This podcast was brought to you by good episode productions. You like it. Yeah, this is great content. Everyone needs to know how much I hate John Green.
Yeah. I've got to put it out there. I found another review whilst I was looking at it. We have to slowly build the people we have beef with.
Like, I think we're doing good with Amanda Poem and Patrick Crossfers. I think the theme is like liberal artists. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. We also talked about Obama and Tony Blair a lot. So yeah. That also has a different category.
Like, I don't know. Yeah, we've got like internet liberals. Every life liberals. Real life war criminals.
And non-famous Facebook cops. Those are our three categories of enemy. I guess the moderators for the disabled Facebook group as well. Yeah, those.
So yeah. They're cowards. They are cowards. We should create our own Facebook group called AYW.
The thing is Facebook is an offer place. Yeah, I don't go on there. So yeah, I don't really. I used to have to be on there all the time because my workplace used to put out all our voters on Facebook and have all our work discussions on Facebook, which I hated.
Because like, that's a super unprofessional. And be it's like, here's a website for being social, arguably. Yeah, it's a widely work notification. Well, they do all my core stuff.
They've got a bunch of my core stuff on Facebook. And I'm like, why? I don't want to be on here. Super difficult to organize and find everything.
It's just bad. No Facebook. I have to see everyone's terrible Facebook opinions and see which one is over my people who I went to school with a racist now and which one's a pregnant. Actually, I do love the pregnancy stuff.
I like to keep tabs on things like that. OK. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
Did you see all that? Did you see? I was there. That's why I was a little wild.
OK, so this is the person you all know in real life. And you just, they're really. Did you steal a cop? Yeah.
Oh, God. OK. We should talk about relatable stuff. We probably, yeah, like not name people we know.
What if we kissed in the Anne Frank house? Yeah, that would be really cool. Like a good thing to put in a book, I think. Everyone collapsed.
The biggest thing about the whole nostalgia was the secret alternative ending where they're like Dutch author, Ties Augustus, to a trolley, frail. Yeah, makes a difficult case. We'll do the trolley. That was bad if that seems bad if I would have.
I wish they were bad. I would have much preferred that. I would have much preferred that. I would have preferred seeing that in cinemas.
I think that would have been really good. Yeah. I just think if God wanted there to be John Green's then there would be more John Green's. I don't know.
I think there's quite a lot. Where are you going with that one? I don't know. I'm just saying.
Thanks. I also hate John Green, but in the rare cases, someone real life, in real life is going to mention John or Hank Green. I'm just going to smile and nod and say, well, I heard of them, but I don't really know them because I don't know. That's very mature.
Me and Lucy had a friend who had John Green merch. And every time I saw her, I would mention how much I hate John Green. Who was there? So I know them.
I feel like I don't know. I feel like I'm bringing a weird energy today. I apologise for that. That's OK.
How was dance practice? Yeah. It was good, but I'm tired now. That's OK.
It was pretty good too. Like I did extremely feel that I didn't do any sports in the last three months, but it was good to be back. That's good. I wish I could be doing my sport in a sport place.
Yeah. It's like still super restricted here. And some people might say that I still shouldn't do this, but... Yeah.
I went to the pub yesterday and did you rest? Ooh, how was it? Very stressful for me. We have to sit in the garden and it didn't seem that distance, to be honest.
Yeah. You know it will be. I think this country is not really very locked down. I don't really...
It's bad. No one's wearing masks. I know. It's insane.
It's like, think. It's so weird that it's all the countries with right-wing populist leaders that are doing the worst. Do you think there's anything to do that? No.
It's probably fine. It's probably all right. Fine. I don't know.
Here it's like nobody really gives a shit anymore, but people are wearing masks inside and shopping malls or whatever. And mostly on public transport, but outside it's still going to be in the guidance of restaurants. It's not going to be distanced at all. They're still way too many people, way too close, I think.
Just like the large men in later hers and with the signs coughing up each other's mouths. Yeah, we usually have a beer festival here that is happening towards the end of June and that was already a big thing that got cancelled. Like, my university posted... They didn't post a single thing about Black Lives Matter or diversity stuff or any of that, but they post that they made like four or five distinct posts just about the cancellation of the beer festival.
Well, I'm not sure what it is. People are going to know. They just have to know what had happened at the same time is the thing. So they had to pick their priorities.
Yeah, I mean, I like beer, but... And I cannot lie. It's not a person. It's not people.
