by the joiner squirrel or old grub. The Queen Mab speech that Mekushia does is one of my favorite Shakespeare monologues. And I got to perform it one time. It was great. Anyway, but another interesting fact I found from the Tate website, the magician like figure of the Patriarch wears a triple crown, which seems to be a reference to the Pope. Apparently, Dad saw the Pope during a visit to Rome in 1843 and was apparently overcome

by an urge to attack him. Fun. Although the Patriarch may be interpreted as a father figure, the tiny apothecary, branding a mortar and pestle in the top right picture, is in fact a portrait of the artist's father. The group of figures was intended to represent the childhood fortune telling game. Soldier sailor, tinker, tailor, ploughboy, apothecary, thief. Right.

And I don't think I've ever heard the ploughboy, apothecary, thief part of that. No, I mean, neither. That's interesting. So I've linked to like an actual image of the painting in the show notes. There's also, so he didn't get to complete the painting, although it doesn't look unfinished because he was transferred to Broadmoor, but there is also a more completed watercolor version, which is that the Fitzwilliam Gallery in Cambridge.

Hmm. Because he couldn't complete it, he wrote a poem about it instead, called The Elimination of a Picture and its Subject, called The Fellow's Masterstroke. And I won't read the whole poem, but I'm going to do a bit of it if you don't mind because it's very cool. Yeah, go for it. Half 12, that's six.

Tizmoor, perhaps exact that's gone before, and behoves not here to say how many years away have welled up and flowed on slow passing till they're gone. But some such time has fled since regular business led to where a canvas glowed with phase, a leafy node encircling wild about their differences they let out about an Indian boy, whom for a toy to while the time will teach to mime

or verse in fairy tricks. A mighty king, his eyes did fix upon with covetous regard, were met upon the sword. Near Athens learned seat, his queen had set her feet. Thrice happy green, business led, an official person to this sight, who with the picture pleased as twera jewel bright. His mind of burden eased to have the like of which

did strike at fancy shrine well meant. If it was not so, then I may say it was this perhaps that west away some friend he had, who wrote in verse about the fairies, since his terse's poets jam into a measured line and give such extra value, I opine, to Heliconian Jetso of his rhymes possessed, he wished to see a little sketch,

slightest maybe to illustrate the same, some stanzas shooed his game or point from which to throw. How long is that fucking poem, if that was only a bit? Really fucking long. That's just the first stanza. Wow. Oh, sorry, I didn't practice that before I wrote it out. But yeah, it's a really cool painting

with a like fascinating amount of detail in it, if you when you start looking for it. Yeah. And then we have the lighthouse, which is much shorter, a little bit of light. Tiffany, she'd always thought that the lighthouse was full of light on the basis that on the farm, the cow shed was full of cows

and the woodshed was full of wood. Yep. That sounds right to me. I think that kind of is. Yeah. No, there's definitely a lot of light in a lighthouse. Yeah. How much light could a lighthouse light

if a lighthouse could light light? The sound of the smell of the snow. Oh, that was a good line. She felt the cold drawing all the heat out of her and that was the only sensation left apart from a musical note. It sounded like the smell of snow or the sparkle of frost.

It was high and thin and drawn out. I'm imagining it like a finger around a wine glass kind of sound. Yes. And I also liked how it's a bit of synesthetic look at snow and there'd also been a mention of how snow smells earlier in the book, which is how snow had a smell like the taste of tin.

Tin did have a taste, although admittedly it tasted like the smell of snow. I like that they are intertwined such as. But yes, I agree. You can smell when snow has fallen and also the light is different even with curtains closed. And also I can imagine exactly what it sounds like, even though it doesn't.

So that's good. Although I do also love the sound of snow falling. That kind of very gentle little bit of patter. Oh, yes, yes, yes. On the windows and such, yes. Very gentle sound. And then when it turns to sleep and it's like splat splat. Which is what we get a lot more of in England.

Yeah. Nightmares? Sound a little bit we like, is it? Not like, but I think it's very well written bit. When the cloud of nightmares is first approaching and Tiffany's asking what sort of nightmares and they're listing all these horrific things and then they say a normal stuff gone wrong.

And it's such that specific nightmare. It's incredibly relatable straight away. Like that's a particular kind of chill dread at those horrible normal stuff gone wrong nightmares. Yeah, absolutely. And then just a little bit later you get as it's approaching and we're coming towards the end of the chapter and they're running and she's trying to think of,

she's running towards the drone and she's thinking of the sea. Some of the sounds were horrible of cracking bones and crushing rocks and stinging insects and streaming cats getting nearer and nearer. Which is great. It's got that like children's poem cadence to it. Yes. It's very horrible.

