The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 18: Sourcery Pt.2 (What The Hell Are Stiff Peaks Anyway?)

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

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 “Sourcery”.Poetry! Platitudes! Pretension! Practicality!Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @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:Kouign amann recipe - BBC Good FoodThe Simpsons - MonorailThe Simpsons - See My VestThe Simpsons - We Put the Spring in SpringfieldArcher - Everything is the same (office renovation)The Raccoons The Thousand and One Nights (The Arabian Nights)You’re Dead To Me - The Murghal EmpireFragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil GaimanBrewer's Dictionary of Phrase and FableWhy was Lancelot 'Capability' Brown so important?Solomon Admires His Bride's BeautyBlazonThomas Watson Hekatompathia 1592: Sonnet VII Mr CreosotePratchett's Women - Tansy Rayner-RobertsMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Yes. Awesome. Hi. I love it. Take your headphones off so we can see properly. Oh yeah, you haven't seen it yet. So fucking cool. Fuzz.

You look like the punk version of a bird of paradise. How are you? Sorry I'm late. I cut my lawn with shears because I didn't want to mash up all the dandelions and kill the bees food. So. No, I'm good. I'm just like, I've really, really, really want to be alone in my house for an

entire day. And that can't happen. And I'm fine. Yeah. Yeah. I'm twitching. I'm kind of oscillating between being really quite happy and calm. Like, have you seen the article that's been going around some people's anxiety and depression

as being alleviated by this whole thing? I only skim read it. I definitely relate to it. But then it's kind of going alongside of my general I'm so used to having so much time alone. Yeah. No, I know. I miss my job because I can be alone in the kitchen.

I mean, I can be alone in the kitchen here, but here I'm feeling slightly put upon making dinner seven nights a week. Yeah, there is that three at the moment with me and it's very you're better at making proper food for yourself. I must say because just I'm kind of used to again, there's coincides with Jack now coming home every evening. So I used to three nights a week just cooking for myself and what that means is generally oven chips and gravy or similar level of effort.

Now I'm cooking an actual meal of three people every night. Well, which is the thing Ben wouldn't mind if I just cook stuff like that. But I feel like as I'm in the house and have ingredients, I should make real food. I'm used to a couple of evenings to myself a week where I can have like mushrooms on toast or just a massive plate of veg. Yeah. But now I'm having to cook something that both of us like every evening. Wow, your things way healthier than my thing.

Because I try not to have oven chips in the house because if they're in the house, I eat all of the oven chips. Oh, oh, oh, I forgot that Jack got me a cheese making kit for Christmas that I've kind of put somewhere sensible and I just found this morning, which means I'm going to make cheese curds and have actual food team. Wicked. Yeah. We've got some cheese making stuff.

I might make some labne or some ricotta. Yeah, ricotta looked like the easy one. So I thought I'd start with some ricotta and make mozzarella and it's the kind of curds that you get from that. Yeah. That you make thingy out of, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, technically we use cheddar curds, but you can use any kind of curds.

Okay. I'm going to probably make some butter at some point because I have a little bit. Well, I was, I over whipped some cream the other day and ended up with butter, but I'd already sweetened it and added flavors. It was not. How angry were you? I was using my mixer. I just left the room.

I left the room. Don't leave the room where you're whipping cream if you're using a mixer. I always, I always over whip stuff, meringue, cream, whatever, because I'm like, no, I need it. Perfect. I need it. What the hell are stiff peaks anyway? Are these stiff?

Well, they're fucking not now. Are they? That's way, that's way I've got. God damn it. This is what happened with me. So, but as I got some double cream leftover, I'm going to intentionally do that instead and try making my own butter. I might go, I might go forage some more wild garlic and add it to it.

You're so posh. I am really fucking middle class. But also in a less wonky way, we're all getting back to the foraging and we're in a national crisis and you can frame it like that. Jam and pickles and I might finally try and eat some dandelions this year. I've been thinking, I've been thinking about picking some nettles, but I didn't mash a bunch today with my shears because they were in the way of my rosemary. But next time I'm going to try it when I've got some more sugar making Queen Amman next

week, which I'm very excited about. What's that? The like paste, or you can do like one big one is a Queen Amman, technically the little ones are Queen Yet's. I'm going to make the little ones and like imagine a caramelised croissant. Yeah. So it's like a croissant that's really soaked in sugar and kind of burnt caramel on the bottom.

Oh. That's like it. Castery and flaky and sugary. It's one of those things I've wanted to learn how to make, but you have to like be in the house all day because you've got to play with the pastry every half hour, so I've never done it. That sounds like something that would belong in the garden of what it's called. Garden of earthly delights.

Earthly delights. There we go. Locust. This is my wilderness. I've forgotten what you were calling it already. Oh yes. Did you manage to find it rhyming word in the end? Oh God, I completely forgot about that.

I was untangling that clump of jewellery. Yeah. I forgot as well. I've just opened the rhyming dictionary. I want to say one, two, six. All right. So if you want to read it out and I'll see if I can finish it with a good word. A summer palace underneath the bow, a flask of wine, a loaf of bread, some lamb couscous

with courgettes, roast pea cooktungs, kebabs, ice sherbet, selection of sweets from the trolley and choice of thou, singing beside me in the wilderness, and the wilderness is... Eyebrow. Beautiful. I can't top that. I'm not even going to call you the winner, which is based on a, it's based on a natural poem by Fitzgerald, actually.

A translation of the roubaillette of Omar Kayam. The poem parodied on this page goes, a book of verses underneath the bow, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou. That sounds quite familiar. Yeah, possibly. I should know that. I'm a poet. Cool, cool, cool.

Sorry. Sorry. Oh, shit, sorry. It's all right, it's taking me a second to become a functioning person. I've just been writing show notes and untangling jewellery. I'm drinking so much coffee, Dad, and I just spare each other on, it's getting really quite alarming. I'm quite lucky in that Ben's not a coffee drinker, so there's very little, I'm making

a cup, do you want one for the occasion? I think I'm probably drinking less coffee than when I'm at work, because I don't have the kids making it for me. Oh, yeah, see, other way around for me at work, I have to, like, walk past other people to go and get the coffee, and if I drink 10 a day, people might talk. I'm sure they wouldn't. The general rule is people do not think about you nearly as much as you think they do. But everyone is obsessed with me all of the time.

What are you talking about? Well, yeah, not you, Joanna, not you, obviously. If you specifically, everyone is always thinking about, but you know, you in general, the general. Yeah. It's like the Royal wee bit the opposite. General you. Sorry. Things in quarantine haven't got so bad.

