The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 2: The Colour of Magic Pt.2 (Tentacles, Suddenly)

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “The Colour of Magic”. Ducks! Tabletop Gaming! Wolves! Editing! Scientology! Scooby Doo! Helicopters! Dragons! Existential Crisis! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:BBC Sound Effects Typewriter in the Sky (Wiki)Pratchett's Women, by Tansy Rayner Roberts (GoodReads)Conan the Barbarian (Wiki)The best work of Chris Riddell, new children's laureate – in pictures (Guardian, 2015)Aircraft hijacking 1958-1979 (Wiki)The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Wiki)Robin Hobb - The Fitz and the Fool (Goodreads)I’m a feminist, but… (The Guilty Feminist Podcast)Would You? (YouTube)---Sound effects: Comedy duck (free for personal and educational use): http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/assets/07042207.wav Dun dun dunnnSpoiler ‘bleep’Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Did I tell you about the sound effects I found when I was trying to do the intro by the way? No. I went on the BBC website. I was trying to put together some kind of foley based introduction and it turns out I have neither the talent nor the patience to do so. But I had a great time looking through the BBC archive of sound effects. Some of my favourite bits being woman snoring, man snoring, several men snoring hilariously, several men snoring less hilariously, six-minute recording of the British Library with a specified note that a book trolley appears at 5.53 or something like that, and four puddings falling to the floor,

and one particularly nice sound effect that I downloaded for your enjoyment, Joanna. My BBC sound effects. Because I had to work with sound effects for a play I was in, produced, did all the work for because the director got distracted, which was a monologue but it involved being on a chat show with trailers for a film. The point is I now have a couple of albums each with about 150 sound effects on my phone because deleting them from my library seems like a lot of fat especially after I paid for one. You don't have an already mixed printing press slash elephant do you? No, no, not handy. What I do have is 50 different versions of a prop plane

a prop plane approaching. A prop plane approaching. The strangest thing is that I have an iPhone which means in the music thing it will also be a prop plane. All right can I see music just for two minutes and we're laughing at a dark night? Oh man. No. Anyway. No, no, no. So if you have an iPhone it creates playlists like classical and most played and 90s for some reason as well as all the 90s music on my phone. And there's a lot. I've got a lot of prodigy, some spice girls, a little bit of cotton IJ. It's all there.

But anyway so I put this 90s thing on that Apple had made for me and for some reason it put all of the sound effects and all of the Tchaikovsky on my phone into this 90s playlist. I didn't realise put it on shuffle and then suddenly we had Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Suite followed by 18 minutes of a prop plane approaching from various directions. Did it ever arrive? No because I switched off after 15 minutes because my family is threatened to walk out of the kitchen. Hello and welcome to The Truth Shall Make You Threat, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series in Cronlauge Glawda. I'm Joanna Hagan Young and I'm Francine Carroll. This week, which is definitely a week after the last one,

not two minutes, we are looking at the second part of the first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic. As we explained in episode one, which you should go back and listen to if you haven't already because this won't make a lot of sense, Terry Pratchett wrote this first book in kind of four novellas which is an odd way of doing things but honestly quite a lot of things about the first two books are quite odd and so in this one we're looking at the two middle sections which are called The Sending of Eight and The Law of the One. Quick note on spoilers, this is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, how are the spoilers for the first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic? This is all spoilers. Yeah, this is all spoilers for the first book including the final section

so if you're reading a section at a time and listening, feel that. Which is a really weird way to do it. You do you, we're not judging. Sorry, yucking a yum, am I? You are yucking a yum, oh god don't make me say it. It's your fault you introduced me to this concept. However, for first time readers we will be trying to avoid spoiling major plot points from future books and we're going to avoid any and all discussion of the final book The Shepard's Crown until we get there. Yes. The Sending of the Eight. The Sending of the Eight, yes, so this is the second section in the first look. Yes. And it begins with a, not just a complete setting change but a completely new concept which is kind of odd at this point in a book but it works. Why not? It works.

Again, this was quite clearly written in different stages in different sections. Yeah, so we get introduced to the disc again in that there's a turtle and that there's a disc shaped world on the back of it. Yeah, we get a whole, the dramatic deep strings music. Thumbling. Thumbling. The Thumbling of Rumba. We get the rumbling bass and the dramatic orchestral strings and great at you and the world turtles whims into view. And on the disc is a mountain in the middle. And on the mountain is done manifesting. The home of the gods. The disc world pantheon which is modelled off, I'm gosh, I'm sure, at sampling of all the other pantheon, of all the round world pantheons.

Blind IO, the chief of the gods who's obviously some weird sort of amalgamation of Zeus and Odin. I mean he's a bit more Odiny in this, he gets a bit Zeusy. Yeah, when he gets his lightning bolts properly into gear later on in the series. An offload of the crocodile god. One of my personal favourite disc world deities. Zephyrus the god of slight breezes who went very sad we never meet again. Yeah. Sorry spoilers, but. Oh yeah, sorry, should I beep that one? Sorry, we do not again. Don't we make it sound way more exciting than it is? We're very sad that beep. Eventually when we get to like the final book we can say, right, so remember like in the second

episode. Never meet him again. So, yes, them, them, them are there. They're doing a bit of tabletop gaming. And with them are two side gods. They're like deities. I'd say there's somewhere between anthropomorphic personifications and deities. However, right now we only meet one of them. Oh yeah, sorry. Okay, so we meet the lady who's got bright green eyes. And yeah, she pulls out rinse wind and two flower and puts them on the board. Yes. Pieces that represent them. Yes. Known as a winnigade, withered and funfort of Clark, according to Offler, the crocodile god hindered as usual by his tusks. It's not quite D&D with the universe, but it's not far off like D&D with the universe. Yeah, and then the lady rolls a seven

with this excited die and we cut back to her character. It's rinse wind and two flower, yes. Have a little walk along about the quaint scenery. Yeah. What was what was rinse wind's inferred definition of quaint? We don't have a definition of quaint, we have a definition of picturesque. Oh yeah, that'll do. After careful observation of the scenery that inspired two flowers to use the word, that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Oh wait, no, we do have quaint. Quaint when used to describe the occasional village through which they pass meant fever ridden and tumbled down. And it sort of because it's like a univalry thing, it does a little reintroduction of the character and explains that two flower is the first tourist on the disc world. Tourist

rinse wind had decided meant idiot. Rinse wind is explaining to two flowers they ride along his how magic works on the disc world and he's explaining why he's frustrated with it. He doesn't like it and he thinks the world should be more organized and there is a wonderful line I really love because we were talking about this in the last episode how rinse wind is like okay, fine, I know everything's random, I just want it to be better when we're organized and this is the it was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers. But the plain fact of the matter was that the disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheist houses and

smashing their windows. It is perfect. And then the troll, enter the troll stage nowhere and it appears from absolutely bloody nowhere and there's a mysterious sound of clicking as if dice rolling. Yeah so obviously this is part of the horrible sadistic game and the horses panic as the horses want to do when trolls appear in the path I'm sure you know this Joanna used to go to the races. I mean honestly horses panic if an ant appears in the path. They panic in different directions is the important but two flower is lost in the woods. But he's not really that fussed about it. Yeah it's not too fussed. He's alive. Things keep going in his way. I mean he did disturb a she-bear and her cubs but he manages to get away from that. He was then chased by a wolf pack but

