Wintersmith et al
Oct. 25th, 2006 02:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyingskullMy very good and patient friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baeraad in response to one of my many proddings wrote in his lj:
Oh man yes! :D I read it a few days ago. And from the moment I opened it until I got to the last page, I spent all my time doing one of two things; reading or walking briskly around my apartment trying to resist the urge to whoop and holler in a way offensive to my neighbours. :D
Oh, the characters! Oh, the plot! Oh, the grandeur seamlessly fitting together with the matter-of-fact realism! Oh, my complete inability to say anything on the subject without melting into a puddle of pure Fanboy! ^_^;;
I did remember to study the style, and I must admit it was interesting. There's a detail here, there's a detail there, and somehow it comes together into an entire world. This is definitely what I have to try for - no long descriptions, but a framework for the readers to fill out.
Oh, and I was very fond of the beginning. Not something to try in a stand-alone book, I think, but seeing as this is the third book in a series... we know pretty much what shape things will have, don't we? We know Tiffany is going to be exposed to the Discworld-witch version of zen philosophy, we know that there's going to be an antagonist who's more a force of nature than a person, and we know that there's going to be some kind of showdown where she's going to have to demonstrate what she's learned (the real Witch Trials aren't competitions, are they? They turn up out of nowhere, and the witch either knows her stuff or she doesn't, and if she doesn't, she's not the only one who's going to have to pay).
So here we get it right from the start - just how powerful Tiffany has become, and just how inadequate that is in the face of what she's dealing with. So all through the story, we know that this is where we're heading. We never have to ask ourselves if it's going to get worse before it gets better. We know that it will.
I also love the escalating scale of responsibility Tiffany has to take in each book. In Wee Free Men, the problem came from outside, and she was the only one who could deal with it. In Hat Full of Sky, it was her own desires made a mess of things, but they had to be triggered from the outside. In Wintersmith, it's her fault. Period. She didn't mean any harm, but she did something stupid, and now she's going to have to deal with the consequences before her world ends because of it.
First I don't think that beginning works only because it's part of a series, in fact I am quite sure it would work SMASHINGLY well in any novel. Think of it, imagine this is the first book by Pterry you've ever read. Wouldn't you want to read on to know what the fuck has happened and how and why and to whom and who the HELL is this girl? Me, I would and I'm sure I'm a pretty average reader when it comes to pant over a book and forget to eat at first reading. I come over all critiquy and things at the third or fourth reading, actually.
Then, I don't know you but Tiffany Aching is a heroine I love to dislike. I really do and I think that THIS is the measure of Pterry's real greatness as an author. Look, I'm not sure I can explain, but... well, you see, in a way the Tiffany trilogy is a kind of anti-Potter thingy. There you have your misunderstood but quite hefty hero ('kay, 's a heroine and am not spitting on that but please allow me), there you have your compeer nemesis who is nothing half as lethal as the real baddies (alright, not exactly baddies as such, this is Pterry, not some clichéd pen pusher) but who is snotty and things and you have other compeers who may not seem much, but in the end they are pretty good at things. See where I'm going?
Tiffany is... *takes a deep breath* ... complicated, which I love, and not particularly lovely, which is alright because she has THE quality that really makes her a hero: she takes the consequences of her actions. She's pretty cool, in fact she's way too cool in her own estimation, and here's where the Potter parallel comes in. And you know why I love Pterry so much - BTW I think Maya's getting there, slowly but if she keeps this last style of writing, she's definitely getting there - because he ain't afraid of presenting a not very likeable heroine and he never but never shirks on her bad - very really bad - qualities and he never sugarcoats things BUT anyone can see why she's the bloody heroine. Not because she's powerful, but because she takes responsibilities and fucking PAYS her dues. I don't know many writers who can do that, y'know? Keep the ethics and not fall into the 'loveable' hero pattern.
So what does one do when the hero/ine is not that likeable a person? :-D One gives a long hard look at the baduns and sees if there's anything that resonates there. And oooooooooh LOOOK! We have two!
I truly find Annagramma and Mrs Earwig lovely persons. YEP! I confess: if Granny weren't so... so... oh fuck so on THE EDGE all of the time I wouldn't love her so deeply or so much. The fact that Granny is never but never allowing herself Tiffany's kind of arrogance makes her own arrogance endearing. But my heart, in a way, would be with Mrs Earwig and her daring theory of combining male and female magic all the way and all the time.