I actually rewatch how I met your mother yet, but. Well, there's 30 seasons of The Simpsons to get through first. And I'm rewatching Shits Creek. You were right about Binging The Simpsons, by the way, I can't do more than three episodes before I just realised I'm just looking at my phone now. It's quite a good, like, background noise thing to have on, because it doesn't require a lot of focus. But also, like, if you do actually pay attention to it while you've been watching it, you realise that, like, Marge and Homer almost breaking up happens six times a season.

So many times, yeah. So many. It's depressing. And Marge keeps taking him back, which upsets me more each time. Yeah, honestly. She deserves better. The Simpsons, wouldn't it be amazing if just one day it ended with Marge finally, like, leaving and having a happy life? Yes.

And you get, like, a little epilogue of Bart and Lisa slowly becoming more adjusted. As everybody realises staying together for the kids is a terrible idea. Yeah, that would be great. I mean, obviously, it would actually be very depressing enough. Would never be published, but it's nice to think about. The Simpsons itself, the show is really depressing and dark and violent. Yeah, I haven't watched anything past season 15 yet. Like, I've just been randomly jumping around to episodes I like the look of.

I'm just doing it in order. So I think I'm on, like, season five or six, maybe. Are you getting really good bits? Yes, this is almost getting to the peak. We haven't quite hit my two favourite musical numbers outside the monorail song. Yeah, one of the two, which is See My Vest. Made of real gorilla chest. The chest.

See these loafers, authentic golfers, something like that. And I had to come back. Really looking forward to that one. What's the other one? Oh, the Maison Derrière. Help me out. We're the gin and your martini, the Clemson, your linguine. Yes, we put the spring. Yeah, the burlesque one.

Yeah, I see. I skip that because it would be weird to watch it with Dad, that I will go back and watch that at some point. Yeah, that's fair. I don't really have to worry about watching things with adults. There aren't really any in the house. Oh, Ben. I'm including myself in this. Look, Ben had a very lovely 40th birthday making Lego.

Oh, fuck. I made a race dinner and a Pavlova. I will pass that on. His mother is talking about some organised fun at Thoughtness when this is all over. Which is all over. God, we sound like people in bad World War Two plays. World War One. World War One, their fucking year of four years of Radio Four.

Homefront. Damn war. Damn war. This is all over. We'll have nylon tights for tea and... German biscuits on our eyebrows. Well, I'm going to grab a coffee then. Do you want to make a podcast?

Yeah, let's make a podcast, but I'm going to grab a coffee too. Hello and welcome to the True Shall Make You Threat, a podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. One at a time, Spoiler Light in Chronological Order. I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of sorcery.

Yet again, we are recording remotely because for listeners in the far future, in the after times capitalised, for a little while we had to do this via Zoom. Because we're on lockdown. On account of the virus. I like that you're assuming there'll be after times. And this isn't our new reality for the rest of our lives. Well, we don't know what the after times will be like exactly,

but perhaps we've moved past Zoom and into psychic communications. Well, that'd be good. We could do like a psychic podcast. Yeah, I just hope that MP3 can be converted to psychic without much loss. Yeah, dot PSI. Yeah. Yes. Very good.

Very good. I'm just going to go right this speculative fiction novel. So quick note on spoilers. As I said, this is a Spoiler Light podcast. Obviously major spoilers for the book we're on, sorcery. But we will try to avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any and all discussion of the final book, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there.

So you dear listener can come on the journey with us. And what a journey it's been, Joanna. That was my daytime TV voice. Do you like it? That was amazing. Back to you, Joanna. I want to give you your own show on ITV. It's a very ITV voice.

A quick follow up from last week. We were talking about being bored in lockdown. You were going to make banana bread. I was going to shave my head. I have shaved my head. I have not made banana bread. Well, you've let the site down for our team. In my defense, the only bananas Tesco had were bright green.

And so I'm still waiting for them to ripen. You want pretty ripe bananas to make your banana bread. Would you like to tell us what happened previously in sorcery? Certainly. Previously on sorcery. A powerfully paternal wizard has eight sons cubing wizardry and creating a new source of magic. He then dies kind of evading death by squirreling his soul away

in his youngest son's staff. Fast forward 10 mysterious years and the unseen university senses something sinister. All of the building's vermin, including rinse, wind, skedaddle, but our favorite haplers hero finds himself on another damn adventure. This time with a gorgeously violent barbarian hairdresser and a malicious bit of millinery, which gets nicked.

Meanwhile, Coyne the sorcerer moves into the musty maze that is unseen university and redecorates rather forcefully. Ye gods, he blew Billy us away. Excellent. I'm glad you got your favorite line in there again. Yes. It's probably my last chance. I reckon you can still get it into the final episode.

We'll see. It's the final episode ever of this show. I will remember it. I'll make a note. Imagine me remembering something that long. Imagine us remembering something into the following week. Quick check in on helicopter or loincloth watch. I'm calling this a loincloth spot.

Debatable. Right. I would rather think of it as a loincloth than a leather holder being a small pouch for the unmentionables only, although he is also wearing woolly underwear. Well, yes. That's what I was thinking. I think if anything is going to be the loincloth,

it's a woolly underwear. Yes. It's passed over the loin. Dear listeners, we're on page 138. We are talking about, of course, the traditional barbarian garb of Nigel the destroyer, son of Haribot the greengrocer. All right.

Let I really need to justify keeping this bit in. So I'm saying that that counts online cloth watch. Okay, cool. I mean, if nothing else, it is a chance to see where a loincloth should have been. Yes. There should definitely have been a loincloth in that section. Okay.

Any helicopters? No helicopters in this section. Okay. Cool. Cool. I was going to say if there was going to be one anywhere, it'll probably be here because my slight follow-up, I forgot quite how much they went into detail about the major wars.

I mentioned last time and they did have a nice page of description, which I enjoyed very much. It's exactly the right amount of explanation after some build-up. So thank you very much, Pratchett. That's what I meant. Especially as they've been technically hinted at since the colour of magic. Yeah. I do like the idea of just that whole surreal,

constantly changing thousands of years of it. They said, yeah. I'm glad things have settled down. Yes. It makes it much easier to follow the plot. Although they haven't settled down in this section of the book. No. We got a bit line-custody.

A little bit around the edges. Line-custed. Yeah. I was trying to work out whether I like the idea of that. I like the key line pie. No. Oh, you don't like lime dessert at all. No.

I like lemon. I like lemon tart. I make a very good lemon tart. I bet you do. Darling. Right. Sorry. Should I talk about what happens in this section?

Yeah. I think it better. So in part two of sorcery, the wizards have redecorated the city and made a snazzy new hat, plotting to take their plotting to take over the rest of the world as speltor begins to have a few doubts. Speltor attempts to pop into the library and finds the librarian has dug himself in.

