The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 116: A Hat Full of Sky Pt. 3 (Deglaze the Plan)

Episode Date: May 22, 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 “A Hat Full of Sky”. Black Sands! Blue Sky! Green Hills!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: Quaker names [@IsabellaRosner] - TwitterDiscworld Convention 2024 Pubs I Haven't Known - r/TTSMYF Steeleye Span - A Parcel Of Rogues - YouTubeNoodle Incident - TV Tropes A Hat Full of Sky - Discworld Wiki Not mentioned in the episode but a lovely illustration: A Hat Full of Sky by rubendevela on DeviantArt Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

you are underestimating how much bollocks I can talk in five minutes. You know when you get stressed out and you just start imagining arguments in your head? Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I'm so good at that. That's my best talent. Fun variation of that is intense arguments with people you haven't seen in years and will probably never see again. Oh yeah, no. People you've never met and probably will never meet. Imaginary people, for instance, who have a go at you, something you feel guilty about yourself. Yeah, people who've wronged me and I've just got no contact with, very much those. You found an amazing Twitter post about Quaker names.

Yes, so obviously a delight of both of us as weird religious names or just names that just sound good and funny, like Brasai things. And in this case, these are 17th and 18th century Quaker names that Isabella Rosner found during her research for her ceases, which I must look further into. And so more than 90 wildest early Quaker names in alphabetical order in the list. I will, of course, link it for our darling listeners and their dear little legs. But featuring such wonderful names as Irmine Prickett or Irmin. Oh no, why did I pick the one we've argued with ourselves over pronouncing before? Because that's part of the fun. Yes, Comfort Cripes, Jane Quitquit, Old Adams, Experience Cuppage, which is my Twitter, Tinder bio. Also, we've got a few

examples of the full sentence names, which is always fun. One of which is sentence grimes, of course. Yeah, that's a sentence. Henrietta Herbanson, I feel like maybe someone spelt something wrong there. Oh, that's a Magrat moment, isn't it, Henrietta? Yeah, that must be a Magrat name. So anyway, this is a rich source of character names, listeners. And I highly recommend it for such use. We need to find out where to find lots of early Quaker names so that we never run out with Quaker names. Yeah, yeah. What if I need to write a short story with 90 people in it? I'll need another list. Revolution Six Smith is a name you can only use once. Challenge accepted. I'm going to put three Evolution Six Smiths in my book.

I don't think I can get that into a book about 90 sitcoms, but I'm going to fucking try. I should hope so, too. Yeah, the Birmingham NEC has a Friends event that looks like a touring kind of exhibition, the Friends Experience thing. And yeah, it looks naff as fuck. Like, I think you get to look at some reproductions of sets and then they funnel you into a gift shop where you spend a lot of money. But I kind of want to go. It does look better than anything I've been to at the NEC. But in fairness, that's all property and conferences. So the bar was low. Birmingham itself is quite nice. The last time I went to Birmingham was for a weird outgig. The time before that was for the Discworld Convention last year.

And there's another one in Birmingham next year. I say. That's a biannual one, is it? It is. I always forget. It's a semi-annual, semi-annual. Yeah. No, semi-annual is once every six months and biannual is once every two years. Because like bison tennery is like 200 years. Yes. And a biannual plant flowers twice and then dies. Yeah. Yeah. Biannual bisexuals. Right. Yes. Bisexuals flower twice and then die. I'm sorry. Luckily, you only flower once every hundred years like a cactus. Yes. One of the many ways in which I've been compared to succulents. We also thrive in desert climates and I'm quite spiky.

And you need adequate drainage. Oh, I need to do some gardening. I was going to get it all sorted just like at the beginning of spring and plant things and then I fucking didn't. In fact, if only we had such characters as Digworthy Marshall to help us out with such things. Yeah. Digworthy. I'll call Digworthy. Well, I fixed a table at work today. You fixed a table? Which since I've been there has been wobbly as fuck. And today it was like downstairs in the break room. So finally, I put my coffee on it and it spilled. I was like, this is fucking ridiculous. I took my coffee up. I was like, we did not buy a table with one leg shorter by like half an inch than the others. That did not happen. And so I took a bit of

cardboard out from underneath it and then realized the fucking theater adjustable. It usually takes spite for me to fix things. Spider is literally fallen on my head is what makes me fix things. Oh, well, I need to hoover. Sorry. What the fuck in that reminded you of the hoovering? I need to hear with some cobwebs off my ceiling. I went through a very quick mental journey that I decided not to do out loud. And what happened is we lost all the context. And that's why we take people on the journey with us. Speaking of the journey, would you like to make a podcast? I'd like to try.

Hello and welcome to the tree shall make you for a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. What is time in chronological order? I'm Joanna Hagan and I'm Francine Cowell. And this is the final part of our discussion of a hat full of sky. We filled the hat with sky and therefore we have nowhere else to go. But up. But yes. Yeah. I went best in song. Don't worry. No spoilers before we crack on. We're a spoiler like podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book, a hat full of sky. However, 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. Dashing desperately back through the door in the Black Desert. We do like to avoid death on this podcast. Well, I mean, we like it when we see death. Yeah. Yeah. But we'd like to avoid dying. Meeting him. Don't meet your heroes if they are anthropomorphic personifications of death. All right. Quick follow up. Nariss on Patreon was asking if the thing we were thinking of that's a bit like a hiver is the ghost from Dirk Gently's detective thing. I think that's quite possible because it's been a while since I read those, but I did enjoy them greatly. I highly recommend going over to our subreddit for the fantastic

thread on pun based pub names. Yes. Shout out to our listeners who are darling fucking nerds. We always support terrible pubs. We do. And Atalanta on Twitter sent us the SteelEyes Span version of Rogues in a Nation, which I will link in the show notes. Unsurprisingly, it's rather lovely. Oh, cool. Cool. Cool. Yes. I do like a bit of SteelEyes Span. Right. Let's talk about a Hat Full of Sky. Francine, do you want to tell us what happened previously on? Certainly. Previously on a Hat Full of Sky. Tiffany's first witchy social goes south as she meets antagonist and a grandma and her coven. Is there anything worse than being the subject of ridicule that a school aged Sabbath? Well, yes. Tiffany goes momentarily out of her

mind and something else moves in. Not Tiffany is in the driving seat, free of inhibitions, and she's not afraid to buck social convention by being a horrible little twat. Piper Tiff runs rampant, lying, sievering, sievering, murdering, and even befriending and a grandma. Just as all seams lost, the feagles roll in, salvage some sheepish supplies and barred through Tiffany's mental landscape just in time for some anthropomorphic personification on a geological scale. The hiver escapes, hush becomes silence, and then three knocks. How about this time? I'm guessing we've got a bit more of a summary than last week. Yeah, so a bunch happened. I'll settle down. That's it. That's the summary. Oh, cool. Nice. All right. That's the only way

you could keep it on a page. Okay. In the section which begins in chapter nine and goes all the way to the end. In chapter nine, Tiffany wakes up with an identity crisis. Granny takes her to milk the goats as she struggles to retain herself against the tide of hiver memories. Oswald is back and Ms. Lovell is making tea with arms she doesn't have. Granny and Tiffany set out to do the village chores. Tiffany's guilt ridden, but Granny gives her a stern talking to. The hiver is still lurking nearby and needs dealing with and Tiffany's willing to take responsibility. In chapter 10, it's time for Tiffany to see to Mr. Weevill. His coinage has been replenished with gold, far too much for a funeral. Tiffany tells him all and he rewards her and begins planning

a proposal to the widow Tussie. It's time for Tiffany to get the hiver gone. With Granny by her side and feagles left behind, they head up to the moors for a picnic and Granny borrows owls and bats. The echo of Tiffany and the hiver has a sensible fear of Granny and it's keeping its distance. Petuli arrives to check in with Tiff. It's witch trial day. In chapter 11, Granny and Tiffany head to the trials and Tiffany's sure Granny has a plan. Granny buys tickets and leaves Tiffany alone in the crowds. The hiver is stirring and it hunts like a shark. Tiffany remembers the role of the third wish and prepares to face the hiver down. Rob drops in to take part in a shamble and as Tiffany incorporates her necklace a white horse rises. The hiver surrounds and

