The morality of fantasy and horror is, by and large, the strict morality of the fairy tale. The vampire is slain, the alien is blown out of the airlock, the Dark Lord is vanquished, and, perhaps at some loss, the good triumph – not because they are better armed but because Providence is on their side.
Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.
Tag: terry pratchett
I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“No harm in that. I’ve never known what to do,” said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. “Been completely at a loss my whole life.” He hesitated. “I think it’s called being human, or something.
Terry Pratchett – Sorcery (via terrypratchettparadise)
All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!
I have a duty!
Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1)
So this is vibing really really hard for me in terms of Active classes in general, and Jade and Jake in particular. I think the active/passive system is unfurling into something that is as profound and fascinating as the Aspects themselves in my head and I am really really excited about it.
(via revolutionaryduelist)
Every time I recommend Discworld to someone, I get asked “where should I start?” There are several reading order guides floating around the internet, but they just give the order of each series, they don’t give you any information on which to base a choice of starter novel. For that, use this handy
(and very biased, okay, I admit it)flow chart!For everyone one who has been asking ME where to start (I’m sorry I don’t reply to you all I get asked this so often) this is an exceedingly good chart.
@abadpoetwithdreams I found it
This past Christmas my brother and I decided to start my mother on Discworld (she had said she was wanting to read more for fun). I made the decision to go with Wyrd Sisters and Small Gods. It seems to have worked out.
Going nuts–or, rather, not going nuts–was the soul and centre of witchcraft, and this was how it worked. After a while, a witch, who almost always worked by herself in the tradition of witches, had a tendency to go… strange. Of course, it depended on the length of time and the strength of mind of the witch, but sooner or later they tended to get confused about things like right and wrong and good and bad and truth and consequences. That could be very dangerous. So witches had to keep one another normal, or at least what was normal for witches. It didn’t take very much: a tea party, a singalong, a stroll in the woods, and somehow everything balanced up, and they could look at advertisements for gingerbread cottages in the builder’s brochure without putting a deposit on one.
Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
(via discworldquotes)
I had many fascinating and enjoyable phone calls about the books while he was writing them–the phone would ring: ‘Listen to this’, and he would read a passage he was particularly pleased with, and I could see why; or ‘I’m not sure what should happen now’ and he would tell me the plot up to that moment, and we’d talk about its possible direction. Then he’d say ‘Right, I know what happens now.‘ The call was finished, and I’d hear no more, but when I read the final text there’d never be even an echo of our conversation: something had struck him from a completely different direction and was better than anything we’d discussed during that call. Genius.
I miss those calls, his company, his humour, and his erudition, but we have his books, the deep moral sense that pervades and imbues them, their supreme craftsmanship, his skill in writing works to which we return again and again, his characters, his puns, his footnotes. I miss the challenges he set me, and the pleasure involved in their achievement, sometimes to his considerable surprise. There won’t be another like him, but his values will influence and inspire his readers for as long as his books are read. Children become adults, teenagers become professors and heads of industry. And as Terry influenced them, they influence the world.
Colin Smythe (Pratchett’s publisher and agent), “The Terry Pratchett Diary”
(via noirandchocolate)
Colin as Conductor of Light
(via grassangel)
just moving along like everyone else 