Annagramma - Tiffany's Draco - LEARNS! Wow! A character who allows facts and experience to influence her way of thinking and acting! Wow! I mean. WOW. I mean she learns she is NOT redeemed. You see the utter awesomeness? And also Annagramma learns lots more than Tiffany, y'know? Because after all's said and done and after Tiffany's learned what it takes to re-define legends and anthropomorphic personifications, she STILL is going to join the dance AGAIN. Catch Annagramma doing something so stupid or being so absent-minded and caught up in the excitement of the moment to do something so stupid. See what I mean?
And I love Mr Wintersmith and his ice roses that melt in the warmth of a human hand and his ice palace of dreams. I love tragedies and all Tiffany's stories are tragedies, have you unoticed? Tragedies hidden in folk rhymes and ballads that are made clear and present. And any person who dares belittle the MacFleagles' triumph will know the extent of my wrath. Which, I hasten to say, is rather more Granny-like than anything else.
Well, this would have been too long a reply and also that thread was starting to get looooooong, so this is a mercy cut, or surgery operation.
baeraad in response to one of my many proddings wrote in his lj:Oh man yes! :D I read it a few days ago. And from the moment I opened it until I got to the last page, I spent all my time doing one of two things; reading or walking briskly around my apartment trying to resist the urge to whoop and holler in a way offensive to my neighbours. :D
Oh, the characters! Oh, the plot! Oh, the grandeur seamlessly fitting together with the matter-of-fact realism! Oh, my complete inability to say anything on the subject without melting into a puddle of pure Fanboy! ^_^;;
I did remember to study the style, and I must admit it was interesting. There's a detail here, there's a detail there, and somehow it comes together into an entire world. This is definitely what I have to try for - no long descriptions, but a framework for the readers to fill out.
Oh, and I was very fond of the beginning. Not something to try in a stand-alone book, I think, but seeing as this is the third book in a series... we know pretty much what shape things will have, don't we? We know Tiffany is going to be exposed to the Discworld-witch version of zen philosophy, we know that there's going to be an antagonist who's more a force of nature than a person, and we know that there's going to be some kind of showdown where she's going to have to demonstrate what she's learned (the real Witch Trials aren't competitions, are they? They turn up out of nowhere, and the witch either knows her stuff or she doesn't, and if she doesn't, she's not the only one who's going to have to pay).
So here we get it right from the start - just how powerful Tiffany has become, and just how inadequate that is in the face of what she's dealing with. So all through the story, we know that this is where we're heading. We never have to ask ourselves if it's going to get worse before it gets better. We know that it will.
I also love the escalating scale of responsibility Tiffany has to take in each book. In Wee Free Men, the problem came from outside, and she was the only one who could deal with it. In Hat Full of Sky, it was her own desires made a mess of things, but they had to be triggered from the outside. In Wintersmith, it's her fault. Period. She didn't mean any harm, but she did something stupid, and now she's going to have to deal with the consequences before her world ends because of it.
First I don't think that beginning works only because it's part of a series, in fact I am quite sure it would work SMASHINGLY well in any novel. Think of it, imagine this is the first book by Pterry you've ever read. Wouldn't you want to read on to know what the fuck has happened and how and why and to whom and who the HELL is this girl? Me, I would and I'm sure I'm a pretty average reader when it comes to pant over a book and forget to eat at first reading. I come over all critiquy and things at the third or fourth reading, actually.
Then, I don't know you but Tiffany Aching is a heroine I love to dislike. I really do and I think that THIS is the measure of Pterry's real greatness as an author. Look, I'm not sure I can explain, but... well, you see, in a way the Tiffany trilogy is a kind of anti-Potter thingy. There you have your misunderstood but quite hefty hero ('kay, 's a heroine and am not spitting on that but please allow me), there you have your compeer nemesis who is nothing half as lethal as the real baddies (alright, not exactly baddies as such, this is Pterry, not some clichéd pen pusher) but who is snotty and things and you have other compeers who may not seem much, but in the end they are pretty good at things. See where I'm going?
