The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 37: Reaper Man Pt.3 (YES)

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

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 “Reaper Man”. Goodness Gracious Grief!Content Warning: This episode discusses grief and parental loss. 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:Reaper Man - p132 (XXXX) The Annotated Pratchett FileSpy Kids (2001) - IMDbThe High Life Trailer - BBC Two 1995Retail apocalypse - WikipediaA Greedy Man in a Hungry World, by Jay Rayner - GoodreadsPsychopomp - TV TropesDeath (Personification) - WikipediaThe Book Thief by Markus Zusak - GoodreadsRipley's Believe It or Not! Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

I am going to do some gardening and things today. Well, I'm not doing some gardening. I'm pulling up a couple of dead plants and repotting an aloe. It's sort of gardening. Yeah, it's plant faffing. Yes, I'm doing some planty faff today. Well, in lighter news, the world's not quite as shit as we thought. Oh, yeah. So last time we recorded was during that weird purgatory period of... Yes, the election perineum. Yeah. Well, they won't, they, America and fascism. Oh, they won't. Thank fuck.

Yeah, so between recording the last episode and releasing the last episode, it came out that Trump has been voted out and Biden is going to be the new American president. Oh, I'm so enthusiastic about Biden now. I wasn't, but just the contrast between a normal, seemingly well-meaning man and Trump is just like... Oh, sorry. I'm fully aware that Biden is problematic in many, many ways, but he's not Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't hurt us, but he's not Trump. He's not Trump. That is enough for me.

Exactly. It was really great timing, actually, because I'd been checking the news, like, constantly for that whole week. And then it was on the Saturday. I'm in a, like, bubble with an American friend and she'd come over for dinner. And so we had both, like, finally decided, you know what, fuck it, we're going to stop looking at our phones for an hour. So we did, we put them to one side, had a lovely meal, sort of drinking and chatting. And then she got a message, so she picked up her phone and then we both saw it at the same time that Trump had been voted out and it was amazing. And then we went outside and I know, like, it's really annoying that people let off for fireworks for, like, an entire week

around the 5th of November, but just on that night, we didn't really care. It was quite nice to go outside and see fireworks when Trump... Yeah, I didn't crumble team ups that night. I like the, I'm... Oh, God, I hate having to preface everything with I know, I know social distancing, but I know, I know social distancing, but I do like the videos of everyone celebrating in the streets in America. Yeah. Oh, this fucking pandemic. Dim, tin, dimmick. I mean, I'm actually quite enjoying this lockdown, but... Yeah, no, you look like you're living your best life, to be honest, mate.

I haven't left the house in, like, a week, but apart from that... I've had this week off work, including most freelance work, I did a couple of jobs, but I've only had to leave the house for dog walks, really, so it's been nice. I approve. I've not got as much housey stuff done as I intended to, but I seem I'm now more well rested in my soul as a consequence, so... Well, I kind of semi-gave myself this week to be lazy in that I haven't really done any big housework jobs and I haven't worked out, but I have still been doing that course all week.

Yeah, you have learned how to do HTML and CSS, so it's not really complete downtime. It seems like you find that pretty much unbearable, so I'm going to... Yeah, no, actually not doing anything is terrible. I spent the last lockdown doing nothing but playing PlayStation. I felt disgusting at the end of it. Yeah. Well, yesterday, isn't it? I tried to have a proper, ooh, pamper, relaxation day, and within two hours I was setting up a settle cast and system, so... Oh, God, you'll love it though. I'll send you some screen grabs. That could be a good procrastination job for me. It took me a minute to remember how to say

procrastination there. Yeah, I know. We've not had a lot of sleep, but that's okay, because we're in a highly emotional part of the book and we cope very well with emotions when we're sleep deprived and vaguely hormonal, so we'll be good. Yeah, I'm sleep deprived hormonal and it's Friday the 13th during 2020, so nothing can go wrong. There's a million to one chance. All right, then. I think we've got quite a lot of rambling to do, so... Do you want to make a podcast?

Let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The True Shall Make He Fract, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And today is part three of our discussion of Reaper Man. Note on spoilers. Before we dive in, this is a spoiler light podcast. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book we're on, Reaper Man,

but we'll avoid spoiling major future events in the Discworld series and we are 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. A journey across 300 light years done in only a second or a few years. I don't know what we worked out as at the end, but it depends on the dimensions. So some follow-ups. Dispatches from the round world. We had some. We had. So someone was listening to some old episodes of the podcast.

Specifically, I think it was Mort, where we were discussing whether or not summoning death was necromancy. And apparently, summoning death is not necromancy, because that's summoning the dead. And it's made very clear that death isn't dead. He's the act of dying and doesn't deal with the dead unless by accident. Excellent. That's from Ethel T. Blastbeat on Twitter. Someone else replied with a further... Aubrey Illustrates replied, further clarification to be very pedantic. The mancy means divination. Necromancy is divination via talking to the dead, not raising the dead. So it's not necromancy unless you're asking death for odds on who wins the FA Cup.

Which we might be. Well, I mean, I don't really... Which they often are. They are asking him advice on things, aren't they? Yeah. But he's still technically not dead. He's dead. All right. Well, it's something mancy then. It is. There's a bit of mancy about it.

Yeah, that's good. We also had a couple of follow-up fishes on Reddit. Which I finally checked for the first time in ages. Sorry, I keep telling you to go there and then don't go there,lessness. There was one post from a you... Oh, as in user. Sorry, if that's an actual name and I just hashed it out. I mean, I'm going to say it's Jeffrey Michael backwards. Oh, fuck, yeah. It's a vampire.

Look, if I lived in Angkorporg, I would be drained of blood in the gutter by now. Let's be honest. Anyway, yeah. So A, they went to a mustard museum, which is pretty fucking cool. I really want to go to the mustard museum. And B, apparently in America, Montgomery Ward, which I assume is a department store because also seers, male catalogs were popular for the same reason, a rather indelicate one,

I'm guessing, as a Discworld almanac. Yes. Jeffrey Michael also pointed out that Canadians get all of this wearing out of the way on the ice rink, which I hadn't thought of, and that makes a lot of sense. It does. And when you finally watch Leta Kenny, you'll get some beautiful demonstrations. I will watch Leta Kenny, I promise. I know, I know, it's not easier if we weren't in this dim-fandemic and I could sit down and make you watch it. So other follow-ups, last week we were talking about Forex,

continent on the disc that was only briefly mentioned. Yes, it had a brief mention in last week's episode. Oh, with the fresh sunlight, yes, yes. But I was having a look through the annotated Pratchett file to do a bit of research for this week's episode. And I just want to highly recommend, we'll link to it in the show notes, that all of our listeners go to the annotated Pratchett file and read the annotation on about the continent of Forex,

because it is lengthy and wonderful. Is that the annotation for Reaper Man or for? Oh, for Reaper Man, yeah. Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. There's an explanation of the corks on pointy hats. And then there's a very long thing where they're trying to find some very, very stereotypical advert created by the Australian Tourism Commission that involves the phrase, throwing a shrimp on the Barbie,

that has involved people getting in touch with the annotated Pratchett file, finding the actual advert and eventually linking to it on YouTube. Did I tell you, while I was in Australia, I had shrimp on the barbecue for Christmas Day? You have mentioned, and I think that's... Yeah, they do call them prawns, though, so... Well, that ruined all of my illusions. I'm sorry.

One last sort of little follow-up, there's a moment in this book, which I think adds to our discussion of, can you murder a dead person? Is that there is a discussion of, how do you save the life of an undead person on page 245 in my edition? So a dichotomy, oh, I don't think surgery is involved. It's like rapid fire with the puns, isn't it, on this one? Yeah, somehow I don't hate it.

