[b:24c77ad121]A Discworld Fairytale[/b:24c77ad121]

In [i:24c77ad121]The Wee Free Men[/i:24c77ad121] two worlds meet. Two worlds that collide every day and occasionally spill over into each other. One is the world of dreams, where everything can be real. A world where all human fantasies were once united in splendour. Sadly that unity was torn apart and it has become a barren and harsh place. A land of winter where legends and fairytales blend with the darkest recesses of our nightmares.
The second world is even stranger still, it is called the Discworld. A world that, through its limitations, is decidedly more real. The people are unaware and no-one is watching the border. Nightmares are free to enter, but they make one big mistake. They cross the hag.

The hag is a little girl called Tiffany and her little brother Wentworth has been taken to the dream world. Now Tiffany has to enter the dream world and save her brother from the Queen. Fortunately Tiffany is assisted by a band of pillaging blue pictsies. Armed with bad poetry, mousepipes and grim determination they journey and fight through dreams and nightmares, making a thrilling and enjoyable story. A Discworld fairytale.

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This is the continuation of the Discworld Discussion group.

I'm going to start by asking for everyone's opinion of the book, then I'll post pieces of my notes as the discussion evolves. If pressed, I might even have a few trivia questions.

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I loved this book. It's very funny and I thought the new characters that were introduced worked really well. One thing that annoyed me slightly was the toad. He started off pretty well, but towards the end of the book he became a bit one-dimensional, as in lazy and a lawyer.

The Queen was portrayed really well and Fairyland was conveyed effectively. It felt as if anything could happen and everything described in Fairyland was slightly unreal.

The Nac Mac Feegle are the stars of this book, I think. In content and in comic value.

So, what did everyone else think of the book?

Edit: noticed a stray apostrophe

I loved the Granny Aching flashbacks, they where the best parts of the book. There was such an element of..saddness to them. Becuase they where tiffanys memories, the memories that defined both Tiffanys relationship with her Granny and defined who Tiffany was. I though Granny Aching was an intriguing character, I liked her interaction with the Baron. When Tiffany thought she'd offended her Granny by giving her the Sheeplady statue that was everything Granny wasn't it was great scene.

Yeah, the Granny Aching bits were class, I wish that HFOS had had them, it would've improved it somewhat.

The Feegles were brilliantly developed from their first appearance in Carpe Jugulum, from mere drinking, fighting and stealing bastards, they transformed into drinking, fighting, stealing and loyal bastards. Despite all their flaws they made brilliant uber-heroes.

Despite her witchiness, Tiffany still seemed like a proper child, which is credit to the writer of course.

This really is a great book, and deserving of more people commenting

I really loved the Nac Mac Feegle's philosophy: they were good in their last world, and are now in Heaven. I

I don't think Tiffany exactly or rather pyshically entered the Land of the Elves in this book. She took in an iron frying pan. Rather I think she entered the mental world of the elves. maybe she entered the mind of the queen, or she just let the queen into her mind.

I always thought she went there physically. Usually PTerry is pretty good in letting us know if someone is just traveling mentally, like borrowing or Rincewind's visit to Death's cottage.

Here, she actually finds a specific location "where time doesn't fit" and walks through that .. a bit like Granny's visit to the elves world.

I think it was a physical entrance, why else would Roland and Wentworth have disappeared from the 'real' world?

The reason why she could take iron in is because the entrance wasn't magnetic like it was for Granny. In Lancre they had put up the stones to prevent the elves from entering the discworld. On the wold, they had no such protection, because the entrance wasn't permanent, it was only temporary while 'The worlds collided.'

It doesn't have to be a physical entrance. It could be some sort of really powerful drome. They still disappear that way, I think.

The scene where they enter the dreamworld seems like the best reason for it to be physical. If it was something like a drome Tiffany wouldn't have needed to see the gate to enter.

I'll post some of my notes tonight, btw. If I don't forget it again.

Edit: noticed a typo

I think I probably is a dream world, though I think it doesn't have to be. The gate my only have been a gate away to/in her mind. Tiffany stepped through the stones (if i remember correctly) a few times and nothing happened. The stones her just a tool to focus her mind to the place it needed to be.

It wasn't exactly a Dream world. It just lacked the solidity of a real world. That's why it needed to feed off of other universes. That's why it was a parasite dimension.

