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That is delightful! Thanks for sharing.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 11:36 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:24 |
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The packaging for the emporium is always great.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 12:24 |
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Rand Brittain posted:Yeah, Agnes feels like a real person in a way that, say, Victor Tugelbend really doesn't. Victor is a funny gag, but "he's so lazy that he spends hours in the gym working out so that he'll have huge muscles so that lifting heavy things won't be hard work" doesn't really work out to an actual person. They don't feel like real people, but that's hardly the sole qualifier for a good character or even character trait. Victor working out because he's too lazy to be fat always stood out to me as a fun inversion, and I still remember that trait even 10/15 years since I read the book and after I'd forgotten the character's name. By the same token, Lilith isn't particularly real or deep as a character, but I do think she makes a fun villain for the story, which is mostly about Granny and Magrat anyway. I literally just finished re-reading it for the first time in years last night, and found her an enjoyable character who fit the story rather than having any great presence of her own (which is itself, rather fitting). She's a very small presence in the story overall, but she's pretty memorable regardless of her page count.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 12:43 |
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In the bigger picture, Lilith plays a very important role. When Granny finally confronts her, she says this to Lilith, "Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop’ly, after you went; I had to be the Good One." Try and imagine what the Discworld would be like if Granny got to be the bad one like she wanted.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 13:23 |
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It's the Discworld, where narrativium is ultimately king; she'd have caused more damage and had more fun doing it, but she'd also have been taken down a lot faster by some storybook hero with a million to one chances of success because she was a lot more visibly bad.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 13:29 |
Lilith is very easy to understand; she’s what would have happened if Someone with Magrat’s inclinations was matched with Granny’s temperament and ability, and so never got beaten down by the world into something more tolerable.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 14:01 |
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Hispanic! At The Disco posted:In the bigger picture, Lilith plays a very important role. When Granny finally confronts her, she says this to Lilith, "Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop’ly, after you went; I had to be the Good One." I don't think that Granny wanted to be the Bad Witch. She's just saying that it's a lot harder to be good than to be evil, and because there had to be a Good Witch Lily laid that burden on her. I believe that WA is the book where Granny thinks back on having had to judge a man who had killed several children while drunk. The rough quote is "He begged for mercy, saying it had all been done in alcohol. Sober, she replied: end it in hemp". Granny has to live with that judgement. Because you can enjoy yourself doing evil, and you can be sorry once it's done, but being good sometimes requires doing things that you hate and there is no possible expiation because you were right to do them. To be good is to live a life of regret.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 14:05 |
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Hakkesshu posted:I've listened to a handful of the old Discworld audiobooks and they were great but I've wanted to get the actual books for ages. So I decided to order them in bulk through the Emporium. I'm starting with the Death series and although I had to pay a bit extra in taxes (thanks Brexit) it was all worth it because the whole package was so delightful. That’s really lovely, and makes me sad Bernard won’t be coming to the DWCon in August.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 18:48 |
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At one point in Witches Abroad Granny thinks to herself that the wages of sin are death, but so are the wages of virtue, and at least the wicked get to go home early on Fridays. Witches Abroad is such an utterly wonderful book.
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# ? Jun 21, 2022 23:06 |
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Hispanic! At The Disco posted:In the bigger picture, Lilith plays a very important role. When Granny finally confronts her, she says this to Lilith, "Everyone has a path they got to tread. But because, and I wants you to understand this prop’ly, after you went; I had to be the Good One." Honestly, I figure it wouldn't be that different. If Granny got to do as she pleased, she'd just have isolated herself completely and drifted off into learning to Borrow and left humanity behind without a reason to care about it, or settled down with Ridicully. She doesn't want to rule, and can barely tolerate being in charge of the witches because it means they argue with her less.
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# ? Jun 22, 2022 08:48 |
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How is the book Dodger? Never heard of it before today.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 19:32 |
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FPyat posted:How is the book Dodger? Never heard of it before today. It's fine.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 19:53 |
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FPyat posted:How is the book Dodger? Never heard of it before today.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 20:35 |
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Xander77 posted:I literally can't remember anything about it beyond the vaguest notion of the premise. Likewise, like I can just about remember that it exists - barely. Nation, for me, falls into that category as well, and maybe Eric too.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 20:41 |
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The Long Earth is like that for me. I know it's multiple books but it just feels like the same thing repeated
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 21:29 |
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MisterBear posted:Likewise, like I can just about remember that it exists - barely. if it doesn't have the "neuralger, a demon that shows up and has a headache at you" joke then oops, that's all I know about the entire book
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 21:37 |
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MisterBear posted:Likewise, like I can just about remember that it exists - barely. Nation was actually the first Pratchett book I ever picked up and read, and ended up loving it so much that I quickly made my way to Discworld soon after. But when I tried Dodger - nothing. Got a chapter or two in, and absolutely could not get invested for the life of me.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 22:02 |
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Eric has the demon in charge of hell that's really into middle management and bureaucracy It also has Rincewind telling his ancestor not-Odysseus that yeah he'll make it home safe and sound. Only to then run into him later in hell where he's shouted at about how he left out all the poo poo he'd have to go through to get home.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 22:16 |
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MisterBear posted:Nation, for me, falls into that category as well This is baffling to me; while I agree that Dodger didn't make much of an impression, Nation is one of the best books Pratchett ever wrote. It's so good. It really feels like a culmination of all the more serious themes that Pratchett had been exploring for his entire career.