Beer is people too, George. Yeah, I mean, I think, and it doesn't seem that bad in Germany at the moment, whereas I don't think our rate has dropped at all in like the last four months. How many people of the country that you run do you have to kill before you can start calling us off a patriot? Well, maybe it's the more you kill, the more patriot you're.
Yeah, because then you really got to try out. Judging by wars. Yeah. You got to like put the effort into the like, oh no, but my country, it does great things.
This is a great country. We get Fred Obars, so we're free. True patriotism is ending loads of young men overseas to get shot or blown up. Patriotism was the Fourth of the war.
Okay, so this has been super not fun pre-fought. Yeah, I know. I know, let's go to Tokyo Turn. But more importantly, I hate John Green and I need everyone to know.
I went swimming today and I saw a lobster and it was lovely. You saw a lobster, like in the woods? Yeah, yeah, and a rock. I've never seen a real sea, I guess.
Should I bring us in? Is this enough? Yes, please. Yeah, this is like the worst intro.
I'm enjoying this. Hello, don't cough. So too. Hello.
What's up? Looking for you, watch the watch. Oh, what? That's the film.
What? I'm going to cast a spell on you. You're gonna do what I want you to. It's me.
Mix it up here. My little boy. I'm going to save you words and you lose control. I'm a hex girl.
Get on you. It's me. Gonna put a spell on you. I'm a hex girl.
You just speak to me. And welcome back to Who Watches the Watch Your Favorite Discord podcast. My favorite Discord podcast, Patrick Ruffers' favorite Discord podcast. He loves it.
I'm your host, Charlotte. I'm your host, Lucy. I'm your host, Janos. And I'm your host, George.
I'm also here. I'm thinking about mobsters. Very sorry. Like the one time in the show where you need to say something, every other time it's like fine.
It's not. Oh, thanks. I will follow back up on the Patrick Ruffers thing now that we've started the show. OK.
Because I've been tweeting about like when I retweeted this show, I added a commentary that I once again stated for Patrick Ruffers. And I mean another tweet that was like via a podcast marketing strategy that realized on Patrick Ruffers' name searching and getting angry at us. And now he didn't see us as far as I'm concerned. But but someone else retweeted that tweet.
I looked at that account and that was like an account of someone dedicated to being angry at Patrick Ruffers for not releasing the third book of the Kinkular Chronicle series, which is the exact opposite crowd I want to attract. Wait, so this person is a Patrick Ruffers fan? Yes, sort of. OK.
They like hate him. Yeah. But they but they need him. They hate him for not providing the content.
They crave. But they do like his work. So they're not really valid. Yeah.
They're like reply guy in Patrick Ruffers saying, have you forgotten about the growth books? I don't think he's forgotten. He brings it up almost non-stop in his goodreads reviews. Yeah, but that was like in 2015.
Yeah. Now he has to pretend he didn't write them otherwise. People try and make him release the next book. No, he has to conclude his trilogy and he probably doesn't know how to do that.
Well, he probably realized that they're terrible. And now he's like, what do I do? I don't know how to end this because I can't write well. Shall I go over some of the goodreads reviews for this book just whilst we're here on that topic?
OK. Sure. Oh, just as an intro. We are reading the second half of Equal Rights this week, if you haven't got that.
Equal Rights. Yeah. Equal Rights. Equal Rights, you know?
Woman on top. OK. OK. We are not sponsored by Goodreads, but we could be.
Definitely talk about it enough, but I don't think we ever say anything good. You said you like it. It's fine. I use it all the time, but it's a love-hate relationship.
So hey, I hate relationship. I think it's a weird website, like, because, you know, the medium is the message. And, you know, Letterbox also cultivates a specific kind of audience or film-likers. So, like, Letterbox also cultivates a specific audience of film fans, right?
But that feels less weird, I guess. Like, if I go on Letterbox, I, all the reviews, most of the reviews seem like sensible and they like the kinds of movies you expect internet people to like. But maybe because, like, books are such a, there's so much more books in the world than films. It feels much more weird how Goodreads has, like, made this weird niche of, that young adults is like 90% of the books we read.
Yeah, it's because of BookTube. It's because, like, Book YouTubers log everything on that. And I have not seen a Book YouTuber who doesn't exclusively review young adult novels. Yeah, I didn't know.
I didn't know Book YouTubers was a thing, honestly. Oh, yeah. I was thinking it's more that people who, like, build their identity around books are, like, a very specific type of person compared to people who like movies, because most people like movies. And a lot of people read, but you have to be a kind of person to be like, oh, I'm a bookie person and I love to read, you know?