Tiffany finally welcomes it. The hiver wants shelter again, wants an end and Tiffany finds first balance and then the door. She takes the hiver to the Black Sands and after telling it a story and giving it a name, she sends it to cross to the mountains. She's tired and the door is gone but it's not safe to sleep here. In chapter 12, Tiffany asks death the way to the egress but the psycho pump's not providing aid. Granny opens the door and sees Tiffany through. Tiffany wakes with Granny's hat and briefly shuts up our grandma. The other saw a glow and a horse in the sky and with dark dust in Tiffany's boots they don't know what to believe. In chapter 13, gossip spreads around the trials. The girls think Tiffany could and should win and no one wants to present

their skills until Petulia performs the pig trick. As the trials close, Tiffany tells Anna Grammerer about the sheep trials back home. In chapter 14, Tiffany visits Granny and dances with the bees. She returns the hat and sees the beginning of the next one. She knows now that if it wasn't all real, it wasn't false either and she gives Granny a billowing cloak. In chapter 15, Tiffany visits the downs to help with the lambing. She visits Jeannie in the new feagles and receives a dictionary from Rowland. Finally, at the sight of Granny Aking's old shepherding hut, Tiffany casts aside the costume-ish cone on her head and dons a hat full of sky. Nice. Not the name of the thing in the thing. The name of the thing in the thing we got there. We love the name of the thing in the thing.

A helicopter in a loincloth watch. Bracked, the spinning stick of all seeds. Very helicopter-ish. Extremely. And we're making a loincloth out of the sky. I don't recommend doing this in public. Skyclad, as witches can be. If they so choose. Other things we keep track of as well. Death is here. Hooray! We didn't have death in the first Tiffany book. We talked about in the Wee Free Men, is there a feagles psychopomp? And Death notices Rob in his land and says that he's not brought his protective clothing, which I think implies that death is also psychopomp for the feagles. Okay, good to know. Good to know. Just in case we were wondering. I wasn't sure I knew that on the other side of the desert were mountains. I expect we've seen it before, but I made a note of, oh,

mountains. We're going to the mountains, are we? Good. If we make note of this, because if we end up dead tomorrow, we might not have our sat nav signal. True. I'm aiming not to end up dead tomorrow. Well, all of us will aim not to be dead tomorrow, Joanna, but we just don't know what will happen. That is very true. It's best to be prepared. This is why you should always wear clean underwear, because you'd die of shame. If you got hit by a bus. Quotes. Do you have a favourite quote from soon? Yeah. Ha! Nearly everyone I know is dead. Mr Weevill stared at the bunch of flowers for a while and then straightened up again. Still, can't do nothing about that, can we? Not even for a box full of gold. No, Mr Weevill, said Tiffany Horsley. Oh, don't cry, gal. The sun is shining,

the birds is singing, and what's past can't be mended, eh? Oh. The sun is shining, the birds is singing, and what's past can't be mended. That's nice. My quote works quite well with yours. Oh, yes. Mine's right at the end of the book. The gold light, the falling brats, the dancing bees, it was all one thing. This was the opposite of the dark desert. Here, light was everywhere and filled her up inside. She could feel herself here, but see herself from above, twirling with a buzzing shadow that sparkled golden as the light struck the bees. Moments like this paid for it all. It is just the most insane imagery. It's just, it's so beautiful and the sun after the desert and just that moment of taking pure joy in something. Wouldn't you love to see that

scene in Studio Ghibli? Yes. I mean, I would love to see like full Studio Ghibli adaptations of all of the Tiffany books. Yeah, that would be amazing. Shall we talk about characters? Tiffany Aking. Quite like her. Yeah, she did well. She did good. She has had a character growth arc again, I would say. Yeah, very much so. She has some good moments with memory and perspective when she's woken up after the hive has gone from her mind. And she, the immediate horror of God, I remember, dust turning into stars, the heat, the blood. Oh, no, I invited it and I killed Miss Level. Yes. And then much later on when she took the witch trials and she sort of takes Anagramma by surprise when she's trying to find out what the third wish is.

And she says something to Anagramma along the lines of, you know, it wasn't me who was doing that. And anyway, but she was lying. It had been her and that was important. She had to remember that. Yes. There's kind of a lot of concurrent realizations, wasn't there? There's that one, but then also the kind of longer arc of realizing that it matters, that all of you matters at once, that you can't take that one part of you in isolation and see it as yourself. No, you have to accept every bit of it. Yeah. But to be aware of that part of you and to what it's good as Brennan Weatherwack says, Tam, you know, that's important. That's the important. Not doing things is as important as doing things.

Yes. And there's a difference between it not occurring to you to do something and it's occurring to you, but you're not doing it anyway, because you know better. Which if you go back to her like earlier bit of she wanted to do, you know, do cool witch stuff and then also do good things because she was a really nice person. Really nice person and people should notice that. Yeah. She has to face some uncomfortable truths from Granny, including when she's off to, you know, she's decided to take responsibility. So she's going to go to the malls so she can face the hiver by herself. Brennan going with her because you're 11. She'd made a nasty personal remark. You're 11. Just like that. Can you believe it?

Oh, but the moment that she realizes, I know she can do a shamble later, but the moment that she realizes that Granny Weatherwacks can't do a shamble either is so nice, isn't it? And I think that's quite soon after that last one. Yeah, it's that same bit when they're up in the malls and follows up with why I don't need to, they get in the way. Yeah. And as Tiffany makes her proper shamble with Rob in it and the necklace, and she's realized that she doesn't need it, she finds that point of balance within making it. Yeah. She's not saying it as a necessary tool for the job, but as a, I don't know, an aid or something like that. Yeah. She's like, this is me still. This is very much me and my magic

and my power, which comes from the land. Yeah. But just in that moment, it's lovely to think that, well, not lovely to think, but pointed perhaps to think of Granny Weatherwacks, who definitely went through the same. I can't make a fucking shambles. This is terrible. What kind of a witch am I? Oh, wait, I'm extremely powerful. That's what kind of a witch I am. But secretly, I reckon a little bit upset she can't do shambles. I bet her sister was a dick about it as well. Oh, I bet she was. Lilith. Lilith. Lilith in her mirrors, honestly. What is it? Baubles of human desire or something like that? All of human fantasy cast it out the

window. It's Dracula daily time again, listen. We're all horribly upset by the amount of paprika enough. Freakers to our old friend, Jonathan. Oh, John. Anyway, yeah. When she's finally properly ready to face the hiver at the witch trials in the square. And Granny says to her, do you have it in you to be a witch by noon light far away from your hills? Yes. Noon light. That's a good word. There is. Well, it's not the first time we've had noon light. I think it was in Wee Free Man. I don't think it was in this. Tiffany sort of thinks it to herself and coins it. Nice. And is it in that book or a different witch's book? So one of the witches is going on about say, well, any but anyone could be a witch at midnight with the bloody

swirling mists and the. I think it's the Halls of Mountain King playing in the background, you know what I mean? Paraphrasing, definitely. I love that you went Hall of the Mountain King. I retweeted something with it in earlier. That's going to linger in the back of my brain for the rest of this podcast. It's correctly dramatic. Please know that the entire time I'm speaking at the back of my head, it's just, yeah. Yeah, I think there was an earlier witch's book, but I like the fact that Granny says noon light and Tiffany thinks of it as a word she's coined herself. There's a lot between Tiffany and Granny. There's a lot of similarity. And I think as a result, it's not just Tiffany who gets carriage growth, but we get a fair amount of growth from Granny in this.

Yeah, it's very interesting, isn't it? There's a few bits that made me think you are different definitely from the start of the witch's books. I couldn't put my finger on how different you are from the last Granny Weatherwax book. I think she's learned to, I don't know if even mentors the right word, but if you think Magrat was not closer in age to them, was closer to adult than child. You know, if Magrat was not 11, she was, I think we've, we don't know her exact age, but we've talked about like late teens, early 20s. Yeah. Old nuts be living on her own. Yes, graduated to witch and not apprentice witch. Yeah. And so she treats the teenagers very differently to how she treats Magrat. And she treated Agnes very differently to how she,

we don't see a lot between Granny and Agnes directly because both books that have them both in, they are separated by the action in Masquerade. Obviously, Agnes is in the theatre and Granny and Nanny are kind of trying to get in. Yeah. And in Carpet Juggulum, obviously Granny's in a cave. Yeah, she is in a cave there. Yeah, yeah. The way she treats Tiffany is very different. She's more patient. And maybe it is, as you say, because Tiffany is a real, is a child here. Yes. And it's, you know, Granny's not famously good with children, but she's not bad with children. And she's, she's wise enough to understand that children and adults mean.

