The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 7: Equal Rites Pt.1 (My Knee Doesn't Have Lungs)

Episode Date: January 6, 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 1 of our recap of “Equal Rites”. Cannon Fire! Feminism! Statistics! Acceptable Witches! Gynecological Improbability! Brothers! The Space-Time Continuum! Give Harry Potter a Lollipop! Mansplaining! Treesplaining! Apologies that halfway through we have a drop in audio quality - we suffered some technical issues and Clacks Interference.Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Playing in the Dark (Neil Gaiman and the BBC Symphony Orchestra)The Mushroom Hunters (by Neil Gaiman, read by Amanda Palmer with music by Jherek Bischoff)John DeeAlewives (Buffering the Vampire Slayer) I Have Brothers (TV Tropes)Necrotelicomnicon (L-Space Wiki)The Sandman: A Beginner's Guide (GQ)What are some subtle and not so subtle mistakes writers will make when writing female characters? (/r/askwomen)Deely bobbers/boppersSeventh Son of a Seventh Son (Wiki)Pratchett’s blue plaqueMultiplication Tips and TricksJoseph Delaney (Fantastic Fiction)The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why, by Amanda Ripley

By the way, I probably shouldn't say this, considering it's the feminism episode of capital letters, but your hair looks great today. Everywhere it works smells like mold wine, because we're selling loads of mold wine at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, you'll feel really sick of it in two weeks. Uh, Christmas fair starts in a week, so a week or three days? Oh, the Christmas fair. All right, we shouldn't talk about Christmas. Oh, I'm sorry. It's January, Francie. It's January for honestness.

God, this temporal divide is... Speaking of time travel, I got to see David Tennant the other day. I'm just going to throw that in. Oh, yeah, nice segue. Tell me about that. I deliberately haven't interrogated you about this ridiculously personalized gig. I mean, I don't think anything could be more aimed at me. So it's Neil Gaiman and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. The whole thing is going to be broadcast by, I think, by this point.

It will have been broadcast, because it's getting broadcast at Christmas. So it was Neil Gaiman doing readings from his books and his poetry, while the orchestra played pieces, alternating with the orchestra playing pieces that kind of went with it. So, like, they played right at the Valkyries, and then he did part of, like, his story from Norse mythology. And they played Sorceress Apprentice, and everyone thought about Mickey Mouse. It was wonderful. And then he's got a beautiful poem called The Mushroom Hunters. Can I write that down so I can look it up later?

Yes, it's fairly recent. But Jarek Brescheff, who's a long-term collaborator of Amanda Palma, who happens to be married to Neil Gaiman, put together a lovely orchestral arrangement for it. So she read it while the orchestra played this arrangement. Because Jarek's also doing the music for the play of Ocean at the End of the Lane, that's in the National Theatre. I'm going to see a play in January. Cool. I'm very excited. Yes. And then he said some lovely things about Terry Pratchett.

And he was talking about making Good Omens, and how at the end there's a fertility dedication. Oh, that nearly set me and my dad off while we were watching it. Oh, it made me cry. Definitely made me cry. And then he sort of says, we'll do a reading from Good Omens, but I'm not going to. I'm going to bring on a special guest. Please welcome David Tennant.

And then, bearing in mind, there must have been a thousand people in this auditorium, the collective gasp. And I heard someone very softly say, is the doctor? And by someone, I think it was me. But he did this reading from Good Omens, and it was Azir Afal and Crowley drunk in the bookshop near the beginning. But he was reading from the book, and he was saying it as himself, but he was doing Azir Afal and Crowley in character.

Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. So he was stood at a podium reading. He was his Scottish accent. If he was doing Crowley, it was Crowley. Yeah. And Azir Afal was a hilarious drunk Michael Sheen impression. And just everything the way he moved.

I must watch this in its forecast. He just, he's got so many limbs. He's very lengthy. Does that have several limbs? But he just, it was so amazing to watch. And then Amanda came back out and sang a beautiful arrangement of a nightingale sang in Buckley Square. And everyone had a little bit of an emotion.

Well, a nice emotion. It was beautiful. Oh, this is a lovely way to remember Terry Pratchett, because obviously that song was in the book. Right at the very end. Oh, yes, of course. They say a nightingale sang in Buckley Square, which Neil read that bit out before they played it.

And Amanda came out. And I think that he actually, he did that. And then I think David Tennant read. They finished with the orchestra playing the Good Omens theme, which was brilliant to see it arranged for a full symphony orchestra. Because I've not seen an orchestra live for well over 10 years. The one in Vermont was pretty cool though, because it was just as Viva Vendetta had come out on DVD.

So my cousin showed me Viva Vendetta for the first time. I loved it. And then we went at the final night of the concert. It was a fireworks display, and they played Tchaikovsky's 1812 or overture while the fireworks went off. Oh, fucking A, I've said it before, and I will keep saying it till someone makes a reality.

More music needs canon fire, Joanna. Anyway, back to Terry Pratchett probably. I can't equal your segue, I'm afraid. That was a great segue. It was a great segue, and I cannot equal it. So I have decided to only read a section at a time this time, because this book is one I have read so many times. I very much loved Esk when I was little.

Well, that was part of what I liked about coming back to it, actually, is I remembered so much the Groney Weatherwax of it all, that I kind of, I don't forgotten Esk, but I had forgotten how good a character she was. And like, finding well-written women in fantasy books, and even in comedy fantasy books, isn't always a guarantee. No. And like, I've made enough in the last few episodes,

but you know, a woman doesn't speak to a page 100, you know, if the women are wearing clothes. So to find a well-written seven-year-old girl. Yes, and a woman wearing many, many clothes. Many clothes, with bats on. I remembered this is, but despite how much I recommended this, I'd actually forgotten quite a lot. I forgot how good it was.

Oh, good. I was really scared going into it, that it would not be as good as I remember. And it turns out it's actually a lot better. Yay. And that it's not just a good one, because it's about witches and equal rights. That isn't the name of the thing.

You said the name of the thing was so early. People are going to switch off now. They were only waiting for me to say equal rights. It's the name of the thing, do I know? Technically, we're not even making the podcast yet. We're talking about it. Are we still in the soft open age three? I mean, I feel like you're breaking the fourth wall there,

Francine. You're pulling back the curtain. I shouldn't address the document in front of us, which I'm so doing well today that I didn't even staple together. That's fine. I prefer it on staple time. Should we make a podcast?

Oh, yeah, all right. God, sorry. I am more into the aesthetics than that, I promise. What a week. Shall we make a podcast? Yes, let's make a podcast. There we go. Hello and welcome to the Strip Podcast.

There is no expression I can pull that doesn't make you laugh at this point, Jo. So I don't know what to do. I don't know what you want from me. I'll look over here. Hello and welcome to The Truth Shall Make You Frat, a podcast in which we're reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series

one at a time in chronological order. Glad it's one at a time, God. We will recap all of all the new books at once. I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part one of our discussion of Equal Rights, the third Discworld novel. Number three.

Yes, this is Equal Rights without a G or an H in it. Yes. So rights like spell, which is a pun or a play on words, I believe. Marvelous. Notes on spoilers. This is a spoiler like podcast. Spoilers for the book we're currently on, Equal Rights.

We're unavoidable, we're afraid. Yes, I'm very sorry about that. But we will try to avoid discussing any major plot points from future books. And we're going to avoid all discussion of the final Discworld book, The Shepherd's Crown, until we get there, because some people haven't read it yet. And hopefully those people will come on this journey

with us Francine. Yes, maybe they will come on this journey with us too. Don't you love a journey? Oh, I love a journey. I hate a bloody journey. This book's got a journey in it. It has a literal journey. Quite a lot of them do, I suppose.

Yes. Quite often people go from one place to the other. In a journey like fashion. What is a journey man? A journey man. It's above apprentice, but below master. Why do you think it's called journey man? Because he's journeying on his way to become a master.

Oh no, is it a metaphorical journey? I don't know. Did this wankery start many years ago? I don't know. There is not some alternate meaning of journey, isn't it? And it's to do this. I'll write that down for homework as well.