Yeah, it's like a personality thing. So I just want to go through some of these reviews for it, because these are all the ones that are reviews which are the most entertaining ones to read. So that's one review here, which is the shortest one I can see, which just says evil, full-source. The review is just evil.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want this latter book that is Goodreads user to elaborate on this because I fully can't comprehend what people even mean. And you know, I was explaining how on Goodreads you can shelve books. This reviewer has also shelved it into trash. He really doesn't like it.
It's a very funny one. Yeah, there's another review here that says another pratchit that was surprisingly and disappointingly politically correct. Oi! Imagine reading all of Terry Pratchett's books and then thinking like, God, I hate all the political correctness in these.
God, I'm running my back to you this way. Yes, I'm whiched, am I right? And then this is the final one, which is unquestionably one of Pratchett's worst efforts, although that said still better than Omen's. And actually probably better than much of the drivel I've seen out there lately.
Can I stop you for a second? Yeah, go for it. Good Omen's is like, generally beloved, right? Yeah.
And even as the new game and this, I still think it's a really good book. Yeah, I like it. And how is that someone's least favorite thing Terry Pratchett wrote? Like, total, absolute bottom of the barrel.
Even the one-star review of a different book you have to know how Good Omen's is even worse. I guess me just really hate Good Omen's. But like, Good Omen's is like, very Pratchett. Like, he's sort of, it's all the normal tropes that he does, so I don't really get like, oh, really liking his canon, but then finding that one.
Like the worst because it is so, like, him? Yeah. They read Good Omen's. They read Good Omen's, like, God, is it real?
And then through the book, like, out of all? Or they read Good Omen's and went, this isn't respectful for God. And then through the book of the war. Yeah.
I feel like, yeah, there is more likely. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like your first explanation though.
Yeah, I just like the idea of something like a hardcore sci-fi atheist, and being really into like Pratchett's deconstruction of religion and stuff. And then reading Good Omen's and deciding it's too close to the canon. Angels fuck off. I will carry on.
Yeah, go on. Almost as if the author was goaded into writing this in a hurry by the ubiquitously annoying political correctness crowd, tossing some sort of lack in his works of title nine attention. What does that mean? Some American thing, I think.
Like maybe, is that? Title nine. Is that what's it called? What's it called?
It's like affirmative action. It's that affirmative action. Uh, title nine. I was going to say the thing is, this is only his third book, so I'm not sure they're going to be like, wow, there aren't enough female characters in the two books you've written.
That are quite short. It is just funny that this is, I mean, yeah, it's about women's rights, but to be like, this is annoying political correctness when it's literally men and women can do the same job. Like, that's not like that politically correct anymore, to say. That's just like the normal thing.
Okay, so title nine of the Education Amendments in 1972 was designed to limit discrimination by sex and sexual harassment in public schools and other government-funded institutions. Well, that sounds pretty politically correct. So this person is annoyed that Terry Pratchett also thinks girls should be able to go to school. That's edging me back to the words that they actually really like, Gartin, I thought he was.
Yeah. Is this person edgy men's rights activist, atheist or hardcore Christian? I mean, the trick is that they're basically the same thing. It's like- Yeah, every whole shoe out.
This continues to say, as if writing is or should be a sporting event, formulaic and hurried, but unlike previous works, no laughs and no ha-ha moments to grab the reader's attention, let alone the admiration I hold most of his other works in. How are you going to read this book and be like, this is too politically correct, but you read the rest of the books and you think, no, no, this is a fine amount of political correctness. Which point is it too much? Like, where does it tick the scales?
How is this like less funny than the first two books? Like, I thought there were more jokes in this one than the colour of magic or like, fantastic. I think there were better jokes. I think some of the ones that I found funnier, but I don't know.
Yeah. They're more effective because they're kind of deeper in a lot of ways. So they just sort of better. Yeah, his writing's better.
His writing's better, yeah. Luffs, hair women, symbolise. So what? No, this is like, this is like- But does he also hate all the other witches books?
Particularly. You see like if a woman makes a joke, even if it's a character in a book, it's, I won't be able to comprehend that as funny, because women are just stupid. They just say stupid things, they're not funny. But this book was like about women being allowed into uni.
And he's like, this is too close to real life feminism. Whereas maybe in the other witches books, they're more about like doing Macbeth. And they're like, okay, Macbeth is good, but it's not, it's not women being schooled, I don't know. You're saying when you're so anti-political correctness that you think like late 1890s, like forgetting what it's been, university universities.
