Closing Thoughts
Well, here are my closing thoughts on the Discworld story...world. Hmm.
The main thing that I’ve taken away from this is that Discworld is a story about stories. Elements are taken from the mythological and literary storyworlds of many different cultures, from early Hindu beliefs about the geography of the Earth itself to retelling storylines of famous novels/musicals like Les Miserables. Characters are written as archetypes that often consciously act against their archetypal representations. This in turn allows for some really interesting analysis on the vanilla archetypes themselves, because we’re better able to see the differences between the two. For example, Death is the stereotypical representation of the grim reaper in traditional folklore. He dresses in black robes, uses a scythe, etc., etc. But, he is so much more than that as a character because he wants to understand humanity, and he is so much more than that as a literary device because of the differences between the character and the traditional representation of the character.
If that got confusing, I apologize.
This is an archetype.
This is an archetypical character, with a personality and motivations.
This is an archetype.
These are archetypical characters, who play the archetypal role in the story while still playing around with how they are different from the archetype in terms of execution. Hopefully that explains it better.
I think a lot of the staying power of the series also comes from the fact that it’s a) funny and b) a work of satire. Humor has a real effect on people, and it’s easier to remember a funny bit from a book or a movie than a dry academic paper. I think my favorite example of this is the Boot theory from Men at Arms:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
It’s framed as a joke, with a setup and a punchline at the end, and it completely cuts away from the action of the scene (if I remember correctly, I think Vimes is about to give chase to a criminal) so that the main character can give a long-winded speech about footwear. But it’s rooted in actual economic principles and the widening of the gap between rich and poor. Entire papers have been written about this subject, and here it is succinctly put in three paragraphs in a conversation about boots, of all things. This bit actually does play a role in the story, since Vimes is later blindfolded and taken to another part of the city, but is able to work out where he is by how the cobblestones are shaped.
In other words, a comedic bit rooted in real-world socioeconomic inequality actually plays a plot-related role in a story, which comments on our own real-world society in the process. All in three paragraphs.
Another reason why these books are fundamentally stories about stories is the constant commentary about narrative form and purpose, and, as I’ve mentioned before, the constant critique and subversion of classic fantasy literature tropes. A physical substance called “Narrativium” works as the laws of physics do on Earth--essentially, things work a certain way because they’re supposed to work that way. An explanation from the L-space wiki, since it explains it better than I can:
The most common element on the disc, although not included in the list of the standard five: earth, fire, air, water and surprise. It ensures that everything runs properly as a story. For example, if a boy has two older brothers, chances are they will go on a quest. The first will be strong, and fail because of his stupidity, the second will be smart, and fail because of his frailty and the youngest brother will then have no choice but to go out, succeed and bring fame and fortune to his poor family. This phenomenon is also known as Narrative Causality. Dragons breathe fire not because they have asbestos lungs, but because that is what dragons do. Heroes only win when outnumbered, and things which have a one-in-a-million chance of succeeding often do so. The application of this phenomenon appears to be governed by some loosely formulated laws.
So, the presence of Narrativium as a physical element of the storyworld both handwaves and explains the presence of cliches and tropes that are common to most, if not all, fantasy literature, while simultaneously commenting on the use of these tropes in both the Discworld’s storyworld AND other fantasy literature.
This carries over to every series arc within the Discworld series. The City Watch series is a fantasy police crime drama, the Tiffany Aching series is a young adult commentary on fairy tales, etc. Because of this the tones vary significantly from series to series, usually about how serious or “gritty” the story gets, which is actually explained by a natural phenomenon within the storyworld itself. Because of that, we can compare the deconstruction of the story type with actual story types we recognize in real life.
There’s a ton more to talk about--specifics of individual books and series in terms of specific trope deconstructions and references to mythology and pop culture, and I do regret not being able to get into the humor/pun aspect as much as I initially wanted to do, but I think as an overview of the Discworld as a whole (aka a collection of stories and narratives), I think it does what I set out to do. Thanks for reading!