Yes. I don't care enough to put the Google hold music on. That's fair enough. We will come back to this next episode. No, I've not done one bit of homework that I said I would. Cool. So anything to follow up on from our previous episodes? No, because as I say, I have not done any of the things I said I would.

How about you, Joanna? I have a little follow up. I have a little follow up. We were talking about the wonderful magical shop trope, a magical Argos, and how I might write a play about such things. I have started writing said play. In a magical fashion. It's going to be a monologue from the point of view of someone working at magical Argos.

I watched it, I decided it was a monologue, and then realised I've made life quite difficult for myself. Would you like to hear the refund policy? Go on. Awesome. I brought it along just in time. Oh, good. Another folder.

Uh, it's technically my book. Purple, Mac, you'll post it. Yes. No, that's a different one. That's a good link from my man, Joanna. Look, this is my writing process. It involves a lot of brackets and arrows. Just saying don't let a therapist see it.

That's fair enough, especially not with the handwriting. I will point out to people listening that by the, at the moment, I only started writing this yesterday. So this is, this is a very, very, very early draft, just so everyone knows. Although by the time this episode actually comes out, we'll know whether I managed to finish it and if it's being staged.

But this is the refund policy for Magical Argos that I need to come up with a different name for, so it's not copyright infringement. All items may be exchanged within 14 days, apart from robes, hats, sacred loincloths, and sacrificial weapons. All returns subject to shop availability. Shop may not be in relevant position

within the space-time continuum at necessary time of return. Postal returns not accepted. Trans-dimensional returns not accepted. Items brought backwards or forwards through time, not accepted. No refunds on stained or damaged items, especially blood-stained or dragon-flamed. Refunds only given on items sold as faulty

during every third full moon and all the autumnal equinox. Items intentionally sold as faulty, not behaving as they should, or not working entirely as they should for the express purpose of creating conflict, and as such, no refunds are available. That strange shop that wasn't there yesterday and might be there tomorrow reserves the rights

to withhold refunds due to plot, mischief, hijinks, and just because we feel like it. Right, should we actually talk about the perk? Yeah, okay, sure. So we don't have a previously on, because we're at the beginning of the book. We are, yeah. What I'm going to do is set the scene

on where we were in Round World in its place because this is a book about sexism and equality and all that stuff. Women's rights. That's why it's called equal rights. It is indeed. And it was published quite a long time ago in 1987, which doesn't sound like long ago,

but was like 32 years ago now. Which is still terrifying and confusing to me. Yeah. That the 80s weren't 20 years ago. Yeah, I know. Even though like I am 28, you are 27, we should be able to count backwards and work this out, but we cannot.

No. Anyway, it was 32 years ago, 1987. And while things were a lot better than they were a couple of decades previous, it was still like quite a long way from where we are now. So in 1987, there were 41 female MPs in the UK. Which is 6.3% of the total. Including Diane Abbott, the first black female MP.

Go on, Diane Abbott. Love a bit, Diane Abbott. I love Diane Abbott. Put that in perspective, it hasn't really gone up very much. It had gone up a little bit. It had hovered between 3% and 5% decades before that. This is the start of a very fast climb. So by 1997, it was 18.2%.

And now in 2019, it is 32%. So, you know, we've got a little bit to go, but that's really quite quick progress in the grand scheme of our ancient and decrepit parliament. Yeah. In 1987, it had only been seven years since women were allowed to apply for credit cards and loans in their own name.

Really? Wow. It was still seven years before marital rape became a crime. Wow. Yeah. So, marital rape only became a crime in the UK in 1994. I say in the UK, I should say. Scotland, England, I'm not quite sure about...

Sorry, Wales in England. I'm not quite sure about Scotland and Northern Ireland. Anyway, in England, marital rape only became a crime in 1994. So, we've come a long way, but I mean, 1987 was still like way behind where we are now. I just want to kind of put that slightly in perspective before I go into the next bit, which is...

I read a little bit that Terry Pratchett wrote before he published this book. He read it out. I think this is a speech. It's in Slip of the Keyboard. So, he's talking about why... And this is exactly the theme of this book. Why are there no female? Wizards.

Why are witches and wizards so very, very, very segregated by gender? And why are they very different? It's not even... It's not like witch is just the female equivalent of wizard. Yeah. It is a different type of magic. It's different connotations. Wizard has never got burned or panned.

Yeah. Certainly not in this country. I'm possibly overlooking some history in others. Wizards work... Well, it depends on whether you are using the gender divide of female means witch and male means wizard. Because male witches were burned, especially in Iceland. In fact, I can't remember the next date, but it was somewhere in the 1700s.

And I am about 90th century that it was Iceland. It was the last execution for witchcraft. And it was actually a man that was executed. Interesting. Do you know whether it was this kind of witchcraft magic rather than he wasn't meant to be all fire and... He wasn't fire. Yeah, he wasn't fire in Brimstone. Looking at the Tudor Times is a really good example, actually.

Because, see, the late stages of Queen Elizabeth's, the first reign, lot of women burned and hanged on the ground for witchcraft. But she had a wizard. She had John Dee as part of her court. I always fuck all that, yeah. I really, oh, he's fascinating. He was fascinated with the idea of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. There were lots of theories about Queen Elizabeth wanting to prolong her reign,

and that's why she kept him around. He was an astrologer, but he was often referred to as a wizard. And while these women were being burned at the stake, he was very much not being burned at the stake, and was close personal friends with the Queen. Noted for it. Yes, he was quite noted for not being burned at the stake. Interesting.

A lot of people would say... I wonder whether the Queen, I'm sure this is on record, whether the Queen approved all these witch burnings or whether it was very much her. Well, it was more prevalent in the North, and part of it was this... While the Queen herself was quite... She wasn't a Puritan. She was a Protestant, but for the early 1600s was quite liberal, I suppose.

Yes, early 1600s, sorry. There is no test here, I don't know. Yeah, I want to go in with it saying I'm not a historian. Obviously, further up north in Scotland, it was a much more Puritanical government. James VI became James I of England, and there was almost this sense of the Scots inching their laws down before Queen Elizabeth, and technically named a successor.

Okay. That's not to say it wasn't happening all across the country. Yeah. But I don't know how much of it was Queen Elizabeth sanctioned, and how much of it was the individual, and quite often misogynistic lawmakers, because obviously Parliament and lawmakers, Parliament and lawmaking didn't work quite the same way it did now,

and local magistrates had, to an extent, a lot more power than they did. Yeah, that's interesting. But I think it's just the best example of that I got to move between witches and wizards, in that witches were being burned, and the Queen's pet wizard. Sorry, pet wizard. Yeah, why not? Fuck it's that. Yeah, it was a bit of a dick.

Yes, the Queen's pet wizard, very much not burned at the stake. Anyway, so you wanted to read this from Terry Pratchett. Oh, sure, I'm not gonna... I'm gonna paraphrase more than read, because it's quite long. He's basically been there wondering aloud why women have the... The magic that's kind of disdained by others, by Parthal, why people are scared of them, they're creepy, they're low, they're always the bad guys, you know, Merlin's enemy was what?

Morgana. Thank you. So, and he says, now you can take the views, that of course this is the case, because if there is a dirty end of the stick, then women will get it. Anything done by women is automatically downrated. He says this is a view held by his wife. He goes on quite a bit about it,

so I feel like he thinks there's credibility to that theory. But then he just... He kind of seems reluctant to accept that that's the main reason, and just kind of says that the fact... But the fact is that the consensus fantasy universe has picked up the idea and maintains it. I inclined to a different view, if only to keep the argument going, that the whole thing is a lot more metaphorical than that. The sex of the magical practitioner doesn't really enter into it.

The classical wizard, I suggest, represents the ideal of magic, everything that we hope we would be if we had the power. The classical witch, on the other hand, with her often malevolent interest in the small beer of human affairs, is everything we fear only too well that we would in fact become. And while I agree with that, I'm not sure how it... That's the thing before it wasn't wrong. That's still misogyny, that's just rephrased misogyny.

Yeah, it's like, yes, I agree that the witches represent this, and the men probably represent this, but there's a reason the women represent this in the men. It's not coincidence. And I feel like what he's doing is expanding on it, but what he's phrasing it like, because he's disagreeing because he doesn't like the... But I'm not sure.