Rinceman and Corona have made it to clutch sans hat. Konina says they should head to the Bazaar in the hope of getting introduced to the local criminal element. Coin builds a castle in the clouds out of raw magic and tells them to burn the books. The staff chases speltor as he tries to warn the librarian. This is the staff as in Queen's staff and not the staff of the university. That's it.

Rinceman and Konina have been kidnapped and taken to a mysterious garden. We discover this is in fact Creosate's wilderness. One does one's best. The hat has unsurprisingly made its way here to and enters into negotiations with a bream, the Grand Vizier. Konina is sent to the Harim as Rinceman gets chucked in the snake pit, currently occupied by Nigel the destroyer and one very tired snake. The luggage in a sult goes for a drink or 20.

Rinceman gets a dose of raw magic before escaping the snake pit with Nigel as the tower of sorcery somehow arrives in Al-Khali. The wizards take out the Seraph's guards. Rinceman and Nigel head for the Harim as horrible wizards make an attempt on the library. Konina saves Rinceman and Nigel from the Harim guards while the luggage wanders, lost and hungover. The hat possesses a bream and we get a brief history of the major wars.

The hat plans to fight sorcery with wizardry. Rinceman, Konina and Nigel grab Creosote and get the fuck out of there heading for a magic carpet. Good stuff. Action part section. Yeah, it is. Big contrast to the intro. Yes, everyone has very much taken their places and now all of the action is happening.

Right. Okay, cool. So favorite quote, Joanna. Yes, I've gone for a silly one. Good. It was really hard to just pick one. I like this section. There were a lot of good lines.

A lot of really good silly one-liners. There's also a lot of horrible dark stuff about the human condition, which is why I thought I'd do something silly up top. Yeah. Before we get into all of the horrible dark stuff about the human condition. I'm sure we'll be there by the end of the episode. So Konina says, my father always said that it was pointless to undertake a direct attack against an enemy extensively armed with efficient projectile

weapons, she said. Rincewind, who knew Cohn's normal method of speech, gave her a look of disbelief. Well, what he actually said, she added, was never enter an ass-kicking contest with a porcupine. I thought you'd like that. It's a bit reminiscent of the bits in Mort about Princess Kelly's ancestor. Yes, very much so.

And I like, I just think it's good life advice for us all to take with us into the future. Favorite quote, Francine. This is when the wizards are attempting to burn the library. Bad idea. He lit a match. The darkness blossomed into a ball of sulfurous white light. And the librarian dropped on him like the descent of man.

Pretty clever. A lovely bit of high action disguised in a slightly rambling sentence. All of the things I like about Terry Pratchett's. Violent. Yes. I do love that bit. And the reminder in general that the, let's say the luggage, we know the luggage is vicious,

that the librarian is capable of being rather vicious. Yeah. I like the description of when he stops people smoking. It's kind of sorrowfully takes the cigarette and eats it. Oh, no. Such a precious orangutan. He is. Right.

So characters thought we'd start by checking in with characters we've already met. And then think about some, some new ones we meet today. If we're going to do this every time it's going to end up over. The idea of the new characters section though, started out a lot shorter than this. I know, I know. But it may, you know, you say, you know,

and then it gets longer every time. I will be restrained next week. Maybe. But I thought the stuff with coin in this is interesting because he's built as an antagonist in the first section of the book only for he realized he's actually kind of an abused child and he's like sobbing alone with the staff, but also seems to have this belief he is generally changing the

world for the better. Kind of some parallels with the petulant tech millionaire teenager types he got in. Silicon Valley these days. Yeah, like if coin had been left to his own devices to grow up a bit more, I think he would have become Elon Musk. Yeah, if this had been written 10 years later, I would have assumed it was a direct comparison to the dot com

bunch. There is also just a weird throwaway line of coin refers to spelter as an estate, a stat. Oh yeah. Which I didn't like that up. A brief chuckle from one or two was as he knew what the word meant, but it's like someone who's into aesthetics. But it's a slang term for a gay person.

It's sort of a man who appreciates arts. I see aesthetics. I don't know. I'm not sure how you'd say it. Also, I really want to know, speaking of aesthetics, where coin gets his design ideas because he's a 10 year old boy who's decorating everything with like marble and statuary. And I'm guessing that's coming off.

Yeah. This is definitely more the staff's choices, but it's just such a choice. It reminds me of the archer episode where Mallory wants the whole office redone in white and holograms and all of the, sorry, in white and robotics and marble and everything. And then it turns out that Pam and Cheryl just redid it exactly as it was before and put a hologram over the top.

Remember that one? Yeah, I remember that. Perfect. So coin is Mallory archer. It's my hot take on this. Yeah. No, okay. I can see that.

We can go with that. That's very forgiving of you because there are literally no other comparison I can make apart from the aesthetic. And being nice. Although I like the mental image of coin drinking a martini. So speltor and carding. We're starting to see speltor getting some seeds of doubt in there as carding is sort of determinantly being all in on this.

Yeah. It makes me wonder what is it about speltor's personality that makes him the reluctant one by the looks of it. There's a really nice little passage. In the hearts of his heart's an inner speltor at what you can and was struggling to make himself heard. It was a speltor who suddenly longed for those quiet days only hours ago when magic was gentle and shuffled around the place in

old slippers and always had time for a sherry and wasn't like a hot sword in the brain and above all didn't kill people. That's the thing. Like I like that passage very much, but it doesn't seem to match up with the initial description of speltor who was the ambitious murderous middle of the main travels. Yeah. If I was writing this, I'm not saying I could write this better,

obviously, but I would have thought it would make more sense for carding to be the one who's missing the old way of doing things and the ambitious one to be sticking it with it more. Yeah. But it's almost like carding's already been through all the things he had to do to get to eighth level. So he's. Yeah, maybe it's like I've reached the top.

Where is that to go now? Oh, I see. Yeah. But it's almost like if any of the other wizards are taking a bit more time to be introspective, they've gone to the same conclusion and they're almost putting on blinkers and earmuffs so they can keep going with coin and his idea of sorcery and not think too deeply about the fact that really they all miss their pipes and

slippers somewhat. It's possible it's the fact that Shelt is quite sharp and in the moment that kind of makes him slightly more immune to it all. Yeah. And you've written rinse when gets a bit UKIP. I was joking. I don't mean I can't remember which. Oh, is this.

Is when they are in Al Cali and the architecture was wrong and they had statues in their temples that just weren't suitable. This wasn't the right kind of place for wizards. They had some local grown alternative enchanters, but now what you call decent magic. Yeah. I mean, it's very grumpy about being in a different city and it's not as good as Ankh Moorpork.

Yeah. He does have this kind of low key nationalism about Ankh Moorpork that you see in like a lot of the books actually when he wants to go back and eat the terrible. I want the terrible food and the terrible smells. Yeah. You get it in like in the kind of magic and like fantastic. He gets very, very homesick and it's quite sweet.