Yeah, you're like, for suffragettes, those SJW bitches. It's like, that's not like the most, it's like, that's not like a new feminist thought. Like that's been the norm for like a really long time. And whether or not it's been like effective to have like equal education for men and women or not, is, you know, another matter.
But it's like not some thing that's come out the last 10 years where you can be like, oh, it's the work brigade. It's like, this has been one of the main feminist talking points to the last like hundred years. Yeah. It's the work.
Both Taliban are giving women education. Just like the real Taliban did, I guess. I worried was strong at him a little bit, but- Probably. But he's the one who said like, this is too politically correct.
That's true. I'm going through- That was a point I'll get this review is from April 2020. So this isn't like some- Oh my god. Yeah.
Yeah. He also once started Good Omens, but also the Hunger Games. Can you tell me what he hates about Good Omens? I really want to know.
I'll see if he wrote a review. It's a really personal call out. We like to go to people's individuals. Yeah, I found a good Omens review.
Have you found it? Yeah. It's just a few sentences. The real Terry Pratchett will be missed.
Stand in, New Game Man does not even come close. And lose fabrication of the most discordant kind. I'm not sure if Game Man even knows what whimsy is when writing fiction, mediocre and quite forgettable try. So this was- I think New Game Man- This was written by New Game Man after Terry Pratchett died.
That's really funny. I think it does. Also, I don't know, Terry Pratchett have ever heard of Title Line, because I hadn't until now. Well yeah, because he's not American.
I think he's like- Everywhere is America, shall I? I forgot. I forgot. Sometimes I forget that everywhere is America.
That is like the experience of being on the internet sometimes, but I'm just like, I've fooled by it. Does he think like, that's so funny. New Game Man trying to like rip off Terry Pratchett in Good Omens. Like, do- Like the copy of Good Omens I had had had an interview with both of them at the end of the book where they talk about writing with each other.
Yeah, mine did as well. That's like the normal copy of that book has that interview. So I just- Well, Terry Pratchett is dead in it and your game is puppeting him. Yeah.
I mean, it's where he was planted to provide content for us. Yeah, maybe I'm just creating good read stock up accounts so that I can like, drive our content machine forwards a little bit. Yeah, it's interesting. It's actually- They also only like, they gave guards guard five stars and going post four stars, but they didn't try to review for that.
They like guards guards because it's about cops. It's just funny that, that's the sky. The only road reviews of the Terry Pratchett books he hates, while still claiming that- That's very, very beautiful. Yeah, I rarely write a review for something unless I hate it.
Yeah, if I like a book, I'm like, yeah, it's pretty good. Whereas if I hate it, I know very specifically why I hate it. Yeah, like I'm- Why are all your podcasts about books you like then? So we can talk about people who hate those books that we like.
Yeah, exactly. What are your positive people? Sometimes I just like those books that we hate those people. And also I'm talking about the stuff I don't like in the books that I like.
All right, is that the segue? Yeah, that's thegue into this book. Okay, so this week we finished off Equal Rights. It's quite a- It's very short.
I'm sorry, I'm just discrolling through these reviews and he also gave a one-star review to the Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, a book from like the 19th century. How? Oh, people do that. People leave one-star review so like, see for old books.
That's insane. It's very funny. There's actually four Musketeers. Sorry, not yet Dumas.
You do math. That's me going on there and leaving a one-star review of On the Road by Jack Arrowhead. He did that. Yeah, that's a different thing.
The book that launched a thousand penguin cover bags. Yeah, for sure. Okay, no, we're going to talk about Equal Rights. Equal Rights.
Equal Rights. Yeah, today we are talking about the second half of the book Equal Rights, in which our character, Esque, like gets into the university. She works as a maid in order to try and learn. She accidentally goes to the dungeon dimensions.
Granny Weatherwax meets the arch chancellor. His name is Cute. Cute? Cute-tangle?
Cute-tangle? I thought it's Cute-tangle. Cut-angle? Like someone cuts an angle.
I don't know if it's a thing. Cut-angle. Cute-angle. I was thinking of Cute-tangle because of the cute angles.
Yeah, that's why I was thinking. Like a cute angle. Yeah. I was thinking of Cute-tangle.
Whatever his name. She held Esque with the wizard staff. Esque and the boy Simon decide to create a new kind of magic, where you don't do magic. Granny Weatherwax gets boyfriend, and that's like the end of the book.