Well, if you look at the jewel she has with Diamanda Tochle and Lords and Ladies, she's the one that stops to pick up the crying child. Yes. She's good with children, but she's not comfortable with children. But yeah, it does seem like her relationship with Tiffany is, is because I think Tiffany is quite Granny-ish, more so perhaps than Agnes is and certainly more than Magrat is. Yes. I like the moment where we realised that Granny Weatherwax is a name you get to call her if you're selected for you. To us, she's always been Granny Weatherwax. And in this, she's Mistress Weatherwax until she invites Tiffany to call her Granny.

It's very only a couple of people call me Mr. Vimes. Yes, very much so. And Tiffany notices the sort of similarity between that and Granny A-King, everyone called Granny A-King, Granny. Yes, everyone's Granny. Yeah. And there's a lot of the, it plays a lot with the parallels of Granny A-King and how much it relates to how she does witchcraft, like near the beginning of the section when Granny's like helping Miss Level as she works out her situation. Tiffany notices the way she speaks to her, sharpens off by turns, and you keep talking, making the words fill the creature's world. And it's the way Granny A-King used to talk to the sheep dogs and the sheep.

Do you think there's a certain amount of, because this is a Tiffany book and a children's book, that Granny Weatherwax is softened a little for it? Because I was thinking when I was reading how carefully Granny Weatherwax was navigating the subject of Granny A-King. And I'm not sure if this is Granny Weatherwax's personal growth, or Granny Weatherwax being different with children, or Granny Weatherwax being more of a rounded mental character for the purpose of this book, because I feel like perhaps if this were witches abroad, she may have said something off hand that Miss Tick may have said something that dismissed Granny A-King. Whereas here, she's very, and then Nanny Old perhaps would have jumped in and said something soothing. Whereas

here Granny Weatherwax is very much like, ah, yes, I see. She made her hat of sky and giving her the gravitas that Granny A-King clearly deserves. But she doesn't, she thinks very carefully, I think, before she said anything about her. Yeah. I mean, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think she can be a softer mental figure when she's dealing with Tiffany, and she can be written slightly differently because, you know, these books are aimed at younger readers and they are, everything's written slightly differently. Yeah. Yeah. And I think these books are not just written slightly differently because they're aimed at younger readers, but because of the setting. I know that this is largely not set on the chalk, but I think something about We Free Men being

on the chalk means that these ones are written with this kind of, not like rose-tinted glow, but that there's a different feeling to them. Yes. That softer, that sunshine, that storms are an accepted part of this. But that doesn't mean that a lightning strike is going to send some dude back in time. No. No. Yes. Nature is a lot more natural here perhaps. Yeah. And I think it gives everything a slightly softer edge, although there isn't, there are some dark bits, there are some hard bits. When Granny's helping Tiffany in the village and quickly, as they're finishing up in the village, she gives Tiffany this kind of intel, including, oh, that woman's being beaten by her husband, which A is noticeable because it's,

you know, quite a dark thud moment between already quite a lot going on. Yeah. And in quite a cheerful part of the book, isn't it? Because this is just after the whole, would you like a cup of tea? I've cleaned our cup and all the beehives are bustling with activity, you know, have to see Granny. And then we learn that, yeah. And Tiffany just... She flew out of her ear and it's been telling us some things. Some things. And Tiffany just resolved things with Mr. Weevill. But also it's noticeable because Granny's telling her this so that Tiffany can pass it on to Miss Level. This is when they're about to go to the moors to face the hiver. Yes. So there's a bit of a sense of like,

it's a vote of confidence. Like, yeah, you're going to be around to tell Ms. Laugh afterwards. Yes. Yes. Good point. Yeah. Ha. One of the moments I particularly liked because it was a children's book was when Granny Weatherwax is dragging Tiffany backwards by the collar out of Death's Domain and goes, oh, really? Did you sign anything? Did you take any kind of oath? No. Then they weren't your rules. And I think that's a great thing to tell children. Yes. I love that. If there's some kind of unwritten rule or written rule that puts you in danger and it's not your rule and there's no reason to be keeping to it, then bloody leave. But I think that's a really, really safe rule for children, actually.

Yeah. That's a really good rule for children. Yeah. On the similarities with Granny Aking thing as well, there's a really nice comparison that sort of sets, talks about Mrs. Ewig versus Granny. And Tiffany kind of compares Mrs. Ewig to the China shepherdess. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's nice. Yeah. That's the pretty version of it. And then Granny is the proper version of it. Yes. And the different shades of black. Yes. Black as Night, which isn't very black at all, as opposed to Mrs. Ewig, who stresses as black as a dark cellar at night time. Yeah. That makes me feel better about all my faded black clothes. Black as Night, actually. I think you'll find. I'm not sure that justifies

how many holes are in all of my faded black clothes. Talking of the Granny Weatherwax sort of character growth stuff, like the whole sticking point of the sea and little fishes is her being asked not to take part in the witch trials. Yeah. Here, she does not take part in the witch trials. She's had the chance to show off a bit before, well, before. Technically, they're the opening act. But then she, they're encouraging her to get up and claim what she's done and win. And she doesn't. And she stays seated. And Tiffany stays seated. And Tiffany imagines both of them have got people buzzing around, telling them to put the other in their place by standing up and claiming what they've done in some way. Yeah. And I think that is a bit

of a gross growth thing. And also it takes, it puts her into the role of Granny Aking at the Sheepdog Trial. She's the one who nods and says, that'll do. Yeah. Yeah. She's matured into that role. Yeah. I mean, bear in mind also, we're seeing Granny Weatherwax here without the foil of Naniog. And I wonder how much of her sharpness is just exasperation at Githa. Little bit. We do get some fun callbacks as well. Tiffany is sort of realising she's shouted at Granny Weatherwax. She's, if you cut her with a knife, she wouldn't bleed until she wanted to, which is masquerade. And when vampires bit her, they started to crave tea and sweet biscuits, which is, you know, obviously night watch. Yeah. Which is Carpe Jagulum. There's also, we were talking

last week about this whole thing of her walking through the woods and knowing she's a mystery. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I came back. Yeah. Yeah. She says to Tiffany, I walk safely in my mountains. They're going about the wolves and the bears. Do they attack you? Not anymore. No. Thanks for asking. And when she gets the cloak at the end, it's the marvellous bit where she sort of puts it on and says, I could look like a flippity gibbet in something like this, which is described as a statement with the curl of a question. The curl of a question. Very good. Love that. It's one of my favourite lines and a perfect Granny Weatherwax moment. And also, I feel like we

should use the term flippity gibbet more. Yes. Absolutely. One more little callback moment for Granny. I'd say the line stars is easy. People is hard. Yes. That's a good moment. Again, we're just bored. Yes. We like this concept clearly. We, being Pratchett and us, obviously. Yes. That's Pratchett being very close friends despite having never met. Friend of the pod. Yeah. Friend of the pod. Terry Pratchett. Anyway. Oh, one last granny bit as well. Tiffany points out the reason that not thinking of a pink rhinoceros is as easy as because she doesn't know what a pink rhinoceros looks like. Yep. But again, it's great on its own. But also, when Granny admits it, she laughs and like three

sentences before Tiffany is kind of speculating, you don't laugh much as that because you're scared you'll cackle. Oh, yeah. And then makes her laugh just joyously. Yeah. Yeah. There's that, that kind of Tiffany building her up as something story fairy tale witch in her head. And then she's human. She's a person. And as she tells Tiffany, you've got to remember when to be human. Oh, yes. Indeed. Unlike the Hiver and Associates. I like that a little addition there to the plan. New legal firm. Hiver and Associates. Terrible legal firm. Let's do it. Terrible legal firm. As we meet, we sort of get more wrinklings of the other identities, including a desert queen who