I never did. I never do. You know how I feel about puns, Francine. I know, which is quite odd, really, considering you do like Pratchett so much. I don't think there's two pages of Terry Pratchett's work that don't include a pun. I love Pratchett. I love Pratchett's...

I challenge you to find two pages. I'm not going to. I love Pratchett. I love Pratchett's use of puns. I just don't like puns because I'm not good at doing them quickly, so I really hate when two people get into like a little battle of fish puns or something, and I just have to stand there going... Ah.

Cod. Oh, cod. Anyway... Anyway. Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on Reaper Man? Sure. Previously on Reaper Man. In Ankh-Morpork, chaos and compost reign,

challenged only by the unseen university's faculty and the undead support group's limited faculties. Blissfully unaware, Bill Dawes settles into his new role, briefly, before having his internal dichotomy challenged by a tiny human in peril. After a metaphorical, metaphysical, and literal slap in the face, good old Bill gets into the spirit of humanity and lends a little of his own to the stricken child. The end is even nier than it was.

Amazing. Sorry, I didn't give you much time to have your coffee there. That's all right. It's way too hot anyway. I just burned my face for the sake of caffeine. Oh. So this time, on Reaper Man... Oh, yes, de-sumerize.

I've done the summary a little differently, because the stories are so disparate, especially in this section, and I will talk about that afterwards. So first up, the events of the Wizards and Wendell Punes. We begin with the Wizards battling Darcyly Trollies. They chase the relentless, wheeled contraptions through Ankh-Morpork, as Wendell as his companions research the end of cities. Wendell learns of the city of Khan-Li

and the reality of predatory city parasites. The Wizards resort to floral arrangements in their efforts against the mobile menaces, but are tragically overwhelmed. As Wendell arrives on the scene, he realizes everyone has rushed off and chooses to do the same, but sensibly. A pyramid of twisted mangled trolleys lets out mysterious sail-flyers.

Citizens of Ankh-Morpork rush to look at the marvellous structure being formed, summoned by its horrific knot music, which thankfully doesn't affect the Fresh Start Club. Our ragtag bunch of undead enter the mysterious shopping mall structure looking for the lost Wizards. Instead, they find red shoe. They face new, horrific soldier trolleys

and find frozen Wizards in horrifying positions. As most of the gang wrangle trolleys and the Wrangler to evacuate the Wizards, Wendell stays behind to confront the queen of this capitalist Ant's Nest. Recognizing a good trope when they see one, the Wizards rush back in to assist their undead colleague in an explosive confrontation and implosive,

and with the aid of a not-so-shy schlepple, the shopping mall is taken down once and for all. Satisfied, the Wizards, Wendell, Mrs. Cake and the gang meet for a celebratory cup of tea and congratulate themselves on a confusing job well done. Wendell, in his final moments, goes back to the bridge and finally comes face-to-face with death, properly this time.

Meanwhile, in Bill Dawes' life, he begins working in the fields after a boozy lunch and races Ned Simnell's combination harvester exhausting himself in the process. During a hellish hangover, he realizes he has mere hours left of the life he's sharing with the small girl and there'll be a new death to contend with. A storm rages as Bill fights to get the harvest in

with Ms. Flitworth's help, while Ned fails to kill a sharp scythe. As the harvest is saved, Death 2.0 arrives to pose and preen, and Bill Dawes, Ms. Flitworth and the unconscious young girl make a mad dash to town on Binky to collect a ghostly scythe. Death confronts his sequel but finds he has no undead weapon to hand. In a terrifying confrontation back at the Flitworth farm,

Death finds himself with a few more minutes to spare thanks to Ms. Flitworth and defeats Death 2.0 with his trusty old farm scythe. An angry combination harvester comes for Bill, but a camshaft incident prevents it from going all the way. The unconscious young girl now fully alive and well, Death goes to confront the auditors on a mountaintop. Home and safe in his study,

Death ponders the memory of Bill Dawes and reads of lovers long gone. He goes to Asriel to beg more time. Minutes in hand, Death shops for romantic gifts and goes to Woo Flitworth. He accompanies her to the harvest dance. As the last waltz rings out, Death takes Flitworth to spend her last minutes in an avalanche with her beloved Rufus.

Home, he holds on to one last memory, creates golden fields and agrees to keep on the death of rats. Book has like three endings. Yeah, well, so this is the thing. This is something Mark Burrow has mentioned in his book, which is that Terry Pratchett's quite often said he wished he'd used these two stories in two different books. And I think that's no more clearer than in this section.

The stories don't really mesh, apart from Wendell and Death coming together at the end. The shopping mall bit specifically just doesn't really fit for me. Yeah, I think, I can't remember if it was the first or second episode we did on this, but I did say I didn't have a problem with it. However, reading the end again, it does become more clear, just because of the clash in tones. There's such a clash in tones between the shopping mall confrontation

and all the action movie stereotypes and those funny references. And what's happening with Bill Dore. And I just don't think it... Like you could quite easily do this book as the Bill Dore story with a smaller wizard's bee plot that still has Wendell not dying and excess life source making the swear words appear and then have the shopping mall thing as a separate book. I was trying to think to myself, I should have counted as I went,

how long a book it would have been just Bill Dore bits. It would have been very short, but I think it could have been fleshed out. Yeah, it would have been very... It would have been very beautiful, but I'm not sure if Pratchett would have been happy with the tone of it then, because this is early Mitch Pratchett, which means he's a lot more joke heavy. Yeah. Well, I think you still could have had that.

I think you still could have had a wizard's bee plot. I just don't think the shopping mall bee plot works. Yeah. It's very specifically that plot that I think... I nearly did three separate summaries and sort of had Wendell a bit separate to the wizards, but then it doesn't really work because Wendell's... That's true, because Wendell's character is surprisingly...

What do I want? Calm, not... It's very sweet, and you could have had a bee plot that was Wendell the swearing manifesting and the fresh star club, and just not the city parasite thing. Yeah, yeah. I think that could have been... Maybe a bit more about the ghosts or something like that, yeah.

Exactly. I think there could have been enough to flesh out the death story without the shopping mall. Not if I disliked the shopping mall plot. I think it's very funny. No, that's it, yeah, yeah. It just doesn't quite work for me. Yeah, it would have been a good bee plot in another story, a plot in a wizard's story with it, yeah.

I do see it now, and I understand why Pratchett came to feel that way. However, still... It's still a great book. I think currently my favorite disc world book is up there. It's overtaken because I'm really easily swayed by the latest thing I read, so I'm not sure when we get to the other two in my list of three. It's top 10 for me. It doesn't quite reach top five. That's cool.

The build also. We need to make revised lists because I think right at the beginning we made little mental lists, and then we've been doing a lot more Pratcheting this year. There has been quite a lot of Pratcheting. What's your top five? Okay, so off the top of my head and in no particular order, Night Watch, Amazing Morrison's educated rodents, The Truth, Monstrous Regiment,

and probably Lords and Ladies, like it's definitely a Witch's one, but I'm not sure that varies which Witch is one. Which Witch is Witch. Once we've done Next Months, Witches Abroad will be my favorite Witches, but... Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's cool. So I've got Reef-a-Ban, Night Watch, The Last Continent,

and then the other two spots in the top five do change a lot, but I'm going to say right now, because I'm looking forward to it, Witch's Abroad is in there, and probably Interesting Times. I was going to say you always cite Interesting Times and Small Gods as quite high up for you, don't you? Yeah, Small Gods has always been top 10, but I don't know. Helicopter and Loancloth Watch, definite examples of helicopter parenting from Mrs. Cake again, who assumes she's invited anywhere Milagos,

and then just generally strongly implied. Yeah, yeah. Bat is launched upwards. Yeah, that's a bit helicoptery. Much like a helicopter isn't. I mean, the auditors basically appear as gray robes, which are sort of like big loincloths. I think we're going to start stretching it out for a while then.