Tiffany is... *takes a deep breath* ... complicated, which I love, and not particularly lovely, which is alright because she has THE quality that really makes her a hero: she takes the consequences of her actions. She's pretty cool, in fact she's way too cool in her own estimation, and here's where the Potter parallel comes in. And you know why I love Pterry so much - BTW I think Maya's getting there, slowly but if she keeps this last style of writing, she's definitely getting there - because he ain't afraid of presenting a not very likeable heroine and he never but never shirks on her bad - very really bad - qualities and he never sugarcoats things BUT anyone can see why she's the bloody heroine. Not because she's powerful, but because she takes responsibilities and fucking PAYS her dues. I don't know many writers who can do that, y'know? Keep the ethics and not fall into the 'loveable' hero pattern.
So what does one do when the hero/ine is not that likeable a person? :-D One gives a long hard look at the baduns and sees if there's anything that resonates there. And oooooooooh LOOOK! We have two!
I truly find Annagramma and Mrs Earwig lovely persons. YEP! I confess: if Granny weren't so... so... oh fuck so on THE EDGE all of the time I wouldn't love her so deeply or so much. The fact that Granny is never but never allowing herself Tiffany's kind of arrogance makes her own arrogance endearing. But my heart, in a way, would be with Mrs Earwig and her daring theory of combining male and female magic all the way and all the time.
Annagramma - Tiffany's Draco - LEARNS! Wow! A character who allows facts and experience to influence her way of thinking and acting! Wow! I mean. WOW. I mean she learns she is NOT redeemed. You see the utter awesomeness? And also Annagramma learns lots more than Tiffany, y'know? Because after all's said and done and after Tiffany's learned what it takes to re-define legends and anthropomorphic personifications, she STILL is going to join the dance AGAIN. Catch Annagramma doing something so stupid or being so absent-minded and caught up in the excitement of the moment to do something so stupid. See what I mean?
And I love Mr Wintersmith and his ice roses that melt in the warmth of a human hand and his ice palace of dreams. I love tragedies and all Tiffany's stories are tragedies, have you unoticed? Tragedies hidden in folk rhymes and ballads that are made clear and present. And any person who dares belittle the MacFleagles' triumph will know the extent of my wrath. Which, I hasten to say, is rather more Granny-like than anything else.
Well, this would have been too long a reply and also that thread was starting to get looooooong, so this is a mercy cut, or surgery operation.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 02:42 pm (UTC)I'm just not sure why she's doing it in Lancre, of all places. She'd be a smash hit in Ankh-Morpork, wouldn't she? I bet there's tons of people there who'd want to try crystal therapy, on the principle that at least it has a better chance of improving your health, or more to the point not further deteriorating your health, than visiting a Morporkian physician. =]
But she isn't interested in being a witch in a wizard city, she's interested in being a sort of female wizard in witch country, which is exactly how a female thinks. She has NO wish to be a man, she's a bit snobby (see previous comment on name pronunciation), a bit squeamish, lots ambitious, quite intelligent - though I suspect Annagramma is more intelligent than her as she doesn't let her vanity get in the way of making things work - and utterly female. She wants to be the leader-they-don't-have of the witches, not to have grubby townies compare her to UU's finest.
She's also not a specialist in any sense of the word, I suspect she is made to look stupid because she's a bit scared of living on the edge and also - and I say this as a female - it's quite stupid for a woman to be squeamish when she bleeds once a month and gives birth to babies. As for the crystal therapy... well, that was Magrat, wasn't it? I don't think Mrs Earwig is more a crack at New Age Wiccans than Magrat was. Like Magrat she could learn that everything works if you are a witch, but there are some occasions in which a hefty rising of the sap or shooting of a fireball - which are, let's say, REAL magic - is needed. Witches can be hypocrites, liars, promadonnas, drunkards, brutal... whatever, BUT they can't be genteel, and that's what Mrs Earwig is. Okay, I realise that 'genteel' may be a tad too Brit for you: think Victorian ladies, they were genteel. Magrat is, after all, never genteel, not even when a queen.
Genteel is the contrary of witchiness, and that's possibly what Pterry has again New Age Wicca idiocy. The one-with-nature, silver-sygil, we-never-ran-through-the-woods-up-to-our-armpits-in-blood kind of witch never existed. Bit of a contradiction in terms, really. Well, I think Pterry finds the whole New Age thing contrived, American and quite stupid, but I may be wrong, as he only seems to attack the Wicca thing.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 02:17 pm (UTC)But she isn't interested in being a witch in a wizard city, she's interested in being a sort of female wizard in witch country, which is exactly how a female thinks.
I guess I understand the first part, but could you explain the part about female thinking?