I might be reading a bit too much into this. Yeah, but also it's really important to say that this is... And I'll talk about this a bit more when we get there. This is a fantasy parody book written in the 80s. We know where feminism and women's rights and equal rights were at the time. Hey, I said the name of the thing. But for all that, he does a very good job of writing the tiny microaggressions. Well, that's it because I was surprised to read this,

which is why I brought it up, because I don't think it's reflected anywhere in this book. Quick counterpoint before we move on. We're not counterpoint. Interesting point before we move on, when he's talking about the small bear of human affairs, while talking about witches. Do you know about alewives?

I do not, but I sense that you're going to tell me with enthusiasm. This is another one of those interesting history things where I'll probably get a lot wrong. You know, the... So I want to say that my main source of information for this, though I have read more about it since, but where I first heard the term alewife was on the Buffering in the Vampire Slayer podcast.

Good. And Heather Hogan, who's a very interesting person, who I recommend looking at. We're listening to. Yeah, listening to. So it was a live taping of an episode, and she was on as a guest, but she was talking about witches and alewives.

And she sort of did a lovely little presentation on it, which I'm not going to try and imitate. But you know the classical image of a witch with a cauldron, and a pointy hat. I do. So women used to brew beer. That was very much a women's job. Has been a lot of civilizations.

Yes. Most civilizations, brewing, kind of comes under the hunter-gatherer clause. It's the also nation. Yes. And that was true in... I'm going to use the term medieval England, there is lots of argument over what medieval actually means.

Middle Ages? Sort of. Okay. Round then. Okay. Women would brew beer. So this was a job for spinsters, which is a horrible term.

But at the time, spinsters meant unmarried women in their 20s. There's sort of a whole ranking of terms above spinster for unmarried women in different decades of their life. Oh, is there a list of those somewhere? Yes. We'll find it in Lincoln. Yes, in fact, I'll find the relevant episode

of buffering the vampire's leg, because it's good idea. With the time codes. So they would brew beer. And the pointy hat thing was kind of just the fashion of the time. Oh, really? To a certain extent,

we wouldn't have better keeping the weather off, but they would wear these sort of bromed hats and also spinsters and, you know, decorum. Oh, yeah, you don't want to shave your hair if you're unmarried. Yeah, slag. I'm sorry. And the cauldrons were for brewing.

And the idea of this evil wicked witch over her bubbling cauldron with a big floppy hat on was spinster's brewing beer. And of course, eventually, they meant to kill over her. And the fact that these spinster's brewing beer became witches is largely due to caricaturist arson misogyny.

Yay. Yeah, I feel like there's going to be a theme in this episode. Shall we read the blurb of the book? Yeah, we've discussed 80s feminism. Interestingly, 87 is like pretty much right on the border between second and third wave feminism, by the way.

Yeah, that's good to know. Because we're technically broaching the fifth wave now, aren't we? Oh, we fuck. I missed a wave. What? Well, fourth wave is kind of what we're in, but apparently fifth wave is starting.

Why does intersectional fit? Is that fourth? Intersectional is fourth wave feminism. So what's coming now? Oh, God, I don't know. I think fourth dimension. Fourth dimension, fifth wave. Yeah.

That sounds well fucking right, doesn't it? Check Twitter and get back to me. All right. If angry feminists could, if guilty feminists could tweet us, we like that podcast. Cool. Blurb.

Blurb. The last thing the wizard drum billet did before death laid a bony hand on his shoulder was to pass on his staff of power after the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic, not to say misogynistic,

world of magic, he failed to check on the newborn baby sex. I did actually look at the difference between chauvinism and misogyny, because I was a bit curious. So misogyny is a Greek origin, and it literally means hating women. The miss is the hatred of and the giny.

Isn't gynaecological? It's the same part of the word. Chauvinism, I believe, is Latin origin. I didn't actually write that down, but it doesn't mean hatred of the opposite gender, but is excessive support for one's own sex. It's very linked to, like, jingoism. Oh, okay.

Yeah. So I could be chauvinistic. Yes. I tried hard. These days it's used as interchangeable with misogyny. Should we talk about what actually happens? Oh, yeah.

Could you summarize the entire book for me, Joanna? I'm going to summarize the first third. Oh, yeah. Okay, the first third. Yes. Can you tell us which section we are? So it's page one to page 92 of the UK... Of the paperback.

Paperback Corgi edition. So it starts at the beginning, and we're ending this section at a... Smith looked from her to his daughter, who was sulking. And they'll make a wizard of her, he said. Granny side. I don't know what they'll make of her. She said...

A wild pun. Yes. Cute. That's lovely, that's the end of the section. Right, so in this section, we open on a wizard walking through us up the thunderstorm. Rude of us. We enter Badass, which is a lovely tiny little

picturesque quaint village, two flower, no doubt describe it. And the wizard enters the smithy. He's there to path his staff on to the... His staff on... Gables on the one you said, Rog. The wizard... Is it Smithy?

Or Smithy? No, he said path his staff. I'm not sure. Sorry. I don't know. The smithy it is, I think. Smithy. He's there to pass his staff on to the eighth son

of the blacksmith. The blacksmith himself is an eighth son. The wizard and the blacksmith both ignore Granny, who has just delivered this baby until it's too late. And it turns out the eighth son is actually an eighth daughter. Gasp. Yep. Granny and the blacksmith discover that said staff

can't be destroyed. The wizard dies. Rude. So now there's the fun question of, will Eskbe the first female wizard? We jump to seven years later. And Esk and her brothers have since gone check on Granny. They haven't seen her for a while.

They find Granny apparently dead. Gasp. So Esk being a brave seven-year-old offers to stay with Granny while the brothers go to get a grown-up. However, she panics and runs away. Because I imagine hanging around alone in a cottage with a dead body is quite scary. And also there was a crow tap-tapping on her chamber door.

Oh yeah. Or the window, I think. Yeah. Also that was a raven. Yeah. I know. I feel strongly about Corbyn's prancing. Esk gets lost in the snow.

However, her staff finds her. Finds her. Protects her from some wolves. Ray. Poor wolves. Yeah, they get a hard time in these books, don't they? Yeah, I love them all. This isn't two of the three books we've had.

Wolves meet horrible fates. Yes. So staff protects Esk from wolves. We discover Granny was having a bit of a borough. She's doing a bit of borrowing. She now in human form finds Esk in the snow. Granny then goes to visit Drum, the dead wizard who's now a tree. Yep.

I don't know if we mentioned he's now a tree. He is now a tree. Granny and Drum have a little chat about whether or not women can be wizards. Granny discovers she can't hurt this staff without hurting Esk. So she decides to teach Esk the witching. We're introduced to Hedology before Esk goes a borrowing. Esk takes over an eagle.

Granny eventually uses the staff to find the eagle and separate its prey from Esk. Esk dreams of strange things. Things. Things. I don't put it in brackets, ominous voice. Yeah. Granny presents Esk with the staff and disguises the Esk,

must go to wizard school and writes the wizard's lovely letter. We have a brief interlude where Esk turns one of her brothers into a pig and then it's off to Hogwarts. Hooray. Sorry, The Unseen University. Yes. I wouldn't do that a lot today. Hogwarts.

Quick check-in on helicopter watch none and loincloth watch none. Very disappointing. Well, it's quite a cold part of the world. Well, yes. I wouldn't want to wear a loincloth. And stormy. Very stormy. Oh, God.

So do you have a favourite quote for Esk? Um, yes. Yes, I do. Joanna is on page 69. Et cetera. Damn it. So this is when Esk is in the body of an eagle and is just starting to lose herself to it.

I think it's really nice. Well, this isn't going to be quite hard to read aloud, actually. So she's, um, she was losing chunks of herself and she couldn't remember what she was losing. She panicked, burrowing back to the things she was sure of. I am Esk and I've stolen the body of an eagle and the feel of wind and feathers, the hunger, the search of the not-sky below.

She tried again. I am Esk and seeking the wind path, the pain of muscle, the cut of the air, the cold of it. I am Esk. I have a damp wet white above everything that sky is thin. I am. I am. Yeah.