killed 12 of her husbands with scorpion sandwiches. I've misspelled that as dessert again. Dessert queen. Cakes are lovely. Don't eat her sandwiches. Kill it. Dessert queen. Yes. Dessert queen. No. We stand that murderous instinct. Stop. No. I'd have stopped naturally, but no, I can't continue. I'm sorry. But yeah, the desert queen does not seem to be the main echo, the tiger and the Mr. Bustle. Sensibility Bustle. Speaking of excellent names. Yeah. And it's Bustle. He's talking in Tiffany's sleep. So when he's hearing it, it's Bustle that explains to Tiffany the Hiver is mad with terror. Yes. Which is interesting because the ghost, the echo of Bustle clearly kept learning after

he was absorbed, I suppose. Yeah. There's enough personality there to not perhaps not character growth exactly, but retain new information or project the Hiver's information through that character. Yeah, like filtering it through a lens. If the Hiver is aware of all and therefore knows all, there may be Bustle's one of the best ones for the same tar of explanation. Yeah, the exosition avatar. Yeah. And yeah, learning, I think that the Hiver isn't a villain is amazing because so many, like what we've talked about before, like the big villain in Discworld and Terry Pratchett stories is bureaucracy and dullness. And the Hiver is not a villain because it's just craving

boredom and unawareness. And that's what's made it do things that we think of as evil until we understand. Yes, it's a kind of cornered rat situation, isn't it? Except over millennia and there are no corners. Yes. And it's envious. It says you lucky humans who can close your mind to the endless cold deeps of space, which what a fucking line. Which is a kind of a more desperate version of something death said a very long time ago, wasn't it? How do you do bored? It's incredible that you can be bored. Yes. And if we look at like, we talked a lot about the, especially in the early sort of like 20 or so Discworld books, there's a lot of stories that Ryan, we get the same version again and again,

and we get with death, he often goes off to pursue kind of this feeling of being human and doing normal things in song music. Like, is that the one where he goes off to join the Clutchie and Foreign Legion? Could be. Yeah. And obviously we have Reaper Man as well. And even more, he's sort of hoping he can get out and he's got this human motivation. Yep. If you're very big, you want to have a go at the small, that sentence sounded so much better in my head. I think I think what you're trying to get. And yeah, Tiffany literally kills the hypha with kindness. She tells it what history is and how to find the bit of you that's human shaped and names it Arthur.

Yeah. What Arthur do we think? I don't know. I can't see it as an obvious reference to anything. Maybe it's just, oh, that's a nice name. It's a nice name. There's probably a lot more to it. Very human name as Arthur. It is incredibly Arthur. Also being a mythical king, of course. Well, yeah. But you don't meet many mythical king Arthur's these days, do you? It's mostly all my Arthur's. Old kindly man here. Yeah. I wonder if that'll be the next old-fashioned name to make a comeback. That's not a horrible name. I wouldn't be upset if I made a comeback. And Art's quite a nice nickname. Art is a lovely nickname, actually. Anyway, so Miss Level. Rackets, half. Not holding a grudge. Yes.

She just waves a hand at her and says it wasn't your fault. Yeah. She's very quick to not hold a grudge and I really respect that about her. Yes, agreed. Even though I think perhaps Tiffany wanted her to yell at her a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's a completely conflictless resolution like that kind of takes away some of the inner resolution, doesn't it? Yeah. It's just like the Mr. Weevil thing. She expects him to be upset, but then she finds this thing of gold and it's not how it should have gone. Yes. Yeah. She wants to be, I think it's almost like she wants to be punished for her actions

there. So she doesn't have to do the real punishment, which is dealing with the hiver. Yes. You get your punishments. You get your equal and opposite reaction or not quite, but something like that. And then it's done. The line is drawn over under this. But I think the fact that Ms. Lovell then managed to get her mojo back. Grief back. Yeah. Helped. Because you definitely can't hold it. Well, you can, I'm sure. But there's no then grudge to be held as much. Yeah. Yeah. She still has the rest of her. It's just the invisible slash non-corporeal. That might be a better definition of it. And Granny acknowledges that Ms. Lovell deserves

a lot more respect and that this will help. Respect is meet and drink to a witch and she doesn't get much respect. And Tiffany thinks Granny was right and Tiffany wished she wasn't. Yes. And it's interesting actually that Granny, that's another bit of Granny character growth really, isn't it? She's saying, when she says that Ms. Lovell likes people, she cares about them. And that's what I call magic. And she says, we all do that in our own way. And she does it better than me if I would put my hand to my heart. Is that the first time we've seen that? I think she's acknowledged a bit before that like, Nanny Og is better than certain things that she is. Oh, like she's the best midwife. She's the best midwife in there.

Yeah. Nanny's better at birth. Granny's better at death. That's something. Yeah. Still. I think phrase like that's quite new. Phrase like that is more than she. And also, she respects Ms. Lovell, despite Ms. Lovell not earning enough of her own respect. Whereas I think like a weird sister's Granny, where the works would have gone, why aren't you doing more shit to get respect? What the fuck? Yes, yes. She would, I think she might have been more frustrated with her. But she's pleased now to see that Ms. Lovell will be able to earn the respect she deserves. Her arms are way into respect.

And I think some of that comes from Ms. Lovell coming to witchcraft late as well. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. A new role to find yourself in. I suppose to a young witch, Petulia, who I fucking love in this section. Do the pig trick with a sausage? Goodness sake, there are children here. There are children here, you know, as one of the lines in this that makes me proper crack up. That she stands up to perform the pig trick without a pig. This is definitely one of those. Oh, I've forgotten the TV trope name for it, but

well, you're not meant to find out the joke. Yes. Much funnier without. It's right early on when she goes up to see Granny and Tiffany up on the moors, where they've gone to face the hive, but the hive hasn't turned up. And she thought there might be people facing something horrible here and she'd come anyway. Yeah. And it's Tiffany catching, thinking something mean about her, this sort of, oh, what could you have done to help? And she's like, oh, yeah, what could she have done to help? But she still came. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's what you do. You've got your witch's hat,

your, you know, like a policeman. Now you never get to take and choose which bits of which emergency response. Which, which, which, which, yeah. Oh, and she also tells Anagramma, don't you dare interrupt me, which is an excellent moment. Oh, yeah. That also feels just sort of straight out of like a very specific kind of teenageery movie type thing. Yes. Yeah, but it's nice. Petulia, I feel, is the one who earned it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's like when I was hoping last week that Tiffany was going to be the one to do it. I do know, I do now see that Petulia was the one to earn the right to tell it to shut the

fuck up. It's like Gretchen saying to Regina, you can't sit with us in Mean Girls. Exactly that. Well, then, yeah, for all of our listeners that haven't seen Mean Girls, what are you doing? I'm amazed it took us this long to make a Mean Girls reference in this book. Well, this cannot be. Oh, yeah. I thought you were about to say on the podcast, I was like, we definitely referenced Mean Girls on the podcast before. We definitely have. So Mr. Weevil. Mr. Weevil. What a day he's having. I'm so pleased for him. I love he gives a coin to Tiffany that could pay for his cottage. So get yourself some ribbons or

something. Yeah, it's the the lack of not when you've given up a long time ago on knowing what, you know, inflation has done to currency or whatever, whatever, as long as I've got enough to pay for the funeral or whatever. Like how much can a banana be $20? That kind of. But yeah, it's this way he's been sort of sitting there waiting to die because he had just enough to die and nothing else. And now he's got all this hope. And obviously, I know money doesn't actually fix everything, but in this one very specific situation, he's got a lot of hope. It allows him to go off and make his proposal to the Widow Tussie, a fine woman who bakes a very reasonable steak and onion pie and has all her own teeth. Money does fix an awful lot

if you don't have a lot of money. Money can't exactly buy happiness, but it can read yourself of a lot of the things that cause unhappiness. Yes, such as eye glasses and whatever else he went for teeth. She doesn't have all her own teeth, you know, she has a set of teeth that she lent him. Yes, but the the line is she has all her own teeth. And then he goes on to say I know because she showed me her son bought them for them. It's kind enough to lend them to I when I had a tricky bit of pork to tackle. What a horrible friendship. Well done, them. I hope they're very happy forever. I greatly enjoy that Tiffany was a bridesmaid. Speaking of marriage, actually, I also really love the moment with Jeannie when she sees in her headlines that Rob's coming home

and she starts rounding the feagles up and getting them to tidy up and get a rabbit to roast. It's lovely that she loves him. It is because it's almost an arranged marriage type thing. Well, we don't know. We don't know how they met and things, but you know, there's going to be limited availability of suitors. Yes. And but she, yeah, she like she respects him, I think, as far as Calder can respect one of the drunk mcfeagles. Yeah. And she loves him. And that's lovely. And she has an eighth daughter. And she has an eighth daughter. The eighth. The eighth is the quiet one. Ah, yeah. That excites me. Calling way a fuck back. It's a witch. For God's sake, don't give her a stick. As a Calder, she would welcome home a warrior. As a wife, she would kiss

her husband and scold him for being so long away. As a woman, she thought she would melt with relief, thankfulness and joy. Interestingly, the relationship to him as a wife and as a woman are different, isn't it? Yes. Here as a wife, just as the institution of marriage here, I suppose, rather than the personal partnership, which she has as a woman, which is nice. And because I love you, I don't like you. These kinds of hints of like arranged marriage and it's like a somewhat political match, doesn't have a lot of choices. So being his wife doesn't necessarily mean that she loves him, but she does and everything works out nice. I wonder what the last Calder's husband was like.