when he found this lovely eldritch stone they decided they weren't hungry after all. Yeah well he is on his mad horse that's stashing through the woods. The horse wakes up the wolf pack but he's far away by the time the wolf pack come after him. Only a couple actually gets far as meeting with the stone. Oh I see. So allow it to be specific. Obviously. Listeners might be. Anyway he sits on a god damn eldritch stone Joanna and it imparts psychic directions through the medium of inscrutable runes to the hospitable temple of Bel Shamerov. Yeah so eldritch runes have directed two flower to the temple of Bel Shamerov. And he's wandered off meanwhile in a tree. Rincewind is in a tree. Yes sorry that introduced that excellently well done me. And he is in a tree having

been chased by a she-bear and a wolf pack. I wonder where they came from. Yes there's kind of continuation of a theme that two flowers happy naivety and worry free existence is very much at the expense of Rincewind as a rule. But he's now been chased up a tree by the wolf pack and also a snake. Yes there's a there's a snake I think there's also a hornet's nest. There is um Rincewind at this point thinks to himself is the snake venomous. Of course it is. It's kind of the fatalistic well just realisation of course things are horrible. Death pops in say hello which is nice. Death does pop in and slightly frustrated at Rincewind's refusal to let go and die. I was going to say fate intervenes fate does not intervene somebody intervenes. There are some sort

of dice clicky noise. And hornet's nest drops on wolves. And the tree takes Rincewind in literally some hands come out of the tree and pull him into it. Yeah actually did that hornet's nest fall as the wolves even need to happen then? Probably not. Was it just a further demonstration of the manipulation of the gods? I would assume so. Huh. You were looking at this with an editor's eye aren't you? Yes yes yeah obviously I'm I'm here to trim paragraphs out of Pratchett that will make me fucking popular. Well no but it is something you bring when you look at a book like this especially because these ones the early ones weren't very heavily edited because they're being published on each audience. Wasn't the first book like 500 copies were published or something?

Yeah five hundred and six something like that yeah um and which is incredible when you think about it now because he became the most popular British author after JK Rowling I think? Yeah I think as far as selling copies I mean there's 41 books compared to JK Rowling it's like seven. Yeah but what else grew JK Rowling? Um I mean not that. That is a brave thing to say compared to Terry Pratchett? No it isn't. Yeah in a fight who would win? Oh Terry Pratchett okay out of whose books I could live without I could live without Harry Potter way more than I could live without Terry Pratchett. Absolutely yeah and if I could pick one series to reread even if it was just seven uh disc world books I picked those. Yeah reread for the first time I mean yeah.

And I say that as someone who grew as someone who grew up with Harry Potter? Although having said that um my absolute top of the list book I would reread for the first time again is uh Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy not one of the disc worlds. Although I'm cheating and picking the entire trilogy in four parts for that but it's in one book in my bookshelf so I'm taking it. Fair. What would it have been? Oh I'd know now. Yeah okay so while you're thinking I'll explain my reasoning yeah in that nothing and I really think nothing has made me laugh as much of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and it's it's because it's so concentrated there are possibly as many moments like that in the

disc world but Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is just bam bam gut punch laughter over and over again and you can't relive that. No because you know the jokes are coming. You never get you never get to hear that for the first time again um and that one oh I fucking got Douglas Adams as a club man. He really was and I love that he struggled so much with writer's block and deadlines. Yeah yeah not in a way it would take pleasure in his pain but in a way that it's less broken. Yes your book now I've I've rambled. Oh can I cheat and pick a series as well though? If you could realistically have them in one tome. Bullocks. Because I okay well I'm gonna want I'm gonna ignore that rule. Okay that's fine I don't actually

have any way to enforce it though. So the Robin Hogg fits in the full books not just that first trilogy all of them probably my favorite non-paraly fantasy series yeah and I read to the trilogies in the wrong order so the second and third trilogy I read the wrong way around yeah I really wish I could go back and read them in the right order to see if I could get the hint uh so yeah that would be what I would go back and reread. Anyway um anyway um so Rince Whens dragged into the tree and cut back to the game of the gods weird. Might be D&D could be Monopoly um maybe Ludo probably not Ludo probably not Ludo or Cludo. Oh I like Ludo. I hate Ludo. Oh do you? Oh do you know what no I like the pub quiz game Cludo. Oh you know I like the one on the question machine. That's what I always think

about yeah. Yeah no the actual board game there's like a really basic mathematical formula and then it all gets really well written really quickly. Anyway so we're back to the gods and this is where we meet Fate who sits down to play against the lady. Right and Fate is another anthropomorphic personification or we're doing well with that tonight. It's really fun to say isn't it um but he's always got a lovely description isn't it you've got the page open. Yeah so it explains gods can change their form but not the nature of their eyes. The fate of the disc world was currently a kindly man in late middle age graying hair brush neatly around features that a maiden would confidently proffer a glass of small beer to should they appear at her back door. It's just such a clever

and nondescriptive description. Yeah. You you can see him exactly and he hasn't at all described his face. No you don't know what he looks like at all but you know exactly what he looks like. Yeah and and it's tying in other fantasy tropes while it's not making fun of them it is drawing your attention to the fact you're aware of them because the the old man who appears at the maiden's doorway and she would kindly offer him a glass of small beer because he seems like a which we looked up band small beer is weak beer. Yeah. Yes. Because this is when this is the kind of fantasy that's still sits around sort of the medieval-ish. Yeah but I mean if it's looking at 80s fantasy traitor I mean you have read a lot more trash fantasy than I have and that sounds judgey as

but actually I just mean I am so fussy with fantasy. I've read a lot of trash in my time but just not so much of that genre. Whereas I've read trash in all genres I'm an equal opportunities trash reader. I mean trash is an unfair word. Shlocky maybe. Yeah. I mean I want to reserve the word trash for the Elron Hubbard book I recently read which was why did you do that. That's cool. So my head chef is super into Scientology like in a not in a he's a Scientologist way. All right you can't be Canadian and a Scientologist pick one dude. No he has like an intellectual interest he thinks it's terrible so he wanted to read some of Elron Hubbard's like books because he was a sci-fi author before he founded this crazy religion. Yeah. They didn't want to buy any because the

money goes to his estate which means the money goes to the Church of Scientology. Oh. So he keeps an eye out for used ones but they're hard to spot so I found one while I was in this huge which well I found a whole bunch while I was in America but I could only afford to carry one back in my teeth. So I bought this terrible book called typewriters in the sky and I read it because I was curious about what I was buying as a present for my head chef so I could get some more time off work. I don't remember what happened but it was bad. Wow that was only a couple weeks ago as well it must have been bad. I honestly couldn't tell you anything apart from there were typewriters and misogyny and I think it was meant to be science fiction. Gosh. The point is I will read a lot of

trash. Yes but because of that I think you probably have a fuller understanding of the straight parody he's trying to do here. Yeah because also by the way this came out in 1983 so he's not parodying 80s fancy he's really parodying like 70s fantasy. This is true this is true and that's a whole different genre of trash sub-genre. It's its own beautiful thing but there's a lot of bad cartoony covers. We're talking Conan the Barbarian kind of level. Well we're going to come to a really super direct Conan the Barbarian parody in about 10 pages. In that case let us go ahead a little bit. So Fate and Lady are playing the game got the dice out. They also grabbed out something covered in suckers tentacles and mandibles and thrown that on the board. Everyone loves a

mandible. What is a mandible? It's like a mouth bit. If anything's described as having mandibles you don't want it in your bathroom basically. Okay rule of thumb. Thank you that. So Rincewin's in a tree. Rincewin's inside the tree yes. With a hammer dried. A hammer dried. What's a hammer dried? So dryads. Hummer. I was already aware of dryads with like a forest spirit type thing but I thought I'd do look a bit more and its Greek mythology is the origin. Dryads are forest spirit type things and hammer dryads are dryads specifically bonded to one tree. Right okay so rather than just being oh I love trees like I love this one. It's like a monogamous dried. Yeah pretty much. So monogamous dried who is flesh green and Rincewin's very sure about that because all she's wearing is a necklace.