Poor rinse when and indeed as you've also noted is craving for boredom. Oh, it's just. Yes. When he meets Nigel the destroyer and finds out that Nigel has a background in being a grocer. Oh, tell me less. Oh, I don't.

I bet you could spend ages with a label gun. Oh, so that was rinse when little check in. The luggage. The luggage. There's a nice brief explanation when rinse window is trying to work out what's going on with the luggage and realizes that it has a bit of a mental link with its owner. So as he's picked up a bit of a crush on Koneena.

So is the luggage. Yeah. That's quite interesting. I'm not sure. I can't remember. The luggage. The luggage. Speaking of checking.

I get that little thing again. Thank you. There's a nice brief explanation when rinse window is trying to work out what's going on with the luggage and realizes that it has a bit of a crush on Koneena. Yeah. That's quite interesting. I'm not sure.

I can't remember how much that's explored later on. Can you. The part from. The luggage getting very upset when Koneena kicks it and obviously that leads to him storming off and getting drunk. I don't think it's. I think the mental link gets explored a bit later in the book because obviously the luggage eventually tracks rinse when down

again and. Yeah. Now I was trying to think of like just future books. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I won't go into it now much, but it's something to look out for in the future anyway, whether he keeps up. Yes. But I would say like that in that. Passage you were talking about the history of the major walls. We get that that's the origins of sapient powered. Yeah.

There's nice things come full circle. The only stuff I was going to say about the librarian we've already talked about in your quote. Oh yes. Sorry about that. Yeah. I think that's the characters we meet. A creosote is a type of, is it like a type of tarmac?

I meant to look that up and didn't. It's made of, I was looking up because it's reference increases. So I looked that up. Creosote itself. I think it's something to do with pine and wood and. Let's have a look. Oh, creosote. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a great relationship to make it weather brief. And it's horrible and toxic and smells forever. Jack. Talk to me about it. Yeah. Cool.

Cool. But it's obviously a reference to cresis who. So. He was the king of Lydia and according to Herodotus's histories rained for around 14 years. Defeated. Yes. Which would now be.

Five nine five BC. So that would now be part of. Turkey. I want to say. Oh, that makes sense. They're using a lot of Turkish derived words through here. Yeah. I had some more notes on that later on.

I'm. In fact. Speaking at somebody who tried to learn Turkish for almost three months. I'll get back to it. But cresis is like almost a mythical figure. He almost even became mythical in his own lifetime for basically being really, really rich. Ah,

which was the king who in myth or fairy tale or whatever it was, who did turn stuff to gold. Midas. Midas. The Midas touch that said, yeah. Yes. Turned everything to gold. A story I remember learning for the first time through an episode of

the raccoons. What's that? You've never seen the raccoons. I haven't. What is it? It is a very, very weird old cartoon. About raccoon. That has about raccoons.

But the villains in it are these like weird pink blobby teacher creatures with funny noses. Oh, shit. Oh, I have. Yeah. I will link to this cartoon. If I can find the Midas one, I'll link to it in the show notes. Anyway.

Hmm. Moving on. So yes, we also meet Grand Vizier. A Bream. Hmm. Um, who's described as that man has got Grand Vizier's and all over him. No one can tell him anything about the frauding widows and

imprisoning impressionable young men in alleged jeweled caves. When it came to dirty work, he probably wrote the book or more probably stole it from someone else. He were a turban with a pointy hat sticking out of it. And had a long thin moustache. I feel like he's gone so far with the caricature now that it's no longer offensive.

Do you agree? Yeah. He's gone to the other side of the line of he's not just doing the thing now. He's parodying the thing. Yes. He is very much parodying the thing. And I like the fact that this incredibly intelligent villainous

Grand Vizier gets his brain taken over by the hat like immediately. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He gets just long enough to show just how villainous and complicated character he is. And now he's just a slight draw hat vessel. Yeah.

So yes, I enjoy the introduction to the Grand Vizier because yeah, I think he's gone far enough into parody at this point rather than just doing the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

The other new character we meet is Nigel the destroyer who we've already mentioned. Mm hmm. Who I have. I have a little soft spot for because bless him. He's trying his best. Yeah. He's very sweet.

So there's two more characters to catch up with, isn't that? Yes. Sorry. I did this in a funny order. Oh, sorry. Konina. Yeah.

I think I said most of my piece last week, but when she gets taken away to the Harim and rinse, it's trying to defend her and she's like, oh, all right, I've wonder what Harim looks like. There's definitely hints of the whole cool girl trope around it. Yeah. I didn't get that. I was,

I was getting more a vibe of, Oh no, I can basically just be vaguely interested in whatever I want. So if it goes wrong, I will kill everybody with my hair clip. Very true. But there is, I was getting more of a granny weather box vibes in a cool girl

vibe. See, I was getting very, no, I'm down with being in Harim. I'm down with whatever because I am very cool and men like me, but it may be that I have like a bias against the character because I still think it's not a particularly well written female character. So I'm looking for things to complain about.

Maybe. I do. I, I did start looking at things from TV tropes about cool girl tropes and action girl tropes, but then I realized I was going down a rabbit hole. I did not have time to go down. We'll come back to that another day.

We do like it. Yes. In the hats, we don't really spend a lot of time with, we spend enough time with him for him to enter negotiations with a dream and up on his head, take him over and become an antagonist himself as the action shifts to being about wizards versus sorcery as opposed to

sorcery versus the rest of the world. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because he's an antagonist, our little protagonists, but possibly a protagonist overall, because I think we're not meant to be on sorcery side here. Yeah. We sort of,

it's all a bit complex. It's all very complex. It's nice. There's no clear hero or villain. I mean, I suppose rinse wins are clear hero. Yeah. Oh no,

Nigel Nigel, he's got the sword Joe. Oh yes. And he did. And he did practice that triple reversal, which is a bit of a cross. Location wise, we're obviously spending pretty much all the action in clutch

in Al Cali, which is fun. See. Yeah, but this, this did kind of make me want to rewatch Aladdin, not the new live action one. I haven't seen that yet.

It looked bad. I haven't watched any of the live action Disney actually. I've seen, PC and the beast and I really liked that because I like it wasn't. Yeah. It wasn't too bad. And there's a like new song in it that may as well have for your consideration,

flashing up on screen because only original songs can be nominated for Oscars. Oh, I see. No, God, no, isn't that good?