Look, I am the queen of tenuous links to things. That is our entire podcast. What a lovely large loincloth you're wearing tonight, Joanna. It's a ball gown. Your words are not mine. All clothes are loincloths at heart. Technically. Say my old dogs are a little bit wolf.

Yeah. You had a note before we started. Oh yeah, I thought, as I was reading it, it occurred to me that because corn and wheat are used interchangeably in this book. That might be slightly confusing for some people. Corn in British English traditionally is meant as the dominant crop of that region. And so in Scotland, corn would be oats in England, as this is referring to, corn would be wheat.

In America, corn is maize, and so the two became interchangeable. And so when it's kind of oscillating between saying cornfields and wheat fields, that makes sense in British English, but wouldn't so much in American English. I didn't know that. Their edition might have that edited, actually. Yeah. Interesting. I think Jack taught me that.

Being a farm boy. I have still got a toddler-sized bag of popcorn that I'm honestly just going to throw away, because I really don't like popcorn that much. Why did you take it home? Well, it was only going to go in the bin anyway, and I figured I'd probably eat some of it, which I have done, but I haven't really made a dent in it, to be honest. It's a very big bag of popcorn.

I don't know what I'd do that much. I quite like salted popcorn, and I don't know what I'd do with that much popcorn. You get sick of it pretty quickly. I always assumed most of it was going to end up in the bin. It's just, I figured, I'd try and take some first. Anyway, I think your quote is before mine. Yeah, it is. As Bildor is pretending to meet Deathmark II,

and Miss Flitworth asks, have you gotten the last words? Yes, I don't want to go. Well, succinct, anyway. Which is, in this case, very sweet, poignant, and funny at the same time, I thought. That bit did give me a bit of an emotion. It doesn't help also that it reminded me, and I don't think Russell T. Davies was referencing this book,

as far as I know, he's not a big Pratchett fan, but the David Tennant's Doctor, and the last thing he says is, I don't want to go, and that will never not make me cry. Yeah, I like to think there was a subconscious referencing going on there. But yeah, I thought that bit was very sweet. You're gay. Okay, so I picked this quote,

so a single line of this quote is probably one of the most quoted Terry Pratchett lines, especially when talking about the great man himself. But I forgot how beautiful the actual whole quote is. In the Roundtop Village, where they dance the real Morris Dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away. Until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested.

The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence. It is really beautiful. It is one of my favorite Pratchett quotes, and I forgot just how beautiful that whole paragraph is, because so often people just quote that no one's really dead until the ripples die away. I think the concept is what's become... Yeah, I think the concept is what's become kind of viral,

but the full quote, yeah, which makes sense, but the full quote is gorgeous, yeah. It is just a beautiful thing. I quite happily have that read at my funeral. Sorry, I'm assuming you'll end up vaguely in charge of my funeral arrangement. Oh yeah, yeah, that's I think we're working off that assumption. Yeah, especially as I'll be faking my own death anyway. Costa Rica, baby. Hell yeah.

Yeah, it's... Oh, I forgot we were going to run away to Costa Rica and get married. What have happened to that? You got married, I got married, neither of us got married to each other, and then the pandemic. Oh well. Mentere travel was difficult. Yes, there is that.

Oh well, anyway. Yeah, the ripples thing is really not... People seem to take a lot of comfort from it, and I definitely see that in the case of Pratchett, where the ripples are never going to stop. But I feel like if I was thinking that when in context of somebody I knew, I'd almost be always worried about that last thing stopping. That's always such a strange thing.

Let's talk about death and grief. We're talking about Reaper Man. Okay. But there is always that little thing of you wonder when the last thing will be, especially in the early days of grief, where quite often what you're doing is admin. It's very hard to describe it. It goes from you're dreading when the last thing will be,

because that means it's done, to you're almost looking forward to the last thing that will be, because then it's done. And it's not that you want to forget someone, and it's not that grief will totally end, because grief does never really end. It just becomes something you live with. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

It just changes you, and it becomes a bit of a pass of you. But you can be comfortable with it now, and it can be laid to rest, because the last thing is done. And I think that's a really lovely thought that goes around the ripples thing, that someone's life has more around it than just the core of their existence. There's almost this blur and fade out around it.

Yeah, so it's like a slow fade out instead of an abrupt stop. I can see how that's nicer. Yeah, that's good. I'm quite an overly sentimental person, and I don't mean that in an overly emotional way. I get very attached to concepts and things in a way that is not always great for me. And so I would worry about the clock

that you need to keep wound, or do you know what I mean? Absolutely. My most recent brushes with grief have taught me to be slightly less sentimental. Yeah. Because all that means is that then someone else has to do it for you and stuff. And I mean mostly with physical things here,

it builds and builds into this unbearable pile. Yeah. So obviously I keep things that mean a lot, but I don't feel like I have to keep something just because there is sentimentality to it. Yeah. In the case of, so, I think I have actually said on the podcast that my mother passed away,

the sensible, sentimental thing, the sensible, sentimental thing is keeping the notebooks full of old recipes. The overly sentimental thing would be to also keep every single, half full notebook of curtain designs and dress designs and invoices. Yeah. I have done the former, not the latter.

Yeah, that makes sense. I've, yeah, I've never had to deal with that yet. I've never had to deal with like a massive grief event. So. Well, luckily when you go through it, you'll have a handy grief shaper. Oh, thanks. I have many years of thinking about hiring myself out.

That's a much better name than therapist. Right, should we go on to characters before this gets really depressing? Yeah, yeah, we'll bring it back to depressing later. Oh yeah, we'll definitely get depressing again in the end. I want to start with, a lot of the new characters are just silly little references, but I really like them, one of which is,

I think our first reference to vermin. No, it's not our first reference. It has been before because I mispronounced it on the podcast and I remember that. I think it was one of the really early books as a side note, it was in there. It might have been like a colour of magical, like fantastic one.

But these are the ancestors of the lemming who have learned to abseil down cliffs and build little boats to get over streams rather than just throwing themselves off cliffs. So I like them, they're very sweet. There's also a reference to golems. Yes. Great big chat made out of clay.

You just have to write a special holy word on them to start them up. Yeah, where was that? What context was that again? That was when they found the wizards frozen in the shopping mall. That's right, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I won't go into...

It's quite a while till they come back, isn't it? Yeah, I think this is the first mention of Discworld Golems. I won't go into the whole mythology around actual golems now. It's really interesting, but there's a later book that I will do that on properly. Yeah, makes more sense in that one. Yeah, but they're here.

There's also a reference to, and again, there's a little footnote reference, but I enjoy these, a small but persistent and incredibly successful Casanunda the Dwarf. Yeah. Honestly, the name makes me giggle far more than it should. Famous for his stepped-ladder exploits.

Yes. Little Casanunda. And, oh yeah, there's also the high priest and the other priest of Offla who take turns. That bit made me properly chuckle. I know, I really wanted to point that out somewhere. I love this. This is the temple of,

the jeweled temple of doom of Offla the Crocodile that gets very few worshipers because of all the traps and there's a fun little Indiana Jones reference. Yeah. It's like one of the few movie references I properly got in this book because it's a lot of action movie references. Yeah.

Not really a genre. Not my top genre, but it's just lovely. They just sort of sit and play card games and take turns being the high priest. I like that after the thing, they're ostensibly guarding, they're just actually taking, they're just like, well, look at it that way.

Look at it this way. Who's gonna know but me and you? Exactly. Fair point. Can I wear that hat? Okay, so then on to obviously the biggest character really of this section, which is Death 2.0. Boo hiss.

He's the baddie. So I thought this was quite interesting. The Death 2.0 is what Death Slash Builder is facing and it's what he's scared of. The actual confrontation takes seconds. They rear off against each other, Death knocks him out, done. They chase each other around the town and the farm a bit.

