The Fifth Elephant/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

* What was the point of the title ''The Fifth Elephant''? I know it was a reference to the dwarf fat mines that were possibly made by a long lost fifth elephant, but what did that have to do with the plot? It was more about bread and werewolves than anything. Was Pratchett just a big fan of ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' or what?

** The allusion to the obscenely profitable film probably didn't help matters, but in Uberwald "The Fifth Elephant" is also slang for "Something that is not what it seems", which pretty much references the entirety of the evil plot, as well as The Scone...

** It was a [[A Worldwide Punomenon|Pune or play on words]]. Of ''course'' Pratchett was going to use it.

** Early on in the book, it's mentioned that the Fifth Elephant is a metaphor for "something that is not what it seems" and "something that, while unseen, controls events". Later, while going on his diplomatic missions, Vimes muses on how diplomacy is just "lying to a better class of people", and how people who only seem to hand out cucumber sandwiches have a lot of power. Near the end, when Albrecht confirms that the Scone is real and Sybil gets the fat from the king for a low price, Vimes realizes that this is the real diplomacy - "the whole thing was the Fifth Elephant". The Elephant is actually a metaphor for diplomacy, which is one of the more important themes of the book.

** Could also be a family habit—Angua is only called Angua by people from Ankh-Morpork and Lady Margalotta, most of the others in Uberwald called her Delphine. However, in my copy he's always Guye or just the Baron.

 

[[Category:Literature/Headscratchers]]

[[Category:Discworld]]