We'll come back to this. Sure we will. But she tells him that his mate two-flower has gone to the temple of Belchamaroth. Yeah and at this point we learned that Belchamaroth is all kind of fucking nasty because Rincewin is all more terrified than usual. And this is where we get a bit of an explanation which we probably should have mentioned in episode one. So we get a bit more of the backstory about why Rincewin is a terrible wizard and effectively like it's talked about in the first section of the book that wizards can only use a spell once and they have to memorise it. It takes a lot of work. Rincewin has one of the eight great spells that are the base of the universe lodged in his head so I know what the spells will hang out there.

So we learned a bit more about it here which is that there is at the end of the university when he was a student there was a book and it was called The Octavo and it was the grimoire of the creator of the universe. Gosh. And one of the spells from that book, Rincewin snuck in, looks at it and I dare, one of the spells lodged itself in his brain. That's why he can't do any other magic. And it's why he got expelled here. And it's why he got expelled from the university. On the front cover off that Octavo had been a representation of Belchamaroth. Oh the soul eater to you lies between seven and nine. It's number lie between seven and nine. Oh because we learn somewhere in this chapter that the number eight is super duper evil. Yeah that happens in a few pages.

Yeah so it's like the whole numerology thing which I don't think is very often explored in the disqual actually surprisingly. No. But in here that apart from the significance of the number eight which is just a very magical number and in this case it is a very unlucky number. And actually in fact Rincewin had that drilled into him at university and then found out that his dorm room was dorm room was number seven A which he did not find surprising. But yeah it's weird because it is is such an importantly sacred lucky number in Chinese culture. Yeah so it's it's it's like the infinity symbol as well like it is quite a... But I honestly think it's only used in discworld and in relation to magic because he has this idea of the colour of magic

being the eighth colour of the rainbow and it's kind of well the seven colours so yeah this whole magic thing becomes eight and I think that's where it just stemmed from that. I think so or that's how I would look at it. Yeah it could be a big numerology reference though. Right no I think you're probably right to be honest. Yeah the octarin is the eighth colour which is kind of a greenish purple would you say that's far out? We can see octarin obviously. Being wizards. Yeah it's quite hard to describe but I'd say yeah. Bit greenish purple. Yeah. So yeah so Rincewin's still hanging out in the tree. Which is apparently bigger on the inside. Bigger on the inside not a Doctor Who reference. No so I'm here to make the Doctor Who references on Toe Pratchett's behalf

because he didn't make any. I'm very upset about this. Oh go ahead John. And he realises around this time that he's not really a guest. He's being kidnapped. Yay. Oh Rincewind. Oh Rincewind. You silly fish. This is also where he meets some he-dryards. Which are just like she-dryards except not green and also men. And a bit bulkier. Quite a lot bulkier. Bowling ball biceps that kind of thing. Yes. And I think he refers to the entire setup as being almost like a hive doesn't he? Yeah he says there's lots of females with a few giant males and he sort of he says the giant males did like god-shaped statues among the small intelligent females. So it's like a hive but not like a beehive. Yeah.

Because that's like the exact opposite of a beehive. Yes it is isn't it. Yeah. So like ants more like ants. Yeah yeah yeah. The point is the trees are hive for these people but there's some interesting stuff about the he-thought-dryards have died out and there's a reference to the twilight people so it's a it's a cool little seed planted for later books sort of. He talks about elves and trolls uh and gnomes and pixies. Yeah. And they've all been dying out um apart from elves and trolls was it? Yeah elves and trolls um have evolved. He said trolls because they're at least as good as humans at being nasty spiteful and greedy. Elves because they were too clever by half and gnomes and pixies are supposed to have died out

which is kind of half seed planting for future use. Yeah. And half he completely reckons all of that. Yeah um the the idea is kind of centered around that there's less magic in the world as well as in there. Yeah it's sort of implied he also talks about um humans about evolved. Yeah it it kind of seems like again it's a tropey thing as humans come in the magic declines but it kind of seems like he started with that and didn't really follow it through because that would have made quite a boring overall plot for a 41 book series. Yeah I think also he never really concerns himself with strict rules of magic like in this first book there's a lot of strict explanation of this is how magic works and then he just ignores it whenever it's convenient

because that's more fun. It is more fun I think as long as the underpinning that magic is not an infinite resource that you can ex machiner your way out of anything with. Yeah um is there then it's fine. And that is the big point is no matter how readily available or what all is applied to magic you can't just use it to snap your fingers and get out of anything and there's lots of fun explanations of why you can't as we go along. Yeah and rints when definitely aren't on account of being a shit wizard with only one horrible horrible horrible spell lodged in his brain but uh the dryads do some wild magic so they do some wild magic and they open some kind of portal right so they open up this portal so rincewin can see what's going on at the temple of belch emerald

and this is just some kind of hey let's watch your friend get tortured to death before we kill you in a nicer manner kind of thing. But the first thing rincewin sees is a horse parked outside but seems oddly familiar and uh this is where we meet karan the barbarian. Yay. So yeah this is proper konan the barbarian type his take he's big he's not hugely bright. Although he's one of the few barbarians that can string a couple of syllables together. Yeah he's got a leopard print loincloth which is like very in with barbarians these days. A batch of hair and a small head atop of muscley muscley body. Yeah it's a fighter of dragons at a spoiler of temples a hide sword the kingpast of every street brawl. He could even and unlike many heroes of rincewin's acquaintance

speak words of more than two syllables. Yes that's the one. Give him time and maybe end or two which is such a wonderful character. Yeah considering it's such a simple trope stereotype he does make it fun. He does make it very fun because it could be really bored really it could get really dull really quickly. Yeah. So rincewin's still kind of watching this from the tree um he likes the dryads find out he's got this giant spell in his brain. Oh because they can read his mind and they're like oh my god that is not a nice spell to have in the tree. Yep so at this point rincewin runs the fuck away which is kind of. He bravely ran away. But it's kind of a theme you know rincewin knows what he's about he knows what he's good at. Yeah and what he's good at is getting away from whatever

is happening right now. Yeah not necessarily to a better place but that's not the point. No so because he ends up at the temple of El Shamero. Yes uh he teleports through this already portal thing and pops up next to teflah. Yeah. Who's been wandering around in his usual oh look at all this stuff kind of manner. Bless teflah. Kind of lightly fingering the carvings on the wall and and at this point rincewin's also wandering around um because he's been lured in. Yes he's been lured in by the luggage with his like opening its lid to show a flash of gold like hey. Which I like to think of the luggage sort of flashing its gold like a victorian lady sort of kiketishly flashing an ankle. Oh yes she yes he definitely does that. I see I always prefer to the luggage

of the he. We are not fully aware of the luggage. I should really be calling it in it. Or are they? I don't know I feel like if it's made of wood. I mean I think they're fine to call it in it. Yeah. The point. I knew you went for that as well but then I thought I'd just sound weird. Yeah I know. Anyway um where were we? We're still we we find out that fron's carrying cring the magical sword who uh I like I like that there's a talking sword. Do you? I like that there's a talking sword and he's kind of irritating in a bit of a dick. Yeah it's very cheesy cartoony fantasy tropey um and if it had been in the book for any longer than it was I would hate it. Yeah that's yeah that's it it's not there for the very for me it kind of veers into the

