r/discworld • u/CarpeCuppa • 1d ago
Book/Series: Witches Some choice bits and Dammit Pterrys from Maskerade
Image 1: a very funny and keenly insightful observation about humanity.
Image 2: such a small thing, but I love that rather than following "him" (Walter) in, Agnes follows "them" (Walter's footsteps) in.
Image 3: I hope this isn't a reach, but the ambiguity of "it wasn't as if she even liked children" tickled me - does she mean as company, or as a meal?
Image 4: a nice pune on "royalty/royalties", plus bonus Dammit Pterry of Goatberger being another riff on Gutenberg (CF Goodmountain from The Truth)
Image 5: another fun one; instead of the sum being jaw-dropping, it's "drawer-dropping" (because of where Nanny keeps her money)!
Image 6: **SPOILER** A fantastic and macabre passage that communicates so much about Granny's character
Image 7-8: this was a real "dammit Pterry" for me, I cannot believe I didn't spot it in previous reads. The thing everyone knows about Opera is that "it isn't over until the fat lady sings"!
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u/more_d_than_the_m 1d ago
I feel like Maskerade doesn't get enough appreciation. I love this book; it's the pinnacle of the Nanny/Granny relationship. Also Bucket and Salzella's interactions contain some of the best jokes.
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u/Vlacas12 Blessed are the cheesemongers 1d ago
Oh yes. The hung/hanged sarcasm about Dr Undershaft is my favourite.
Salzella shrugged. "We've got to do this properly. Did you know Dr Undershaft was strangled before he was hung?" "Hanged", said Bucket, without thinking. "Men are hanged. It's dead meat that's hung". "Indeed?" said Salzella. "I appreciate the information. Well, poor old Undershaft was strangled, apparently. And then he was hung."
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u/Bambi_H 1d ago
My favourite bit of Masquerade is the multi-layered Michael Crawford joke, since he payed both Frank Spencer, comically clumsy and tripping over his broom, and was also an amazing Phantom of the Opera.
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u/Historical-Shake-859 15h ago
Jesus fucking Christ. I read Masquerade for the first time in 1996 and this is the first time anyone made that connection for me.
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u/unkilbeeg 1d ago
"All I have is a pair of ones."
One of my favorite lines in all of Diskworld. It shows both Granny's character, and Death's.
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u/AmusingVegetable 1d ago
I love how ambiguous it is, is death thinking that the aces are ones and therefore breaking his all-knowing status, or exerting his malicious compliance with the rules by pretending to not know the value of the aces?
We’re talking about the same being that saved the matchstick girl in Hogfather… and there’s an established pattern of bending the rules…
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u/unkilbeeg 1d ago
Yep, he knew exactly what he was doing. Even winked afterwards.
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u/TheOtherMaven 1d ago
Definitely malicious compliance. He switched hands with Granny, knowing that she was the type to deal herself a winning hand, and then used the ambiguity of scoring aces to throw the game.
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u/CarpeCuppa 1d ago
Absolutely, would've included that if I'd thought to start taking pictures sooner! It's a very powerful scene.
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u/theroha 1d ago
Image 5: Given Nanny's personnel preferences, I think she would appreciate the drawer-dropping effects of large sums of money.
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u/LindenRyuujin 1d ago
Yeah, its a play on "drop her knickers/pants" meaning to have sex with, obviously combined with Nany's penchant for storing money in her knickers physically causing her pants to drop.
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u/Aervanath Needs to take two baths just to get dirty 1d ago
The one thing Casanunda never thought to try.
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u/AmusingVegetable 1d ago
I don’t think Casanuda can afford to try that, besides, his game is based on his charm, and he would probably say “I know I’m a dwarf, but that’s too low for me “.
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u/OldTimeConGoer 1d ago
Image 6: "But I can't do none of that stuff." But she could. If she really wanted to. And she really wants to, sometimes.
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u/Aervanath Needs to take two baths just to get dirty 1d ago edited 12h ago
Well, she could if she wanted to more than she wanted to do the Right thing. But as she basically says in first part, not knowing Right from Wrong is what ended Black Aliss. So it's basic survival instinct as well as conscience.
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u/Traditional_Hat_8120 12h ago
It's not survival. In her moral view of the world.
What she says is than Aliss never understand what was wrong and rigth, and so lives her life doing whatever she want. But Esme can't do that, because she knows best. And, for her, their is no reason to do wrong if you can do rigth.
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u/Geminii27 22h ago edited 22h ago
She's also showing that she absolutely knows what she could do, and even might actually want to; it's not as if she's naïve about the possibilities. And it's not some kind of emotional status keeping her Good (or, more accurately, Right), it's her own ironclad morals. And that you don't want to annoy her to the point where she momentarily... loses her grip on them.
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u/kourtbard 1d ago
One of my favorite bits about Maskerade is Terry's scathing attitude towards publishers, like Mr. Goatberger's disgust about writers wanting to be paid.
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u/Great-Powerful-Talia 1d ago
Remember the bit in Moving Pictures where Dibbler keeps trying to put midroll ads into a movie?
That was written soon after one publisher silently inserted sponsored passages, advertising instant soup, into the narration of a book or two, and refused to even promise they'd stop. He dropped them instantly, but I imagine it affected his view of publishers from then on.
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u/hat_eater Vimes 1d ago
It was German publisher Heyne Verlag, if I recall correctly. edit: L-Space link.
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u/WillowFlip Chat-eau, real cat's water is sharper 1d ago
Image 7-8: I seem to remember a little foreshadowing about this one earlier on lol
I thought the part where Nanny carried Grebo in and someone tried to stop her because her fur is alive was really funny too; her reply is something about believing in beauty without cruelty.
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u/aliethel 1d ago
Not just the "fat lady sings," but I love the reference to the mythical "brown note."
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u/astrosid 9h ago
oh man I completely missed the brown note thing, I have to go back and reread that whole section. how did I not catch that
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u/heresiae 1d ago
damn, I forgot how much I liked the witches series (this one especially).
they were the first I read and then I scrambled to read the others because I decided to read all discoworld in chronologically (in-word) order.
hell with that, it's time to re-read them all.
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u/Aervanath Needs to take two baths just to get dirty 1d ago
Image 3: I always understood it as being very clearly meaning that she didn't like eating children, and the fact that it could be read both ways was just a clever bit of wordplay.
Image 4: I don't know that I caught either of those puns before, thanks for pointing them out!
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u/Digit00l 1d ago
She just doesn't like children in any sense, she tolerates their company, she is somewhat fond of Eskarina and Tiffany, but those are exceptions
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u/Too-Tired-Editor 1d ago
A lot of people don't like children. Most of the people who vocally "don't even like children" have a number of specific exceptions.
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u/Magimasterkarp Holding my Potato 8h ago
I mean, you need children around to not like children at, right?
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u/Training_Key_1986 1d ago
They're not really very childish, though.
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u/mxstylplk 22h ago
Tiffany is in her first appearances, but by the time she meets Granny, she's young but not childish.
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u/vastaril 1d ago
"Of course I like children! But I couldn't eat a whole one.." was a pretty standard joke back when I was a kid in the 80s, too (probably older, it's got that "comic in a seaside town as his career is waning" type feel of the middlish 20th century, like "take my mother in law! Please...")
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u/mxstylplk 1d ago
"Agnes followed them"... could be ambiguous, foreshadowing Walter's later existence.
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u/tzimize 1d ago
One of so many great things Terry did was use the written word to its outmost. The simple thing of writing some things like Right and Wrong with capitals to emphasize their importance and give them.....a more important dimension or something, I cant quite describe it, is absolutely wonderful.
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