A Hat Full of Sky

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
A Hat Full of Sky
Written by: Terry Pratchett
Central Theme:
Synopsis: Tiffany continues to train as a witch. The only real magic she can do is to step out of her body - which makes her a target for a passing eldritch abomination.
Genre(s): Fantasy
Series: Discworld
Preceded by: Monstrous Regiment
Followed by: Going Postal (Discworld)
First published: 2004
v · d · e

A Hat Full of Sky is the 32nd Discworld book, the third written for young adults, and the second in the Tiffany Aching series.

Time has rolled on and Tiffany Aching has grown older and cleverer, but perhaps not more sensible. As far as her parents are concerned, she is off to earn a little money and see a bit of the world as an assistant to a far more experienced lady, Miss Level. And that is one hundred percent correct. She is also going to learn witchcraft.

In addition to the politics of witches to begin with, there's the continuing support of the Nac Mac Feegle, and a mysterious force known as a hiver which is drawn to Tiffany's power, and it'll take all the effort of the Feegles, all the cunning of Granny Weatherwax, and all of Tiffany's own strength, to outwit it...

Tropes used in A Hat Full of Sky include:
  • Alpha Bitch: Annagramma. As stereotypical as any character gets in the Discworld.
  • And I Must Scream: Tiffany is still aware, and is trapped in her own mind while the Hiver is possessing her. She manages to retain some control over herself, but was weakening before the Feegles came to her aid.
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: Tiffany fights to reclaim her own mind.
  • Character Filibuster: Granny Weatherwax's rant about how "the soul and center" of witchcraft is "helpin' people when life is on the edge".
  • Close-Knit Community: The Chalk. Tiffany mentions they always look after each other because her grandmother expected it.
  • Continuity Nod: Some of the things Granny Weatherwax did in previous books are mentioned as rumours about her. In addition, the book—especially the Witch Trial sequence—is as much a sequel to the short story "The Sea and Little Fishes" as to The Wee Free Men.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The hiver has been around practically since the universe began. It was aware of everything at once in its natural form. The universe was a much smaller place back then, but the hiver still sees and hears everything. This is, suffice to say, traumatic, and so it hops into living minds. It gains some degree of insulation against the quantity of the universe, and in exchange it allows its victim to essentially act as pure id. It is better at being you than you are.
  • Evil Costume Switch: When Tiffany is possessed by the Hiver, she's inspired to raid the local witch shop, buy a cape, a tall hat, and several pieces of occult jewelry.
  • Foreshadowing: When I am old, I Shall Wear Midnight.
  • Geas: Rob Anybody is put under a Geas by his wife Jeannie to protect Tiffany Aching. It becomes a Running Gag that Daft Wullie keeps thinking Rob means an actual goose. Of course as Sourcery points out, there are actual birds named geas on Discworld.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When Roland comes to see Tiffany off, Miss Tick mentions seeing a very nice example of a...big stone.
  • It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY" : Mrs Earwig - sorry, Ahwij.
  • Like a Weasel: Petulia does this out of crippling shyness.
  • Man in a Kilt: All the male Feegles.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "That is the root and heart and soul and center of witchcraft, that is. The soul and center! The... soul... and... center!"
  • Shout-Out: Petulia performs her magical "pig trick" at the Witch Trials, but uses a sausage instead of a pig. In the fantasy film Willow, a stage-magic pig trick is performed using a baby instead of a pig.
  • Shrinking Violet: Petulia Gristle, who can't seem to speak without an "um..." somewhere in her sentences. She's also so timid that she'll turn her opinions around in order to keep out of conflict with anyone. You could tell her the sky is green and she'd agree with you.
    • By the end of the book, Petulia has grown enough to tell Annagramma to shut up and stop ordering people around.
    • Subverted later on, laying foundation for Wintersmith:

"Um . . . that was very kind of you," said Tiffany, but her treacherous Second Thoughts thought: And what would you have done if it had attacked us? She had a momentary picture of Petulia standing in front of some horrible raging thing, but it wasn't as funny as she'd first thought. Petulia would stand in front of it, shaking with terror, her useless amulets clattering, scared almost out of her mind . . . but not backing away. She'd thought there might be people facing something horrible here, and she'd come anyway.

  • Single-Minded Twins / Split At Birth: Ms Level is a single person with two bodies. Notably the feegles are unfazed by this: aparently they once visited a world where everyone had five bodies each, specialized for different jobs.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: The Feegles were thrown out of Fairyland for rebelling against the Elf Queen, "and no' fer being totally pished at three in th' afternoon, whatever any scunner might say!"
  • Synchronized Swarming: The ending features this.
  • Take That, Critics!: Annagramma's completely wrongheaded criticism of Miss Level ("A complete amateur. Hasn't really got a clue.") is a paraphrase of the critic Tom Paulin, who once said of Pterry: "A complete amateur ... doesn't even write in chapters ... hasn't a clue."
  • Talking the Monster to Death: Quite literally. At the end, Tiffany has to help the Hiver find its way into Death.
  • Waxing Lyrical: Rob Anybody's complaint when the Feegles are pretending to be a human -- "I talk to my knees but they dinna listen to me."—is almost but not quite the first line of a famous song from Paint Your Wagon. The fact that the song is completely inappropriate to the context just makes it funnier.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Halfway through the book, Rob Anybody's wife Jeannie correctly predicts that she'll soon give birth to a daughter as well as sons. Keldas can tell, apparently. Two Tiffany books later, we still hadn't seen anything more of their daughter.
    • Also averted, as Maggie Anybody does show up in The Shepherd's Crown.
  • The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask: Played straight and subverted with Jeannie.
  • You Keep Using That Word: Near the end of the book, Tiffany finally gets around to chiding Annagramma for abusing the word "literally".
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/A_Hat_Full_of_Sky?oldid=2003924"