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Chastity, celibacy, abstinence, contraceptives, and vasectomy all don´t help if determination predicts and wants that the chosen one is born. To do the usual Discworld shattering stuff.

One knows these problems with prophecies, long awaited, much turmoil surrounding them, and as soon as they become reality it happens completely different than Cassandraded and Michel de Notredamed because of black swans, butterfly effects, or unexpected variations in anything quantum.

Evil, hate filled villains couldn´t be more fun than in this apocalyptic part of the Rincewind series and wait to see how he lurches through disaster, it´s hilarious. But seriously, Pratchett deals with the topic of power, governance, madness, revenge,�� and starts using it as a driving force, often reappearing in his other works.

Tremble in awe, Discworld, as Conina, daughter of Cohen the barbarian, enters the stage to dump gender stereotypes and anything in her way. Pratchett establishes another strong female character with the difference of a fusion of iron body and kind soul, not just the brainpower and some mental, psychological, and magic powers as in the witches and others.

Pratchetts´ McGuffins and Chekhovs´ are not statically and passively awaiting and craving for the heroes but, just as many living and conscious elements and entities of the world, the magic archchancellors´ hat is something with personality, such as the pearwood chest in the first two novels of the series. What is especially amazing about these living furniture and clothes is that they express emotions and opinions without ever saying a word.

The allegory of the great mage wars that left areas of the Discworld so contaminated with magic that there is no sane life possible anymore and therefore uninhabited wastelands, is a nice potshot to cold war, MAD doctrine, general saber rattling, and the potential consequences of whatever magic or mundane weapons of mass destruction may be in use. One could further interpret that the super mighty and rare sorcerers could be ingenious devilish demagogues in our world, leading the world close to real apocalypses or that unleashed technology can´t find it´s way back to Pandoras´ box or that�� As always, Pratchett offers many possible interpretations.

Benevolent dictatorships for the sake of humankind or, in this case, fairy tale creatures and Middle Age population, are always a double edged sword. In contrast to a maniac God emperor with secret police, a softened authoritarian government may seem a better alternative, but how the legitimation is explained in this case is hilarious. Sad that there have been even more ridiculous explanations in reality people bought and accepted.

So we have many fantasy tropes, especially destructive ones, mixed together, as always an extreme density of scenes and fast cuts and, best of all, Pratchett is getting better and better with each novel. One notices that the first ones, especially the ones outside the Discworld, still had elements and signs of a training genius, but we are coming closer and closer to his high period where be permanently produces masterpieces until successively becoming darker, cynical, and sadly less funny, towards the predicted end of his life and work.

Something that possibly wouldn´t have happened without the incurable disease, although he had dark tones before it too, but they might not have become so overwhelmingly depressing and intensive, a kind of having lost hope in humankind feeling.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:


This one is added to all Pratchettian reviews:

The idea of the dissected motifs rocks, highlighting the main real world inspirational elements of fiction and satire is something usually done with so called higher literature, but a much more interesting field in readable literature, as it offers the joy of reading, subtle criticism, and feeling smart all together.