So that's quite cool. So I like it because it's pretty cool. It is cool. I don't know what to say because it like gives me, uh, it captures quite well like this association and like, yeah, when you are trying to ground yourself and it's not working kind of thing. I think he got that quite well and I just,

I don't know, I just like the way he's done it and I think it's a really nice bit of writing. It is very cleverly written. I like your sinister eagle voice. Oh, I wasn't trying to be sinister. I was trying to be, I don't know, excited, eagerly. Yes.

I'm not sure what an eagle sounds like. I've cheated. I've got two. Oh, oh, okay. Well, I'm a terrible person. Well, I couldn't decide, but also I like them both for very different reasons. And one of them is for a silly reason,

which is this is on page 11 in my copy. Often they're talking about, um, these weird little villages that exist merely for people to come from them. Oh yeah, I really love it. That's fun. Yes. And often there is no more than a little plaque

to reveal that against all gynaecological. Gynaecological. I'm going to do that again. Often there is no more than a little plaque to reveal that against all gynaecological probability, someone very famous was born halfway up a wall. And I had to fly for that because that's talking about the sort of famous blue plaques that exist

for where famous people came from. Yes. And England, certainly. I don't know about the rest of the world. Yeah, I think it might just be a sort of UK thing. But in Satari Pratchett's hometown of Salisbury, there is a blue plaque and the quote on it is from him and it is that quote.

It is against all gynaecological probability, someone was born halfway up a wall. So that made me very happy. Do you know if he got to pick it? I really hope he did. I would like to think so or someone who knew him very well. They're not only put up posthumously, are they? Oh no, no, I don't think so.

So I like that one. What's your second ISE more serious quote? This is my more serious one and I love this quote. When Esk has found Granny and thinks that Granny has died. Esk stared at the patchwork quilt under the old woman because there were times when a little detail could expand and fill the whole world. She bet, do you mind if I do the whole?

No, please do. Oh yeah, cool. She barely heard Sans start to cry. She remembered her father strangely enough, making the quilt too winter before when the snow was almost as bad and there wasn't much to do in the forge and how he'd used all kinds of rags that found their way to badass from every part of the world

like silk, dilemma leather, water cotton and tharger wool. And of course, since he wasn't much good at sewing either, the result was a strange lumpy thing, more like a flat tortoise than a quilt. And her mother had generously decided to give it to Granny last Hogswatch night. And is she dead? Ask Ulta. And ah, such a good quote.

Not just because I like shouting at it. Yes. But because it's so true, and I'm not going to get really depressing, but obviously, you know, experienced a bit of grief recently, so I can very much recognize clever writing about it. And that way you do you focus on this tiny detail

because looking at the whole is far too much. And the way Esk goes in and he writes it, so she's going in and in on this tiny detail and then someone hammers into her focus on the quilt. Is she dead? Yeah. And it is just such a good representation of it, especially as how a child would experience grief.

Mm-hmm. Yes. It is very, very, it's some kind of protective instinct, isn't it? Your brain trying to protect you from what's going on. And it's by here that also happens in very dangerous situations. So I say the turbulence has suddenly gotten to the point where you're actually scared or similar.

But it is what you do. You focus on this tiny, tiny detail and that'll be what sticks with you for years and years to come. And obviously it's a fake out here, graniatant dead. Yeah. This is not where we get the infamous I-atant dead sign and I'm very excited for that to eventually come.

But it is where it stems from. From, yes. And it's a path, but it's not just a perfect writing of grief as someone who's experienced it, but of how a child's mind would work in that situation. And that first line, the quote of a small detail can expand to fill the whole world.

And it is like, no, the rest of the world is terrible. So I'm going to focus on remembering this little patchwork quilt that I can see that is in front of me. And it's a bit like the whole thing of grounding yourself during panic attacks where you find something you can see and something you can touch and this is a way to bring yourself back to yourself.

That was a terrible sentence. Yeah, no, it is accurately. Yeah. So because it's a new, not only book, new arc entirely, there's quite a lot of new characters. There's a lot of new characters. Although this is quite a small intro first section, isn't it? So, yeah, the book sort of expands massively

and parts him through. Yeah, so it's manageable. So who have we met for the first time? It's really hard to talk about this because obviously we're trying to avoid spoilers, but we can't avoid mentioning that there are some characters we're really excited because they're big parts of the series. Yes.

So I am sorry about that, but obviously we do meet for the first time. Granny Weatherwax. We like Granny Weatherwax. We do like Granny Weatherwax. She's ever so good at things. She's ever so good at things. I think she has so many petticoats.

She has petticoats of iron. Petticoats of steel. Which I'd also like to point out that page 15 is the first time a woman speaks in this book. So compared to like fantastic, we're doing pretty well. Yes. I'm not going to try this for every book. It's just as I know I mentioned it in our last few episodes.

I should point it out here. Granny Weatherwax is great. We are really... I think she is one of Pratchett's best written characters. Yes. And a lot of people talk about Vimes who we haven't met yet being one of the great examples of the way Terry Pratchett could rage at the injustices of the world.

Yes. But I think he does that just as wonderfully, if not more, with Granny Weatherwax. Yes. Because she's quite often confronted with her own mistakes and hypocrisy. Yes. Yes, I think Granny Weatherwax and Vimes are similar in that

they all both want to see the world in black and white. I think Granny ends up more often having to move into shades of grey. Yes. And I think the way she is often forced to reckon with herself is very good. And it happens even in this book. Obviously you haven't read ahead to the end as we record this, but I have. And she has to confront her own mistakes. Like even in this section when she's insistent that Esk will be a witch

and doesn't need to be anything else and by the end of this section she's learned that she cannot do that. Yeah. So yes, it makes me very happy that a woman speaks 15 pages into this book. And Granny Appears. And Granny Appears. The actual full introduction we get is that Granny Weatherwax was a witch and that was quite acceptable in the Ram Tops

and no one had a bad word to say about witches. At least not if he wanted to wake up in the morning the same shape as he went to bed. And I do like that Terry Pranchett writes his witches in this fantasy book as, at least especially in this introduction, not evil. Hi Francine here. Just popping in to let you know at this point in the podcast the laptop started making a rather alarming wearing noise. I resituated the microphone accordingly and unfortunately forgot to resituate the hosts

which means there's a decline in audio quality from this point to my apologies. He doesn't write witches as evil. He writes them as a necessary part of the ecosystem or the social structure. Yeah. And he could, he does look at the wicked witch trope in later books and he delves a lot into what causes witch burnings and things. Yeah. But she's, yes, but she's not, right from the off she's a respected midwife and witch

and not a malevolent character. Yeah. And there were so many approaches you could do in a fantasy parody that I think that's a really nice one where she is very respected for what she knows how to do. Well, that's it Emma said. I think we've moved past straight parody now, haven't we? Yeah, I think this is more of a satire. I don't know.

These are clever stories written within a very silly world. Yeah, whereas, yeah, well the recognisable trope's in every chapter of the first couple of books, whereas now it's like a loose parody framework with the story he wanted to tell in it. Yes. Anyway, we meet Drone Billet who immediately dies. Drone Billet dead. Yep. Why do you hate him?

Oh, because he's a dick. Is he? Well, I think some of my hatred for him is actually for a different wizard later in the book. Yes. But so I sort of hate all wizards by the way. He protected it onto him. Hashtag not all wizards. But he ignores Granny where there works and Tim and the Smith both talk over her and I'll

get to this in more detail and then he's rude to Granny even when he's a tree. But I do kind of respect his choice to live on as a tree for a bit because obviously he's being buried in the garden by the Smith and I'm assuming that's why he's then in the tree. Yeah, and he does decide to support Esk, metaphorically and literally. But I feel like he's not doing it to support women's rights or equality. He's doing it because he's dead. It can't affect him and he wants to see what happens. Yes, but he is doing it despite growing up in a culture where this would have been unthinkable.