It's so built up to be such a not villain. Like this whole book is Death is Facing Death. He is facing Death 2.0 because of the auditors. That is the villain of the piece. And then the actual confrontation is nothing. And really like it's almost like what Death is facing is the end of someone else's life and how he deals with having humanity.

And that's his actual conflict of the book, not. Yeah, I'd say also like he's almost had the battle before he has the battle. That's what I mean. The conflict within himself is a much more interesting conflict. Yeah, and it continues after the fight as well. Yeah. There's some great moments that he moans

about the new death posing. Yeah. I never posed. I like that he can tell that he's gonna turn up at midnight just because he's showy enough to flash up against the lightning on a hilltop. Oh yeah, this is like one of the things that the books come back to quite a lot,

this whole idea of narrative causality. And I quite like the fact that Death is, because he's slightly outside of humanity, he knows the narrative causality thing to use it to his advantage. And I think that's something Pratchett does really well. Or the books are always aware of narrative causality. Yes.

And play with it. And they're briefly referenced through whichever straight man character. Yeah. It could be Rincewind, it could be, yeah. It's quite often someone who is in some way a little bit held apart from humanity who knows the story goes this way,

and this is where I have to do it. Like Victor in Moving Pictures, who's become so much more than just a person in that moment because he's playing the hero. Or Granny Weatherworks, quite often, is someone who takes advantage in the story. Yes, yeah. Which would be a fun thing we get to talk about next month.

Also, shout out to Death2.0's Skeletal Horse that eventually ends up belonging to Miss Flitworth, who begs the question, does it get rubbed down or just given a very good polish? But I love the fact that originally Death slash Bill Dore is kind of like resigned to this fate and he has to fight the guy and that's it. It's when he sees he's got a fucking crown on

that he actually gets angry. Yeah, it's... I'll get into that a little bit later, but it's kind of the difference between being the guide and being the cause, I think. Like he wants to be the ruler, he wants to be a deity, and that's very different from just being the person who turns up, or the anthropomorphic personification

who turns up, sorry. I'm gonna have to get better at saying anthropomorphic personification. Enunciate. So onto obviously existing characters that we're checking back in and we've been talking about death, I think it's the way Death slash Bill Dore is written is such a clever division of two characters,

because there are differences between the two and it's subtle, but it is there. Yeah, it's hard to tell sometimes until... I mean, sometimes to the point where Pratchett kind of points it out, where he's like, oh, that was very death thought. That was Bill Dore coming to the front, but like within the innermonger log.

Yeah, and then you end up with death at the end, remembering Bill Dore as if it is a separate person. I think it's a wonderful, I mean, I think the whole book is wonderful, but it's a particularly amazing bit of writing. There's a really good quote that's said by Bill Dore. I've never been very sure about what is right. I'm not sure there is such a thing as right or wrong,

just places to stand. And that's a very human thought, human thought almost, or it's a very death thought put into very human terms. Yeah, it's, I guess Bill Dore is like another example of what's going on elsewhere in the book, where the belief in something creates the thing. So he is believed in the human and created it

to the point where he can then separate it from himself later. It's not just a... But I think it's kind of ironic that one of the most human things death does in this book is when he is being death and not Bill Dore, and that's when he makes his plea to Azrael for more time at the end. Yeah.

And it's so beautiful. It's there's no hope but us, there's no mercy but us, there is no justice, there is just us. All things that are ours, but we must care, for if we do not care, we do not exist. If we do not exist, then there is nothing but blind oblivion and even oblivion must end someday. Yeah.

It almost sounds like an emotional plea, but then at the same time, it's clearly a kind of metaphysical logic that Azrael agrees with. Yeah. Because yeah, and almost inexplicably, he grants death this frivolous little favour. Yeah, I honestly think you just did it to piss the auditors off and that's fair for sticks.

Yeah, they are super annoying. Like even if they were necessary, you'd be like, oh yeah, I'm up for making your day a little bit worse. Also, one of my favourite death moments in this book that isn't really dramatic and is a bit silly is when he resummons all of the spare deaths back to himself.

Yeah. And then Azrael goes, oh, I'm missing a bit. And the death of rats is just very determinedly clinging onto a beam in the barn still. And a little skeletal paw, not unkind on the little ratty shoulder. Oh, squeak. So other characters to briefly check back in

because they had some give moments. There's a really sort of sweet moment for the dean. I'm trying to find the actual line, but it's something along the lines of the dean himself didn't know when he'd been happier. For 60 years, he'd been obeying all the self-regulating rules of wizardry. And suddenly he was having the time of his life.

He never realised that deep down inside, what he really wanted to do was make things go splat. And this turns into a lovely character moment for the dean because he is the one that gets caught up in things. Yeah. It's amazing that he didn't realise he wanted to make things go splat before considering he's a wizard.

But I'm happy that he got there in himself. And the dean is also where we get most of these big action movie references, which as I said, I'm sure a lot of them have gone completely over my head because there's a lot of reference to alien and aliens like where they're saying large uncontrollable bursts. That's an alien reference. And I know that tying a bit of stuff around his head is Rambo.

Yeah, that sounds Rambo. I'm going to recommend listeners look at the annotated project file, who I'm guessing actually picked up on. All the references I missed. Yeah. Anyone who enjoys movies. I got the alien reference.

Yeah, was I? Which I'm very proud of. Am I seeing alien? I've probably seen alien. I know. So it's one of those movies that parts of it are so famous that I'm not sure if I've seen it reference so many times it feels like I've seen it.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure. There's also, I don't really have a lot to say about the senior wrangler other than Rid Cully's Fantastic Nine. Got the same urgent grasp of reality as a cardboard cutout. Proud to have more tea. Which makes me happy. So also, the not for our tears get some great moments. We get an insight into their home life.

They've become a certain type of British echo couple. He ended up doing it himself, didn't he? I did it myself. Yeah. I love those couples. They're hilarious. I could watch them for hours. Sorry, Willie.

The traffic was terrible, all terrible traffic. And it is always just the husband like just repeating the last two lines. But I think it's quite sweet that they sort of, they need a crypt because they're proper vampires, but they're having to DIY it. Same with the moat. Well, you know, in this economy.

It's no life or afterlife being a lower middle class wholesale fruit and vegetable merchant with an upper class condition. And there's a lovely line about gentility. Gentility meant all sorts of things, Wendell thought. To some people, it was not being a vampire. And to others, it was a match set of flying plaster bats

on the wall. Yes. Takes all sorts, doesn't it? I just like the way they sort of absorbed vampirism into their middle classness. It's a very funny look at a certain type of elderly British couple and a certain class thing that we've talked about before.

Yeah, and you just end up with this, this tweevampire. Tweevampire. Not pretentious. Pretentious isn't quite fair. Aspiring. Yeah. Yeah. And it's very low stakes.

Yeah. Stakes. That one wasn't on purpose. See, puns. Puns, Joanna. You can do it. They're inside there. How am I fucking punning?

Not about this life. And then Wendell would be our... Yeah, I've totally marked the wrong page for that. I'm doing really well here. Oh, that's cool. So Wendell's ending is on the brass bridge as Cologne sees him right at the end and then wanders off just in time to miss it.

Yes. I thought it was really lovely. It was. It was nice how he described a kind of clockwork ending as well, because that had been referenced a few times in the book. Clockwork and the winding down with the music box and all that.

Although it almost seems like it was there because it was necessary for the two protagonists to meet, it was nice for them to meet, finally. And it was sort of the moment of sort of a, oh, where have you been? Yes. I thought it was lovely. And I'll never be aware of each other's adventure,

of course, but obviously death is, but not in any way that is meaningful to build or. No. There's also, it's just quite sweet that one of the last things Wendell does is sort of arrange that Lupine and Lebedmiller will get there happy. That's right after the ripples quote is saying one of the last ripples of the world will be at the full moon

when they're both the same shape. Running across the moor. Yes, under the moon. And I just think this, I like the very quiet little background romance there. Yeah. Pratchett never really writes like these big romances, but he writes these very sweet little background romances

into stories that. Yeah, I liked Wendell Pune's kind of moment of definite realization. There he goes, 20 days to the next full moon. Well, something to look forward to. Yeah, I like that he's sort of going off to whatever is afterlife will be quite optimistic because he knows he's left a nice little thing in the world.