I love how wizards invariably fancy Granny Weatherwax. They really treat people. People do it all the time in these books. Terry Bridget loves to make people really into Granny Weatherwax, which I think is good.
I mean, I think she's probably pretty sexy. She's handsome, but... She's handsome. Like an older woman kind of way.
I know she's not actually a mother, but like, milky. She's a elf, yeah. No, they're all old, so I think it makes sense. I guess she's not a mil for him.
She's like a wolf. Like a witch. I'm a little bit of a wolf. Yeah, because there's like the whole sexual tension between them begins by them having that magic of.
Which, you know, and the next scene of them is like, they're saying to each other, oh, that was quite good. And then immediately like, growing a cigarette. Oh, shit, I didn't get that. Yeah, it's very good.
She's like, did I help with nerves? Yeah. Well, they are. Yeah.
Yeah. And, oh, oh, I have some podcast, not podcast, but some like, focus on stuff for that. Because you know, they do a transformation chase, which is a long, a long, it's in a number of legends and folk tales. I think it was also as a parentist reference.
I mean, it goes back to like, Greek myths. That's like, yeah, then. Well, they change into things that will sort of counteract one another. It's a long, it's a long, established trope.
It's in the Telia, I think it is. The Welsh figure. And there's a focus on called, I think the Blacksmith, or it's, um, its sexual politics are to be criticized heavily. It doesn't understand consent in the slightest, but it is, it is a wizard who is also a Blacksmith.
It tries to bed and marry a young woman. And they do a transformation chase. Eventually, he turns into a bed and she gets into a bed. It's a bit weird, but I don't know.
Why'd she get in there? I don't know if I've heard of it. Yeah, so I thought it's a reference to that. There's no movie, the sword in the stone.
I was thinking, it's just Greek myths, isn't it? There's like, six apples. I mean, it's a long, it's long establishment. It's all of you.
I mean, there's like, a sort of, like, five-minute sequence in that costume, where they're just doing that. Yeah, well, I thought it was, that's probably from the Sorcerer's Apprentice as well, and the original Sorcerer's Apprentice story. And I thought that because, obviously, there's a lot of wizard apprentices. So I thought he was like, look, Sorcerer's Apprentice.
What is the Sorcerer's Apprentice? Because I googled it. It's a story. It just gives me a movie from 2010.
Oh my god, that's based on the story. It's like, I don't know who, it's like a folktale thing. Yeah, I read a, yeah, so there's a bunch of different folk fairy tales I can't remember which one I read. But it is similar in that it has like, he's like a Sorcerer and he has a magic stick that allows him to do magic the apprentice does.
And he uses magic to like, take buckets of water from the well, but it goes wrong and it does it too much. Yeah, that's the same thing that happens in the poem. But there's no, like, what I was referring to is like the whole, when they're like turning into different things. Yeah, well, I thought that at the end of it.
And in the Disney movie that I'm talking about, the Sword in the Stone, there's also Witch in the Wizard, who both have a show of, they keep turning into different animals. I mean, it's probably a reference to all of them pretty much here. That's happening in the Sorcerer's Apprentice, like there's no Witch in it, that's why I meant it reminded me much more of that. What was I going to say?
Yeah, there's a bit where she's running with the wax and Kewtango get in the boat and she's like using a broomstick as like a paddle and Kewtango's just like, damn, the way she's doing that is making me have inconvenient feelings. It's like, why is, why specifically that? I mean, okay. She's pretty sexy.
Yeah, there's a lot of that. Yeah, at one point, at the end, he imagines her wearing silk and then like, Heatherly bites into his scar. It's kind of, yeah, it's the classic joke of being titulated, not by skin, but just like only 12 layers of clothes instead of 13. Yeah, it is very funny because she has that whole relationship, well, she has like a previous relationship with Rigg Kelly, which you find out about in one of the later books.
And I think it's just very funny that very, very powerful wizards have relationships with Goni Wetherwett. They find her mysterious. Yeah, she's very commanding. And that's what they want.
There's so many fun things at the end of this book. I thought it was really weird. It just kind of ends. Yeah.
Okay, so let's correct me if I'm wrong on this, but the whole like, the whole theme that we talked about of gender in the first half of this, it just kind of stops, right? Yes, yeah, the metaphor sort of trails off. You could say, like, this would be stretching it really. You could say at the end when her and Simon come up with this concept of like, doing magic by not doing magic.
You could say that's like being neither witch nor wizard because you're like doing the opposite of magic, but that's stretching it a bit. It does sort of peter out. I mean, it does end. Yeah.