I suppose it's whether you think, I don't mean to go into a whole morality thing, but it's whether you think intentional outcome is more important. But I don't think his intention is anything other than, wonder what happened if I do this. True. I don't hate Drombele really. He just irks me. But I do, I very much respect his choice to become a tree and I respect his choice to enter

the book and immediately die. Well, kind of. Yeah. Because his choice to die, where he did. When he did. I do, I didn't actually write this down, but I kind of like this introduction of the blacksmith character because it's not this blacksmith, but we meet blacksmiths and say interesting lore about him.

Yes, Jason, as the books go on. So I think that this is a sort of proto thing. Yeah, yeah. Fracture is definitely an interest in blacksmith. I think he's fortunate I saw what so clearly he is. Yes. We meet Esk, obviously. Esk is our main character, our protagonist.

She's very cool. Although she's obviously introduced as a baby really early, I kind of marked her introduction as her growing up to age seven. And I want to point out that I have brother's trope. Yeah. Because I hate it. Is it already very tropey by 87? No, I don't think, I think this is an early example.

And it's not the worst example of it. No. Although Granny Weatherwax kept her careful watching her. She felt to spot any signs of magic whatsoever. It was true that the girls spent more time climbing trees and running around shouting than little girls normally did. But a girl with four older brothers still at home can be excused a lot of things. My thought on that before you get into the trope bit is that that must just be through

Granny Weatherwax's eyes because Fracture knows full well the little girls spend a long time running around shouting and trying climbing up trees without having mothers. I do think that is meant to be more through Granny Weatherwax's eyes. I'm not. I just want an excuse to rant about how much I hate that. I have brother's trope. Please do. I think we've mentioned it briefly and in withering terms in the past.

I believe you have. Yeah. We'll put a link to this in the show notes. TV Tropes has been a surprisingly good resource in making this go good. I love TV Tropes. TV Tropes is great and it has to say on the I have brother's trope, the tendency of female characters displaying skills is something that is traditionally viewed as being more of a male thing.

To explain it as being the result of having a number of usually older brothers. And specifically in the literature section of this, it does mention equal rights in that particular quote as well as a couple of other Terry Bratchett group books that we won't get to so much later. Okay. Which is partly why I'm bringing up the I have brother's trope here is because it's mentioned very specifically on that TV Trope page. Okay, yeah.

And I think as much as Terry Bratchett have that awareness, I think subconsciously there's little enough. I have to make an excuse for a little girl to be tomboyish. I hate the phrase tomboy, but. Yeah. And it's still, still, still the case. Like I saw on a Reddit thread, it was and asked women thread about like what in which ways of women obviously written wrong or what mistakes do male authors often make about

which is a really good thread by the way, I'll send it to you. Yeah. And there's a, I remember seeing a dude in that he wanted to write a tomboyish character and was like, okay, but what if I, okay, so I want her to be a mechanic. But like, I'm just going to mention that her dad supported her in it. And that's why she's so good at it. And, and, or she had that interest anyway. And he's building her up.

So it's not like because her dad and everyone, everyone's like, you don't need to make an excuse for her to be interested in cars. She can just be. Yeah. It doesn't have to be her dad. It does not have to be because of a male influence. Yeah. So yeah.

So, so we meet Esken. There's a lot more to Esken than the I have brothers dream. I think this is. It's, yeah. It's half, it's half a sentence in it. It's half a sentence, but I. It is an annoying one. Ginny Weasley deserve better.

Sorry. So look, we're talking about a young girl discovering she's actually got a magical destiny and going to wizard school. I'm going to talk about Harry Potter a little bit. All right. Well, also it's, I know obviously it's published way after this, but it is. Actually it's not way after this. This is 87.

There's less than 10 years after this. I think. So yeah. So it's, they're not that far apart. Yeah. Which is weird because I do think of Terry Pratchett as much older because he wasn't part of my childhood. Yeah.

But, and I don't know exactly the demographic of our listenership. She says indicating the microphone. They have been, but if it's similar to us, you know, Harry Potter is a bit of a cultural touchstone for us and I can see similarities between this character and Ginny Weasley, who is a young girl with lots of older brothers. And that's why she's going to quit it because her brothers wouldn't let her play. So she went and learned secretly to spite them and a lot of the examples of she's very tough because she's got seven older brothers.

Oh, she was the eighth daughter. I wonder if she's the, wow. Oh yeah, she is. She's literally a sorcerer. Sorry, hole in the space time continuum now. So yeah. So I thought it was interesting, especially with this, I have brothers bit to point out. There's a lot of similarities between Esk and Ginny and how the character is written and that.

And I'm talking about Book Jenny, not Film Jenny because that's not talked about that travesty. I do not know of a female Harry Potter fan who is not annoyed about what happened to Ginny in the films and the fact that they just took out all of her character development. And I know they had to make time for action sequences and Harry Potter looking sulky. Sulky Harry Potter or Harry Potter. Someone give him a lollipop. Right, we've derailed, we've derailed.

Oh mate massively. The only other bit where we have sort of a funky character, it's not a new character, but death has a little pop in. But I do like, I haven't got all day, you know, the death reproach fully. And I like the idea of death just sort of hanging around waiting for the wizard to decide what sort of afterlife he wants to have a go at. Yeah, well you know, especially because wizards know some kind of advanced one, they're going to die.

Like, do they keep thinking about it? Yes, there's a whole fucking premise here. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, alright. Guess how's the Harry Potter land? No, I was thinking about Rincewind and the fact that, you know, he always seems like to think he's about to die. And I know lots of characters have near death experiences and see death.

Yeah, see, practically it's not very consistent on this one, I must say. I think maybe if they die naturally, they know what's going to happen. Oh yeah, but not if they die of wolves while hanging from a tree under a hornet's or falling off the head to the desk or... No, that one time. That was scruffy earlier, that was a scruffy. Callbacks! Did you know you get TB of the knee?

How the hell does your knee get tuberculosis? You can get TB of basically anywhere, it's a really versatile disease. I thought it was like a lung thing. Mainly, that's the famous one, yeah, but my friend's grandma was telling me her friend's country was a little got TB of the knee. But my knee doesn't have lungs, do I know what you mean? No, I'm kind of... I'm gonna get throat.

I've got a tiny bellows in my knees. Anyway, yeah. So, little things we liked. Little things we liked, which are like talking points that beforehand, they are the hors d'oeuvres. Yeah, the hors d'oeuvres. They are the hors d'oeuvres of talking points. Yeah, so little snacky bits that we liked.

Oh, darling little snacks. Lovely little snack, darling, sorry. Fabulous, darling. Edina and Patsy just took us there. Every day when they come through us, yeah. Yeah, on a direct mental channel to Joanna Lumley. I like the little cat where once the wizard dies, you can see all of the cat's life at once.

That's pretty good, yeah. And this is me cheating because I couldn't have three quotes. Well, no, this is where the wizard's walking through the curling mist and then he clarifies that the mist would have curled anyway and wasn't demutable. The wizard's for half an hour. And actually the mist knew perfectly well how to curl by itself. Thank you.

It's an independent mist. A strong independent mist. There's only no wizard. I honestly tried to look this up, but I couldn't find historical context. Oh, me too. The markers in the trees so people can find their way. I'm assuming it has long-running historical context, but...

Yeah, I didn't spend very long researching it. I might have another go. Yeah, because obviously everything I found was here with modern hiking trails and wilderness stuff. Yeah. I think we'll have to look at some old books rather than the first page of Google. Well, you've got a 19th century encyclopedia, so...

I don't even know which one to look up on the bar, but I could be honest. H. A helicopter with which there are none. Okay. But it was a terrible elf bird. You had small darts, you had some little snakes. Oh, I have a couple, yes. The hint that grainy weatherwax deals in potions that involve

and birth control and or abortion. Yeah. I like that. Because so reasons we'll go into later in the book. Yeah, I think in the next section there's an interesting way he talks about it. Yeah, but it's nice that it's acknowledged, especially in a book about equal rights. But then it was what midwives did.

Yeah. And obviously she's a witch. She's not just a midwife, but they go for that between the two. It was not just in terry branch of experience, but in sort of law. Yeah. I mean, it says the old thing is that if you make abortion illegal, you don't stop abortion. You stop abortions happening in hospitals.

Yes. Everybody has always done this stuff. But yeah, I like the early kind of it's just mentioned casually, like as part of her duties as it should be. Yeah. Women's health. Women's health. Which is everyone's health.