Yeah. It's almost that leave the world a better place than you found it when. Yeah, definitely. So do we have any locations to catch up with? Do we have new locations? Well, there's the mall. Oh, yeah.

That's kind of a character, kind of a location, isn't it? Yeah. So this sort of springs up outside Ankh Mawpork in the Bile of Trollies. And it's very strange because it's something Pratchett does very well as he describes something that exists, that humans know about, but because it doesn't exist in the disc world.

Yeah, like the cinema and moving pictures. Exactly. And he does it very well when it's a horrific thing, like the cinema and moving pictures, like the mall. Yeah, Eldritch Twist. Yeah, it's a very slow horror thing. And the things that are weird and confusing for the Ankh Mawporkians are things like the fact

that there is so much glass in these big windows. Yeah, yeah. Plate glass windows. I imagine he's got a bit of a thing against them as well. I remember Bill Bryson's notes on a small country book has long rants about the British high street ruining itself with plate glass windows. Yeah, especially I haven't been reasonably modern.

Not even because of the pandemic. I haven't been to an indoor shopping mall for probably well over a year because it's just not something I really do. Like we don't have one in our town. And if I'm in a town that has one, there's much more interesting things in those towns to be doing. But it's an odd thing.

They're odd places. Yeah, and you can see his vision very clearly on this one, I think, and it's gross. Yeah, it's great, especially when the weird pink tubes and stuff start coming out. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I also like the, I don't know if it's a happy ending, but the ending that the trolleys get.

When no one was looking, the last surviving trolley on the disc world rattled off sadly into the oblivion of the night, lost and alone. And it's generally thought on worlds where the more life form is ceded, people take the trolleys away and leave them in strange places. And therefore, people have to be employed to bring them back. But in reality, those people are actually

hunters stalking the trolleys across their lives, the world and forcing them into a life of slavery. Yes. That will horrify me starting next time I have to actually shop in a supermarket. I've always quite liked the idea of wild trolleys that are out and about. Also, catch one wallowing in a river.

Because of where the place I work is and the fact that it's near somewhere that has trolleys that are quite often taken off and go missing, normally by drunk people. My workplace now has like three or four marks and Spencer shopping trolleys just sort of lying around that they use for things like bringing wine up from stock rooms because they get left in the driveway. Well, we might as well adopt them.

Well, it's nice for you to shelter them rather than allow them to be herded back into the life of slavery. Well, yes, we take them in, we look after them, we feed them well. Do you want to do a little break before we go into the... Yeah. My method for getting back into the market for it is very sexy and dignified.

Absolutely, it is. I should see me a minute ago. I had to clamber over the back of the sofa to get to my under the stairs cupboard, which is where my coffee stash currently resides. Excellent. Right, we're making a podcast, aren't we? We are, in theory, certainly.

Little bits that we liked. Little bits we liked. And we're kicking off with polite swearing. Oh, good. Fucking excellent, darling. Fucking marvelous. This is so we, as we ended the last section, we got to the point where Rick Cully's swear word

started manifesting. Yeah. Which brought me much joy. And so this is them trying to think of ways to swear without swearing. Yeah. Such as poot and sugar. You want me to say poot.

Do you have any favorite polite swear words? Fiddle sticks. Oh, fiddle sticks is a good one. How about you? I'm very bad at not swearing, as some of our listeners may have noticed. I can turn most things into an, oh gosh, or a, oh, hmm, the worst-case scenario.

Bums is a good one. I like bums. Oh, bum. Oh, bums. Yeah. One of my favorites, I don't know why, I was obsessed with the Spy Kids movies as a kid. And watched them repeatedly.

And the one of the moments that made me laugh out loud was the young guy going, oh, shit, Tarky mushrooms. And I still giggle whenever I eat shiitake mushrooms because of that moment. Oh my god, you just brought back a memory of it. I had that one on video as well. And me and my brother going, oh, shit,

Tarky mushrooms was like a whole bit we did for years. That's amazing. I think we've got that in forever. Now I want to re-watch the Spy Kids movies. Yeah, I wonder if we watched the first one. I'm not sure the others will hold up without my... Well, the second one, where was I from? Which had the some people.

That was the first one. OK, yeah, yeah, that's the one I like. The second one was like one of the only kid-friendly in-flight movies when I was flying back from... God, I was somewhere in America. I think we were flying back from Boston. I think that was this weird, long trip my mother and I had. And I think I watched the movie.

Like, I watched the movie. It was this weird, long trip we did across America. So we flew to Chicago, spent a few days there. Then went to San Francisco, went from San Francisco to Boston. I think you've ever told me about this trip. Oh, it was a very weird trip. Drove down to Vermont for a few days to see my aunt and then went back to Boston, spent a few days there

before we flew back. So obviously I was messed up in jet light and ended up watching Spikers 2 in various hotel rooms and then watched it like four times on the flight back. And I don't think I've watched it since then because I watched it so many times in short succession. Yeah. I think I probably could watch it now.

Well, we'll get to it. It's quite low down the list of things we need to get around to. But I did like those thumb-head people. We'll find some clips on YouTube. Also, Alan coming. Which one's he? Can't believe he just asked me that question. He's like the big villain in the first movie.

But it's also Alan coming. He's one of the best actors ever. But with me, will I Google that? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. You know, I'm shit with names. He's amazing. He's in so many things.

He was Nightcrawler in X-Men 2. Yeah. He's very famously played the, what's it, in cabaret many times live. He was also, God, I can't remember what it's called now, but there was like a really, really terrible 80s BBC sitcom where he played a very camp-bitchy flight attendant. Oh.

That I think you can only find on YouTube. And if I can find it, I'll link to it in the show notes. It's hilarious. OK. That sounds good. Sorry, what were you on about? Polite swearing. Yeah, right.

That was all I really had to say on that. Boing, Francine. So when the harvester, minus, importantly, the 3-8s grouply, falls to bits dramatically, we get a, there was a jangle, a clatter. And then the last isolated boing, which is the audible equivalent of the famous pair of smoking boots, which is beautiful.

It's, again, a tiny, tiny comedic trope that we need to draw attention to. It's like you just, we can all hear it perfectly. It's like when a big antique dresser falls down and a single whole plate rolls away and takes a really long time to settle on the ground. Well, that almost happens, doesn't it, when death too is killed and his crown rolls out.

Although slightly more dramatic than comedic, but yeah. I think the actual dresser moment happens in a later book, actually. That's not spoiling a major future plot point. That's not a major plot point. It's a very important dresser. Yeah, so. Boing is also, I can't hear boing without thinking of the thing

in scrubs, the boing flip. Boing flip. Yes. God, I can't see, finally. There's so many things that I want to rewatch and then so many things that I've never seen or read that I really should do first. And then I realize life is finite, have a small crisis,

and this is a perfect book for that. So Joanna, exclamation points. Explanation points. This is a little line, five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. Yes. And I brought this up because we've already had a similar quote in an earlier book.

The way you started that sentence was like, I brought this up because I've noticed your multiple punctuation years recently. This is an intervention. It's a very convoluted intervention. So I will say that whenever I have to do vaguely official tweets, I know I do this on the podcast account a lot.