Yeah. So where are we? We are talking about clutch, which I'm assuming we're taking inspiration from the Arabian night cycle, which sets this, yeah, specifically like Iraq,

Iran. Yeah. The first, but they were talking about the temple sounded almost like the, Taj Mahal. Oh, which I listened to an interesting thing on the other day. So did you know,

do you know the origins of what the Taj, why the Taj Mahal was built? It was like a memorial to someone's dead wife, right? It was the first. So it's a, it's a Muslim temple. It was during the Mergal Empire. I was listening to episode of your dead to me on the Mergal Empire.

Nice. With Sindhu V as the comedian on it. Who's really funny. I love her. I can hear rustling or something on your end. Oh, sorry. That's because I can't hear myself.

I keep fiddling with post-its and not realizing the mics, picking it up. And yeah. So this emperor really, really, really loved his wife. And when she died, he built this huge,

beautiful temple for her. And he was also the architect of it. Like he was a very hands-on emperor. And he was also the architect of it. Like, he was a very hands-on emperor and very into architecture. And he ended, he obviously was buried there when he died,

but it was the first time a. Memorial temple had been described. Constructed for a wife, rather than for a man. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. So that was a cool bit of history. If that's if I'm remembering it, right?

I will link to the podcast episode and show you notes so everyone can test my memory. But also they talk about the, you know, I think he's just mixed up everything from North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia. So yeah, there are lots of,

a lot of stuff does overlap historically and especially linguistically, though. Oh yeah. Well, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not,

it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not,

it's not, it's not, it's not exactly what should time lapse of. History and the borders around that area are it's very difficult to keep track of. So. It does fluctuate impressively. There's lots of clever references there like you're talking about Crystal,

it's poem being a reference to the translation of the. I've gotten a good early. The robot. So there are lots of very clever little references in this. There are a couple more. So we talk about little bits we liked. Oh yes, let's do let's. I really like the Hashishim.

It was basically word for word, apart from them being actual donors, what assassins are based on, right? They were a finascule Muslim sect in the mountains of Lebanon at the time of the Crusades. So yes, a bunch of violent thugs, but they did have,

they had a reputation for murdering opposing leaders after intoxicating themselves by eating hashish, although there's very little actual evidence for that. But that's where the word assassin came from, comes from, it does literally come from Hashishim. So this isn't even really a parody of a thing. This is pretty much the thing. Yeah, assassins creed kind of takes a whole romanticized

twisted view of all those legends. Ooh, I haven't played assassins creed in forever. The next thing I had was the concept of nerd. Mm, yeah. Canard. I'm really annoyed that like, there was a time where I didn't recognise why it was nerd and that it was drunk backwards.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you told me this a couple of months ago, so don't worry about it. Okay, good, it's not just me then. Yeah, I have lots more to say on it. I think when we get to one of the guards books. Yes, it gets a lot more attention there, but I just, I like the idea of, we talked about anti-noise versus silence last week

and this is anti-sobriety. Anti-drunk. Anti-drunk, yes. This is coming through sobriety and out the other side, which considering I was talking about how in the last few weeks I've come through anxiety and out the other side. Yeah, humans have some rose-tinted glasses on at all times and removing those is ever so terrible.

Yes, let's not do that, it's a silly thing. Lampwick jokes. Rinsman brings them up while stuck in the pit with Nidale and trying to remain stuck in the book with Nidale because it's nice and boring. And Lampwick jokes are the same as light bulb jokes, of course, in modern times. And as Rinsman didn't finish any,

I took the liberty of doing it myself. How many alchemists does it take to change a lampwick? I don't know, Francine. Just one, but you really don't want to light it. How many wizards does it take to change a lampwick? Now, that's a very interesting question. We'll discuss it over to you and Brandy, perhaps see about forming a committee.

Now, on your way, there's good fellow. Those are all the ones I came up with. What a good use of my day. I think this ought to be a listener challenge. Please send us your best Lampwick jokes. Oh, my God, yes, please do. That sounds great fun. Yes, we'll feature them on the next episode.

Oh, yeah, the storytelling, Harim. This is also my homework from last week. Is it? Well, so, you know, last week, I was trying to remember the framing story around Arabian nights, the 1001 stories. Oh, yeah. Shaziraj.

So, yes, the idea is that Konina goes to the Harim and it turns out all the Seraph wants them to do is tell them stories. Which, by the way, is my favorite set up and destruction of a double entendre ever because the Grand Vizier says something like, like, spectral shells get is a sore throat. And I was like, cool, all right.

And we got to the thing and it was about storytelling. Ah, like. It made me very happy. Not a crude sexual joke after all. So, I had the name Shaziraj in my mind and I couldn't remember the story. So, I was looking it up and realized it's quite a nice little. This is obviously what's being referred to

in the idea of the Seraph having a storytelling Harim. Yeah. And the reason I know the story and I have it here, I won't read out the whole thing, but I'll read out a little bit of it from a Neil Gaiman short story collection, Fragile Things, called Inventing Aladdin. So, I'm just gonna read a tiny bit of it.

Please do. In bed with him that night, like every night, her sister at their feet, she ends her tail and waits. Her sister quickly takes her cue and says, I cannot sleep, another please. Shaziraj takes one small nervous breath and she begins. In far away peaking, there lived a lazy youth with his mama. His name, Aladdin.

His papa was dead. She tells them how a dark magician came claiming to be his uncle with a plan. He took the boy out to a lonely place, gave him a ring. He said, would keep him safe down to a cavern filled with precious stones. Bring me the lamp. And when Aladdin won't in darkness,

he's abandoned and entombed. There now. Aladdin locked beneath the earth. She stops her husband hooked for one more night. Very good. Yeah, it's a slightly longer story, but the story is, and this is the framing device for a thousand and one nights,

is that there is this emperor who finds out his wife has been unfaithful. So he has a killed and then says he will only marry virgins and have them killed after he sleeps with them so that he never has to be cheated on effectively. Sounds like a joke. Hashtag problematic.

Very problematic. So Shaziraj, and I don't know if I'm saying that right, so please feel free to tweet me and correct me. Not you Francine, obviously. Okay, good, right. Dear little listeners on their dear little legs, is this incredibly well read woman who has studied stories all her life

and the emperor chooses to marry her. So she brings her younger sister along and the first night she says, well, before we go to bed, can I finish telling my sister a story? So she finishes the story and then starts another one and gets halfway through and then says, right, that's enough for tonight

and goes to bed. And obviously then the emperor doesn't kill her because he wants to know what happens next. So every night she finishes a story and starts a new one, so he doesn't kill her because he wants to know what happens next and after a thousand and one stories, eventually he's in love with her

so he decides not to decapitate it. Smart, but also a thousand and one, Jesus. Yes, and that's the framing device around the thousand and one. I'd be like, am I that unlikable? Thanks, yeah, this is all gonna fall in love with me. Well, that's what I was thinking because you're thinking a story per night. That's like over, that's about three years.