I'm coming up with the combined witch and wizard magic and like the university, it's starting to change to like both of them. So you could bring it in and say like, well, the metaphor stops because the culture changed. Like, it doesn't really. Yeah, exactly.
Mostly, mostly it's just like, not really addressed. I'm not sure how to ask, like, comes to turn with her issues from the first half of the book, because she just sort of doesn't. She just likes it now. She sort of accepted and she that's kind of what she wanted.
I'm not sure how she changes significantly, apart from, I don't know. There's a thing in this. You don't get any introspection from her after that point. No.
There's no internal monography. Yeah, like the book kind of starts being about turning into more about Granny Wetlewax in the second half. Yes. Like there's like 80 pages where S doesn't even show up.
Yeah, which is why they have this whole like heroes journey metaphor in it. Like where Granny Wetlewax and Qtangle are talking and he says wizard should never go home. And then she says, I don't think they can go home. You can't cross the same river twice.
I always say it's like, oh, I love that scene though. It's really good. But you have this like heroes journey metaphor that they're talking about and like never being the same. But like she sort of like is the same.
Yeah. I mean, I suppose it's one of those things where the world is changing around her. And she does change locations. Like there isn't an example of her actually going back home.
But yeah, it doesn't get like a lot of self reflection on it. It has a very abrupt end. It's sort of just, yeah, it sort of does stuff and there isn't a lot of. Yeah, I was like looking at my Kindle page numbering and I saw that there's only like 10 more pages left and you know the main conflict still hasn't really been addressed.
Yeah. I wonder if it's that he like got halfway through sort of the idea for sorcery because there's like some action this about raw magic and I was like, okay, I'll just finish this. I'll finish this and then back to the rinse. I was like, okay, let's get it over with and then I can write it more about wizards.
Well, they keep mentioning the word sorcery a few times towards the end as well. Yeah. I was talking about gender but now I've gotten a bit like I'm like, I don't know how to conclude because I don't really know that much about gender and now I'm confused. So I guess we defeat the dungeon dimension.
Yeah, we did it. We killed God. I remember because when I think of this book, I remember Simon being so much of more of a significant character because he becomes significant but he is in like three scenes maybe this entire book. But they have this whole thing about him doing like quantum magic or whatever.
And about this maybe attracting the dungeon dimensions but that's not even really like explored that much. Yeah, for a concept that is like that he clearly put thought into and that is like super intriguing for the implications of the world. Because I found that thing interesting because it almost had like a meta-textual element to it. About how he was like, you know, words have power and if things don't exist unless we think of them, which like in a meta thing, it could be like about writing, you know.
But then he just sort of didn't. I thought it was a quantum theory reference but that makes sense as well. I think it's both. Like it can be both I think.
Yeah. I'm not sure how interested Toby Pratchett really is in the dungeon dimension. Like it's something he came up with and it's included in the sort of early books. It does get dropped eventually and even in this he has granny, someone asked granny what they are and she says, nobody really knows.
They're just kind of bad things. It's like he's not even that interested in exploring it himself beyond that. Maybe we talked about that last episode in that they sort of as a scary thing that will happen to you if you get too absorbed in power, but they're very general in that you do powerful things and then these horrible things will come for you because they won't shape and they want to get in. And later on he goes a bit more specific with things that happen to you if you obsessively try and get power.
Yeah, because people's plots start becoming less about like, I just want lots of magic and more specifically about like, I want control of this place or I'm going to build this giant pyramid etc. So like you actually do have more of a specific villain rather than his ennevealous group of like eldritch gods that look like sort of chicken crusts with rhinos or get you. And when they do come back later, because they come back in moving pictures, but through the medium of like film is being scary and like the idolatry and iconography of film and celebrity being what's bad rather than it being just like scary monsters. I love moving pictures.
Yeah, so good. I'm so excited for that one. But yeah, it feels like it's coming up with concepts. But like it makes sense if we think of these really as he just writes as he goes.
Because he like comes up with a cool concept halfway through the book, but it's like too much of a high concept for something that should be introduced this late, I think into the book. Like this, you know, you could just write an entire book about it. But now he's already about half a book about gender. Well, yeah, because I think it becomes the sort of pondest hidden scientific magic that happens in the lady.
Yeah, that's like the other thing that it feels like he came up with a ton of concepts here that he later comes back and like really fleses out that with different characters sometimes. Yeah. Like with ponder, like with the whole like teacher trainee, which relationship that is going to later do the Tiffany Aking books about. Yeah.