I end up using a lot of exclamation marks when I used to run. To show we're nice, we're friendly. When I used to do social media for a local bar, I used to overuse exclamation marks as well. I have to stop myself from using them in emails. Yeah, I usually go back and edit my emails to make it full stop heavy. I once managed to send an email that

had no exclamation marks or apologies. And it was a vaguely official email to do with some theater stuff. And I have never been prouder of myself. I've not done it again since. No, no, well, once in a lifetime, we'll pertain to you, that kind of thing. Oh, exactly.

Comes off a million times, a million out of one times. So we've had the multiple exclamation point or multiple punctuation quote already, haven't we? This is the second time it's come up, I think. Yeah, and so people always argue about what the right quote is because there's. Because it's both. There's three in total.

There's another book. It'll come up. I've forgotten the first one now. I'm trying to remember which book it was now. And it's bugging me that I can't remember. I'm pretty sure it was Weird Sisters. Yeah, it was down as my favorite quote, so I can just check to show notes.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was Weird Sisters and it was something stupid to do. Yes. So we already talked a bit about the narrative causality thing that I really like. Yeah. Which just. Midnight specifically.

Yes, he's going to the trope, yeah. Yeah, he's not going to turn up at quarter to 12 if he could turn up at midnight. Yeah, it's something Pratchett likes to kind of work around a lot of the time as well, isn't it? Because I think in a late book, when we're on about the moon, we were saying how the full moon is always sort of the witchy one.

But actually. Yeah. Give us all to the half moon and that kind of thing. Yeah, he's very good at taking the tropes and then deconstructing them. Yeah. God, that sounded very fancy, didn't it? Oh, it did.

Oh, it did. It did. So what do we have? We have Gold on Black and Typography. I'm not sure which one comes first. I think Gold on Black is last. So the typography moment, it doesn't really matter if we're coronatological.

No, probably nobody's going to arrest us. Azrael's Big Yes, that takes up most of your page. Yes, sorry. Yes, which in itself, I really love it because it's such a big striking moment on the page. You never get that. And it goes right to, at least in my copy, I'll hold up to the camera so you can see,

but it does go right to the edge of the page. Very nice. Yeah, mine's not quite as good as that. I read about this in Mark Burrow's book. And in the hardback edition, it was very carefully done. So you would turn the page and see the massive yes at the top of the page. It would be a surprise.

Oh, that's much better. Yeah, and then that was screwed up in the paperback editions. And Pratchett wasn't very happy about it. And there's a good quote I got from the annotated Pratchett file. When questioned about this, Terry said, do you really think I'm some kind of Dumbo to miss that kind of opportunity?

I wrote 400 extra words to get it on the left-hand page in the hardcover. And then Korgie shuffled people around in the production department when it was going through, and my careful instructions disappeared into a black hole. Go on, tell me more about comic timing. Oh, I fucking love him. It's the fact that he wrote 400 extra words.

Tell me how to write properly. Considering the page beforehand has that beautiful thing I mentioned earlier, Des Pleta Azrael. Yeah, I wonder what the 400 words were. They were probably, like, speaking as a sub-editor, I know this pain very much. Trying to pad out or take out certain words just to try and make the section start on the next page

or something like that. But 400 words is quite a commitment to then have thrown back in your face like that. I know, it makes me chuckle. I feel very bad for him, and I would love to have had the experience of reading this and turning to that and having the surprise of it. I'd have just loved to see him say that to the journalist.

Go on, tell me more about comic timing. I can absolutely imagine his tone of voice as well. And then the last little bit I liked right at the end is when death is adding cornfields to his domain. And I like it because it is a beautiful mental aesthetic. The blacks and the shade of blacks and the endless nothing. And they're not quite rendered distance. And he's like, you know what?

Click. And then we have cornfields. And then he's like, not quite. And then they're ruffling in the wind. And just the gold on black is, I love gold on black. Yeah, it's a gorgeous aesthetic. And it's the fact that he took that home with him as well. Yeah, yeah.

And then his little awkward bit about Albert, just piss off. Yeah. Right now, I would like to be alone by myself. Yeah, I thought that was lovely. That was a beautiful moment. OK, so on to the bigger stuff. Let's talk cities. So I've got a couple of rabbit holes.

Cities ending, when Wendell Punes is trying to work out how cities die, not how they're killed, there's lots of examples of cities kind of gradually ending through things like economy or climate change, just general progress. Transport routes are a big thing as well. Yes, that's interesting. I didn't go down that route.

Yeah, this is something I've read up on in the past. And I don't have this huge wealth of facts in my brain. But there are times where less cities, but villages and towns have almost gone because a motorway is being redirected or a train service has been redirected. And it sort of slowly fades. There's a village quite local to us now. And a lot of people will define villages.

It has to have a post office, a church, and a pub. And this village is sort of slowly fading into, I don't think the pub's open anymore. And I don't know how active the church is. And I think there's a very, very tiny post office that's open once in a blue moon. And you have to summon a chicken and look at its entrails to work out when it's going to open.

And I briefly worked at this pub before it closed. And it was a very strange thing because it was a village on its last legs. And it would take a lot longer for a city. But I can see it happening still. Almost how cities, some cities are built just by villages glomming together. I imagine that in a few points in history,

the outskirts have started wandering off. I thought I'd have a look at the complaints about shopping malls killing cities, which is obviously what this is quite a heavy-handed reference to. And more broadly, the evils of consumerism, obviously, is a big reference here. But it's quite fun to see how much has already changed since 1991.

So when this was written, obviously, a big concern, certainly in North America, and I'm guessing also in the UK, was that out-of-town shops, the supermarket, you get the complaint a lot here, were killing the high street because they were drawing foot traffic away from the high street because it was cheaper. You get everything at the same time that was parking, all of this stuff.

But since 1991, which is not very long ago, it can't be because that's when I was born. And I'm MSA young. Like, it almost seems quite quaint that malls would be the death of the high street now, doesn't it? Yeah. Because now it's online shopping.

Yeah, exactly. So this, looking this up, took me almost immediately down the side path of what kills a mall because dead malls or zombie malls are a thing now. That's really fascinating. I really want to go walk around one. Yeah, absolutely. And we almost had, well, we had a tiny one here,

the little shopping center that slowly died. But it is when a mall has a lot of empty shops, no footfall, that kind of thing. Yeah. And it's often brought about acutely by the loss of an anchor store, which is often a department store. But in our case, because we had a little one,

it was probably a top shop or something moving out that killed it. And a lot of them died, the department stores, I mean, or restructured when big box stores, they called them in America, like Walmart, kind of changed that whole sector. And then the retail apocalypse, which is a rather dramatic name,

I couldn't help but click on that, started around 2010, as you can imagine. Like a lot of it was down to over expansion and then there was a massive recession and then e-commerce. Yeah. So like the Amazon effect, I think it's called in retail circles. Yeah. Even now, the big push to shop independent

is still very online. Yeah, yeah. And a pandemic this year. And also, well, yeah, pandemic this year. It's like a little footnote now, because we won't know the proper impact, but I think we can imagine it's gonna be fairly catastrophic on the high street.

Yeah. I was talking about this with Jack recently, actually. I can't think which shops, like categories of shops are going to survive this gradual apocalypse for retail. Like it's gonna be things you want to look at and touch. And even that's not possible during pandemic times. Yeah.

I think independent clothes shops will struggle. Yeah. I think things like little independent gifty shops, you know, the ones that aren't really one specific shop, but sell lots of little nice things. I think they'll survive. I've got like 10 of those. I love those shops.

That's where I do all my Christmas shopping. Yeah, no, I do love them. And then I think probably book shops. I think book shops will survive. There's been quite an interesting resurgence into high street butchers and greengrocers. And those businesses are actually surviving quite well during the pandemic

because people are running online from them. Yeah. We've got like a little pop-up greengrocer thing that happened in Barrett, haven't we? Like everyone's almost kind of going back to small town shopping again. Yeah. There's like a cute little extra market thing

that's popped up. I'll get around to that. I don't tend to do the high street butcher and grocer shopping because then I have to carry it 40 minutes. Yeah, yeah. But I shop online from independent butchers a lot. I would do a VegBox subscription, but you can't really get a good one around here.