It's like the horror Lois Carroll. Yeah, yeah. The idea of like nightmares being these what he calls individual beings as well as interesting. Yes. Good stuff. I saw as we, it is a book that mentions the dictionary and word definitions many times.

I'll pick out a couple of the words I learnt from it. There were a few actually as there always are in practice books but Bezham meaning broomstick I did not know. And I picked out because Granny uses that as an insult finale on several occasions. You daft old Bezham. Exactly. So you daft old broomstick.

Very good. I would like that to be used as an insult for me more. Yes. Okay. Just throwing that up there. All right. Noted. These last two are both from this section

and I should have tried to say it before I start this. Eschatological, eschatological, eschatological. Something like that. Relating to death, judgment and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind. Yes. You said that like you knew that. I did because I had to look up how to spell

scatological the other day and I spelled it so badly that Google asked me if I meant eschatological. Oh, good. Right. Yeah. Sure. And Piscatorial of or concerning fishermen or fishing. Marvelous.

You can guess what it means by reading it, but I didn't know it was an actual word. Piscatorial. Get Piscatorial into sentence as well. You know what they say about that young man? He's got Piscatorial habits. Why are we looking up how to spell scatological? I can't remember.

I was, it was something about like scatological humor in As It Come. It was, it was for the book. Sure, sure. I was trying to come up with a better phrase for toilet humor. I can't, I can't remember the context now. So. Let's go on to the bigger stuff.

Do you want to talk about dreams? So like dreams as a, as a writing device used in lots of things, they can be written very badly. And often because it's because they make too much sense. So real dreams aren't allegorical. They aren't deeply symbolic. Any symbolism or deep meaning we give them are usually projected onto them afterwards or even like narrative structure

or timeline stuff. It's almost always us trying to make sense of the fragments afterwards. Yeah. GK Chesterton, one of Practice Heroes of course, once said, when the hero tells us that last night he dreamed a dream, we are quite certain from the perfect and decorative character of the dream that he made it up at breakfast.

The dream is so reasonable that it is quite impossible. And I agree. And for this reason, I think dreams as a narrative device work best if they are a, kept vague, b, kept nonsensical, or if they do have real structure, c, are wrought or constructed. That could be good or bad. So think of like BFG or the Sandman there. Small resentful fourth option.

If the character was a psychic or something, there aren't many books that I've enjoyed the Premonition Dream trope but sometimes it's done well. I'll grant them. Speaking again of Alice in Wonderland, naturally, I think it's kind of skirts the line of whether it's well done or not. So I know a lot of authors don't rate it,

but I do remember enjoying it. And obviously it's popular for a reason. Yeah. And the whole book is a dream sequence. So the fact that it's too well structured to be a proper dream doesn't matter so much because you don't kind of pop back out of it and have that as part of the plot.

It is the plot. The whole dream is the plot. Yes. So I kind of get it a bit more. So like the horrifying but vague way of using dreams, I think, is very cool. Yes. And where you acknowledge that dreams are not good

a lot of the time. So Voyage of the Dawndredder, one of the Narnia Chronicles. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, they end up on an island where dreams come through. Yeah. And the quote being, this is the land where dreams, dreams, do you understand, come to life, come real,

not daydreams, dreams. There was about a half minute silence. And then with a great clatter of armor, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves onto the oars to row as they had never rowed before. For it had taken everyone just that half minute to remember certain dreams they had had,

dreams that made you afraid of going to sleep again and to realize what it would mean to land on a country where dreams come true. I forgot about that moment. Such a good moment. And Pratchett uses it in a few of his books, obviously. Sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying, sometimes both. So which the broad,

January was a place where all dreams come true. Remember some of yours? Yeah. Which I also like, because it kind of subverts a really common truism, which is something Pratchett likes to do in general. Then you've also got the kind of acknowledging the absurdity of dreams in the normal things gone wrong sense.

And Pratchett, again, this is one of his favorite dream jokes, I think. So in Eric, it would be a lazy use of language to say that the thing that answered the door was a nightmare. Nightmares are usually rather daft things. And it's very hard to explain to a listener what was so dreadful about your socks coming alive or giant carrots jumping out of hedgerows.

