Message-ID: <20031229025912.14069.qmail@gacracker.org> From: Igenlode Wordsmith Author-Address: fuku2 redneck gacracker org Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 23:51:34 GMT Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.books.pratchett Subject: Tolkien parodies in Pratchett? (Was Re: good books) References: Organization: The Ivory Tower (http://curry.250x.com/Tower) Administrative-Comment: Send comments to Mail-To-News-Contact: postmaster@nym.alias.net Lines: 45 Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!newsfeed.stueberl.de!in.100proofnews.com!tdsnet-transit!newspeer.tds.net!cyclone.bc.net!news.alt.net!anon.lcs.mit.edu!nym.alias.net!mail2news-x2!mail2news Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:134429 [note cross-post added] On 27 Dec 2003 A Tsar Is Born wrote: [Re: suggestions for fantasy other than Tolkien] > Try Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, of which I think there are now 24 or > so. > Several include parodies of bits of Tolkien, notably Guards! Guards! > (Ankh-Morpork is a send-up of Minas Tirith, the Patrician Vetinari of > Denethor, and Carrot Ironfounderson of Aragorn. Rincewind and Ridcully are > take-offs on Gandalf. Lords and Ladies is quite vicious about Elves, and > several of the books have taken Tolkien's single line about dwarf women > being indistinguishable from dwarf men and dashed for the wild horizon with > it. I doubt JRRT ever imagined dwarvish transvestism....) Attached as I am to both Denethor and Vetinari, I very much doubt that the latter is in any way a send-up of the former, or Ridcully of Gandalf (although there is that line about a wizard "the White" who is going to become "the Grey" if he doesn't keep his laundry a bit cleaner...) I suppose there is also the business about the Patrician ruling from a chair on the steps beneath the old kings' throne, but by and large the machiavellian Lord Vetinari, under frequent attack by the 'real' nobility of his city, has little or no resonance with the hereditary, fiercely proud, aristocratic Lord Steward of Gondor, who proves disastrously lacking in the human intuition of which Vetinari makes such a speciality. I think it's more likely to be a case of secondary sources - that by and large what Pratchett is sending up is post-Tolkienian sword and sorcery fantasy. And there are a myriad lost princes in fairy-tales who serendipitously turn up on the spot with magic swords and birthmarks, whose circumstances bear rather more resemblance to Carrot's than Aragorn's do (Narsil/Anduril isn't even really a 'magic' sword in the way that, say, Sting is - just a family inheritance). On the other hand I think the attacks on Elves in Lords & Ladies probably *are* aimed more squarely at Tolkien's books, in addition to the pretty little winged folk with whom Tolkien himself was so adamant that they should not be confused. And there's an explicit Gollum/Moria parody in "Witches Abroad" :-) -- Igenlode Lurker Extraordinaire * Never assume malice when ignorance is a possibility * ###### Reply-To: "Stacie Hanes" From: "Stacie Hanes" Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.books.pratchett References: <20031229025912.14069.qmail@gacracker.org> Subject: Re: Tolkien parodies in Pratchett? (Was Re: good books) Lines: 31 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Message-ID: Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 02:25:59 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.145.150.109 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1072664759 24.145.150.109 (Sun, 28 Dec 2003 18:25:59 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 18:25:59 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.mailgate.org!cyclone.bc.net!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!241bdd79!not-for-mail Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:134434 Igenlode Wordsmith wrote: > [note cross-post added] > On 27 Dec 2003 A Tsar Is Born wrote: > > > [Re: suggestions for fantasy other than Tolkien] > > > I think it's more likely to be a case of secondary sources - that > by and large what Pratchett is sending up is post-Tolkienian sword > and > sorcery fantasy. And there are a myriad lost princes in fairy-tales > who serendipitously turn up on the spot with magic swords and > birthmarks, whose circumstances bear rather more resemblance to > Carrot's than Aragorn's do (Narsil/Anduril isn't even really a > 'magic' sword in the way that, say, Sting is - just a family > inheritance). > I refer you to _Meditations on Middle-Earth_, in which a Pratchett essay on Tolkien appears. ISBN 0-312-30290-8. I don't have a point, other than you might find it illuminating. Stacie -- "If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning." Catherine Aird, _His Burial Too_ ###### From: "Diane L." Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien,alt.books.pratchett References: <20031229025912.14069.qmail@gacracker.org> Subject: Re: Tolkien parodies in Pratchett? (Was Re: good books) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 12:22:46 -0000 Lines: 33 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 X-Complaints-To: abuse@clara.net (please include full headers) X-Trace: 93d04890e86150486dc180f09974715ce2909700b7cdc704466060b13ff01c95 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 12:22:45 +0000 Message-ID: <1072700565.27276.0@echo.uk.clara.net> Path: redlance.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!irazu.switch.ch!switch.ch!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!lnewsoutpeer00.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!lnewsinpeer01.lnd.ops.eu.uu.net!emea.uu.net!mephistopheles.news.clara.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!echo.uk.clara.net Xref: redlance.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:134501 Igenlode Wordsmith wrote: > On the other hand I think the attacks on Elves in Lords & Ladies > probably *are* aimed more squarely at Tolkien's books, in addition to > the pretty little winged folk with whom Tolkien himself was so adamant > that they should not be confused. I think that's more a case of going back to older traditions about elves. The ones who steal babies and leave changlings, or who pay in fairy gold that vanishes overnight, or play tricks on humans lost in the marshes. It's much more a parody of A Midsummer Night's Dream than of anything in Tolkien, and it emphasises the "otherness" of the fairy-folk in the same way that Shakespeare did and the same way that the old Celtic fables about the Sidhe often do. > And there's an explicit Gollum/Moria parody in "Witches Abroad" :-) And the Arch Chancellor of the Unseen University is Ridcully the Brown, chosen by his fellow wizards because they assumed he'd be a simple child of nature, friend of all the wild things in the forest. As it turns out, of course, his interest in the wild things in the forest lies mainly in trying to make them extinct. Diane L.