There was something else. A lot of the asks, struggles with witchcraft are also very similar to some of the stuff that Tiffany has later on, like very similar, but a lot more detailed and a lot more fleshed out. Oh yeah, and the other thing is the thing we already mentioned, the granny wizard chemistry that gets granny just has chemistry wherever she goes. Yeah.
Yeah. I was thinking there's some stuff I really do really like about her skin this book, like the bit where she's gotten into the university and she's trying to show off her powers in front of the wizards and they don't work. And I was just thinking like how much that made me flashback to my own childhood of like not magic obviously, but like trying to play the violin in front of people and sucking at it. And like everyone's like, come on, play for your family, you know, you're under pressure now.
And it's like, great, this isn't gonna work. It was just one of those that like, yeah, I relate to this. It's a very like childhood kind of anxiety thing. Well, that's when um, Treetel brings her in as well and he's obviously kind of doing it to be cruel.
And granny weatherwax is like, well, if you're gonna do this to yourself, you can do it by your own, by yourself, I'm not going in there because I know what's going on. Yeah, she's like, I don't know what she is. No. Um, we introduced him, uh, Mrs Whitlow, the Husker who is a recurring character.
Yeah, that seems that pretty cool. I like those. Yeah, it's very funny. I love this idea of granny weatherwax coming to the city.
I'm just being like, really into it and she immediately does really well. She blossoms, despite being a country-bunkin. Yeah. Oh yeah.
So, this is the thing about this book. Like I think because the criticisms we have are like on the whole structure of the book and on, yeah, you know, higher like things about, you know, how he builds up the story and where it ends up in the end, whether the themes he started in the beginning get paid off at all. But like from a scene to scene basis, it's great. Like I think the individual scenes are all really fun to read.
It doesn't quite add up into a complete story. Yeah, I just, it is really just nice to read definitely. Um, I think the development of granny as a character is very significant actually in this book. Like she is very well realised immediately.
Yeah. Whatever that chickpea rother seems to think. The stuff we're here with her immediately, like making all these potions for everyone and getting all this stuff. And she's like, maybe I should send for my goats.
I can set up shop here in, uh, in Aiknawok. You know, she gets, she's just good at stuff. And there's a very funny bit where she's reading the witch sign outside the university to go to the housekeeper. And she sort of privately decides that city witches aren't very smart, which I just thought was very funny.
She's just like so set in her ways, but she's so, she's so easy to visualise as a character. Like everything about her, I can picture exactly who she is. Yeah. So, so her petro.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to that fight that she has with, um, Cutangle where they're turning into the different things.
Um, that's the sort of like, witch power that Esk is like, doesn't think is real or doesn't normally see. Because she doesn't do it very often because that sort of witchcraft is not doing it. That doesn't mean they can't do things or aren't powerful. Oh, she's just that they don't feel the need to.
Like, granny weather makes often does things that are incredibly powerful. And then it's like, what? No, it's just, you know. That is one of the things that does carry on from this book is the wizards become, I suppose after sorcery, well, which we will get to.
The wizards do become a lot less into throwing vibels everywhere for no reason, and a lot more academic and choosing not to do magic because they can do magic. Yeah. Because then there's like, he's like the arch chance of the university and she beats him. I mean, she doesn't beat him, but he privately admits to himself like she would have won this for this fight if we kept going.
And it's like, so what this one hedge witch from the middle of nowhere up in the Rams office is just going to beat you, the arch chance of the university. And you still think witchcraft is stupid. Well, she's not the hedge witch Lucy because hedge witch is a very specific class of witch. Sorry.
Yeah, you're right. She's got her own cottage. Yeah, she has her own witch cottage, which means she's high ranking. They do make a joke about hedge wizards in this where they're like, they're just like wizards who talk to plants.
Yeah, I like to go there. I think it's like a good existence. Yeah, because we were talking about hedge wizards and some of the babies and puppies, so I just thought it was funny. Yeah.
A lot of witness with the staff. I'm not sure what the conclusion of the staff story. I have no idea what the metaphor of the staff is. Yeah.
He's got a knob on the end. It's very fast. I guess. I guess.
Yeah, piece of imagery. There's just a scene with Granny Weatherworks about where she talks about now you can't transfer any of this pain onto Esuke if Es dies. I will do all this stuff, you and can you tangle Flitches as she's talking about stripping down the staff and it's just like, oh, okay. Staff is dick.