This kind of thing was terrifying, thing that could only be created by someone sitting down and thinking horrible thoughts very clearly. And the kind of mixture of that, you get in Hogfather. So in Hogfather, Tia Timmy announces, I'm your worst nightmare. And like all the other guys are like, oh, what, the one with the giant cabbage

and the wearing knife or tea time has to go. No, the one where this man comes out of nowhere and kills you, stone dead. So again, like if you want something to be scary to your readers, as you probably do, you either need to be vague with it by explaining why and by explaining that, you know, think of some of the dreams you've had

and why you don't want them to come true or by pointing out that even like ridiculous nightmares are scary in the moment. Or the third main option, of course, is having the dreams wrought by somebody. And so while dreams are almost universal, some people don't remember their dreams. Jack doesn't remember his,

but almost everybody has and remembers at least some dreams. And so also the specifics differ. It's reasonably simple to make the idea of a created dream scary. So most people have had dreams where you wake up and you're still in the dream or you wake up properly, but as soon as you go back to sleep, you're back there or where someone they love is like ignoring them

or is wrong somehow in the dream. And again, the kind of mix of vague and specific where the reader could project their own fears. Yeah. But the general structure and being able to create that kind of recursive loop for like what's reality kind of thing is very scary. And it also expands the possibility of like worlds within worlds

where neither the reader or the viewer or the listener or the protagonist is sure where the dream sequence ends exactly. Yeah. Because you'll be back at the chalk, but you're not sure. It's the chalk. Exactly. Is it dream chalk? Exactly.

And like this book is quite a cool variation because the protagonist, after some initial confusion with the first dream, can tell when she's in a dream and can also like plan her escape and even see the boundaries of created dreams and create her own. And it's just this whole new canvas in this existing gallery. And I really love it. And I love how it's done.

It is fantastic. Yeah. I think Pratchett has kind of been mollying this idea around for a little while and obviously loves the idea of dreams and loves the fact that oh, a dream come true is actually quite a scary thing. And a nightmare isn't all tentacles and teeth. It's more likely to be mad boots and sugar bowls.

Yes. And odd little things gone wrong. That almost sounds a bit Lewis Carroll, doesn't it? Mad boots and sugar bowls. Yeah. Talk of many things. What's it? And ships and ceiling wax and cavities and kings

and mad boots and sugar bowls and whether pigs have wings. Perfect. Yeah. No, I think it's a really interesting point, like the way the book uses dreams and that it's something you constantly dissolved in. And it builds into this thing where you have this constant fear of whatever reality you're in

because you can just never 100% trust that it's the true reality. Yeah. Yeah. And you see it in how Roland and Sneebs are. Yeah. I was going to say a lot of it's really implied with Sneebs, like not being able to cope in the real world and coming back because I think, say in fairyland, he knows he's in a dream.

Whereas in the real world, there's always a suspicion that you're in a dream, but it's never 100%. What was that lovely line about Sneebs actually? And you live with fear for so long, it's just with you like freckles or something. Yeah. Also, brief sidebar, but the GK Chestnut quote about someone saying, I dreamed a dream, is a Shakespeare reference as well.

The Mckushio Queen Mad Monologue I mentioned, the conversation that goes into it is Romeo saying, I dreamed a dream last night. And the whole point of it is Mckushio saying, yeah, well, I dreamed that dreamers lie, you're a dick. Oh, you keep dreaming. Well, there's this fucking fairy who gives people horrific dreams. Like the whole Queen Mad thing is, she comes and fucks people's dreams up

and terrifies them and she's an evil bitch. See, if I knew my Shakespeare a bit better, I would have been able to draw some parallels there, but I do not. I could do this for a long time and I'm not going to because it's not super relevant. But what is relevant, Joanna, perhaps, is your talking point. Good segue. This is a kid's book, but not as incredulous

as when we were covering Amazing Morris and his Educated Braidance. What I think is some of the dream stuff is kind of terrifying, but in a completely different flavour of terrifying. Yes. Because I know what my mind's capable of, although most of my nightmares are just for some reason I'm forced to work in a kitchen and something is going slightly wrong. Oh, good.

Anxiety dreams, I'd say. Yes. I have anxiety dreams about where the apples are kept. Anyway, because Terry Pratchett is in this book, kind of taking the witch's arc, but putting it into the form of a children's story, and we already talked a ton in Amazing Morris about how his children's stories are not talking down to children.

It is not a patronising children's story. But in somewhat simplifying it for a kid's book, what he does is like boils down everything about the witches into like their purest essence. Yeah. And it's like defamiliarisation within Discworld because we're seeing all of the witchy stuff from a completely the perspective of someone who doesn't know it all.

Yes. Who has not watched Granny and Nanny and Margaret go on their various adventures. Yeah, but at the same time gets to knows that such things must do exist and is open to the possibilities. It's not like trying to explain it to somebody. It's like, no, witches don't exist, which is annoying. Yeah.

