Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’.
Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
the-tao-of-fandom: puzzleaddictyomz: beanmoreau: fandomsandfeminism: fandomsandfeminism: telaryn: copperbadge: badgerbee: discworldtour: poorlydescribedpterrybooks: discworldtour: Guards! Guards! has one of the first Big Deal Discworld moments for me, and I’m not very good at articulating what that means. The moment I’m thinking of is the dragon’s speech to Wonse – “we were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and… Continue reading on Big Deal Moments in Discworld
iconuk01: hobbitron-3000: -Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters Anger is an important tool. We can do this. Also worth remembering the article about Sir Terry that Neil Gaiman related here https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman Terry looked at me. He said: “Do not underestimate this anger. This anger was the engine that powered Good Omens.” I thought of the driven way… Continue reading Granny Weatherwax was often angry. She considered it one of her strong points. Genuine anger was one of the world’s greatest creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn’t mean you let it trickle away. it meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.
I wrote the first 5,000 words of William the Antichrist. It had a demon named Crawleigh. He drove a Citroen 2CV, and was ineffectual. Proper demons like Hastur and Ligur loathed him. It had a baby swap. I sent it to a few friends for feedback. Then my graphic novel Sandman happened, and it was almost a year later that the phone rang.
“It’s Terry,” said Terry. “‘Ere. That thing you sent me. Are you doing anything with it?“
“Not really.”
“Well, I think I know what happens next. Do you want to sell it to me? Or write it together?”
“Write it together,” I said, because I was not stupid, and because that was the nearest I was ever going to get to Michaelangelo phoning to ask if I wanted to paint a ceiling with him.
Neil Gaiman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30512620
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A writing partner who makes your imagination and spirit soar is more precious than gold.
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Life Goals! THIS RIGHT HERE!!!
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the-tao-of-fandom: So, to recap: Today makes a year since writer and semi-professional hat-wearer Terry Pratchett died, aged sixty-six. And the world has gone on, like it tends to do, like it does for all of us. But we‘re still pretty good at remembering. This is why you‘ll find the message GNU littered all over the… Continue reading One (brief) year later.
That’s the thing about being alive. You’re alive to enjoy it.
knitmeapony: knitmeapony: The dogged determination and patience of one person to do what is Right and Necessary may not always win the day or even be noticed, but it will tip the balance just a little in the direction of good. “[T]he innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer… Continue reading Things I Learned From Sir Terry Pratchett And His Marvelous Worlds (A Necessary List)
Men at Arms is a direct attack on the idea of monarchy and aristocracy that so much “high fantasy” is based on; Jingo is a fantasy war story that denies the reader the “fun” of seeing a war break out and ends up attacking the concept of war; the character of Rincewind is a subversion of the whole idea of heroism. Monstrous Regiment is a meditation on feminism, Cherry Littlebottom and other female dwarfs a commentary on gender identity and trans people, Thud! a statement against ethnic hatred.
But all this deconstruction and subversion didn’t come across as having to eat your vegetables, the way literary fiction often does. And it didn’t come across as a bitter, guilty pleasure either, the way people geek out about the horrifying viciousness of “low fantasy” worlds like A Song of Ice and Fire’s Westeros.
Pratchett somehow made his progressive, subversive work as tasty a snack as any of the high fantasy he was subverting. Much of that candy coating was humor–the ability to laugh, as he once argued, being our brain’s way of extracting pleasure from the otherwise painful process of recognizing uncomfortable truths.
Monsters' Queen 