Yeah. Like that's a lot of effort. But he is. There's some good stories in there. Cool. The last little thing is the luggage faces off against a chimera, which is described in the book Sorcery. It have the legs of a mermaid, the hair of a tortoise,

the teeth of a fowl and the wings of a snake. Of course, I only, I have only my word for it, the beast having the breath of a furnace and the temperament of a rubber balloon in a hurricane. Out of curiosity, I called out an important Pratchatesque reference book. Oh, very nice. Brillet's Frozen Fable.

Very good. Which you gave me. Good. So chimera has a very small entry. A fabulous monster in Greek mythology. According to Homer, it has a lion's head, a goat's body and a dragon's tail. It was born in Lightyear and slain by Belarophon,

hence the use of the name in English for an illusory fancy, a wild incongruous scheme. I like it. I thought we'd double check the actual chimera that didn't tragically have the hair of a tortoise. Although it might have done. Homer just may not have mentioned it. Use is bastard.

Where am I? Yeah, so one's the biggest star. They carding and spelt a design and you watch Chancellor's hat. Yes. They copy the old one. They copy the old one and they've covered it in all sorts of ridiculous things

and pieces. They couldn't use magic to make it. Spelt is sewed every sequin on by hand. And I think it's interesting, A, that Spelter made the hat, considering he's the one who goes into doubts by the end of it. Yeah, he's the one being practical about stuff, isn't he?

But also he's sort of pushed into it by carding, who is sort of insisting, well, this is the Archchancelor's hat. You wouldn't make a forgery, would you? Yeah. But the idea of, they joke, it's the fundamental basis of wisteria, kigitum, ergo, pato.

Which we won't look at too deeply as an actual bit of Latin to translate. I love practice Latin. I think they're 4 a.m. a hat. What's the one that's always on watch button? Fabricated DM, funk. Is it Make My Day? Ah, yeah.

Very good. But I thought the hat thing was kind of interesting. There's this bigger meta thing of, well, it is the thing because we are saying it's the thing. So the talking Archchancelor hats will exist and is possessing a brim, but they are insisting, well, no, we have said this is the hat. We have put all the sequins on it.

Therefore, this is the Archchancelor's hat. That's just a weird talking hat. Yeah, if the point of it is just to be the figure head, then it doesn't matter what it is. Yeah. Except in this point, unfortunately, real one is possessed by 200 dead Archchancelors. Happens to the best of us.

Actually, I've never been possessed by 200 dead Archchancelors. Oh, have you not? It makes for a very interesting Friday night. Rich Simplicity. Rich Simplicity. All right, that one down. That's me.

Are we back in the Creosate's garden? Yeah, yeah, it's on page 125 and like the pages following on from that Creosate's very finely designed random wilderness. Oh, yeah, I love this idea. Yeah, it reminds me of a couple of things. I mean, first of all, I think we've discussed it before, the kind of arsehole-y, wealthy, minimalist thing.

Oh, yeah. You know, it's a kind of aesthetic, aestheticism movement, which... A lot like coins decorating choices of lots of white and marble and... Quite so, yeah. The kind of hippie-diffie version of that being the outdoors. But it also kind of reminds me of Capability Brown,

although, of course, he did it much better. The designed to look undesigned. Yes. The style of landscaping, which was pretty, you know, groundbreaking. Yeah, accidental puns all over the place today. Oh, front scene. I know, I know.

I'm a card. Yeah, I think it is quite a nice, harmless example of something that occasionally gets my goat, but he's done it very well because he's just kind of ignorant of how much of a bunker he is, and therefore, he's endearing. Yeah, no, I have quite a soft spot for Korea, so... He's so pleasant in his horrendousness. They spent simply ages getting the rills sufficiently sinuous.

Do you have a meta for me? I do have several meta's for you. Darling. Sorry, did you just get possessed by a property? Oh, that's wrong with me. Where am I going? Page 128. Oh, I spent a long time on this very short section, actually.

There's just a lot of cool references, I enjoyed it. So, oh yeah, yeah, it was some... Korea's so-troner hit on Canina with bad poetry, basically, saying, does anyone ever told you your neck is as a tower of ivory? And then later on in the book, saying, your hair is like a flock of goats that graze upon the side of Mount Gebra. Your breasts are like the jeweled melons in the fabled gardens of dawn, etc. And that is a kind of parody of the song of Solomon for one.

And going on from that, which is where Solomon's admiring his bride. Oh, excellent. Of course, you'll know it by heart, but I'll read it for people who don't. I haven't memorized a lot of Old Testament. How beautiful you are, my darling. How very beautiful. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead.

Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin and not one of them is lost. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon and your mouth is lovely. Your brow behind your veil is like a slice of pomegranate. Your neck is like the Tower of David built with rows of stones on it hang a thousand shields, all of them warriors. Your breasts are like two thorns, twins of a gazelle grazing among the lilies. This is a very good example of a blazon, which is a poem full of ridiculous similes, usually

about somebody's appearance like this, a shape they did a parody of one. I can't remember where it was, but you'd probably be familiar with that. Is that the My Mistress Charms one? Yeah. It's something about their her breasts are done. Where is it? It's nobby white, why then her breasts are done? Yeah, there it is.

Yeah. But that was probably a parody of something else entirely, which is even worse than the Bible one possibly, which was Thomas Watson's Hecatum Pathia, 1582, who knows how it was pronounced? Nobody. We've got this from the Elements of Eloquence again. Oh, excellent. Throwback to early episodes here.

Her breast transparent is like crystal rock. Wow. Her fingers long fit for Apollo's lute, her slipper such as momos, an ottomoc, her virtuos all so great as make me mute. I think it is a sonnet. It ends in a couple of cups of said, yes, it is, and I am a cantameter. Marvelous. It was very popular in here.

What's the name of this? Okay. Oh, very good. Anyway, it's terrible and I love it. I'm assigning myself the homework of writing a really, really bad blaze. Blazing. Blazing. Blazing.

B-L-A-Z-O-N. And I'll do it too. That sounds funny. Cool. I don't want to enforce homework upon you, but if you write one, I encourage this. Speaking of poetry. Let's talk about why our lovely Creosote, who we haven't actually mentioned as well that there is another famous fictional Creosote, which is Mr. Creosote from the end of Monty

Python's meaning of life. Of course, yeah. Well, well seen. Anyway. Inspiration vassals. Oh, yeah. This is one of my favourite little pratchety concepts because it will come up again, but this is why Creosote is terrible at poetry, because he is not particularly receptive to

parcels of inspiration, which sleep through the universe all the time and quite often hits the wrong targets. Yes. So we have the weird dream about a lead donor on a mile high gantry in the right mind would have been the catalyst for the invention of a repressed gravitational electricity generation. But unfortunately, it was had by a small and bewildered duck. Doesn't it make you worry that some of the weird surreal dreams we have should have been in the hands of scientists who would have done something useful with them as we are,

of course, the mental equivalents of small, bewildered ducks. Speak for yourself. Right. I'm a large, bewildered duck. So unfortunately, Creosote receives the poetic inspiration particles, but has the poetic ability of a hyena. It's quite interesting in itself, isn't it? The idea that the inspiration is not what you need to be a good poet, because of course

it's quite right. You can have all the inspiration in the world, but if you don't know how to make words sound pleasing, you are just going to sound like a tit. Yep, which explains a lot of the late 16th century. Now, I'm going to skip ahead slightly here, actually, because that kind of fits in with my what was going to be the last thing, which is talent is not what you are. There we go, a small receptor area opened in his mind at the same time as an inspiration particle screamed down.