Monty Python. I mean we can't really complain about Discworld being a bit Monty Python. No we can't but this is more that than usual I would say. Yeah it's I mean there's definitely some parallels to Monty Python and the Holy Grail like throughout. Very much so. But yeah I don't know I feel like Cring's character is not even the fact it's a talking sword who's a dick it's just the way he's speaking as like oh is this um type of dick that isn't. Yeah I feel like it's less that it's a crap character it's that it reminds us of the pub ball. Yes it does um but anyway the the talking sword that Fran is already regretting stealing. Yeah I mean it works within the context and it's a nice like subversion of you know hero funds talking sword helps lead him to glory. But I've always

struggled with certain certain funny characters um so you know Friday night dinners yeah the next door neighbors is called. Oh yeah no that one no that makes me cringe. Yeah exactly they've done such a good job of making him annoying that I genuinely can't stand to watch him. Yeah um and that's the that's the point and Jack climbs that hilarious and obviously I can appreciate how well done it is but in reality I'm like oh god almighty. Yeah I definitely can't watch that for long it does make me sort of crawl up inside to myself. Yeah yeah Cring's like that for me he's just done a good job of making a thoroughly unlikable character though. Yeah that's fair um anyway we're in the temple mooching around um everyone bumps into each other basically.

Yeah I always sort of picture this a bit as like um I don't mean quite a carry-on film but you know that's Scooby-Doo. Yeah yeah that's what I meant. But yeah this is this is really Scooby-Doo. But it is you know they're all kind of backing in and out of corridors they finally bump into each other. Yeah Rincewind is like a sophisticated chaggy. Yeah they're like I just a bit Scooby. No because the luggage is scoffy. Okay yeah for a point. Oh maybe I can't place all of these characters on Scooby-Doo. Two flowers obviously Daphne. Yeah um at this point we'd kind of skirt well Rincewind is trying to subtly skirt around the fact that we really cannot say the number between seven and nine you guys okay okay like four times two don't say it just just think it

don't say it please. There is a lovely moment where two flower says well we just need to find this bell shammer of person and explain and then he'll let us out. Yes because he's very stupid and Rincewind of course says the hollow laugh no um paraphrasing. That is not how we deal with this. And it all becomes a little uh academic because creating the asshole sword held the number eight with his voice like a carbon knife cutting through silk. Did I get that right? Yeah yes in a voice like a claw being scraped across glass also comes out. Oh yes there's a lot of beautiful analogies for this sword. Yeah that's a simile. Sorry I'm not meaning to be a prick I've just had a lot of coffee. Nah be a prick it's great this is good material.

So yeah we are sorry where the hell am I we're in that. So he that sword yells eight. Asshole sword. Asshole sword eight Rincewind you're not meant to say eight comedy moment hand slaps over mouth tentacles suddenly. I'm really suddenly incredibly sad dear listener that this is a podcast because you have all just missed Francine's tentacles suddenly action which was a bit like an all-in YMCA. I am just upset that there weren't any mandibles. Well you can't do mandibles and tentacles at the same time with the number of limbs that God gave you Joanna. Which God was it blind I am anyway. So tentacles they're everywhere they're grabbing it here they're going all over the place in front hacking at them with cringos like saying annoying stuff

probably. I am being very restrained and not making any jokes about weird anime porn. You're the one with the deletion. Well I get it. Oh well that's not relevant. Anyway okay so so it's all a bit hentai. It's all a little bit hentai if you want to look at it that way. Lovecraft it's just lovecraft spewing all over the place. It's all a bit but not from the deep. And then Two Flower wants to risk his life for a photo. Sorry. Well I think we're about to make the same point. Yeah it would totally be a selfie now. Yeah Two Flower would definitely have a selfie stick if this were written in the modern day. I was about to make the exact same point. Two Flower would so want a selfie with the big giant

Tina. And it would be so cute but unfortunately this was written in 1983 and Two Flower did not have a selfie stick even though he had the whole fantastical world list disposal. I know nobody thought of a wanker wand until it existed. I don't think no one anyone okay I don't want to say no one thought of selfies because portrait artistry was very much a thing. But yeah no Two Flower would have had a wanker wand. In the event rinse when takes the photo. Salamanders. Yes and the flashes Bell Shameroff. Yes. I like that the flashes Salamanders. Yeah oh the Salamanders which in the desk well feed off octareen light. So they have been gorging themselves in this heavily magic temple. And when they flash they really flash. And yes well quite. They ooo word Bell

Shameroff right back into hell. Or whatever dimension he came from. Probably the dungeon dimensions we'll come to that another day. We'll come to that in book three. So yeah yeah Bell Shameroff. Bell Shameroff dies. Shrugging tentacles. That was easier than you might have thought. Yeah that was a bit anti-climactic really. Yeah but I suppose he was running out of space. It does feel a bit like. But what kind of boss that'll can you realistically write at this point. Especially in a novella. I suppose we could do front versus the tentacles but it's just boring isn't it. And this is a much better end to it than just the barbarian hacking it up. Like we're still subverting the trope bit so I still like it. Yeah and anyway once the tentacles

dead. Time which has been embarrassed to. Wait no altarob. Oh yeah no so we have a fun bit of run being a barbarian goes to lift up the altar. How do you feel about that as a Catholic? Can't give a fuck. I'm just making sure we get all perspectives properly represented on this podcast Rana. Okay great. So speaking out as a Catholic. I mean heavily lapsed. Quite lapsed really. Quite lapsed you'd say. Quite surprising I've not been ex-communicated if I'm being totally honest. Just because the Pope has not heard of you. Yeah I mean I keep meaning to write him a letter. You know who's got the time. Do you get like official ex-communication letters? No I don't. I don't know anyone who's been ex-communicated. That's surprising to me.

Anyway. He loves the temple. Temple. Temple. Yes. Run loves the temple. Run. Run's the altar. Yes he does. And there's a nice little conversation where Rincevin asks how he knows this treasure and hair and Run says you find chocapples under a chocappletree. You find treasure under altars. Yeah. And third point. Yeah I like. Anyone who's played Skyrim or similar is well aware of this fact. I like physics isn't it? Yeah Run's only really in this one book but he exists in this book purely to just very matter-of-factly state tropes from Conan the Barbarian. Yeah he doesn't even live them out particularly he just said. And for some reason it's so much funnier than if he was actually doing any of this shit.

No it absolutely is. And I mean a later Barbarian stereotype. Not that much later really. The next book. Yeah. Does more of the acting out of the tropes but because he's very different though they work differently but and yeah then time has been ashamed to come anywhere near this temple for a while and it finally decides to crumble the whole thing all at once. Yep. Everybody runs away, slow motion run, explosions probably in the background. Maybe a helicopter I don't know. Probably. Actually helicopters do weirdly come up in these books. Really? Only a couple of times but more often than I would think they would in fantasy parodies. Oh yeah no I'm remembering now yeah. Watch out for helicopters. Yeah spot the helicopter it's a sub game.