Ah, yeah. Because he must have gone back to the land of the living. Where are we? Oh, Roland, last character I wanted to mention. He gives Tiffany a dictionary and has underlined plongeon, a small curtsy, about one-third as deep as the traditional one, no longer used, which is, again, a reminder for Tiffany that while she's watching everyone, she is also being watched. Yes. Yes. The little reminder not to think of others as NPCs. Yes. Which was a big thing in We Free Men. Yeah. You're not just a side character to my story. You are a full human being who can see that I'm being a bit fat. And I think she's learned that up in the mountains, but maybe forgets it around someone like Roland,

because as we establish, she is better than him. Yes, of course. So it's good for her to have that reminder. I did look up plongeon and I believe it's a French word for dive. Oh, nice. I thought I was going to get to go down a really fun rabbit hole there. I mean, it obviously related to plunge and going to plunge and down the rabbit hole. Yes. Eventually. Good. Maybe. What's French for rabbit hole? And then negations. I don't know what hole it's clearly, but I was proud of myself for remembering rabbit. That is one of those French words I know because of the Georgian lyrics.

Because she cheats on a French homework by just talking about rabbits a lot. Anyway. Yeah, the black sands. Not many rabbits. Not many rabbits in Death's Desert unless we've just got to the end of Watership Down. Oh, sorry. And of course rabbits are crepuscular and this is an endless night. What does crepuscular mean? Come out of dawn and dusk. Ah, I'm astounded. That's not one of your favorite words. It should become one immediately.

I've adopted it. It's mine now. Thank you, good. It lives there. It needs a good home. I don't creep around at dusk enough. Luckily. I love it. Yes, that's right. The sun's just about to set and now we can see Joanna poking her head out of the rabbit hole, getting peckish. Having a little lurk before she goes back into her hole. Anyway, sorry. Black sands. No rabbits.

Yes. Very few. Very few. Yes. And I'm assuming we don't have a death of rabbits. Interesting that Tiffany can see or sense the others, the other souls. Yeah, we don't see that a lot in the blacks because we've seen characters go to the black sands at all and how they leave them again is I think a bit belief dependent. Yes. That's what's being established. And that's why everybody's journey has to be so individual and they can't see the ones

around them, I suppose. Oh, unless you're one of the people who've earned some other people being in your desert. Yeah. And in Tiffany's case, I think part of it is she's obviously not, she's stepped into there. She's not died and gone there. Yes. Yeah. She's an outsider. Yeah. She's there in a very different flavour of being there. Yes. Witches can be observers and such things. She can. But we don't normally, when we go to the black sands, it's very much like a quick

someone meeting death interlude in a book. Yes. Yes, it's giving our characters an on-screen death. Yeah. I think one of the best black sands moments we've had is Lilith and Esme, Weatherwax's voice going to the desert and Lilith being lost in this maze of mirrors and Esme saying, I'm the real me. Yes, I'd forgotten that was in the desert. So death gave her a way out with that one, because she had to build her own door, I suppose. And now she's got the hang of the door. I suppose she had the hang of the door somewhat

already considering this idea they talked about. Yeah, that's all they should. None of this bullshit narrative, nan, bi, pan, bi, made up fucking non-physics rules. Foot in door, grab girl, run. You can't argue with a doorstop, you're a metaphor. So little bits we liked. Little bits we liked. Do you want to chat a bit about chat? Yeah, but I'm chat. Goodbye to start the little bits we liked. This is a combination of like two of my favourite comedy things, which is some kind of conversation that's like written in fully in third person and without

like speech marks. Yeah. And some kind of completely background nonsense called chatter like a piece in carrot's conversation. Yes. Which is why Miss Levelle is making tea with the arms she hasn't got and they don't want to distract her. So they chatted madly about sheep and Mistress Weatherwax said they were very woolly, weren't they? And Tiffany said they were extremely so. And Mistress Weatherwax said extremely woolly was what she'd heard. Which is lovely. Just because you fill in the dialogue in your own head and it is just that banal. So Tiffany, I hear cheaper, quite woolly, are they? Yeah, extremely woolly. Yeah.

Oh, it's extremely woolly. That's what I'd heard. But yeah, since you put me onto the whole no speech marks thing, that's the way to do comedy, dialogue. I agree. It makes me laugh. What about you? What little bits did you like? Uh, don't eat voles. Good advice. Said Tiffany and meant it. Which is solid advice, I think we can all stick to. What would you eat, do you think, on an adventure? Well, this is another of my favourite things, the adventure food. Tiffany has learned,

according to the Wicker Fairy tales, that the typical food for taking on an adventure was bread and cheese, hard cheese, too. Which I didn't put this in my notes, but go have a look at annotated Pratchett, which goes a little bit into the origins of the phrase hard cheese as a, I can't remember if it was annotated Pratchett or Discworld fandom wiki. One of them went a little bit into the background of the saying hard cheese, which is the sort of British tough luck. Yes, hard cheese. Terry Thomas does it very well. But Miss Level packs the middle picnic ham sandwiches with napkins, which is kind of another show of faith for Tiffany's. They don't need to bring food that will keep.

Yes. Yes, you're not going to be going for long, don't worry, just up a moment. But yes, what food would you bring on an adventure? Oh, well, tin peaches, of course. Yes, absolutely. Lashings of ginger beer. Lashings of ginger beer, which I believe is one of those things that everyone thinks is, like, that phrase never appears in the famous five, but yeah, I don't know. One of those, isn't it?

Normally, I would agree with the ham sandwich. Of course, I don't eat ham anymore. Most vegetarian sandwiches are pretty shit, unfortunately. Something to be said. Taffanard baguette. Taffanard baguette. Just to be a wanker about it. How about you? Hummus. Absolutely. If we go wanker. Yeah, fuck it.

This is our adventure. And not just any adventure. This is an M&S adventure. Tell you what, though, some sausage rolls. Lashings of ginger beer. Taffanard baguette. And some sausage rolls. This isn't any adventure. This is a middle-class wanker adventure.

We are just planning a picnic now. Actually, yeah, I'm hungry is what's happening. Yeah, I shouldn't have put this. I knew this would happen because I'm quite hungry as well. I thought it was anointing for me. Knock up some pasta. But we should go on a picnic. We should.

We should. It's nearly warm enough now. We should do it in June or something before it gets hot hot. I'll make us a nice picnic. Right, sorry. Sorry. We're making a podcast that's not about food. I guess.

So, peace be upon this place. In this case, as an ending to the proper blowout argument that Tiffany and Granny are having on this winding up and up and up and building the thunderclouds and literally the clouds, of course, because they're in the roundtops, and we've gone over this at length in other books, obeying the laws of narrative.

Good narrative. Thundering as these two incredibly powerful witches are arguing about the matters of life and death. And then Granny can gently release that attention with a peace be upon this place. And then bringing herself down to Tiffany's level or bringing herself down to a level that Tiffany can match comfortably.

