Witches Abroad: Difference between revisions

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* [[Ballroom Blitz]]

* [[Bested At Bowling]]: Granny wins back all their money (and more) from some card shark riverboat gamblers via the astute application of 'headology'. She also uses a little magic - not so that she wins, but so that she doesn't lose (smashing a mirror, making an ace fall out of a man's sleeve).

* [[The Big Bad Wolf]]: The main villain warps reality so it'd be like fairy tales. This includes making a wolf think he's a person. The wolf suffers horribly, stuck between species, and begs for a Mercy Kill.

* [[Blessed with Suck]]: Old Mother Dismass has Second Sight, which means she can see clearly into the future and the past. Just not in the ''present'', and randomly has [[Non Sequitur|conversations]] a few months in advance. This makes her something of a near-Bursar levels of [[Cloudcuckoolander]] at times.

* [[Cannot Tell a Joke]]: Granny completely and repeatedly failing to tell the alligator sandwich joke, with such punchlines as "And don't take too long about it".

** Since Granny is pretty low on the list of characters you'd expect to tell a funny joke, the alligator sandwich joke(s) being [[So Bad It's Good]] is expectable.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Early in the book Magrat explains a bit about the judo-like martial arts she's studying; namely that it's based around using your enemy's power against them. While the other witches don't seem impressed by it at the time, {{spoiler|during the climax, Granny defeats Mrs Gogol, who is threatening her with a [[Voodoo Doll]], by thrusting her hand into a blazing torch up to the elbow, causing the doll to burst into flames while her arm is unscathed.}} Even for Granny, this is a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]. She even glances at Magrat before doing so as a subtle acknowledgement.

* [[Cinderella Circumstances]]: Ella, of course.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: This isn't the first time {{spoiler|Death}} has received a compliment on the quality of his "mask". In ''[[Discworld/The Light Fantastic|The Light Fantastic]]'' his was at a (different) party when he is summoned by the wizards, and comments that it's going to go downhill at midnight, because:

{{quote|'''Death''': {{smallcaps| That's when they think I'll be taking my mask off.}} }}

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* [[Deconstruction]]: Of the happy ending and several fairy tales.

* [[Devour the Dragon]]: Lily eventually feels that she needs her magic for more important things than {{spoiler|keeping the Duc human}}.

* [[Dystopian Edict]]: Everyone in Genua ''has'' to abide by fairy tale prototypes.

* [[Esoteric Happy Ending]]: Many of Lily's 'stories' end this way... at least, the ones that ''have'' [[Downer Ending|happy endings]]...

* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: It's mentioned that the Assassins' Guild has pulled out of Genua under Lily's rule because "some things sicken even jackals".

** {{spoiler|Baron Saturday}} invokes this, too. He never denies having been, at times, a cruel ruler, but he never forced the people to act happy about it.

* [[Everything's Better with Princesses]]: Ella.

** ''Ember''ella.

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* [[Evil Is Hammy]]: {{spoiler|Subverted, to Granny's immense rage. Lily spent her whole life convinced that she was the good sister who was putting the needs of others over her own, and, so convinced of her own martyrdom, thus made herself a very understated and sinister foe. To Granny, who knew for a fact who was the good sister and who was the bad, this is almost a greater sin than any of Lily's actual wrongdoing, because Granny would have at least enjoyed it, making whole [[Chewing the Scenery|banquets of her surroundings]] and being bad enough to even top the legendary Black Aliss, who (when in Lily's role) could keep multiple stories going at once in the same place.}}

* [[Fairy Godmother]]: Played with in several ways.

* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: Genua is New Orleans + Disneyworld with a slight dusting of 18th century Revolutionary France, but en route they also pass through areas based on Spain (the Running of the Bulls, or the Thing With the Bulls here) and the Hammer Horror version of Transylvania - what would later be named as [[~~Uberwald~~]]. According to Terry Pratchett:

* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: Genua is New Orleans + Disneyworld with a slight dusting of 18th century Revolutionary France, but en route they also pass through areas based on Spain (the Running of the Bulls, or the Thing With the Bulls here) and the Hammer Horror version of Transylvania - what would later be named as [[Überwald]]. According to Terry Pratchett:

{{quote|"...Genua is a 'sort of' New Orleans with a 'sort of' Magic Kingdom grafted on top of it. It had its genesis some years ago when I drove from Orlando to New Orleans and formed some opinions about both places: in one, you go there and Fun is manufactured and presented to you, in the other you just eat and drink a lot and fun happens."}}

* [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]]: The Discworld itself is already one, but under Lilith, Genua is a Fairytale Kitchen Sink.