Yes. It's nice how when you talk about women's health, all you mean is they're uterus, isn't it? When you say, when you talk about men's health, you don't just mean like the ball sack or the penis under that whole area, right? Like. Oh God, remember when we were going to make sure this podcast like was appropriate potentially that older children could listen to it?

No, I don't remember that. I don't remember agreeing to that. It was an intention I had once, right? Now you've said ball sack. There's really like, I don't feel like the term. That is not the worst I've been. You made terrible sex noises for a good half a minute last time. That was the last time.

That was like three episodes. That was the last time I edited it. I need to catch up. Yeah. So, ball sack. That was the episode title. Ball sack. A Terry Pratchett podcast.

You wouldn't let me put turtle sex noises in a title. I don't want to flag an algorithm. Yeah. So there's that one. And then the other little thing I liked was on page 63. I'm going to have to look at that because I can't remember the wording. Oh yeah. No, it's just esk as a seven year old kind of using the word good time to mean two different things.

Esk thought for a moment, are you having a good time? She said artfully. You said you'd show me some real magic all in good time said esk. And this is a good time. I like that because it reminded me of when I was about her age, if her age is about something, right? I thought that the word sometimes,

maybe I was a bit younger, I thought the word sometimes meant like a specific time, right? Periodically. Um, so like tea time and sometime would be right. Okay. Empowerable. And so I just remember a couple of times before I was corrected saying stuff like,

Oh, do you like apple juice, Mummy? Oh, sometimes. I was like, well, there's now sometimes. Yes. But it's also that same kids do, they can insist that, no, you can't read a book, can't do my homework. But if the clever wordplay will get them something,

then they are very smart little boggers. Oh yeah, my fair. I used to get around lights off time when I was little because I wanted to keep reading. Yep. I wanted to read entire famous five books all in one go, please. And there's Animal Ark for me. Ah, very good.

I love that too. Uh, by, because I didn't have like a set, you have to be asleep by eight o'clock or lights off at eight o'clock. My mum would come in and say, okay, lights off now. Um, and so if she never said that, if, for instance, I turned off the light before she came in and pretended to be asleep, I would never told to go to sleep. And therefore I was not breaking any rules.

But once she'd gone to bed turning like that, gone finishing my book. Ah, I was asleep deprived child, but I read a lot. Clever look. Excuse me. Let's cut that. All right. I opened the fucking plug game to Bullseye.

All right. All right. Cool. So Bullseye. Okay. So now we've had the... I don't like saying this after this. Now we've had the old derv, Joanna.

Should we have the... Oh, we're going to have to skip this after and go straight to the, uh, the main course. God, I don't know. Oh, no, I know what does that. That's fine. But it's kind of a tap-ass, like lots of little plates. Should we have just lots of little plates to share?

Because you've got like lots of... All right. We need to end the metaphor. Okay. Okay. Finally the metaphor. Okay. Can I, can I just end it?

Yeah. Can I just fail? I can just make, fail on a metaphor. Yeah. Right. Okay. I've bailed on many a metaphor at my time. So talking points for the points.

But there's more, there is now more, you know, things that there is more interesting discussion around and things we liked and things that... Yeah. I don't think we need to massively explain talking points. I was just being a dick. We need to say this is little bits and this is talking points. Let's start at the very beginning,

which is a very good place to start. The dedication, which I'm going to read out. Thanks to Neil Gaiman, who loaned us the last surviving copy of the Lieber Patinarum Fulvarum. It just made me happy because obviously I'm... Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, Terry Bratchett is one of my favourite authors, Good Omens is one of my favourite books.

And it was both of them. Hooray. And it was both of them, which was a marvellous thing. But I think of Neil Gaiman, apart from Neil Gaiman, who wrote Good Omens as this big separate entity, because I followed his career in such a different way to how I followed Terry Bratchett's. Mostly because of following him on Twitter.

Sure. And, you know, I've actually got to meet him and go to signings and... Meeting Neil Gaiman is literally the only time I've ever been spell-struck, which is a bit hilarious. I forgot how to speak. And I sort of vaguely got to meet him and I stood next to him a second time at a gig.

Oh, I see. Because I'm a massive fan of Amanda Palmer, who happens to be married to him and he's a very good musician. So, like, small gigs, he's been there. But it's just nice having that little reminder of their friendship that was so outside of just the writing of Good Omens.

Yeah, yeah. And that they have this little nod to each other and it's like they say when they talk about each other in interviews about Good Omens, is when we decided to write it, we weren't big deals. We were just two blokes who knew each other. Yeah. And also the Libre Paginarum Fulvarum

means the phone book. Or it's the sort of phone book of the dead and it's also a reference. Sorry, I'm trying to find the other reference to it, which is later in the book. The Necro-Telecomnicon. Oh. That's what that is.

It's the phone book of the dead. But it's, he says, loaned us the last surviving copy, but that's because he's borrowed the idea from Neil Gaiman's Sandman Graphic Novels, which is where its first reference before is in here. Oh, okay, cool. Because also I also forget that this is really contemporary

with Sandman, which I don't know if you've ever read. I haven't, actually. I'm not that big on graphic novels. I'm not a massive graphic novel fan and I find them very hard to read. So it took me a long time to get through Sandman. Yeah. But it was worth it and they are beautiful.

But you know, they lent each other ideas and put them in each other's books. Oh, I know. Books were so different. Oh, and they're all friends-like. Yeah. Yeah, there's also another little bit in the dedication where Terry Bratchett says,

I would like it to be clearly understood that this book is not wacky. I only dumb-run heads in 56 comms are wacky. No, it's not Zany either. Which I can only assume is in reference to... I'm not sorry. I love Lucy. Well, the dumb-run heads in 56 comms are wacky.

I'm assuming it's not. I love Lucy reference, although I offended at him referring to her as dumb. Yeah. Is that something? The whole dumb-run heads are very weird. Doesn't sound like Terry Bratchett at all. But it was such a grumpy thing.

I'm assuming it's wacky. It's not Zany. I'm assuming there were some reviews of colour of magic and light fantastic that very much referred to them as wacky and Zany. Yeah, those words are now thin out of use for so long that it kind of just, like, it's funny and twee-roll and annoying. Yeah, but I can imagine at the time.

And I think that might also... Sorry. That might also, and I am completely putting thoughts and words into Terry Bratchett here, why this follow-on from what was sort of a two-part opening to the Discworld books deals with slightly more serious subject matter and is just a little bit more cerebral. Like, it's got more of, like, a socio-political theme.

You know, he's talking about feminism and gender equality, whereas the colour of magic and light fantastic were wacky Zany romps. Yes. That doesn't sound right coming out of your mouth, Joanna. I'm just, like, using the word wacky a bit more. Please don't, God. Isn't that wacky?

Look at this wacky hat. Look at my Zany dealy-boppers. Thank you. I was saying the other day that her nan still says... Well, isn't she a sort? She's one of my favourite. Oh, I love a sort. Seventh son of a seventh son?

Yeah, sort of eighth, rather. Right, eighth daughter of a seventh blacksmith. Yes. Yeah, I just thought it was worth mentioning as it is eight instead of seven, because we're on the Discworld, but reasonably widespread folklore that the seventh son in general and definitely the seventh son of the seventh son is imbued with some kind of magical powers.

Yeah. Pending on where you are in the world that might be anything from your saliva having healing properties to being a wealth. It's... Do you know the origins of it? No, because it is so widespread across Europe and then the Americas. Yeah, that is the thing with widespread folklore is that there is generally very full origin research you can do.

Yeah, I mean, seven just seems to be this magical number across a lot of places. And I'm sure somebody has done a lot of research into why that might be, but I have not. I'm assuming it's something to do with prime numbers and the days of the week. Times table is really hard to learn. It is, like all the other ones have tricks.

Like, you know... I found seven one of the easiest. Really? Yeah, I don't know what. Maybe it's because I wasn't trying to do a trick. I was just memorising the numbers and that was easier. I mean, I was always really bad at memorising my times tables. Like, I can multiply things in my head relatively quickly.