And I was trying to think. I think we talked about a similar kind of build up. And then it must have been between Nanny Ong and Granny by the way or something. Oh, Granny and Margaret or? Yes. But you get this somehow that the gentle release of the tension is far more powerful

than a slap across the face would have been or the storming off or lightning striking even. Just the real show of power is just bringing it down again. Absolutely. And also I like it because in other books, and actually earlier in this book you see Tiffany do it, but more importantly, I think Granny in other books, very passive aggressively goes,

blessings be upon this place. Peace be upon this place. Blessings be upon this house. Yes. Blessings be upon this house. There's one, and I can't remember now, sorry listeners, where Granny says blessings be upon this house in a tone that implied that blessings

could very rapidly not be upon this house. Exactly so, yeah. I think that might be the funeral, say this would be which the broad. Yes. Or just before the funeral, yes. Because I'm trying really hard to not be a total wanker, I do resist the urge to say blessings be upon this house

whenever I go to someone's because I know it would be funny to like you, and that's about it. Next time you're here, you can get that out of your system. Thanks. Or upon the good next time, I'll give you a list somewhere. Blessings be upon this car is quite funny. Blessings be upon this pair of eyes.

I might maybe be a bit anxious to be honest, but it'd be funny. But yes, earlier in this book, it's Mrs. Ewig, Tiffany says something similar. Yeah, she does have blessings be upon this house. Yeah, but in a very passive aggressive way. Anyway, yeah, I thought that was probably a little longer than a little bit I liked, but much more nonsensey, nonsensical as a word for that.

I like the idea of seagulls as flower fairies being all horrible spiky nettles. I think horrible plants don't get enough representation in the flower fairy world, and I should be looking further into this. I'm not even horrible. I love a thistle. A nettle, I think we said, didn't we?

I thought it was thistle because of the Scottish connection. I might have imagined that might be though. Oh, well, I suppose the big stinky horrible spiky iron stinging nettle needs a fairy, just like every other plant said Petulia. Yes, no, you are very right. And I like that Petulia is immediately so accepting of this. Yes, it's slightly backing down from conflict

and slightly in this case, it's practical, isn't it? Yeah, makes sense. I think Petulia will come to enjoy nettles as a food source. I'm sure pigs can eat nettles. That seems like something they'll be able to do. I mean, humans can eat nettles. I keep meaning to try picking some, but... Yeah, don't grasp it firmly.

Oh, yeah. What was it? End up with a hand the size of a small pig. As Fratjit put it. I think I'll wear gloves. Yeah. I think that's what I'm wearing. When I'm an old woman, I should wear gloves.

For picking nettles. I bought some of that. I think gloves the other day, actually. So there we go. Lovely. I had a really amazing nettle and sausage pasta dish that I really want to recreate. I'll try and pick you some out of the garden

because I can tell you they've not been pesticide or anything. I think the ones across the road... Right, they did not... Sorry, yeah. Sorry, you've always got to f**king edit this. Not planning picnics, dinners, blessings upon the car. Balloons. Balloons.

Oh, we're back to picnics, are we? When they arrived at the witch trials, it was a balloon that floated away, followed by a long scream of rage mixed with a roar of complaint. Ah, I want to go and go, ah, balloon. The traditional sound of a very small child learning that balloons, as with life itself, it is important to know when not to let go of the string.

The whole point of balloons is to teach small children this. Indeed. Which is one of those really famous Pratchett things I forgot was from this book. Yeah. And I could have sworn we'd already had that joke in a book. We might have done. We may well have done.

But in this case, we have a witch. I had a quick skim read. Yes, one of the witches returns the balloon, which is lovely. I had a quick skim read of seeing little fishes to check he hadn't used that joke there first because it's one of the witch trials. Yes, the Pusy is screaming about something else. So I think it does like a scream.

That's the Pusy does. He's very. Well, I suppose because all children that age more or less the same being but very. What's the problem with this one? Yeah, thanks. I just miss being the age or socially acceptable to just scream loudly in public when frustrated.

I want to have more tantrums. I thoroughly recommend learning to drive for this reason and this reason alone, because as an adult, really the only time where you're alone enough to scream without causing concern is when you're driving. Yeah, even in my house, I'd probably worry the neighbors if I just started screaming. Definitely in your house.

You live in flats, I live in terrorist houses, even in the middle of nowhere. I think screaming could easily lead to the waste of somebody's time. Yeah. But driving on the motorway, screaming as therapy, especially along to music, I'd recommend. Yeah, excellent. Yeah, currently I just get my emotions out

by listening to musical theatre songs and performing them dramatically in my kitchen. Which I'm sure doesn't annoy the neighbors at all. Look, so far no one has come to complain about my renditions of the entire soundtrack to Cabaret. Excellent. But maybe this time. Oh, sorry.

I'll be lucky. No, right. Let's talk about strength and drawing it from different places, Francine, can we? All right, yes. Look, as we've got it written down, I suppose that would be polite. Blessings be upon this talking point.

As they so easily could not be. I enjoyed the other side of the coin on this one, where Granny Weatherwax has a look at the other end of Don't Wish on Stars. In this case, it's when you have the blessings of stars, when you have good fortunes. Don't be fucking ridiculous about it. Embrace it. You've got to be thankful you have friends.

This would have been very unpleasant to get out of. But I know you've hyped yourself up for dealing with it. And I know now you're worried about a slower, more involved process. But what's happened here is good. And please accept that. And this kind of comes at the end of a few more hints towards that. So when she insists on the company, Tiffany, because as she very nastily pointed out, you are 11,

and Tiffany has the little argument with herself with her. But aren't you just ever so slightly glad that Mr. Weatherwax and Miss Level won the argument that now you're going off very bravely. But you happen to be accompanied completely against your will by the most powerful witch alive. But then, of course, she does abandon inverted commas. But missing very closely.

At the Witch Trial. Yeah, it's an unfair world, Charles. Be glad you have friends, I think. It's again, again, it's, you know, it's a book for kids. Oh, young adults, whatever. It's an interesting look at how not to be selfish in a very specific way. I think it is quite easy to be selfish by being selfless sometimes. By insisting on going up on her own and not putting anybody else in danger.

What she would be doing is, well, best case scenario, worrying everybody sick. Worst case scenario, causing much more problems than if she'd just accepted the help. Yeah. If she'd not wanted Mr. Weevill to have the money, then she would not only be insisting that she goes through the kind of flagellation that she thinks she deserves,

she would be insisting that Mr. Weevill did not have a box full of gold. Which is, you know, if you step back and think about it for a second, it's really quite easy. But as a child, it's, you know, it's a bit harder and say you need somebody like Granny Weatherwax to nudge you in the right direction. Yeah. So power from the land again.

I thought was an interesting one to re-include here because through quite a lot of the book, we've been hyping ourselves up or learning to deal with or without certain types of strengths or power or backup. So in this case, you are far from, you're too far from the hills. Can you be a witch at new light away from your hills? And Tiffany finds that she can, but she doesn't have to. Yeah.

She learns how to use the tools correctly, but also how to be without them. I think is what I'm trying to say here. Well, it's like her with the shambles. Yes. Like she finally makes the successful shambles and at the same time realizes that it's not really the shambles she needs. Yes.

And she has Robb anybody there. That's a bit of motivation, but. And he's, well, she's also learning how to accept the Fiegel's help, but not always have the Fiegel's. Yes. That's it, isn't it? And then learning to deny yourself. I thought was quite an important bit.

So when they're talking about Tiffany's having, you know, fairly justified crisis about how it was her doing all these things, she remembers it. She remembers the motivation. And Granny Wilowak says, the locked up, it was the important bit. Learning how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe. And then nice little cover.

There'd be a slight more frogs in this world if I didn't know how not to turn people into them. Which again, just the ability to deny yourself is a very important lesson for children in general. And a very important lesson for Tiffany here. She needs to learn to go against not only the obviously bad instincts, like insulting Tula if she's annoying or killing somebody who gets in a way. Yeah.

But. But the. Sussellor bad infantry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had the thing is we've already seen Granny have to learn that Granny in which is abroad. She's frustrated with the fact she had to be the good one because Lilith went off to be the bad one.

Yeah. She wasn't automatically good. She had to choose that every single day. Yes. That's a good point. Yeah. We've had a proper talk about that, haven't we? Yeah.

The choice. Yeah. I know. And then, yeah. And finally, I kind of thought it doesn't quite fit in with this, that the idea of being able to ignore things and get on despite the overwhelming noise of, well, either the background of the universe or the background of the witch trials or whatever, just the voices in your own head.