Ha, this is the very important philosophical idea that was nearly hand by a nearby brick. Exactly. Talent just defines what you do, he said. It doesn't define what you are deep down. I mean, when you know what you are, you can do anything, which I thought was a nice bit of philosophy. And I was wondering if there was anything you feel you are spiritually in the same way that rinse wind is definitely a wizard, but that you are shit at.

And so you don't actually do. Oh, I don't know about shit at. I wouldn't want to admit it being shit at anything. I'm not. I'm really, really talented in every area I get involved in, not something you don't have an actual proclivity towards. Oh, I don't know. Dancing, I'd say.

Oh, yeah, I can see that. I can see you in another life as like a champion salsa dancer or tango. Exactly. I very much enjoy dancing. I am not good at dancing. And I often trip over my feet and sometimes my elbows are cool. Yeah. See, mine's Explorer slash adventure, like, you know, doing intrepid journeys

through jungles and everything, which I love the idea of. And it's so romantic. And I'll read the Robin Hobb books of fits adventures. I'll be like, I'm going to go on an adventure. And I'm like, oh, but I really hate being outdoors in the bad weather. Yeah. Having a shower when I went on and sitting down is good. So never mind.

But, you know, in spirit, in spirit, I'm a I'm an intrepid explorer type. Well, that's where books come in handy. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Now we'll go backwards, circling back down. Yeah. Sorry, I'm going to get depressing for a moment, but we'll try and end on

something a bit cheerier. But OK, when the tower. Arrives as such in Al-Khali, the wizards come out and they kill all of these guards and rinse, wind and Nigel witness it. Yeah. And the wizards have kind of lost all respect for human life, for significant show these people without thinking about it. And the book addresses later on that wizards don't usually kill people

because they seldom notice them and it wasn't considered sporting. And who would do all the cooking and growing food and things? And in this section, the tower appears and the wizards just sort of effectively snap their fingers and everyone's dead in a very horrible way. And it's been appalling for rinse, wind and Nigel to watch. Yeah. And there's a line. It was the way they looked at them as if it didn't matter, said Nigel,

shaking his head. That was the worst bit. Yes, rinse, wind dropped the single syllable heavily in front of Nigel's train of thought like a tree trunk. Very good. It's just in a section that's so action packed and so much happens, you know, we get to Al-Khali, we meet Kria. So Kanina gets taken to a Harim.

We meet a Bream. A Bream gets possessed by the hat. Rinswing gets thrown in the snake pit, meets Nigel, gets out, rescues Kanina from the Harim. Wizards turn up. Like a lot happens in 90 pages. Yeah. And it takes time in that to go, oh, yes.

And also there is deep horror here. And I've just traumatised two of the characters. Yeah. I can find a slight bright spot in the horror in that it kind of shows rinse, wind in a good light, because I feel like he's using his prior experience of having dealt with horror to stop Nigel from fully considering it all. It goes, yes, don't think about it, stop.

Yeah. And like a slight protective instinct that Bond does not need to extrapolate on because it'll probably never come back. You can quite often get, especially in fantasy books, where like large and like fantasy films, especially large chunks of people will get killed off and it's sort of just cannon fodder for the plot and it's not really addressed. So in acknowledging that the wizards have lost some of their ability to respect human life, the book maintains its respect for human life

by being like horrified by it and showing Rinswing and Nigel horrified by it. Yeah. Which I don't mean a really interesting bit of writing. And that did kind of seem to super traumatise Rinswing. It does. But it's also it shows how strange what's happening to the wizards who are on the side of sorcery is on the side, because he said something like, oh, these are the faces I've seen peering amably through the gardens or something like that.

Yeah. These are the books who were wandering around having a smoke in their slippers with a pipe. And now they are just killing ordinary people for no real reason. And it makes you wonder whether they are kind of like literally their mind is altered. They are high on this stuff. Or whether it's kind of give a normal amiable person a slice of this kind of power. And that's what will happen. Like, I wonder what the driving point is that behind that change.

Which reminded me of something really interesting I was reading last night, which was about Macbeth. And they were talking about different stagings of it and how one of the things the play itself struggles with is what to do with Lady Macbeth once Macbeth has power. Because she's the one driving him to get there. And then the play sort of gets rid of her once it's done with that, because there's not much else to do with her. But it was also talking about the comedy that can be found in the play,

which is that it's really just about the pursuit of power. And this pursuit of power is inherently ridiculous. Like, it's not a real thing. And it's a very, you know, the emperor has no clothes. But the sake of the play, we have to consider it does. Because that's his entire motivation is just power for power's sake. And it's the same with these wizards. Like, they're motivated by gaining this power and then wanting to maintain it.

But there's no source about what they naturally do with it. No, I suppose it makes slightly more sense than when you talk about political power, because this kind of power does have like a physical... Oh yeah, I mean, there is this physical power, the magic. And yes, the last thing I wanted to talk about in this section. This isn't too purple posterity, but it probably is a little bit round the ears. Post-titty. Post-titty, is that like six wave feminism?

Yes, we're in post-breast feminism now. I think that's just gone full circle and we start burning the bras again. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Cool. After we finish recording, though. And like, I mean, I'm not meant to go outside and I don't have a garden, so like... Maybe underneath the extractor hood. Oh yeah, that's what I can do on the hob. Just a small bra, only buying a bralet.

I don't have small bras. There are no small bras, only small people. All right, we're going to cut all discussion of my tits out of the podcast. Noted. Most discussion of my tits. Okay. We can keep a little bit. Anyway, please tell us about the last point.

God, sorry, Nigel and Koenina meet and fall in love at first sight. It's very bird-twittery. It is very... A distant orchestra was playing, blue birds were tweeting, little pink clouds were barreling through the sky, and all the other things that happens at times like this. I'm imagining that scene out of the Bambi of a Disney movie. It's a Twitter-painted. Yes, I'm thinking very slow-mo, and I can hear the orchestra swelling and it goes...

