come to the Discworld fandom, we have:
a book that sets off a series-wide sub-plots of sapient automatons laboring to have themselves freed in a socially responsible way and fantasy dwarfs embracing being openly feminine in a way that comes off as extremely trans subtext
Death, as in the personification of the process of death and a literal psychopomp, is a recurring character. he really likes cats, is a very dorky grandpa, and really likes being a fantasy pastiche of Santa Claus because people were happy to see him for once
thereâs a book series about reviving the postal service, introducing paper money into a city whose reliance on the gold standard is resulting in regular financial decline, the invention of the printing press that in turn leads to journalism, and these are some of the most interesting books in the series. There are multiple murders, attempted murders, an extremely routine-oriented cat, and the first one has an antagonist that is almost certainly a very blatant âFUCK YOUâ at the works of Ayn Rand.
there is a Once and Future King. he has actively declined all opportunities to actually become the king because he thinks its better to be a regular guard because thatâs a job thatâs of actual value to the city
the power of stories and tropes is an active, though non-intrusive, phenomenon in the books that multiple characters actively strive against or worry about in the sense of what it says about free will. Various attempts to weaponize tropes like âits a million to one chanceâ tend to backfire hilariously
there are trolls who have computer brains and bodies of living stone, gnolls that are implied to be like trolls but made of refuse, the most pitiable and tragic goblins you will ever see, a heavily autistic-coded orc, adorable sad dragon puppies with a tendency to explode, and... Nobby Nobbs. Just Nobby, no one is sure what the hell he is. Death doesnât know what he is. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT NOBBY IS. Some speculate the only way to portray him accurately in movies might be some kind of trained chimpanzee. Odds are he might actually have some goblin ancestry but thatâs the best we got.
thereâs vampires. their need to feed on blood is a literal metaphor of âaristocrats eat the poorâ and socially conscious vampires switch this fixation for a more socially acceptable one, so in this setting vampires become better people by voluntarily assuming some kind of hyper fixation.
in one book thereâs a plot point that it is more potentially embarrassing and destructive to your social life to come from a lineage of professional clowns than it would to be a vampire.
there is a guild of assassins. Unlike most fantasy series where this tends to be regarded as threatening or scary, here they are largely regarded as a bunch of pompous windbags and rich kids who are completely harmless outside of the extremely specific circumstances in which they may assassinate people. (If youâre not wealthy enough to afford an Assassin or protection from them, theyâre obligated to not do anything to you.) Their guild is furthermore a parody of British private schools, with the knobs turned up to 11 and a resounding vibe of âthese schools are awfulâ.
One time someone asked Sir Terry Pratchett if he got the idea for his wizard college from Hogwarts even though the first appearance of Unseen University (the Discworldâs wizard college) is probably dating back to 1986 and thus at least ten years before the first harry potter book, and so Pratchett sarcastically replied something to the effect of âNot only am I a plagiarist, I apparently also own a time machineâ. This is not strictly relevant and does not show up in the books except for the Art of Discworld i think but i like this story anyway
at one point there is a tyrannical dragon doing standard evil dragon things who looks into the mind of a human who tried to control it and is horrified at the unspeakable cruelty of human history and gives a harsh remark about how dragons were SUPPOSED to be evil and terrible but at least they never tortured and ripped each other apart and called it a moral thing to do; this is later brought up in the book as the populace of the town allowing the dragon to eat people and do whatever it wants as long as its not THEIR family being killed by it, leading to a recurring character making a defining speech about how it is the most ordinary and banal of evil that happens because people donât care enough to say no. Each book is guaranteed to have at least a few of these moments that punch you in the face and itâs a good pain.
the most uncompromising and righteous Lawful Good characters in the series include a crabby old lady who yells at actors for lying (because she doesnât like the concept of a theatrical performance) and a guard who likes to wind people up by saying deliberately weird things and also doing the EXACT same thing to the point that people genuinely canât tell if heâs pretending to be dense as a joke or he honestly is a bit slow on the uptake.
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