When The Hive is talking about, we heard a song. It went twinkle, twinkle, little star. What power? What wondrous power? You can take a billion, trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength and turn it into a little song for children and these little worlds, these little stories, little shells around your mind keep infinity at bay

and allow you to wake up in the morning without screaming. And again, as we said earlier, this is such a dramatic version of what death has told us before. Yeah. I noticed that moment because it is so close to that speech in The Hogfather. Whenever a non-human, also non-auditor character, so like The Hive, like death, one of these anthropomorphic personifications, one of these outside the universe things. I love this. A non-human non-auditor is almost like featherless biped.

Well, I wanted to make sure I said, you know, a non sapient say because obviously, I'm not talking about Tronson Dwarfs. I'm talking about the anthropomorphic personifications and stuff. All The Hive. Whenever they acknowledge about this, we're about humans. It's always with like a bit of a sense of wonder to it. Yeah. Like it's our own superpower.

Yeah, 100%. And I'm not calling Terry Pratchett a deity here because that would be really fucking weird. But as like the author of these books, he's kind of like, but we're not not saying that. He's the creator. Creator with a capital C when you're talking about his universe. I think that's okay. Yeah.

But it feels like that's really his sense of wonder. Yeah. That humans can do this. Yeah. And it's all about telling yourself stories, which I think is the other main theme here, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit. When we know I like to talk about stories.

Well, I do know you like to talk about stories, Joanna. And I like to listen to you talk about stories, especially when I'm really struggling to put sentences together. Please tell me some stories. Stories, wishes and witchcraft. Yay, oh my. Big central thought is that witchcraft in the disc world relies heavily on stories while rejecting them at as many turns as possible.

Look, there's a story. Fuck off. 100%. That was which is abroad. Let's start with wishes. So towards the beginning of the section, Tiffany has this lurking idea of three wishes, but she thinks it's silly. And Granny says, listen to it, like listen to that deeper part of yourself.

And she's picking at that thought and she comes up with this thing that we're thinking about the hive of the wrong way, because we don't want to think about it the way it should be thought about. Yes. And it's to do with this third wish and she grows confidence in it, even though she doesn't know what it is, but she knows it is the third wish. And so she panics and she asked everyone. And I thought it was noticeable when she's running through the witch trials,

asking people what the third wish is. She asks for witches. We have a break in the rule of three. Well, she asked three witches who give her the wrong answer and then Granny, who gives her the right one. So I think we still have a bit of rule of three there. Well, the break in the rule of three is it in itself a rhetoric device. Yeah.

As I think we've looked at it before. But yeah. So she asks Anna Grammar, who sort of says, oh, it could be and it gets slowly more specific. Anna Grammar says it could be anything. The random witch she asks, oh, it's happiness because it's health, wealth and happiness, which is that very sleeping beauty fairy godmother. Ms. Tick says, oh, it's for more wishes. And Tiffany says, no, but that's a clue.

And then gets to Granny, who says, in any story worth the telling that knows about the way of the world, the third wish is the one that does the harm, the first two wishes created. Yes. And so it's not just the wish itself, the wish that undoes the harm. It's the fact that that has to be. That's how the world works, because a story worth the telling is a story that knows the way of the world.

That's the power of the story is that it is something that reflects something true. It's not something made up to distract from the true thing. Yeah. It kind of looks again at how important denying yourself is, isn't it? Well, this is and this is the thing with the Hive. The Hive gives us what we think we want, which is the more wishes. Ms. Tick's idea. Monkey brain.

Yeah. Yeah. Tiffany explains it as the monkey part of the brain and the wishes always go wrong. And so and it's her giving the Tiva that third wish that put things right wish. So it's going on. Monkey brain. Oh, monkey paw. Monkey paw.

You little twit. Oh, I see you there. Listen, as if you're to hear one of us. Was it me who read monkey paw? Oh, yes, I think so. Yes. Yeah. We did some Halloween stories, some public domain horror last year.

So join our Patreon if you want to hear me reading monkey paw in a single take. I did the yellow wallpaper. Well, I liked that one. How was it? Well, anyway, speaking of stories, there's a great thing when we see Granny going around the villages in lieu of Miss Level. Miss Level tells the villagers the truth. Granny tells them lies that work, which is going back to Science of Discord.

It's lies to children. Yes. And so this is the thing about the two different places, flavors of story and the ones that witches reject every turn versus the ones that they use. The stories that they use are the ones that help that reflect something true of the world, the lies to children stories. Goblins attracted to the smell is very much a story that gets things done. The stories they reject are the ones that put a pretty veneer on things.

They get in the way of getting things done. Everything about Mrs. Ewig's flavor of magic. Yes. It was a less sinister version, but in one of the early witches books again, we had a look at when Magrat was frustrated that Granny's colored water often did better than her actual medicines. Yes. And although I think we have enough character growth here with Granny again,

that she's very respectful of the fact that Miss Level research, which does have proper medicines, but in this case, let's not try and explain microbes. And yes, Tiffany, with what happens with Mr. Weevill, because she was there to take responsibility, she feels like that's not how it should have ended and Granny has to call her out on it. It would have been better if he'd been buried in some cheap old coffin, paid for the village, do you think? And that's, look, the reality is better than the story you have told yourself about this. Yeah.

Yeah, take us. It's so easy to get channeled into this narrative. You need to be able to take, and this is what Third Thoughts are for, the step out of it. Well, this is the Discworld. This is where narrative causality is active. Enforced. And to be able to step out of it and go, all right, yes, narrative causality.

But look, that dude's happy and getting married. And yes, maybe I'll buy a ribbon. Yes. If you think of narrative causality a bit like electricity in this universe, you know, it's a force, it's a real energy. You could wear Wellington boots. Yes. Wellington boots of good sense.

And yes, so to the Hiva, to help it, to help it find an identity so that it can cross the black sand so that it can be more than this force of understanding energy. She's more than Wellington boots. So she tells it a story. Yeah. And yeah, this is absolutely me shoehorning in another quote. Good. Here is a story to believe once we were blobs in the sea and then fishes and then lizards and rats

and then monkeys and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws. In my human mouth, I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow. Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in. When we're frightened, the high air on our skin stands up just like it did when we had fur. We are history. Everything we've ever been on our way to becoming us, we still are.

Would you like the rest of the story? It's great, isn't it? It's beautiful. And then she tells the Hiva about her ancestors and then she asks the Hiva, you know. So if I'm all of that, which bit is me and the Hiva says you is the piece of you that just told the story. You're the narrator. Oh, you're the main character. Yeah, I knew it.

Yeah, all of this was just me getting the Hiva to reinforce. Oh God, I've accidentally put a Hifer in front scene. This is narrative causality. No one's done it with Hivas. Can't see. Sorry. No, yes. I like how we're tapping back into the same vibe of old magic as we did in Hogfather.

This whole going back to the beginning when the fears were first developing into, wait, this is Hogfather, not the Magnus Archive I'm talking about, isn't it? Yes, it is. There's a weird amount of overlap, actually. Specifically with Hogfather. Yeah, there is. No, that hadn't occurred to me before. But yeah, it's the blood on the snow.

It's that absolute primitive part of you. And Tiffany said, you know, part of your mistake was listening to the Monkey Rain, the primitive part, but also, yeah, we are all of that. And that means you've got to find the bit that tells the story, which for Tiffany was the part of her that was locked away. Yeah. Yeah, lots and lots of little mini parts of this. Your mind yourself is made up of so many things, like with the real physical

demonstration of mislevels still having herself, even though the body has gone. The physical self has gone. Yeah. And Tiffany being able to, well, Tiffany has loads of these moments with herself being locked away and that being important and herself being channeled into this shambles. And the hills being channeled through her. And we haven't really mentioned much the whole horse coming out of the hills and riding to her rescue, but that was pretty fucking cool as well.

That was pretty fucking cool, yeah. I like that the boy who told the story of it, oh, hold on, let me find it, because it was where it did love wonderfully. And a boy trying to catch hairs in the little valley of the horse said that the hillside had burst and a horse had leaped out like a wave as high as the sky, land and wave. And with a mane like the wave of the sea and a coat as white as chalk, he said it had galloped into the air like rising mist and flew towards the mountains like a storm. He got punished for telling stories, of course, but he thought it was worth it.

