With the excitement over the upcoming TV adaptation, and a close friend repeatedly saying how Hogfather was his favourite Disc book by far, I felt compelled to re-read it recently. I had read Hogfather twice (I think) before, but somehow something about it had never quite clicked. I liked it of course, it was witty, entertaining and insightful as are all Pterry's books, but I wasn't particularly enamoured of it.

Re-reading it, it suddenly seemed to make sense. Taken in context, surrounded chronologically as it is by books like The Last Continent and Maskerade, you would expect Hogfather to be an equally light-hearted parody - but focusing on it for itself, it really is quite shockingly dark.

Yes, it's about Childhood and Fairy Tales, and Imagination and Christmas. But it's also about how none of these are quite as carefree and twinkly as they are often portrayed to be - this may appear obvious, but it took a while to sink in for me :roll: Ignorance isn't bliss, it's fear: Pratchett makes a particularly fascinating link between children and early man, both of whom are/were ignorant of why things happen, and have/had to invent beings and stories to explain what the hell is going on. Both were and are manipulated by those that know the alternative explanation - priests then, parents now - to control those who are ignorant through fear, into doing what they want. Consider Susan's rage at the childrens' former Governess insisting that the Scissor Man would cut off their hands if they bit their nails, etc.

Teatime himself is, in my opinion, the most terrifying character Pratchett has written thus far. Even Carcer pales into comparison with Teatime's psychotic violence......Carcer is, after all, an adult - someone who can be reasoned with. Teatime is still in essence a child. Amoral, revelling in violence for it's own sake, standing on beetles on the pavement and torturing puppies, oh yes. The sound of children playing is delightful, as long as you're not close enough to hear what they are saying....

Of course Christmas is coloured red and white: Blood and Snow. Of course humans need imagination, or 'wistful lying': if you can't believe the small lies, how on earth are you to swallow the really big ones like Truth or Justice?

Any book in which Death plays the hero, and an eyeball-fixated Raven and the Death of Rats are the comic relief has to be pretty dark, but bring such horrors as childhood into it, and there's no hope left at all.....


.........I'd be delighted to hear anyone else's views *Is expectant*