Well, here it is... the first bit of analysis:

[b:d94782c0ad][size=14:d94782c0ad]Good and evil[/size:d94782c0ad][/b:d94782c0ad]

Good and evil are important concepts in fairytales. In Pratchett's discworld fairytale they form an important part of the message. Ranging from the fairytale book used as a Roundworld mirror to a discworld story to Tiffany's contemplation of Miss Robinson's guilt Pratchett once again attempts to reveal universal truths.

[b:d94782c0ad]The Nac Mac Feegle[/b:d94782c0ad]

The Nac Mac Feegle are the loveable rogues of the book. They may drink, steal and fight excessively, but mostly among each other and always according to their own strange system of morality. They cannot be called good or evil. They are real heroes. Their cause is not so much worthy as one of self-preservation and they have their flaws. Yet... that is not quite true. Whichever you look at it the Wee Free Men are portrayed as on the good side. Their rough humour and violence may make them a lot more believable than the fairies, pixies and munchkins of Roundworld fairytales, but elements of their nature are still underplayed throughout the book. Their violent nature is continuously compensated for. The creatures they fight are dream creatures, and even in that they are either one-dimensional and evil (grimhounds) or parasites (dromes). They resort to gonnagling and the mousepipes, both in stark contrast with the up close and personal approach of the blue pictsies. Even their philosophy, death is not a bad thing, weakens the portrayal of violence.

[b:d94782c0ad]The Queen[/b:d94782c0ad]

The Queen represents evil in the book. She is a parasite, feeding on dreams, kidnapping and mistreating children. Is she really evil though? There is a good reason for the connection Tiffany makes between the story of Miss Robinson and the Queen. The Queen is embittered, lonely and deserted. After her king left her, when the dreamworld was still a nice place (indicated primarily by the presence of the Nac Mac Feegle and also by the symbolism of summer to winter), she started to turn into what she is in [i:d94782c0ad]The Wee Free Men[/i:d94782c0ad]. And the way she treats comes from the way she sees children. Although she is quite sophisticated in some areas, she's not that intelligent. The Queen is a like a real villain, she is not a monster merely someone with deep personal issues. Again... this is not really true. The portrayal of Elves in [i:d94782c0ad]Lords & Ladies[/i:d94782c0ad] and her potential for cruelty place her firmly on the evil side. The contrast between a loving, caring, frail Miss Robinson and the harsh, vain Queen makes their connection more incidental than indicative.Whichever way you look at it, the Queen fails to invoke any form of sympathy in the reader.

What do you think? Is the Queen evil? Are the Nac Mac Feegle good? And why does Pratchett make the distinction between good and evil? Because it's for children? Because it's a fairytale? Or is Pratchett unwilling to break that convention and is that necessarily a bad thing?

The Nac Mac Feegle are good, but not because goodness is part of their moral code. Unlike, Granny Weatherwax who made a conscious decision to [i:a995acc365]be[/i:a995acc365] good the Nac Mac Feegle are good because good just happens to be in line with their wants. The Feegle don't robbed the poor or fight the weak because it's [i:a995acc365]wrong[/i:a995acc365] to do so, but because it's not interesting for them. They have nothing to gain from it. I think that the Feegles are basically amoral hedonists. They are not driven by what is right or wrong, but what is enjoyable and what is not enjoyable. The only times when they reign in thier wills is under oath or fear, they don't cross a witch, nor will they break there word once they give it.

[quote:93bb2ef2a5="Rincewind"]....nor will they break there word once they give it.[/quote:93bb2ef2a5]

But don't you think that's evidence of some kind of goodness? To keep a promise?

Edited because, for some reason, kep is not yet a word.

I think the feegles are more scared as to what will happen if they break their oath, they think of it as a type of magic.

They have a twisted code, which occasionally loops onto good.

Obviously, they feegle have 'some kind of goodness' but likewise, we could say there stealing from all the different worlds is edvidense to 'some kind of wickedness'. I don;t tyhink terms like good and bad can be aplied to the Feegle in the same way they act to other characters. The Feegle, are in many ways like children. They have no real concept of what 'good' and 'bad' mean. They do things they like, they don;t do things they don't like or don;t find interesting, sometimes they'll refrain from doing something they like becuase an authority figure (Kedla or a witch) tells them not too. They don;t understand why it;s morally wrong. They just don;t do it becuas they've been told.