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 23:13 |
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citybeatnik posted:It also has Rincewind telling his ancestor not-Odysseus that yeah he'll make it home safe and sound. Only to then run into him later in hell where he's shouted at about how he left out all the poo poo he'd have to go through to get home. Lavaeolus, which is most droll. "Lave" means "to wash", "aeolus" means "wind". So his name means "rinse wind".
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# ? Jun 30, 2022 23:51 |
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IBroughttheFunk posted:Nation was actually the first Pratchett book I ever picked up and read, and ended up loving it so much that I quickly made my way to Discworld soon after. Nation is fantastic. I think, besides Long Mars, that Dodger was the last Pratchett book I hadn’t read. I got about halfway through and quit reading. Unless you really like Dickens and the Victorian era I’m not sure how compelling it is in comparison to his Discworld equivalents.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 00:58 |
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I always wondered why Terry chose to do Dodger as an actual standalone Dickens thing when it all would have slotted right into the Ankh-Morpork stories.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 02:09 |
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Maybe he wanted a break.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 02:27 |
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Scaramouche posted:The Long Earth is like that for me. I know it's multiple books but it just feels like the same thing repeated I'm currently reading the third Long Earth book and it's... the long earth itself is a really good concept but there's just a bunch of characters that are there and things happen but none of it is really all that exciting for the scope of the idea? Things Just Happen and everyone involved is very competent or they're not, but serve as an object lesson.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 02:40 |
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I wasn't trying to start a comparison of which parts of Pratchett's work we find memorable, I was contrasting Dodger with pretty much everything else he wrote (excluding Strata, Science of Discworld and the Long Earth)
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 10:43 |
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The Long Earth is a great concept with a dull story and uncompelling characters slapped on top. I don’t think I even finished it, and I’ve read literally everything else TP wrote. Sally, Joshua, Lobsang, trolls, elves… didn’t care about any of it. Just wanted them to get out the way so the actually entertaining concept could be explored.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 10:57 |
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The_Doctor posted:I always wondered why Terry chose to do Dodger as an actual standalone Dickens thing when it all would have slotted right into the Ankh-Morpork stories. He originally planned it that way, but found that it didn't fit properly without the real Roundworld people and setting. It's also not a book about Dickens as much as it is about Dickens' friend Henry Mayhew, whose book London Labour and the London Poor is a very significant but mostly forgotten document of the times.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 11:00 |
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https://m.soundcloud.com/penguin-books/the-colour-of-magic-by-terry-pratchett Excerpt from the new TCOM audiobook. Can't say I'm keen.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 12:39 |
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Jedit posted:https://m.soundcloud.com/penguin-books/the-colour-of-magic-by-terry-pratchett I've said it before and I'll say it again - don't hire film actors to do voice acting.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 13:21 |
Jedit posted:
I find it kinda weird how his YA stuff is more nuanced about things like that. There's no way Tiffany Aching would have delivered that verdict.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 17:10 |
Strange Cares posted:I've said it before and I'll say it again - don't hire film actors to do voice acting. I don't know, I've got several audiobooks read by film actors that are very good.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 17:59 |
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Devorum posted:I don't know, I've got several audiobooks read by film actors that are very good. They'd be better if they were read by voice actors
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 19:31 |
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Strange Cares posted:They'd be better if they were read by voice actors This is true up until the point you can recognize them by voice across media.
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# ? Jul 1, 2022 19:47 |
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Alhazred posted:I find it kinda weird how his YA stuff is more nuanced about things like that. There's no way Tiffany Aching would have delivered that verdict. Tbf Granny Aching's approach to teaching the king's dog to never kill sheep again involved having a ewe repeatedly beat the poo poo out of it.
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# ? Jul 2, 2022 00:09 |
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Strange Cares posted:I've said it before and I'll say it again - don't hire film actors to do voice acting. you just need good actors
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# ? Jul 2, 2022 00:26 |
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ChubbyChecker posted:you just need good actors Exactly. Voice actors are better at voice acting, so hire them instead.
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# ? Jul 2, 2022 13:55 |
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Strange Cares posted:Exactly. Voice actors are better at voice acting, so hire them instead. good film actors can act with their voices too. if they couldn't then they wouldn't be good film actors
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# ? Jul 2, 2022 15:14 |
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ChubbyChecker posted:good film actors can act with their voices too. if they couldn't then they wouldn't be good film actors There's a difference between "incorporating your voice into your acting" and "acting using only your voice". They're very much separate disciples, even putting aside the argument of whether or not all good actors can act with their voice.
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# ? Jul 2, 2022 16:04 |
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The best actors can convey everything they need solely though eyebrows
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# ? Jul 3, 2022 03:51 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 10:24 |
angerbeet posted:The best actors can convey everything they need solely though eyebrows Emilia Clarke truly is the best actor of her generation.
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# ? Jul 3, 2022 10:14 |