She wants to be the leader-they-don't-have of the witches, not to have grubby townies compare her to UU's finest.
Hmmm... I guess I can understand that idea, but if she really wants to become some kind of witch nobility who only deals with the "higher" aspects of the craft (which makes sense, actually; it's just a kind of social evolution, with the people on the top dealing with more and more abstract matters. It's presumably how the wizards got started), then working her apprentice into a cottage was a strategic error, wasn't it? I mean, the entire point of Mrs Earwig's brand of witchcraft is the not having to deal with anything as messy as actual people. =]
She's also not a specialist in any sense of the word
Can you elaborate on that? I think she looks kind of specialised - I mean, she only practices magic, and she apparently doesn't even exactly know how it's applied. Witness Annagramma harrassing that poor pig with a spell that, we presume, was correctly cast but definitely not the right one for this particular situation... =]
Her work is abstract, is what I'm saying - it doesn't touch upon the issue of practical application. Which doesn't make it useless, by any means, as long as she keeps the lines of communication open; some of the things she knows that no one else does are bound to have a practical application, if some more down-to-earth witch just got hold of it and got a chance to develop it. And meanwhile, Mrs Earwig can delve back into the high magick and see what else she can find that someone else might have use for.
But that does mean that witches like Mrs Earwig needs someone else to do the actual work, and apparently she's too much of a normal witch to admit that. Witches aren't supposed to need help with anything, so she's decided that all problems can be a) solved by abstract magic, or b) ignored.
It seems to me that she's not entirely clear on what she wants to be - if she's something new, or if she's a traditional witch.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 02:23 pm (UTC)But again, that means not getting bogged down with grubby peasants just because you have a chip on your shoulder and you want to prove that you're better than everyone at everything. Yes, getting a cottage means status in the witchly order of things, but it's exactly that order that Mrs Earwig is against, so why does she care about status in it? No, I still say she fell into a trap with that one. Poor thing, it's not easy to reinvent witchcraft while Granny Weatherwax is the champion of the conservatives... =]
no subject
Date: 2006-11-18 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-05 02:18 pm (UTC)It does seem a little odd, when you put it like that. I guess the human mind kind of compartmentalises everything, so that someone can be completely unphased by dealing with her periods and still refuse to touch raw meat, and see nothing strange about that. =]
(personally, I don't mind raw meat. Its purpose in the grand scheme of things is to be turned into cooked meat, which you can then munch upon. :D)
As for the crystal therapy... well, that was Magrat, wasn't it?
It was Anagramma too. She complains that her villagers refuse to try it.
I suspect crystal therapy might be among the things that Magrat tried to get through to her villagers and eventually had to give up on. She's a research witch, after all. She probably tried to believe in twinkly lights for a while, but eventually she had to admit that Tincture of Whatever, while less romantic, had the benefit of actually curing people. =]
I don't think Mrs Earwig is more a crack at New Age Wiccans than Magrat was.
No, it's mostly just two different approaches. Mrs Earwig is a true believer. Magrat wants to believe, but she just can't silence the voice in her head that say "this is bloody stupid, you know." =]
think Victorian ladies, they were genteel.
Hmm. So one might say, "Genteel, adjective: what Sybil Ramkin isn't."? =]
Well, I think Pterry finds the whole New Age thing contrived, American and quite stupid, but I may be wrong, as he only seems to attack the Wicca thing.
Certainly I have little enough fondness for Wicca. The best I can say for them is that they worship sex and pregnancy, which at least shows some basic consistency, whereas Christianity worships pregnancy and thinks sex is dirty, which makes you wonder if the policy-makers over in that corner should have paid more attention in biology class... =]
But generally, I think it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Both of them have such an oppressively rigid view of how things ought to be, which I detest, especially since I seem to have no place in it. And they're both sappy (like you said, Wicca tends to be very cute, without any mention of blood sacrifice or similar turnoffs =]), and that always drives me up the wall. I hate things that are sappy, because you're not allowed to laugh at them, or get mad at them, or examine them, or do anything else with them except go "awwwwww."
Now, I have at times gone "awwwww" at stuff, but I hate feeling like that's my only option. =]
As for New Age, well, most of it makes me wince, too. But I love the idea that it's pretty much a make-your-own-religion kit. Few people have it in them to be devout atheists, so if they have to believe in something, they can at least all believe in different things. That makes it harder for them to theme up, after all, and that means they'll stay mostly harmless. ;)