We're going to do this as a weekly segment where we just talk about whether or not there was a helicopter in the book and when we get to a later. Spoiler disappointment. Helicopters slow motion back to reality. Rincewind and Toothfire are continuing on their journey to Chermquerm whatever. I think the two were interchangeable at this point. Yeah although they have got separate map locations neither of which were anywhere near the goddamn Wernberg which will come too soon. Kring is just babbling away about all the shit he's done which I do quite like that at some point he mentions living in a hundred spending a hundred years in the bottom of a lake. Oh yes yeah with some watery bin. Look just because I'm voice and bin lobbed

I promise I'm not going to quote once upon a time. That was my fault I misquoted Monty Python and provoked you. And yeah so they sensibly agree to get fun to accompany them. Yeah in exchange for having for a bit of PR. Yeah yeah they take his photo which is just pleased with Vanity instead of paying him because you know he finds gold under every altar which are all over the shop. Apparently so. In Fantasyland. I just like the fact that Rincewind at one point during this book where a lot happens sets up a little PR business. Yeah it is very very disquilled and that is where part two ends. Well that and death looking a bit threatening. Oh yeah death doesn't kill Rincewind yet. Comes along and goes oh shake fist at sky. I've got that's a wonderful

mental image. I really love the thought of death just around me. Rincewind. Oh dear wrong trope. Right so part three close to the edge. No that's part four. Oh fuck me I've written close to the edge on here. Part three something worm bug. The lure of the worm. The lure of the worm. Part three the lure of the worm. So nailed it. It's half past 11. No we don't need to tell the audience. No yes it is timeless and also we don't do things at stupid times of night. And so we start with the introduction to the worm bug. Yes the worm bug is big fuck off upside down mounted basically with a forest on top and a waterfall. It's all very odd and to be honest I really could not picture the worm bug at all like the first few times I read

this. I don't know what it's really. No not from the outside I had a really good idea of what the inside looked like. Yeah but I don't think I even bothered I didn't try and imagine it. I like to know what things look like. Yeah I must say if my brain doesn't do it then I just let's skip over it and it makes some kind of vague background in my head. I do kind of blur it out a little bit. Yeah and then yeah rinse wind we cut away from the worm bug. Yeah so the worm bug is a little novella introduction and rinse wind and front and two flower and luggage and cring. We've got quite a fucking groove at this point. Yeah it's a plucky band of misfits. Plucky. All right maybe not plucky. I really don't think that describes any of them. Maybe two flower. It's a fantasy of

all therefore they are a plucky band of misfits even if none of them are individually plucky. The luggage is quite plucky. There's a bit more world building here isn't there? History world building is that something? Yeah it explains sort of. Yeah law. Law. Law. Law within R. LAWR. Law. Like raw. Like so random. Law. Law. Oh my god I hate me. Anyway it's going on about how there were mage wars which were wizards having a little barney spilled magic all over the place and now if you flip a coin it turns into a caterpillar. Yeah basically that's the history of the disc world in a nutshell or a caterpillar. They're a little concerned about the well rinse winds a little concerned about this front is vaguely oh this is one of those places and two

flowers like oh yay. Skips about in a field of bus flows. Yeah I get to the point in the book where the optimism of two flower annoys me and I think it comes in drips and drives my annoyance slash love of the character. I think it's it's the relentless optimism is just starting to hit grating. Hey it's a dragon and I'm really happy for him. Yeah all right he does get a dragon. All right we'll get to that. Yeah for now we meet an old man who's dead. Yep. But not that dead because he was a wizard. So he can still chat away and see into all kinds of dimensions that you don't really want to look at if you keep your sanity. He's also got a bit of a loose grip on temporal stability. He's everywhere in time at the same time he's all it's very confusing. And also

a zombie. And also a bit of a zombie. And he's with his daughter. Yes her. Who? Yes her one biter. Yeah and I had a purple bookmark here which meant Joanna gets to do a feminist. Oh yay I like that you've colour coded Joanna as a feminist. Yeah the only one I was consistent with in my indexing system which I'm not even looking at. I promise I am not going to do a giant feminist rant here but there are literally three female speaking characters in this entire book. The lady who's a fucking anthropomorphic personification slash deity. The fucking hammerdryad who's naked and not human. And Liesa Wernbitter who is almost naked except for a couple of mere scraps of the lice's chainmail and riding boots of iridescent dragon hide. I have two points here. One if dragons only

exist when you can imagine them are her boots imaginary. Yes. Subpoint where do I get some? I feel like that undercut my feminism slightly. I get that this is a paranoid this is a paranoid. I'm a feminist but I want an imaginary pair of dragon boots. Do I have to get on the podcast or that? Totally. All right I get this is a parody of cheesy 70s fantasy. I get that he is trying to make fun of the trope here but this book has literally three female speaking characters two of them are semi-naked. Yeah. Basically naked. And there's a really good book which I am going to find the title on overall. It's Pratchett's Women Unauthorized Essays on the Female Characters of the Discworld by Tansy Rainer Roberts and I may end up quoting this book a couple of times.

It feels like it was for you. I mean I get that these are not huge feminist times. I'm not doing everything as a massive feminist reading but in this particular instance I think there's a lot of feminist themes to be looked at through Pratchett. There are a lot of feminist themes. He writes some incredible women characters but it doesn't mean it's above criticism. No nothing's above criticism. So this is a quote from this book of essays on female characters in Discworld. In these early Discworld books we find Pratchett mocking the semi-clad but busamy fantasy women who traditionally reward the handsome hero with their sexy selves. Sexy selves. He did this at first by creating semi-clad busamy fantasy women who a say bitchy things to the not handsome hero

in the hopes that no one would have noticed they're still a cliche of the genre and slash or b amusingly fail to fall in love with the protagonist but instead choose to reward a less obvious male character with their sexy selves. Sexy selves. And this is this is totally what Pratchett is doing here. He's just gone oh right let's turn the semi-naked character because isn't it silly how these 70s fantasy books have all these naked women that's like right but you're kind of just doing the thing. Yeah. All you've done is you haven't actually made her a random character. You've just kind of made her a bit bitchier. Yeah I feel like that's a trope in itself. The early the early renditions of strong female character from what I've read from from the 80s basically seem to all be bitches.

Yeah it's just I'm still this trope except now I'm also mean. Yeah. Oh and I had several brothers. Yeah basically yeah and that's Leah's The Dragonheart so yeah it gets a lot better. The way Pratchett writes women definitely hugely improves even by book three. If I didn't even buy book two. Yeah I mean this is really the only book where he doesn't even bother to create a one-rounded female character. Yeah but it feels super noticeable here. It does yeah I agree even I put a purple bookmark in and I'm reasonably sparing with them. Fair. So that's my run about the semi-naked dragon queen. That being said she's trying to break her glass ceiling here. She is. She's trying to break a glass ceiling with her imaginary boots which might be why

it's so fucking difficult. And her imaginary dragons but so we find out Leah's motivation. Which is to subvert patriarchal norms and take over the Wernberg. Yeah because whoever killed the father figure should have been the one to rule the Wernberg. Yeah but he's doing another fantasy trope which is being the patriarch or sometimes matriarch who doesn't trust any of his children to look after the thing and so he stays around except this time he's dead already but still sticking around because good old him. Fantasy. Because he can. Why not? Fun fact also what Andrew Merkel's doing basically. Oh god yeah. So we also get a little perspective from the dragon which I really like because it's all in italics for no particular reason but um