Yeah. At the right time of year, Jack brings back carrier bags full of vegetables from the farm and then, yeah. And I've tried to remember to go for it. You have such a sweet rural life every now and then. Yeah, I know. I have little forays into the good life TM.

Don't get chickens. I won't jack so I can't until we have a garden big enough that you can't smell them. Also, we have a terrier now, so. Yeah, that's not a good idea. Actually, if you're quite interested in the impact of supermarkets on high street butchers and greengrocers, I can highly recommend.

It's one of my favorite books anyway. By Jay Rainer, who's the guardian food critic and a very good writer. His book, A Greedy Man in a Hungry World talks about consumerism and capitalism in the food industry in general. Okay. And he has two interesting side-by-side chapters.

One talking about why supermarkets are bad and how they're causing problems with the high street. And then another one where he immediately argues against everything he's just said and talks about the benefits of supermarkets on the economy. Ah, interesting. So yeah, I'd recommend that.

Oh, I like that. I like specific sector books. Somebody recommended me one on the banana recently, which I'm looking at. Fucking hate bananas. Don't tell the librarian. Okay. Well, I suppose it's more for him.

Yeah, no, exactly. He doesn't mind. As long as he don't try and stimmy the flow. No, no, I would never try and interrupt the banana industry. Millennials are killing the banana. That's like genocide history in that one, isn't it? Yeah, let's not go into the history of bananas. We'll never finish recording.

The less said about United Fruits, the better. Fuck, what were we on about? Oh, yeah. No, that was me. Cities. I think that's probably all I'm going to say about the death of cities and walls. But it was, yeah, it's interesting that the thing

he's parodying or making a point about in this is now out of date, but it's immediately been succeeded by something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, I don't know how we would have tried to cope with anything internet related. So I don't think he would have done in this world. Yeah, I'm not sure how.

It would have been hard to parody the continuing technological trends. Yeah, I mean. That's probably why he went to Industrial Revolution. Yeah, probably. Anyway, shall we talk about death? Yeah, all right. But like, as the anthropomorphic personification

first, so ease our self in. So you looked up various personifications and depictions of death. So it was quite cool to see the two concepts of death side by side, as he pointed out, quite brief climactic-ish scene. Despite quite a lot of research on this, I've got to admit, the second death still mainly

reminds me of a Nazgul ringwraith from Nord of the Rings. I can't find anything it resembles so much as a ringwraith. Yeah, no, I got Nazgul vibes there. Yeah, yeah. I think it was Gul vibes. There's nothing to say that wasn't what he was going for, because he was a Tolkien fan. But even so, I wasn't going to pass up a chance

to read about various death personifications, obviously. First finding that I think you'll like, do you know what a psychopomp is? What is a psychopomp? A psychopomp, as opposed to a god of death. A psychopomp is like a guide or an escort that takes the newly deceased to the next life. So think of Valkyrie.

Right. Think Ferryman, what's he, Chenos? Ancient Greek Ferryman. Yeah, all think death in Terry Pratchett. As opposed to god of death, who causes death, who this second death seems to lean more towards that. Yeah, he's kind of going for deity abs. King versus farmer.

Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of cool ones like I came across. Snip it from the ancient Egyptian coffin texts of the Middle Kingdom. So this is like 2000 BC. So this is the earliest one I could find directly quoting it. Save me from the claws of him who takes for himself what he sees. May the glowing breath of his mouth not take me away.

Wow. Creepy, right? I love that. The glowing breath as well reminds me of like pale horse in its original meaning. So pale being that like sickly green whitish color instead of just white. This is the thing we talked about in Good Omens, the Bible quote.

Yeah, and it's the color I imagined, the pyramids flaring and all of this stuff in pyramids. What? No, the pyramids flaring or in weird sisters. Godfraunting. Hindwism's King Yama rides a black buffalo and carries a lasso, which I rather like. Nice.

Yeah. And then on the other end of the cool spectrum, we have Korean mythology where you have the Netherworld Embassy, which I think you'll rather like. Saja, who was a psychopomp, he is a stern strict bureaucrat. So from the wiki, according to legend, he always carries a list with the names of the dead written on a red cloth.

When he calls the name three times, the soul leaves the body and follows him inevitably. But you've got to imagine that in like a bureaucrat's voice. So Joanna Hagen, Joanna Hagen. Look, there's no getting away from this. Joanna Hagen. It's fine. Fine.

So yeah, I was reading about the psychological reflections of a society, and then I went straight to Korean bureaucrat one. I was like, ha, shade thrown there. That is quite entertaining. Shade. Yeah, because you sent me a list of sort of the most popular fictional depictions of death.

And obviously, Discworld was at the top. But one of the other ones on the list, which I really like, is Marcus Sussex, The Book Thief. Yeah, which I was saying, I can't remember if I've read. I feel like I have. But if I have, it was when it came out. So I don't remember it really. It's one of my favorite books.

I haven't reread it for a while, actually. But it's just a beautiful book. So the idea of the book is that it's narrated by death. And it's about a young girl in Nazi Germany, and she's evacuated and taken in by a German family. And obviously, doesn't agree with what's happening, but is a young girl and can't do anything. And it's sort of the small rebellions

that they managed to find. And it's just a very sweet story. It's beautiful. And it opens with death saying, I'd meet this girl three times. And those things are sort of the framing devices around the book where she has brushes with death. Very narrative symmetry rule of three, what's it?

Yeah. That sounds nice. Is that a young adult? It's young adult-ish. But it's not particularly, I mean, obviously, the protagonist is a young girl, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not particularly childish as a book.

It's just, it's beautiful. It's really well-written. There is a movie that I haven't seen, and I don't really want to. Yeah, I mean, if you loved the books and you've got all the images in your head, there's always a risk of displacing them, so. Yeah, so I'm not totally fussed about seeing the movie.

But I also do think it's quite interesting that we have, obviously, we have the Discworld death, and then you have the Good Omens death. And we talked about this in Good Omens. He is such a different character. Yeah, he's a harbinger of the apocalypse in. And I like the fact that, because I always feel like that death was probably more of a Patrick

creation than a Neil Gaiman creation. I like that Patrick was capable of creating two very different personifications of the same concept. Yeah, I think so. I think that's what would have happened if death went off on that path from the color of magic version. Yes, there's a lot of the color of magic. So he got to explore both.

Yeah, which is lovely. Yeah, it was nice. So, yeah. Let's get a bit existential. So that, fuck me, the last chapter, eh? God, I mean, I know it's not split into chapters, but the last moments of death and misfit with. Yeah, I'm counting the last chapter

as from when he's sitting back in his office onwards. Yeah, it's beautiful. It is. The shopping. Oh, I love the shopping. The, it's a perfect kind of blend of sweet and sad and funny that Pratchett just always does well, but occasionally does perfectly.

And I feel this. It's so excellently balanced, especially sort of the moments of diamonds are a girl's best friend. And so he's asking if the diamonds are friendly. Yes. And to anticipate your next question, sir, I personally would go to bed with it. But also he learns from all these lovers.

He does this big overblown romantic gesture. He literally gets more time. And I've already said multiple times how much I love his pleat at Azrael. And he gets more time. It's not just for misfit with, it's for him. It's that he can have one last human moment. Yeah.

And it is, it's romantic, but it's not a romance, if that makes sense. It's not about romance between the two of them. It's about caring. And it's brought back to Earth by Mrs. Flitworth. By Ms. Flitworth, sorry. Well, I'm going to the Harvest House. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Why would I go anywhere else? There's this sweeping romantic gesture, and then he's back on Earth, and it's dead stems. And is the thing Pratchett does really well, where you sort of have this highfalutin nonsense and then a slam back to Earth at the end. Yeah.