That's what I mean partly about it being in Discworld, but yes, also Tiffany's very much open to the witch thing. Yeah. And I think it all really comes to head towards like the last section of the book when Tiffany is confronting the Queen. She realises that there needs to be someone who watches the borders and she comes to this conclusion by herself. There has always been someone watching the borders.

They didn't decide who has decided for them. Someone has to care. Sometimes they have to fight. Someone has to speak up for that, which has no voice, which is this lesson she's carried from Granny, from Granny Aking. And as she learns that and she really stands up for her land for the first time in a way she hasn't before, it's this extension of the selfishness we talked about.

It's not just brother is mine. The land is mine. Yes. This is mine. You can't have it. And she gets this almost storybook like power as she kind of falls into the land under the wave and comes out with her eyes truly opened.

She felt there's a huge wheels of time and stars were slowly turning around her. Yes. And she was more awake than she'd ever been. It's this and it's the payoff to going to the hill and opening her eyes and then opening them again. And now they're really open and this is witchcraft and it's simplest form the witchcraft that we've learned

about in the books is waking up, is having that extra level of being awake, that extra awareness. And we saw Margaret learn it just in a really different way, like all the way back in Weird Sisters. Margaret had to learn to be awake enough to not just be a witch, but also be someone who has a very sensible bread knife in her boot. Yes. Yeah.

Tiffany is probably quite good at having a bread knife in her boot or in this case a frying pan, I suppose. Always good. But now she's had this level of waking up to do instead. It's this seeing the big picture version of it. And I think one of the most witchy moments she has is after she's defeated the Queen and she says to her, I hope there's someone who'll cry for you.

Yeah. So it's after she's had that moment of will anyone speak up for you. Yeah. And just like no one will, will they? Because no one gives a fuck about you, paraphrasing. Exactly. And yeah, once Tiffany's realized that she says, I hope there's someone who'll cry for you, she pities the Queen.

And she has this, it's a little bit of empathy that stops the cackling. It stops her from becoming the Black Alice with the gingerbread house and the... Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, she didn't want to be ahead the drone. And... Yeah, that too. And she wanted to leave the drone alone that was distracted by the sea

and kind of nostalgic for its home. Yeah. And she didn't love the fact that the Grim Dogs were sent off mouths full of blood. And yeah. Yeah. She has those moments that's the essential part of witching because without it, like I said, you can't be like Alice or Lilith, Weatherwax.

There we go. That's the other bad witch I was trying to think of. And then as I mentioned, when Nanny and Granny arrive, it's a really nice tie back to the existing witch's books. It's a reassurance that we are in the same world of witchcraft. But even more that, you get Granny's summary of events. It's a reflection to Tiffany's realization of someone has to watch the borders. And Granny's explaining what the witches do.

We look to the edges. There's a lot of edges, more than people know, between life and death, this world and the next, night and day, right and wrong. And they need watching. We watch them. We guard the summer things. And we never ask for any reward. That's important.

Yes. And I don't know if you've noticed before, Francine, but I like it when the witchy books talk about edges because I can rant about the liminal. Yep, yep, yep. So that's the, again, pure essence of witchcraft. We look after all the weird liminal shit. We're not going into the gothic lit analysis this time.

I'm saving this also for a few minutes. Thank you. Much obliged. Yeah, absolutely. I think as well, Granny can see very clearly the reflection of similar battles she's had. Yes. Or actually genuinely the same battles she had with the Queen of the Fairies, where she goes, something like,

do you want to see how much power I have here on my land? Just before she does the bees thing. Bees. I did it with bees. No one's ever done it with bees. You have to be really good to do it with bees. But that doesn't go, well, it's not as explicitly described as this one. And this is very cool exploration of that.

I love it. Just taking the power of the land. And like right at the beginning of this book, it was going on about how the Tiffany's have their bones, that the Tiffany's, the Acings have their bones in these hills. And yes. And flint is the bone of the hills and sharp and useful. That's beautiful how much it all comes together in it.

And then it all comes together in Tiffany's last lesson to tie into what I've been talking about. When she intimidates Rowland with the feagles filling up the buckets, it's still magic even if you know how it's done. Yes. Yeah. And her acceptance of that lesson is like the final button on the book. She has that lesson.

She accepts it's magic even though she knows it's small, blue Scottish men. The final button on the book. Like a beautiful like closing moment. No, I know. Yeah. I've just never heard the phrase button on the book. I don't have button on the book as a phrase, but like the final button of something is definitely a phrase.