when Leah's a kind of hooks oh no I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay so we get a little look the inside of the Wernberg. The inside of this mountain is a massive cabin and it's studied with hooks including some massive great hooks which were screwed in by many slaves who then fell to their deaths along with some of the other hooks and I just fucking love stuff like this like the weird industrial aesthetic just to start with. Yeah and second the fact that when we see it from the inside perspective and the weird little italics bit and we get the dragon perspective as well um Leah hooks herself on with these hooky boots hook boots hook boots to go with your imaginary boots every bill needs some and it kind of goes upside down and it kind of

explains the world as going upside down and you read that more literally than me. I read it as literally gravity felt the other way up but I could have misread it and it's fancy and it's a kind of interpretation. Yeah I don't think it's a case of misreading really. For me I imagined it more as she was so used to it that this was just the other world um but she's she's upside down and now the ceiling's the floor and to me I particularly love that bit because I used to spend hours as a child maybe not hours probably hours I was quite hyper fixated on things looking at textured ceilings and imagining it as the terrain of some fantasy world and kind of doing little adventures in there um and that's really the only reason I miss R-Tex. Oh that's

interesting. Um so that particularly tickled me when I first read it and even now. Yeah I love the visual and I love that this is the really literal version of the theme we were talking about where belief engenders existence. Yeah and literally these dragons come into existence by her believing in them. Yes yeah and yeah just that the whole I really like the whole concept of the Wernberg um yeah again I would prefer Liesa to be a better character but fuck it she's in a great setting for now so. To be honest her character alone isn't that bad it's just. Yeah that Prattian does better than not that bad. Yeah this is I think this is it wouldn't be so jarring if it wasn't the fact that I'm kind of I'm no spoiled for almost equality in some of the content I

consume where I just expect there to be some more female characters than three two of which are naked and yet partly because I know Prattian can do better I know that there are really good female characters. Yeah not in this book but yeah it's not even that oh Prattian can do better with female characters in this book at this point for me itself Prattian can do better with characters boring. Yeah the whole lot of them actually apart from the dad. Yeah yeah I'm even Rincewind and Twoflower aren't quite fleshed out enough to be interesting yet they're getting there. Yeah I will give I will give less of a criticism to these because they are being fleshed out as the story goes on. Oh yeah I mean there's a difference between this is a badly written character

and this is I'm still waiting for all of the character development to have happened. Yes yeah exactly yeah um any who so we've got to stop saying anyway by the way I've just realized how much we've been doing that. Yeah why do I have to? It's hard not to. So that's another thing I've got to stop saying. Yes it gets on the old people get really annoyed about so. So if you have a listen to the radio with an old person yeah and anyone says so like in my day people didn't used to say so like okay well people spoke more slowly. So a needle-pulling thread. Exactly it's all Julie Andrews thought. Fucking Julie Andrews. I love Julie Andrews. Me too. Run and Twoflower kidnapped by this imaginary dragon that's my soul mate. Yeah Liesa has jumped on a dragon she's decided

to capture them I think she's sort of thinking well I could keep this run guy and he can be like my trophy husband. Trophy husband and like the figurehead well I run things from behind the scene because he looks suggestible and also muscly. Yeah and Liesa's kind of tight. Yeah suggestible and muscly. To be honest I can see it. Nothing wrong with suggestible muscly like so fuck's it I'm really conscious of it now. I'm sorry. Liesa kidnapped run and Twoflower and Rinswin with Yeah Rinswin gets away and with a magical sword he gets knocked out briefly. I'm lucky yeah briefly knocked out this is not unusual I can't imagine the kind of brain damage he's dealing with by the end of books like five. I'm just assuming he sort of semi-permanently can cast.

I would explain a lot. Yeah. He pulls Kring out of a tree. Eventually. He's very glad it's not Yeah Kring again goes on about his multi-dimensional existence. Yeah Rinswin wasn't going to bother with a rescue attempt because why would he? He's Rinswin. He's not a rescue attempt kind of guy. Yeah and he's realistic about he's come to be tolerating of Twoflower by this point and he doesn't particularly dislike run but realistically speaking what is Rinswin going to do about a dragon? Yeah. Let alone possibly several. But Kring does not want to be stuck with just Rinswin. Both his Rinswin terribly boring compared to from. So Kring forces him to go off and rescue the boys. And he does this via a try he sort of tries to hijack a dragon.

I'm trying to pronounce the dragon rider's name. Yeah this is one of my favorite thing Terry Pratchett does because I fucking hate fantasy name tropes. Apostrophes. Random. Now it's boring. Random punctuation. There is no need for random punctuation in the middle of words and I am looking at Patrick fucking Rothfuss here. Oh my god. Look I just put really strongly about the amount of apostrophes in names and he is one of the worst offenders. And I think it comes a bit from Tolkien-y fantasy like there was definitely a thing. Yeah but Tolkien was a language expert and wrote his languages and it made sense when he drilled down into it and I think everyone nicked the aesthetic without actually thinking about how

the language was constructed. And I like that Terry Pratchett takes the piss out of here. The problem is is now I don't know how to pronounce this name so I'm going to go with K-Sydra. Because it's got an exclamation mark in it. Yes. In fact I'm very tempted to and I may do this between now and recording our next episode. Go and listen to the audiobook and find out how it's pronounced but if it's just K-Sydra I'm going to be really upset. I bet it is. No you need to. Look there's an exclamation point there. Does Steven Briggs do this one? Nigel someone? Tony Robinson does some of them. Yeah but he has abridged ones. I bet they abridge it so he doesn't have to say K-Sydra. I would. The point is K-Sydra has a dragon and is now being hijacked by Kering

and Ritzwind. Except he's really bad at hijacking so he's out of combo hijack slash geck's kidnap. Yeah so he's meant to be taken back to the Wernberg anyway but probably more dead than he is. But yeah he's got an odd ability to survive. I do like that while he is riding the dragon K-Sydra offers him a bag of... Shout to Anna. I'm sorry. No way. K-Sydra offers him a pack of boiled sweets. Yeah it is traditional while flying. It is. It doesn't matter what universe you're in. It is traditional while flying to eat a red and yellow sweet. Yeah. Back at the Wernberg. Yeah Ritzwind turns up at the Wernberg. At which point he gets challenged for a fight. By... Lee... Ort. No it's Leo. Ort. Leo. Leo. But we're upsetting the dog.

Lee asks one of Lee's brothers who reckons he should be rolling the dragon, the Wernberg. He's like fight me. Reckons it's a hero. Has decided that Ritzwind's here for mortal combat. Which he really isn't. No poor Ritzwind. But Kring is not willing to go along with the cowardly option. No bloody Kring. I'm kind of getting an asshole sword now. Yeah he is an asshole sword and now we're gonna fight. Ritzwind's gonna fail miserably. But not as much as you think. No all he does is fall off the ceiling a bit. But so does Leo exclamation mark. Yeah but Leo exclamation mark has a fucking dragon to collect him. Yeah. At this point Ritzwind is not. Yeah all right well they fall. But yeah they fall and then we kind of it's not really clear that we've...