Like Koenina's hair is flapping in the wind somehow, even though they're indoors and Nigel's acne is blurred slightly. Yes, everything is very soft focus, and the camera is spinning around the two of them. And I thought it would be a nice little silly thing that happens to Endon. It goes back to that quote from the Tanzu Rainer Robertsburg, as we went the last episode, where Koenina has hilariously failed to fall in love with Rincewind

in place of Nigel, the young barbarian would-be hero. Sexy self. Also, I kind of hate it as a character thing for Koenina, because why? Why is she into Nigel? I don't know. It's not like she's unworldly ever met a man before. Well, no, I don't.

Because why wouldn't she be in a way like in the... She's clearly not super into aesthetics, is my saying. Like she clearly doesn't value aesthetics very much. No, this is love at first sight. This is someone whose father is the greatest barbarian hero of all time, who is pretty much existing as a quite successful barbarian hero herself, although she doesn't like that, looking at a guy with woolly underwear under his leather hold-all slash long-cloth.

At risk of being terribly heteronormative, Nigel is the male equivalent of the Vestal Verdon. How? Like helpless and skinny and not very many clothes on. Do you think she's into that? Well, the point is that's the hereditary thing. I suppose, yeah. I mean, I think they should have just made her gay.

Well, you think that about everybody. Yeah, all right, I do. I think you're giving it too much credit. I think she's fallen in love with him for the sake of plot, and it being... I know. I mean, I was making a joke. I don't think that's what Prouchie actually did. I know. It's just... It's funny. They did this funny.

I know, but I don't find it funny. I find it irritating. I know. If it was played off more like more falling in love with Princess Kelly at first sight, and then realizing actually, Isabelle was really the woman for him, and they sort of accidentally fell in love with each other without me. That's more annoying and trophy to me. Like, if you're going to have an annoying trope, I say just fucking go for it. But it's also the fact that you have this extraordinarily competent woman

who's just fought off a bunch of guards, notices a guy, and then suddenly forgets that they're in the middle of a collapsing palace. And it's just like, well, let her... If you're going to write this weird action girl trope where she's also super hot, let her remain competent even with a man she has attracted to around. But she does. Well, she forgets for a while that they're still in a collapsing palace, and Rincewind has to snap around for it.

It's the sensible not in love with anyone at that particular moment. I know, that's the joke. I know. You're doing the Joyless Powerful poster thing about her, Jo. I know I am. Just a funny joke. But I'm here for you. I'm here to Joyless Powerful poster.

I'm just saying, if you're going to write this tropey character whose personality is breast... You have to stick to the trope you don't like, otherwise you'll get even more angry is what you're saying. I'm saying... This trope you're angry about has to be stuck to the letter, otherwise you'll complain about that. I'm saying, let her remain competent, give her the one thing that makes her not crap,

which is that she is very good at things, and let her keep that. Don't let her suddenly lose all competence in the face of a man who resembles a toast track. I think you were determined to hate everything Kanina did from the start, and have kept that up admirably, so well done. No, I've never even had to lie to Kanina. I don't think you did.

I think that's a straight lie. You haven't said a positive thing about her. I said I'm into women with weapons and not on paper, she's very much by type. Well, I think that's just sexualizing her father. Yeah, but... I can outwoke you, come on. It is now.

All right, having come from more than equal rights... Also, I think you just body shamed Nigel by calling my toast rights. All right, he's described as... And you're kink shaming Kanina by like... All right, fine. You've outwoked me. Victory. Anyway, I'm just being a dick,

because yeah, I know there's a continuation of the trope, but it's silly. It's just a silly bit in, as you say, a depressing situation. I know, and it was always going to happen, and it is funny. I'm not saying it's not funny. I'm saying I wish Kanina could have remained competent in the face of falling in love. And part of it is we've just come from two very good discworlds,

books that have quite well written women in them. So to come to a book where literally the only woman is this, which is encompassing... It... A lot is dumped on Kanina's shoulders as far as doing a lot of hard work as a tropey female character. So, okay, so do you reckon it would have been good if this whole like moment in love was happening, and yet without looking, while doing the whole in love thing,

she just kind of reached out with her comb and killed somebody to the side? Yeah. So that would have been quite cool. That would have changed as like... All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. No, I get that.

I get it. But also, have Nigel do something that makes her attracted to him rather than her just looking at the woolly underwear toaster at guy and going, oh, you know what? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I have one more thing, don't I? I have my obscure reference. Well, if you have an obscure reference,

finial for us, Francine. Get your finial out for the lads. Hey. Oh, I had no finial. I miss it. Yeah. So, going back to the nerd thing, actually, as in the sobriety, not Nigel,

it comes with a shot of orac to counteract the kind of anti-drunk that the coffee gives you. And although I can't find any round-world equivalent of orac itself, like the word doesn't seem to be derived from anything, the idea of serving coffee with liquor to counteract the effects does seem to be at least an Italian thing. They have what's called an amazza cafe, which literally means a coffee killer.

And so you'd have a coffee with a shot of, say, Uso, not Uso in Italy, grappa. And traditionally, and the idea is the stimulant would counteract the sedative and vice versa. Oh, brilliant. That's a thing. Excellent. What you don't want to do is have 20 shots of grappa

and try and fight a basilisk. Luggage only. Oh, that ruins myself. Joanna. Oh, grappa. I don't remember grappa. I don't remember anything after drinking grappa. I didn't get on with any Mediterranean spirits, really.

No, no one needs Mediterranean spirits in their life. Right. I think that is everything for today. Cool. So next week is our final part of the discussion. So for us, part two ended on page 180 with Koenina saying, you mean heights and don't stop being silly. I know what I mean.

It's the grams that kill you. And we're going from there, funny enough, to the end of the book. So how much have we got left here? We've got a little under 100 pages. Yeah. So yeah, it's split very neatly in three, really, didn't it? Well done, Jo. Yeah.

90 pages. Dear listener, you can follow us on Twitter at MikiFretPod on Instagram at the Treeshell MikiFret, on Facebook at the Treeshell MikiFret. You can email us your thoughts, castles, snacks and albatrosses at the Treeshell MikiFretPod at gmail.com. Do we ever get emails? Not really.

Oh, OK. Email us listeners. Please send us your best lamp wick jokes on any of those and we'll read out the best on the podcast next week hopefully. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcast because it does help other people find us. Obviously tell all of your friends via albatross

that we exist. Don't go and tell them in person because that's very dangerous right now. And until next time, dear listener. Don't let us detain you. I promise to be less woken the next episode. I'm just going to pub on Canina instead. Yeah, perfect.

Yeah, go completely the other way and be like a dickhead bloke from the pub. God, I miss the pub so much. I even miss the dickhead bloke.