And so death gets all of these big romantic trinkets and is going to whisk her away wherever she wants to go. And she wants to go to the Harvest Dance, because that's, of course, she does. Yeah. And she's 18 inside, and so as the night goes on. She feels younger, and they dance. And he takes us to where she wants to go.

He takes her to the Harvest Dance. But then he dances with her, and he gives her. He takes her to somewhere she hadn't thought of going while being in exactly the place she wants to be. Yeah. And it's just, it's beautiful. It's such a lovely section. And I know we said this was probably

going to get all very sad and existential. But actually, I don't think it's sad. It's not, is it? It almost feels like a little gift from Pratchit, who's not very sentimental with all the afterlife-y stuff. But he goes, and here's what I know you are all hoping for, which is to be reunited and to be put back exactly where you want to be, to go wherever it is with the person

you need to be with. And he clearly very much loves Ms. Flitworth as a character, I think, because it seems like he was trying to find her perfect ending as well. Yeah, just as death gives her the perfect ending, so does. And that moment where she realizes she's died as they're listening to the last walks outside, and they finally stop dancing is such a beautiful moment

because she accepts it immediately. Yeah. And she says, when I see what life does to people, death doesn't seem so bad. I don't know. It's something people have always talked about in relation to Discworld, where they've talked about grief and diswown. How it's helped them process things.

This lovely idea that a kind death like this would oversee a loved one's last moments. And obviously, I am an incredibly cynical atheist. I don't think a lovely grim reaper that a nice man wrote is going to turn up and comfort any of my loved ones in the final moments. I'm a bit dead inside. But it's such a lovely thought.

It is. And I think almost in the same way that a placebo drug will work, even if you know it's a placebo. You may know this isn't real, imagining that it is. It releases the tension a little bit in your brain. Yeah, it's an exhale. And this is the end of this book is an exhale. It is after everything has taken place

and this huge session of dancing has taken place. They very quietly exhale as he takes it to the avalanche and goes home. I started crying at the music box. Oh, yeah, no. I was with you. I sobbed to be in the last few pages. I mean, again, we've both done this while quite hormonal.

Yeah. Which probably hasn't helped. We didn't think to add this to the spreadsheet ever. But as I mentioned earlier, like having gone through quite a bit of grief over the last year or so, it's very comforting to read this kind of grief where Ms. Flitwith has been sentimental. She has kept a small sadness with her throughout her life.

She has kept the dress and the music box. But she has put them in a box and she has gone ahead and lived her life. And this is that thing I was saying about how grief becomes not something you get over, but something you comfortably live with. And not in a you're sad for the rest of your life, but that it becomes a part of you and you carry it

for the rest of your life. Because of course you do. It's an experience you've been through. Yeah. And I think this book does that beautifully. It shows a depiction of grief that is not sad, but a thing that lives with you and is almost in its way comforting.

Yeah. So yeah, that was Reaper Man. Yeah. What a lovely book. That was a lovely book. It's, yeah. I think we should try and end on a happier note though. So Francine, do you have an obscure reference for Neil?

I do. Strip Fettles, Believe it or Not, Grimoire is how Wendell Poonz learns about trolleys. Yes. Yes, the city of Canley. That's right. And that is a reference to Ripley's Believe it or Not. Do you have any of those books?

It seems like something you'd have had. I have had them in the past. They don't currently live with me. I've also not been to Ripley's Believe it or Not, the London attraction. I am reliably informed it is everything you would expect it to be. Yeah.

You need to be in the right mood for that kind of thing. I feel like, no, I feel like London's the wrong place to go for that. Because to me, Ripley's Believe it or Not kind of thing is some stop in the middle of a long drive through America. It's a house on the rock kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. But the London attraction is one of a series

of big horrible buildings in Piccadilly Circus. And I will never be in the mood for it while I'm in that area because that is such a stressful part of London that if I'm there, I am nothing but hunched over at reach. Yeah, absolutely. So it was an American front. It was a newspaper panel first. For people who aren't familiar with it,

it highlights strange events and happenings and items that are so odd that you can't quite believe they're true. But believe it or not, there they are. Yeah, it's things like dogs that can fit a dozen tennis balls in their mouth. Yes, it is that kind of nonsense. It's the best parts of the Guinness World Records. It's the...

It's the oddest bits. It's the hailstone that fell through an old lady's roof and accidentally set off a grandfather clock that had been stopped for 50 years. That kind of built it, you know? And it's great and it's wonderful. We should get a copy of at least one of them for our ever-growing archive of tangential reference.

I mean, occasionally, it even goes into other dimensions, it would seem. One... Strip fuddle. One interesting fact I read about it is that there was an offer, at least in the early days of Rip, please believe it or not, that a notarised letter would be sent

if someone was demanding proof of an unbelievable thing. Yeah, I wonder... I don't know whether it always was, in that case, reputable. Maybe it was. In my head, I'm thinking of an almost modernised freak show thing of the side shops for it,

but this is possibly the reputable version of that then. Yeah, apparently... I should have looked more into the physical locations. I didn't think about that. I was looking at the books. Apparently, everything is 100% real. Awesome. All right, well, if I remember,

we'll put that in follow-up because I want to have a look at it. I expect they're all closed forever now. So, yeah, so that was Reaper Man. That was a marvellous book. It was, and I nearly didn't cry. So, well, I cried while I was reading it, not during this episode.

Didn't actually cry while recording. Well done, us. Yeah, if any of you would like to tell us about your thoughts on it, especially, I think, we would like to hear about it. We'd always like to hear your thoughts, but... But do you get in touch? I would like to hear people's thoughts

on one of the things we didn't have time to talk about, which is the flight of birds, which is referenced several times through. Yes, the prison of watching the flight of birds and what that means to you. And your thoughts on depictions of death and grief in general, especially in the Discord? Yeah.

That'll make for a really depressing follow-up section, which is what we're all about. Speaking of, so, because November has five weeks, excitingly, five Mondays, we're actually going to be off for two weeks before coming back in December with some witches who are abroad. Yes.

We may put out a cheeky little bit bonus content in the next couple of weeks, but I'm not promising nothing. See if we've got time. During this DEM pandemic. This DEM, well, I'm still working. Yeah, all right, fine. But yes, in the meantime, get in touch with us. Tell us your thoughts, please.

We do like to hear them. If you have specifically, and I know it's a bit early to be thinking of it, but if you've got any letters for the Hogfather, we're getting ready to start thinking about a Christmas that's early. It's not early, mate. It's fucking mid-November.

Oh yeah, Jesus. Yes, so also please send us your letters for the Hogfather. If you would like to contact us, you can follow us on Instagram, at the True Show Mickey Frat, on Twitter at Mickey Frat Pod, on Facebook at the True Show Mickey Frat. You can join our subreddit,

r slash ttsmyf. Well then. I didn't hear it written down today. And obviously you can also email us, all of your thoughts and your queries, and Castle Snacks and Albatross iPods. And thoughts on death. And thoughts on death, please.

As a separate attachment. Yes, the True Show Mickey Frat Pod, at gmail.com. Please don't sell dead, send dead albatrosses. Albatrossico fallopatorius. Oh my God. 50 points if you get the reference. Oh, I don't.

I need to get out more. Well, you can't. Oh, I can't. There's a pandemic. God, I can't wait till we can stop saying that. I know. Dominic Cummings is fucking off, that's nice. I just want to sit in the same room as another human being.

I haven't done that for a really long time. Oh, I'm sorry. It's all right. To be fair, I do quite like my own company. I'm fantastic. You are. You're a delight. I don't even mean that sarcastically.

It still sounded sarcastic. Thank you. I know, that's just how I speak. And until next time, dear listener, I remember when all this will be again. I've got a nice ending in it. That's a perfect ending.