Yeah it's a bit clearfangery. It's not really clear that we go back in time but we go back to Twoflower and Haran who are in a stealth together having been kidnapped by some dragons. There's a lot of kidnapping by dragon here. There's a theme. There is a theme and it is kidnapped by dragon. Which is the theme of all the best dances. What? I was trying to think of things that had a theme and I'm... Dances. I just rewatched Community. That does explain a lot. A fat dog theme. Right so we're in Twoflower and the Stealth Together and there is one of my favorite paragraphs. I know I've said that about quite a few paragraphs. Yes. But I mean it this time. So I was talking about you know Frunn just calmly voicing the barbarian trope rather

than really doing the barbarian trope. Yeah. And when Twoflower says well what happens next and Frunn answers very very nonchalantly. Oh I expect in a minute the door will be flung back and I'll be dragged off to some sort of temple arena where I'll fight maybe a couple of giant spiders and naïve foot slave from the jungle of Clatch. Then I'll rescue some kind of a princess from the altar and then kill off a few guards or whatever and then this girl will show me the secret passage out of the place. We'll liberate a couple of horses and escape with the treasure. All that so Twoflower usually. It is beautiful. It is and it sums it up in all of 10 11 lines. Yeah it is very very good.

I just think if I've read that I hadn't had to read so many terrible comics as a child. So they're chilling out they think this is going to happen. Twoflower's just more excited about dragons which there's a little reference here to the Oxyrene Fairy Book which is where Twoflower has seen pictures of dragons. Right yeah. I kind of highlight it just because there seems to be one book of fairy tales. I don't know if it's meant to be the same one or not but a book of fairy tales with horrific illustrations comes up in a lot of discworld books. Vimes was terrified of something in it. Tiffany was terrified of something in it. Goplin. Vimes was scared of Goplin. Tiffany was scared of Jenny Greenfingers. Yeah Jenny Green teeth. Yeah Jenny Green something.

Cool Jenny. Answers on a postcard if you remember what Tiffany was scared of. I'm going to follow Jenny with green. I'm very sorry for new readers we will get there. I don't think it it's definitely not planned here that there is going to be one fairy tale book that exists on the disc but I really like it. I think it's called something later. I'm still head canoning. Yeah. Head canoning. Yeah why not. That it is that one fairy tale book that just exists all over the disc world and contains things. And kind of exists in all the other universes too. Yeah it's like the Osborne book of fairy tales. Yes but except clearly the Grimm brothers. Definitely the brothers Grimm. More importantly I want to know who illustrated it because clearly

these illustrations are fucked up. Yeah. Like I can't think of any famous artists that might have been referenced. I'm not sure this is an Easter egg is it. No no I don't think it's an Easter egg it's all like just speculating that maybe Chris Riddell or someone had a trip to the disc world just to illustrate a horrific fairy tale book. I love his illustrations. He is one of my favourite illustrations. The image of the deep woods books. Yes. Artists beyond the deep woods books aren't they sorry. Yeah yeah. They're just oh so beautiful. The sleeper in the spindle which is Neil Gaiman so it's here for actually adjacent. We haven't gone totally up topic. Oh yeah right. We're doing a podcast. Yes we are doing a podcast. So Two flowers imagining dragons in this economy.

What do you mean? What can you imagine dragons in this economy? I certainly can't imagine dragons in this economy. You're quite right Joanna I'm sorry to doubt you. But he imagines them. Pardon? But he imagines one. He does imagine one but we haven't quite met it. We've got a brief interlude where Liesa turns up wearing not a lot of clothes again. Less not a lot of clothes than before or about the same not a lot of clothes or more not a lot of clothes. Well before it was discussed as a miniscule amount of chain mail now she's wearing a leather harness but in her case it's much briefer than the male dragon riders. So at this point I'm assuming she's literally wearing a thong and nipple pasties. Nice. Plus a lot of hair. God can you imagine leather nipple

pasties the amount of double sided tape in me. I'm thinking more the leather thong. I suppose it's better than chain mail. So Liesa turns up being scantily cloud again. So decides Fron is going to kill her brothers. And then sexy self reward. Yep. Sexy self. And Fron is like yeah all right. Yeah. Seems about right. More or less on the theme. Yep. Go for it mate. Standard Tuesday really. And then just casually kills the guards. Oh yeah. Just keeping in practice. Yes. Yes. Fron. I don't know why but I really love Fron. Well I've talked about it already why I really love Fron. I like his total nonchalance at his barbarian lifestyle. Yeah. But more than that I just I don't know. I like the way he just sort of accepts all of it. Yeah. Yeah he is good. I mean he's not really

in it for long enough for me to get that attached. Yeah I don't mean. But to me he is like cohen like so. Yeah it's less I'm attracted to the character. I really like how it's written. Yeah. Um I mean it gets much more funnier in the next book when we meet the next version of Conan the Barbarian. So yeah so then we meet Two Flowers Dragon. Two flowers imagine the dragons and so hard that the dragon appears just like we all hoped. Yep. And it's very cute. Then he uh and it's a beautiful dragon. It's a very it's a big it's a proper dragon. It's a good one. Yeah. Wings. Yeah proper proper dragon. Not like those nasty little swamp dragons you get around and more bored. Well. They explode every three minutes. Yes and we get to spend lots of time with the

swamp dragon. Yeah they were mentioned here it wasn't a spoiler. Oh no I know. Yeah. I'm just really looking forward to meeting them because yeah Two Flower catches up with Dead King do. Yes. It has a very confusing conversation because the king's not sure where in time the conversation is. Yeah. Which I feel is like a little precursor to Mrs. Cake. Yeah I think he had enough fun with this here then he brought it back again. Yeah. And I love Mrs. Cake. Yeah we'll get to Mrs. Cake. I still want to know why the post office won't deliver to Mrs. Cake. It's never adequately explained. Yes well I think we're meant to come up with our own scenarios. Write it write to us on a postcard. My dog has orange eyebrows.

Does she? Look. Oh yes your dog does have ginger eyebrows. Sorry our co-host is a very sweet, very sleepy puppy. Oh he's your sleepy. Oh she's your sleepy. Look at the little potato puppy. Oh well what a little fish. Anyway so. Sorry we're still on the go. Two Flower takes dragon, goes to rescue Rincewind and now I've written in the document that Joanna does a soppy bit. But it's not really a soppy bit it's just this is one of my notes. Two Flower just sweeps in picks up Rincewind and it's just it's cute. They save each other. It's very sweet. A kind of ship at a tiny bit. A tiny bit. Look I'm sorry I've spent a lot more time engaged in online culture and I could play the queer card and point out people look for... No. No you can ship. You can

ship all kinds of queer relationships Joanna. I quite like it sometimes but not this one. You can't have it. Okay a ship at a tiny bit. And also I take Umbridge at the suggestion that I wasn't also immersed in internet culture. I was just in a different kind of internet culture. Yours didn't have shipping. Mine did not have shipping. Mine had lots of teenage snarkiness and it was deviant art. It was deviant art. Deviant art and shipping. You were just on the wrong side of it. Yes actually I'm probably right. The point is my point isn't even that I really really super ship it. My point is... Really releasing a ship at a tiny bit. You're such a fucking girl. Okay I don't really ship it that much. I don't. I know. But I was curious. Yeah. So I... Oh you

didn't google it. A little bit. Look I don't read fan fiction really. I have nothing against fan fiction. Fan fiction is great. It's a really interesting writing exercise. There is some bloody good fan fiction out there. It's just not running my cup of tea. But I was curious to see if other people kind of ship this. So I had a look around places where you get a lot of fan fiction. Hopefully not to adultfanfiction.net. No not that one. Maybe A3. But I don't know the address of that for any particular reason anyway. Yeah of course not Francine. Of course not. That's for our after hours podcast. When do we start that one? Fuck me I need to go to bed to show off that. I have that effect. Anyway. Would you...