See, I can't do that for toffee. But when we used to have to do, like, timed multiplication tests, it was more of a test of have you memorised this times table. Yeah. I took too long in them because I wasn't doing it from memory. I was doing it based on, okay, so two times nine, nine and nine, and you get 18. Rather than you're supposed to just know.

It's two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. Yeah. This is why I still, if I have to do a times table for... I very rarely have to. I also massively slip into a very sing-songy. Three, six, nine, twelve. Haha. I still sing the alphabet more than I would like to, wouldn't it?

Oh, all the time. All the time. So, here it is. It's not K and L, I get very confused. Hmm. Something about Climbalm. A lemana. Lemana.

Lemana-no-pe. Lemana. Lovely name for a girl. Lemana-no-pe. It's like a lemony penelope. Anyway, yeah. Just thought I'd mention it as a reference to a reasonably cool bit of folklore.

It is. Joseph Delaney has a book called The Spook Series, and there's now lots of spinoffs and stuff. They're aimless, slightly younger readers, but they are quite interesting. So, they're sort of set in the northwest, and there is this idea of... Of this country.

Yes, in the northwest of England. They do a lot with the Pendle witches, but in a very fantasy way. And the idea there is that the seventh son, of a seventh son, has this destiny as a spook, which means he travels around the county dealing with witches and bog demons, and all sorts of things.

And as the series goes on, he goes into, like, Greek folkloric myths and some less common ones, and ideas of heaven and hell, and hell beasts, and kind of witches be good. It's a really good series, but he does some interesting stuff with the seventh son, Trope.

So, tell me about mans blaming, Joanna. Ah. Ah. Something you've had a little experience of yourself, I believe. It's very nice here that he's looked at these things. Women have to go through a lot. Like, standing there trying to say something,

while too many talk over you, and you know best, such as a blacksmith and a wizard deciding that the wizard is going to pass on his staff and wizardness to the eighth son, while you're trying to point out that this is a girl. Now, is that something you've experienced in the kitchen, or is this from the book?

I mean, close. Fiddleboat, fiddleboat. But yeah, moments like that. And moments as well, later on, between the grannies talking to the tree that is also a wizard, and talking about, they're discussing the difference

between wizard and witchcraft. And my esk, who is now like seven years old at this point, and manifesting abilities with magic and the staff is around, and that's all talking about, and she going to be a wizard, because maybe she's not cut out for witch magic

if she's been given this wizardliness. And the tree that's a wizard mansplains witchcraft to her. Um, if you define as a witch as one who worships the pagan urge, that is well, actually. And he does, he well actuallys her, and then he babbles on saying things

like mother goddesses and primitive moon worship, and it's the silly men who think about witches being naked women dancing around in the moonlight, which I don't do a lot. Actually, I really like that. And when the tree started talking about dancing naked, she tried not to listen, because although she was aware

that somewhere under her complicated structure of vests and petticoats, there was some skin, that didn't mean to say she approved of it. And this is a wizard's theoretical basis of witchcraft that he has learned from nothing but books, because obviously, I don't think he's been out in the world

and hung out with witches much. And he has just explained that that's what witchcraft is, to the actual witch. Tree's blaming. Tree's blaming. And this is a bit like, and I keep using allegories,

I keep misusing the word allegories. Oh, those points commit with them. Yeah, allegories and allergies, they're all the same thing. Oh, alligators. I keep misusing allegories. Maybe a crocodile's hand would make it allegory. It is like when I, someone says to me,

and by someone I do generally mean of the male persuasion, so what do you do? And I say, I'm a chef. And then they start telling me how to cook. Yes, we've talked a lot about feminism, we've talked about witchcraft in the last couple of books. And I think he does a really good job

here of noticing something that people have to go through on a really regular basis. Yeah, and again, 32 years ago. Yeah. Noticing it. And I feel like even now, maybe especially now,

that the word's become popular, I find it very hard to explain mansplaining two men. Yeah. Like, um, but... I think he expresses it in a really good way here. But he also manages to use it to further the story. Yes.

He doesn't do it for the sake of, oh, I'm doing a book called Equal Rights, so I should do a bit about something annoying men do around women. Yeah. But it's also, this is kind of a difference between wizardry, witchcraft, and what wizards think witchcraft is.

Yes. One I've got granny's lack of expertise with children coming through in a way that also comes through. A lot of people who do have quite a lot of experience with children. Yeah. But it's that she's warning Esk not to do something while not telling her why.

Yeah. And that is a shit way to stop anyone from doing anything. There's a book called The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley, which is who survives when disaster strikes and why. But.

And I love this book, and actually I think my only copy I've learned helped someone and I didn't get it back. But thoroughly recommend, and it goes into a bit about how people are far more likely to follow safety instructions if you explain why. For instance,

if an aircraft depressurizes and you have to put on oxygen masks, you should put your own on before helping other people. And that is what the safety instructions say. Yeah. They don't say why, and so a lot of people kind of ignore them and try and put on their kids' vest,

because why wouldn't you? Well, the answer is because you can lose consciousness within 10 seconds if you don't have the oxygen mask on. And they don't say that because they don't want to induce panic or something like that. But generally, the tendency of all of us authority figures to treat people they are dealing with as imbeciles is a problem

when it comes to stuff like this. And while they wouldn't want to accuse Granny of such a thing, she does fall into a very common trial-caring trap, which is when Esk is... Well, the situation isn't so common, but Esk is riding in the mind of an eagle.

And Granny says, don't take it over. Yes, says, don't. No good will come of it. Do you really think you're the first, my girl? Don't try to walk before you can run. It's harder than it seems, and that's enough today.

But she doesn't say if you do this, you will lose your mind to the eagle and not be able to remember who you are, which I feel like might have scared the girl away from trying it. Yeah. And it's... I know you've got to try and walk her line

between scaring the children, because I say so, I hate that so much. Like, admittedly, I'm coming from this room in a place where I have not had to raise children, and I get you need to sort of instill a level of obedience for their own safety. That means you need to teach them to respect,

because I told you so. But they're not rational, and they won't work this stuff out for themselves. And the easiest way to say this action will have consequences is to tell them exactly what the consequences are. Yeah. I haven't got a particularly good example of it in my life,

because I've not reared children. But it's a very common thing, and so many things go wrong where miscommunication as a way to create conflict is one of my least favourite things. Oh, fucking it. Like, oh. That's one of the main reasons I turn off TV shows.

Yeah. It's like, this is not clever. And it's not pleasurable to watch. And it's text to each other. Yeah. It's very frustrating. And it rarely, it can be done well. Yeah.

Most of the time it is stupid, because people do communicate more than that. And yeah, I can see what you mean about this bit with Granny. Yeah. And I mean, this is pretty realistic, I get apart from the scenario. And that this is what adults do, and this is what children do in response.

Yeah. If you say, because I told you so, you can't do that. You can't have that. A child will want it a million times more. It makes me wonder whether Pratchett did that. Knowingly. Well, yeah, because Granny wouldn't know

how to deal with a seven-year-old. Granny does not have children, and probably doesn't spend a lot of time around them once they've been delivered. Yeah. Yeah, the only other things I had to, I wanted to talk about were more specific, were less specific and more sort of general.

I've already talked a little bit about the Harry Potter parallel, though. And I was talking about Ginny Weasley and how she's an interesting parallel to Ascot. And obviously, I know it's written afterwards, but less than 10 years after. And it's a very tropey fantasy book in a lot of ways. But this idea of young person finds out magical destiny,

go to school to learn how to be magic. Yes, and in this case, the training school is the trying to learn a bit of witchery. And I just kind of enjoyed it as a parallel, because there are two very, very different versions of it. Yes. You know, one is, obviously, curses and dark wizards, and one is a narrative and doesn't look tomorrow.

But also, one is set in our world and isn't meant to be parody. No. But obviously, borrows from earlier works, borrows this very much ease, and they both write their characters in a very similar way. Like, yeah, there's the similarities with Ascot and Ginny Weasley,

but there are similarities with Ascot and Harry Potter as well. If this... I was not expecting to have this special destiny, but now I can turn someone into a pig. Hooray. Although, technically, it's Hagrid that gets someone a pig's tail and Harry Potter if I don't like that philosophy. Sorry, correcting myself there.