Oh, yeah. No, I've never heard that. No, I like it. That's all. Like finishing a piece of clothing. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. No, I've just never heard it.

It's really nice. It's a nicer version of the cherry on top. Yes. Cherry on top of the book. The stamp on top of the butter. Yes. She accepts that lesson. And then she stamps her witch stamp on the butter.

And that's great because that's like the first small bit of making the people of the chalk accept witches. Is by giving them good butter with a witch on it. Yes. And then they have to. So I think it's really beautiful that to do something incredibly simply, you have to be really fucking good at it because there's nowhere to hide. And Pratchett has spent so long creating these witches and building everything around them

that he can now do this really pure, perfect distilled witch story. So I think it's incredible because you couldn't have a witch story like this at the beginning of Discworld. This needs everything that comes before it. Yeah. Very cool. Do you have an obscure reference for Neil for me? Kind of, yeah.

I can't really find what I wanted to use. So I noticed the fact that Pratchett said it was too cold snow, or mentioned the temperature being too cold snow. And he's used that in a couple of things, Trollbridge used it. No, not Trollbridge, Last Hero, something like that. Yeah. I knew what he meant, but I was like, is that a thing though? Is that a thing?

And yeah, it is. Yeah. Basically, the reason it's more likely to snow at like one or two degrees than like minus 10 is because humidity is necessary for big snowflakes. Yes. Once you get past a certain temperature, there's not a lot of water in the air. On account of it's too cold for there to be water because it's ice. And therefore, you don't get snow.

And that is what I looked up. I was going to use that Latin bit, but I decided not to, because it's not really a reference. I guess this isn't either. I couldn't, I could have used the like 1200. Angry men or whatever. I don't know. Somebody tell me the obscure reference I should have used.

I liked that reference. I like the two cold to snow thing. Fun fact, I learned about what it means by being too cold to snow from a random chiclet book I read once, and I can't remember who it was by, but I'm pretty sure it's the same one. He wrote PS, I love you. But there was a brother in it who insisted on it being too cold to snow, and he was boring and gave a long scientific explanation,

and that's like the only thing I remember from the book. Love it. Anyway, we all needed that insight into my mind to finish the episode. Absolutely. I'm like a person of me as an annoying character from a forgettable book. I was not comparing. I know, I know, I didn't give a long scientific explanation. I don't, I don't know that much about weather.

Let's not learn. Right, I think at this point we've probably said all that we should say about the book, The We Free Man. Do you know what I should have done? I should have looked up different stamps in butter. That would have been cool. Okay, well, next time. Yeah.

Tune in next week when we talk about butter stamps. Or maybe what's the next book we're actually meant to cover? We are going to take a week off. We will be back on the 3rd of April provided everything, you know, doesn't catch fire with Monstrous Regiment. Good grief, are we there already? Guys, guys, I'm going to be so normal about this book. You don't even fucking know.

I'm going to be so normal. Joanna's already being incredibly normal. Yeah, so normal about this. I'm going to have a normal amount of emotions about gender identity while we talk about this book. It's going to be completely normal. But until then, dear listeners. Back with some military history.

Gender identity and military history, my favorite. No more, I can't do it. Literally, though. Right. Right, good, okay. Until then, dear listeners, you can follow us on Instagram at the True Show Make-E-Fret on Twitter at Make-E-FretPod on Facebook at the True Show Make-E-Fret.

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There's a new rabbit hole coming soon, lads. No surprise to anyone that it's going to be fairytale related. Um, ticket links will be up soon for our upcoming live show with Mark Burroughs and his one-man show about the Metropolitan Pratchett. Save May 19th. That's the date. Yes, it's in terrible danger.

Save it, it's in terrible danger. Rate and review us, please do that. It helps people find us because of the cursed algorithms. You could also just tell people about us, that's fine too. Yeah, that's also good. Um, and also any rate and review us if you're going to give us five stars because, um, we can't take criticism.

Oh, I found an old bad review from 2021 I got sad about it the other day. Literally. Yeah, that happens to me occasionally. It's not really that. Say what you want. I don't give a shit. It's fine, it's fine.

I won't take it like the fairy queen has just massively insulted my entire family. It's fine, it's fine. I will. We are rallying and self-involved. They're not wrong. Think about how long it's taking me to get out of the episode. Until next time, dear listener, forever and ever,

waltz without end. A peon or a play on words. That is how you say waltz, right? And peon, yeah. Yeah, I think so, yeah, waltz. Definitely how you say peon.