Sing music. Would you read Terry Fractured with me? Okay right fan fiction. I was curious as to what the most popular pairings were for Discworld. Oh okay that is quite interesting. Yeah so I wanted to see if Two Flour and Rincewind was a popular pairing. It kind of is. Is it? Kind of. It's not the most popular though. And this won't mean anything to our new readers but our existing readers may enjoy knowing that Vimes and Vesinari is a super popular pairing. So I can't promise I'm not going to keep an eye out for some sexual tension when we get there. But that's all in the future and in the meantime Two Flour rescued Rincewind and it's cute. It is cute. I will give you that.

It is cute. See for me I love... I'm super into male platonic friendships. No no I am. I definitely see it. It's not even... I feel it more deeply than when I read a romantic relationship almost. And I'm not sure why. More than when I read any kind of like het by just male platonic friendship. And I think it's because when it's set in like trope land like this especially it is very much implied that you can't have any of the male... you can't have any many emotions on the spectrum of male emotions. No. And I'm not explaining this very well at all. Hold on. Okay so this is super off-topic but Fitz and Robin Hobbs one. Yeah. His friendships not even with the fool but with Shade. Yeah.

Just... I feel more deeply than his romantic relationships. No I totally get that and I see your point and I don't mean to... I definitely don't mean to spoil anything about these books for you and I don't... No they're not spoiled. I'm just taking the piss. And it's a bit silly. I'm not saying like I do obsessively ship this or anything like that but I just... It's cute. I get why you would at this moment with this him literally swooping in to rescue you. On a dragon. From a cliff edge. On a dragon. From a cliff edge. If ever was the moment to ship these two it would be now. Like I don't really see them in any kind of romantic pairing because neither of them are romantic characters and there isn't really much romance in the Discworld books. No.

There's just enough for it not to be unrealistically as actual. Yeah but it's never... There's no like romantic story. There are always subplots and it's never... Which I love. Yes. That's one of the reasons I love these books so much because... And it's never one character chasing another. No. It's always two coming together under circumstances. Yeah and my two favorite... Well actually we'll talk about this when we get to it. Yeah we should. Sorry. We do keep leaving ahead but anyway one of my favorite Discworld relationships is forming here as Trunn tries to kill Yes's brothers which is actually what she wants and that's definitely a healthy way to start a relationship. Definitely start by killing your intended brothers.

I mean if he asks you to... Yeah yeah well you know people sometimes say that women just don't communicate what they want and I think Liassa was very clear that she wanted to suicide by proxy. Yeah yeah that's cool so he gets into a fight. It's once again explained to us that dragons exist via belief because it needs to be... Just in case we didn't get that. This is gonna be very important in the next books guys please pay attention okay belief. Which is odd moments where again this could do with an editor. Yeah. Because that didn't need explaining. We already know that dragons exist via belief. We can make the connection that they disappear when the brothers get knocked out. Yeah. But everyone wins. Hooray good old Prunn. Unfortunately

just as he wins Two Flower well he wins. Liassa suggests she's gonna test him and takes what minuscule amount of clothes she is wearing off. Sexy self. Sexy self so Liassa goes to reward the not the main protagonist but a hero with her sexy self which is a great great subversion of the cliche there. Two Flower is nice to rescue Frunn. Frunn's not very happy about this. Frunn was about to get laid. But in the nicest little way Frunn's about to shank a dragon queen. Doesn't really need rescuing. Two Flower massive cock block. Dude luckily he gets rescued back. From Two Flower. He gets rescued from Two Flower by a shiny new dragon queen. Doesn't Frunn then kind of take over the realm properly. Yeah well I think he does become co-ruler of

the Womburg. Yeah. Which is good for Frunn. Yeah pretty cool. Yeah he doesn't just do the muscles and suggestibility. No he does a bit of ruling and he gets to settle down you know it's a hard life. Robbing altars saving virgins. Yeah. Like there's no pension. I'm just piles of gold you've buried in the woods so you've got to try and find again. Yeah so Frunn gets rescued back. I've got Aeroplane interlude written. I do enjoy the Aeroplane interlude so. I'm not sure what the fuck it's doing here. It's not. I don't think it's really doing anything like again this is the first book and he's still figuring out what he's doing. He is yeah but I don't I don't dislike it because it's entertaining and it's funny but I don't

understand why it's there. Is it just cementing the fact that there's a multiverse? Because it's not a fantasy trove obviously. It's not a fantasy trove. I think it's a fun exercise in description because everything that happens in the Aeroplane interlude is described from the point of view of I mean it's an omniscient third-person narrator but it's described from Rinspin's point of view. So Rinspin sees the Aeroplane wing and thinks it's a dragon's wing and he is wondering why the dragon has windows and what the amulet is and it slowly slowly shifts your perception. You know there's a bit where he basically prevents a hijacker and I'm kind of going to skim over the the scariness that even as early as 1983 someone described as brown and bearded

was clearly a hijacker. Before 9-11 plane hijackings weren't generally fatal. They were usually used as political statements and so or proper like escape plans and so someone would hijack a plane and say take me to this or that airport and nobody gets hurt and quite often nobody got hurt. Oh that's interesting. Yeah almost always the hijacker got arrested or whatever because it's super difficult to covertly land a passenger plane but yeah but no sorry I didn't know that about the history of hijacking. So yes anyway we're pointing at a different probably harmful stereotypes than the one you might have thought. But yeah but from this description like I could see how it's jarring if you're reading it for the first time or not jarring a strangely

familiar. Yes. For the 1980s. I like the description of trousers for rinse wind and how it's just sort of this odd cloth chew. Yeah. And then you sort of start getting hints of these bits notalex where it's like no no no this is Jack's Vableman and he's promised to show him around when they get to the States. Yeah and rinse wind is. Yeah. Rinse wand. But this I think the point of it is to play with this idea of paradoxes and reality and sort of changing history slightly because again it plants a seed that he can come back to and he plays with the trousers of time and things. Yeah. But no I don't think there's no I think he's just being clever and silly. Yeah okay and he's showing off because he can be clever and silly. Yeah and I mean why not. But yeah

fuck it who am I. We'll let him. Literally nobody. But Francine. I'm sorry I'm having an existential crisis it's nearly midnight. All right can you wait till we finish recording the podcast. Yeah right. But yeah so just as they're all very as rinse wind is coming to terms with the fact he's actually on Round World and he's Dr. Rinse Wand but yes the luggage turns up. Yeah the luggage it as it turns out can actually cross dimensions to try and save its companions owners I'm not really sure at this point and as it comes charging horrendously down the airplane aisle. That's enough to break the spell. It's not really a spell I think it's just that he's accidentally dropped into another universe and then he drops back into his. Yeah the luggage

is such a solid reminder of the other universe that this one kind of goes oh never mind. There's some nice quotes here about how raw magic was running around multi-verse as a result of this and sloshing into odd corners and there's just a wonderful sentence in the cometary halo around the fabled ice system of zeret a noble comet died as a prince flamed across the sky. I think it's kind of a good point to end here. So that's that's pretty much the end of the lower of the world we end with rinse wind and two flower plunging towards the sea right the luggage plunging with them right and the final sentence that later on they used it as a graft and they did and they did.

Next week we'll be discussing the final part of the book Grace to the Edge in the meantime you can email us at the the truth shall make you fret pod at gmail.com you can follow us on twitter at make you fret pod you can find our facebook page the truth shall make you fret and don't forget to rate review and subscribe we will see you next week for the final part of the color of magic close to the edge. Yes. Goodbye. Bye.