Spoilers. Spoilers for a book that came out a very long time ago. You know, people getting turned into pigs. It's another common theme. And I pretty much just wanted to bring this up as an advance apology for the amount of times I refer to the unseen university as Hogwarts. Hooray.

Yeah. An interesting difference is the emphasis on the companion figure here, the guardian figure as Granny Weatherwax. Yeah. In comparison to, say, Hagrid, frankly, one of the unsung characters of the Harry Potter series. And I guess that's just the target audience as adults,

not kids, for this one. Yeah, very much so. Granny Weatherwax is a much bigger focus. Like I said, way back when we started recording this episode, I thought of this so much as Granny Weatherwax book. I forgot how relevant Esk was to her own story, which is very silly, but that's because I have the context of 40 future books.

But this story is very much Esk's story, and it... Yeah, it'll be interesting to look out for more specific parallels as we go on as well, like the one you punch out with Esk. It really made me want to reread Harry Potter, but I don't need to put myself through that again. There are so many more books in the world. Yeah. So I'm not going to do that.

Wait, sorry. Aren't you partway through the Rowan Humphrey? Oh, I think so. I should point out again. Oh, well done. Yeah, fuck. It's been so fast. I know.

I'm not reading anything at the moment, because I'm writing. Apart from, obviously, these books for this. Yeah. But apart from that, yeah. Can't be reading a book, because then A, you won't get any writing done, and B, everything I do write will be in the style of a book I've just read.

Oh, that's all right. It's not like you're susceptible to Terry Pratchett's writing style or anything. There was one monologue that I had to go back and take out a lot of the Terry Pratchett references, because it looked like I just straight-up plagiarised it. Yeah. The worst bit was that the monologue was a piss-take of Dr. Faustus. Terry Pratchett's book that is actually based on Faustus,

one I don't like, don't often reread, and had absolutely no references to. Yeah, half. I did well there. Yes, you did. Anyway, sorry, I'm going to keep tangent-ing. That's all right. It's just going to be so fun to edit.

I'm sorry for asking. Oh, I'm just as at fault there, I don't know. Most are going to be asking out Dr. Faustus. Equally wrong. Any other general things in the book? Yes, we've got the introduction of hydrology and kind of the huge importance of placebo and styling, a lack of actual...

I can help you with this practically. Thing, which is a huge recurring theme throughout the witches books, and hydrology is basically psychology. Yes, very much so. It is, I look this way and I give you this potion with a certain flourish and tell you it comes from the mines deep below the round tops

and is carried up by a perfect little raccoon. And actually it's coloured very water, but it'll make you feel better anyway because I convinced you it's this awesome magic potion. So it's the placebo effect and of the surrounding style. Yeah, the whole creation granny has of her witch persona and how that generates respect and makes people believe her. And she's a witch because she wears a hat,

but the hat is a witch's hat because she's wearing it. Exactly, and yes, as you said, it's explicitly referenced as such there. And just mentioned a few times through the book and I feel like Pratchett's kind of found his verbalisation of this idea of a shape that he's had in his head for a while because I feel like he's really pleased that it's like,

yeah, this is how I'm going to explain it and this is that and this is cool, cool. And he does, he fucking runs with it for books and books. Yeah, but also it's this idea, especially that granny does of styling it out. Yeah. And granny makes mistakes a lot. Like the conceit of granny weatherwax

is that she's setting her ways and she knows what's wise and she's very clever and she has somehow screwed up and missed a thing somewhere. Yeah. But she always styles it out. Yes, granny who had never got anywhere by admitting she was wrong. Yeah.

What's an elephant type of badger? But there's a really nice quote about that where it says, but it still doesn't seem like magic and granny responds, I say, to man's life ones. Yeah. And it is a kind of magic and I find what the human brain can do amazingly fascinating,

especially when it comes to placebo's. Because I think I've mentioned it on the podcast before, interesting book about the science behind why people believe in the paranormal. And obviously placebo effect is a huge part of that with hang up and say, I don't know, make a big deal of the fact that it's not real, but also like water doesn't have memories. Thank you.

Thank God. I don't want the water to be traumatised as liquid. Poor water. But it works because people believe in it because the human brain is quite impressively capable of belief and therefore affecting the physical body to the point where people recover from illnesses, at least temporarily.

Yeah. I'd be really listening to a lot of stuff about human memory as well and how incredibly pliable that is. Oh yeah, brain's going to create entire false memories. Yeah. And like the bullet bit behind the repressed memory quackery of a couple decades ago. Oh yeah.

That is probably in its height and about this time. Yeah. About eight or seven. But yeah, yeah, the, oh, we could go all philosophy wonky here if we wanted to. Oh my gosh. The kind of difference where, well, if it's the reality you're experiencing, you used to say it's not reality,

that kind of thing. Oh God, no, let's not have an existential crisis. And you had one of those in the podcast a few weeks ago. Yes, no. And let's not have an existential crisis past watershed. Not on a Thursday. Not on a Thursday, tell me. Existential crises, I feel, are more of a Wednesday.

Yeah, we missed our chance. Oh well, maybe next week. Yes, maybe next week. Ah, there was one other thing that I forgot to write down that I wanted to point out. Esk is dreaming of weird things around the corners and Granny is sort of aware of them. And it's something I've noticed doing this reread.

He does it in like Fantastic Rearwell as well where he builds the tension and what the final conflict would be so star. Yeah. And he does the same thing with these things from the dungeon dimensions. Just being something Esk sort of dreams of and it could be anything.

And Granny starts noticing it around the corners. But Granny's fright is the reason where someone like, oh, a little chill runs through you and it's like Esk has never seen it before. Brighten builds something like that. And if you watch the slow build until sort of big reveal of, you know, Esk's excitement sort of stuck in the dungeon dimension and things.

And universes and cubes. It's done so. Capital. Universes and cubes in Tetrahedrons. On a stick. On a stick. Universe, on a stick. I just think it's a really, it's good.

Like it. Good foreshadowing, practically. Well done. Yes, foreshadowing. I was trying to talk long enough but I'd remember though I thought about it. So, thank you. So, Francine, have you got an obscure reference?

Can you give a flip? I do have an obscure reference. It is right at the beginning, actually. Practice mentions that the special effects are beyond the scope of even a three-ring filmmaker which I thought might be like a reference, some kind of award. You know, how like you get the triple award thing.

The Michelin star filmmaker. No, apparently it's a reference to three-ring circuses. So basically just all singing, all dancing, lots of things going on at once. Ah, marvellous. That's a lovely little obscure reference. What nearly made the Cart Runner obscure reference was,

he mentions the woods smelling like turpentine and that was obscure enough for me but I feel like maybe it's more common knowledge than I thought turpentine's made out of pine trees. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's nice. Okay, well, it's getting late and both of us want pasta so we'll wrap it up.

We should probably wrap this one up. So, thank you very much for listening to The Tree Shall Make You Threat. You can find us on Facebook at The Tree Shall Make You Threat. Follow us on Twitter at Make You Threat Pod. You can email us your thoughts and rants and we might pay attention to them. The Tree Shall Make You Threat at gmail.com.

Please think about rating us and reviewing us and subscribing and all of that then, especially on Apple Podcast. It helps other people find us. Does it? I don't know. Please think about ratings. Just think about it, they don't do it.

Reviewing or whatever. Sort of help other people find it and like people to find us. Algorithms. Algorithms. Algorithms. Avogators. Allegories.

And with that, dear listener, don't let us detain you. It talks about her companion but I think it really focuses on her journey with Majo. Yeah. And thank you. God, I'm sorry. Sorry. Is that actually, do you know,

I went and edited one of the first ones the other day and I use it to piss you off. So I feel like this whole thing's been a retaliation and we've forgotten. I know, but now it's just fun. Now we're just going to put the word in as much as possible. We can't wait till next episode. I'm going to find another wanky mesh cord to go you in.

I'll have a wanky metaphor. I mean, this will escalate. This will escalate. MESCALATE. I'm going to get you the puns. Oh, not the puns. This is going to become a metaphorical arm race.