Staff is dick. There's a thing where she gives up the power where she puts the staff away when she's in the dungeon dimensions, which I guess is sort of metaphorically giving up the staff's power, because then at the end it doesn't have carvings or anything anymore, and it's more just like a stick. But I'm not sure what it means, exactly. It's not well explored.
It's kind of like through my quotes. I have one that I underlined because it's so stupid. It's the light was misty and echtenic, the sort of light to make Steven Spielberg reach for his copyright lawyer. What?
That feels like a very specific targeted joke about Steven Spielberg suing probably some independent filmmaker for doing something he did. I think it's just a reference to the way of the typical Steven Spielberg lighting, where it's like, you know, there's these flashlights in fog or whatever, but it's just a weird joke to make in a fantasy book when Steven Spielberg doesn't exist in the canon of the book. Oh, I love it. I love those kinds of meta jokes.
He does do that a few times. That was another one as well, and I can't remember what it was. I like to hear the couple of jokes, and it's one of my favourite ones as like Eskyn Weatherwax taking up a house in the shades, living there. A very well connected man who sold stolen items for a living with the like, beautiful fences.
Oh, God. Make good neighbours. Yeah, I was thinking about that when I was like, God damn it. All that paleontology one that was fossils were well known on the disc world, great spiral shells and badly constructed creatures that were left over from the time when the craze to hunt really decided what he wanted to make and what, as it were, just idemessing around with the place to scene.
I'm making some love. I love the pattern. That's just being amazing. Place to scene.
Jesus fucking Christ. The other reference to real life things was when it talked about like, finding a wadded up pound note in the back of your pocket when it's been through, like a washer and a dryer and the ironing. But I'm okay with that. I think they don't have a pound.
They don't have a pound, so it's definitely like a pound. Oh, it does date it as well. It's very so badly powered. No, but I don't know.
For some reason that bothers me less than actually saying the name of Steven Spielberg. Yeah, I do kind of get that. It's very, it's, it drags you out of it. It's super exciting.
Yeah, I don't mind it though. I, because I, I always think of the disc wall that's existing in the same universe as this planet. So yeah, I'm like, we, there's, there's so many references all the time that I just explicit like normal. What did he call them?
He goes around world references. Yeah. Yeah. No, the thing that's messing with my brain here is, it's just the name.
It's that, uh, not like, it's that, but put in a larger context. It's because there's also so many jokes that I reference to real world things where it's like, through a layer, like, you know, the thing where it's, where he makes our band names that are clearly references to real bad names, but they're like different, you know, so, so it's weird to have both, right? All the whole of moving pictures. Yeah, exactly.
Like, it's weird to have jokes that are like, uh, differently, like, differently described things like, you know, or like, like even the concept of the iconograph or whatever. Kind of, I just, I don't hate it. I think I just quite like those jokes. So I'm, I'm registered to criticism.
Um, yeah. I just don't think he thinks about it that much. I think he just like, it's like, oh, this is joke and I'm good at it. I think it's one of his voice.
Yeah, I think a part of it is this whole like 400 words a day thing, where it's like not even that consistent all the way through the book, but there's like, I don't know, just almost like random jokes. It's like mad lives. Um, yeah. I think if most people write 400 words a day in the same style that he did, he'd be very bad books.
Yeah. For the most part. Pro. Well, they're not if you just like edit them in the correct way or if you have like, and I, or you go back and rewrite them afterwards, but I'm not sure he ever really did.
There's a very funny essay in his book of essays, which is about him writing small gods. Well, he's literally just sitting at his desk and it's like, he's writing his thought processes as he writes the beginning 400 words of small gods, which is just him like obsessively thinking about turtles and then going through like books and being like, what happens with a turtle? Why would you drop a turtle from a great height? Why would you kill someone with a turtle?
And that's like the whole premise of small gods. That's like a move. The turtle doesn't move. Um, yeah, I'm just going through my notes and I heard like one quote from the end.
So I really liked by, don't know what I have to say about it, you know? I don't know what my thoughts are on this. Is it the end? No, it's that she's hardly more than a child and children throw us all the way sooner or later.
That weather works as to the staff. It's just like, it's interesting. Yeah, that's very, very like Star Wars the last Jedi. They are what we grow beyond stuff, you know, kids, they just hate you after a while.
Kids today growing up and moving on with their lives. Everyone's very important. If someone, if someone has a stuff that you should not correct them, you should just let them say it. Yeah, that's weird.
The whole stuff stuff. Yeah, and he sort of overcomes it. She just loses it. Okay.