It's such a lovely moment. How could he be punished for telling a story such as that, even if it was nonsense, he'd be like, you, you're learning to write the village quill. When are the teachers coming? Yes. Hold back an egg. We need to teach this boy literacy. How to spell the universe. And so right at the end of the book, when Tiffany has her last meeting with Granny,

she says to her, well, it's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it, which is the sun. Yeah, the sun. Here we go. The sun rising again. A mere ball of flaming gas would have illuminated the sky. Yes, there it is.

But so then put all of this into witchcraft. There's, Granny goes on this long rant about what really what witchcraft is. And I've already read one really long bit out, so I won't read the rant out. But she's talking about how it's getting up in the night and it's seeing someone, and she doesn't say seeing someone through the door because it's before we've met that, but it's sitting with someone as they have their last breaths and then you get home and immediately someone's knocking on the door because someone else is having trouble. It's their time in the midway.

I can't cope. And it's, and she says it's the roots in the heart and the soul and the center of witchcraft. What do you think of the fact that the next generation has decided to buck the trend and talk to each other about it? And we only see that first moment of it, but one of them says, we're not going to talk about this particular, particularly guys, but we should. Yeah, we're going to talk about it here and now on us. Yeah.

I think there was, I mean, the thing is, we know there's an element of competitiveness around the witches because that's why the witch trials exist. But I think there's something about bucking off anagrama and having a leader there. They've seen how the older witches are with their leader who's not a leader. And so I think some of it is putting anagrama to one side and saying, right, but we can decide for ourselves what we should talk about. And part of it is like, just imagine learning that. Yeah.

And then being told to keep it to yourself. Yeah. And I have a feeling that the older witches who said, we're not supposed to talk about this. Also at some point, all sat in a circle and said, yeah, but we're going to talk about it though, because what the fuck? That's a good point, actually. Yes. And then it almost gives them something to bond over.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bit monstrous regiment either. Yeah. And they don't talk about it as they get older because they've done it. They've done it. And it's hard to talk about and talking about it doesn't help.

But when they haven't done it, when it's not part of their day-to-day life, it's important that they have that shared thing between them. Yeah. And it's a lot for these girls. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. This is not teen girls.

This is kind of preteen girls, but it is similar to that monstrous regiment thing. It's having something shared to bond over. Yeah, knowing you're not alone is a lot. Exactly. Especially when they've been bullied by your grandma. Oh, I love brilliant little girls being the heroes of stories. Yes, absolutely. But yeah, quickly.

So back to witchcraft. When Granny's talking about the Root and Heart and Soul and Center, and she talks about how, you know, Mrs. Erwig dresses it up, which is again, this is this other kind of story, the ones that which has all turned away from the set dressing. Yes. Mrs. Erwig tells stories about her witchcraft, so she doesn't have to get her arms deep in the muck, which is a horrible mental image. But Granny says the start and the finish is helping people when life is on the edge,

which, you know, let's throw the liminal in here because it wouldn't be a episode where we talk about witches without me saying the word liminal. Declays the plan with it. Declays the plan, the plan, because we go, yeah. With a liminal. With a splash of liminal. And she keeps explaining these what being a witch is. Being a witch is making the hard choices that have to be made as another really good line,

because again, we've seen Granny make the hard choices over and over and over again. Yeah, especially when she's, you know, playing cards with death. Yes. Well, interestingly, I think it's very clear that Practit thinks there is a correct answer to each of these choices. Oh, 100 percent. Yeah, it's a judgment as much as it is a choice. And it does come down to a choice, but in the same way that a guilty or not guilty verdict

comes down to a choice. I think you're very much instilling a sense of narrative justice or universal morality into these witches once they get to a certain point when they understand that it is not right to punish the cow for kicking. Yes, yeah. There are there is there are a lot of moral gray areas in Pratchett, but the witches making choices are not those moral gray areas. Yeah, you save the mother.

You do not kill the cow. You whatever you take somebody's pain. Yeah. There are correct answers to these and you will learn them. And Tiffany has picked up this story thing and the stories you need to believe versus the stories you need to put to one side. And she is known about the stories you need to put to one side since we free men when Miss Tick told us to don't wish on a star because it's stupid.

Yeah. And astronomically unlikely stars is easy. People is hard. Anagrama was going to be a good witch because she could tell herself stories that she literally believed. Yes. And I love the little side eye overusing literally in that as well. I think it's nice to think that anagrama is going to grow up better than Mrs.

Eowig as well. And I think it's helpful that there's this close knit group of girls and it's going to be helpful for anagrama. She can be put in her place. Yeah, she needs it. And the trials come about become this sort of lies to children. And both Granny and Tiffany don't take part because they already have. Yeah.

Yeah, it would be over the top to go again. And there's a great line that nobody won. And if you believed that you'd believe that the moon is pushed around the sky by a goblin named Wilberforce. And I do very strongly. Oh, yeah. No, 100 percent. And so the story comes down to Granny and Tiffany in Granny's cottage and Granny trying

to make her throw away the necklace. And Tiffany says, I shan't and I won't. Yep. And Granny says, good. If you don't know where to be a human being, you don't know where to be a witch. And this is this is the stories. This is the stories you need and the stories you need to put to one side because they're set dressing and they're unhelpful.

That is the being a human and being a witch. And Granny has her little box of sentimental items. Yeah, she does. As we learn. Yeah, she does. So, yeah, to be a human being, you need to believe in stories so that you can be where the falling angel meets the rising ape, which isn't in this book. To be a witch, you need to recognize what story and what isn't.

What's silly. Yeah. I wasn't super hyped for this one. I didn't think it was a bad book. It's just not one that like massively stands out in my memory as like even one of the best Tiffany aching ones. But, yeah, no, it turns out it's really fucking good. I enjoyed it a lot.

And I think you're right. It doesn't stand out that much, but I think that's possibly because it reinforces and rephrases in really nice ways things we already know. Yes. But possibly we already know them so well because we've read all the adult witches books. If you if this was one of the first witches books you read. Yeah. I think it would stand out very differently.

Yeah. As it is for me like it comes between the first Tiffany aching book, which obviously I love deeply. Yeah. And then the next time we see the character, which is a book I really fucking love. Yeah. Francine, do you have an obscure reference for the old for me? I do.

When Granny Weatherwax is showing Tiffany how to make a hat or showing her the hat in progress, said she waterproofs it was special Jollip. I was like, what is Jollip? As well as a cap. Jollip is a what I think it must be fairly old fashioned British slang for a kind of cream or unduant. It's also a strong liquor or medicine, which is quite good. So I think just your old purpose liniment, perhaps.

And also it's possibly the etymology is an alteration of Jollip, which is more medicinal. Yep. And a name of a cocktail. Yes. That's right. I thought that sounded familiar. But yeah, it's very nice and short one. I nearly put us through a long rambling one about lambing festivals, but I decided no.

Oh, save that for a rabbit hole or another Tiffany book or something like that. Okay, good. And also I can find one that was specifically called cheap bellies. But I have a feeling that's because it's been translated from another language, possibly Nordic one from the half explored rabbit hole listeners. If you know, please get in touch. Have a look at that some Romanian as well, because we think that might be the origin of the Antantathra.

Oh, yeah. All right. Yeah. Listeners, help me. What is cheap bellies in your language? Is it the name of like a thing? Answers on a postcard, not on a cheap belly. Please don't send us a sheep.

We live in small houses. People in small houses can't throw sheep postcards. All right, God, I'm going to get us out of this episode because... Please, please. I'm hungry. Because of who we are as people. Please, my wife, she's very sick. Christ.

Thank you very much for listening to this episode of The True Share Make You Fret. We are coming back next month to talk about the Science of Discworld Volume 2. Keep an eye out for our bonus episode on the 25th of May. That's where you'll find out the dates for everything coming up, because it's all going to go a bit weird for a bit. But it's going to be okay, I promise. Until next time, dear listener, you can follow us on Instagram at The True Share Make You Fret,

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I definitely had some points I wanted to make that I completely lost. They're gone, they're in the ether. Who can help me now? Cool. Well, between us, we make a functioning podcaster.