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* [[Going to See the Elephant]]: Mentioned by name as the last line in the book: "Foreign" is a odd place where they do things wrong, speak funny lingo and eat strange food, so our heroes can't wait to get back home. Still, in the end, they take the time to enjoy the sights: "But they went the long way round, and saw the elephant."

* [[The Good Guys Always Win]]: [[Invoked]]. Lily is confident of her victory because she knows good always triumphs over wickedness; unfortunately for her, it turns out she's the bad one.

* [[Hall of Mirrors]]: Played with.

* [[Hannibal Lecture]] / [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: {{spoiler|Granny to Lillith at the same time (pointing out why Lillith isn't suited to be evil and why Granny would be much better, but doesn't.}}

* [[Happiness Is Mandatory]]: Lillith turns Genua into a sparkling clean city full of smiling citizens by dint of torture and execution.

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* [[Humanity Ensues]]: Greebo, and the mice which are transformed into footmen. Also Emberella's "evil stepsisters," which Lilith made from {{spoiler|snakes}}, and an unfortunate wolf which was sort of turned into a grandmother...

** Inverted by Granny, who has been known to make people who cross her think they're frogs.

* [[Human Resources]]: Stories use people to perpetuate themselves. Anybody who fits a certain set of characteristics may find themselves absorbed into a story and forced to act in whatever role is given to them, even if it ends with them being devoured by a wolf or marrying a frog.

* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja]]: Magrat can't quite get this one to work, somehow. And the other two keep snarking at her lovingly memorized [[Ice Cream Koan]]s, too.

* [[Instant Waking Skills]]: Thanks to her strong sense of self, Granny Weatherwax can skip all the little questions most people have to ask themselves on waking up (like "Who am I?" and "Where am I?") and get right to the actual getting out of bed.

* [[Insult Misfire]]:

{{quote|'''Lily:''' Look at the three of you. Bursting with inefficient good intentions. [[The Hecate Sisters|The maiden, the mother and the crone.]]<br />

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* [[Needle in a Stack of Needles]]

* [[Nineties Anti-Hero]]: {{spoiler|Greebo as a human}} is described as, among other things, "a pirate who just raided a ship carrying leather garments for the discriminating."

* [["El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Nino"]]:

{{quote|'''Nanny''': Hotel Nova Cancies. That means New, er, Cancies in foreign.}}

* [[Nonsense Classification]]: The dwarf classification of rocks starts out well, but goes a bit weird near the end: "igneous rock, sedimentary rock, metamorphic rock, rock underfoot, rock dropping on your helmet from above, and rock which looked interesting and which they could have sworn they left here yesterday".

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* [[Palantir Ploy]]: Lilith can use her magic mirrors to scry through any reflective surface in the world. Subverted, as her inability to find what she wants to look at through any method other than manually scrolling through all available reflective surfaces makes it a bit [[Awesome but Impractical]].

* [[Prince Charming]]: Subverted hard with the Duc, despite Lily trying to make him seem that way.

* [[Public Execution]]: Some countries cut off a thief's hand so he won't steal again. Lady Lilith cuts off his head so he won't ''think'' about stealing again. This is also a good example of the reaction of the public showing the nature of the society; after years of Lilith's rule, the public don't react at all, they just have a dead-eyed stare.

* [[Reality Ensues]]: Whenever a story comes to an end or is somehow subverted, everything then proceeds as it normally would.

* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]

* [[Reverse Psychology|Reverse Headology]]: Desiderata orders Magrat to keep Granny and Nanny out of the whole business, just to make absolutely sure they'll [[Jumped At the Call|come along without hesitation]].

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** The three of them are deliberating on the idea of a transport system built on broomsticks. Their ideas for names are puns on well know real world airlines but Nanny Ogg gets cut off before she says her. However, note she is looking at Magrat and being rather coquettish. Consider Magrat's role in [[The Hecate Sisters]] trio. {{spoiler|Virgin}}.

** "Samedi Nuit Mort": Samedi = Saturday; Nuit = Night; Mort = Dead. Think Terry got a chuckle from ''Saturday Night Live''?

* [[Sunglasses At Night]]: The Duc, because on the Discworld one's true nature always shows through one's eyes, and he has {{spoiler|the eyes of a frog}}.

* [[Sunglasses at Night]]: The Duc, because on the Discworld one's true nature always shows through one's eyes, and he has {{spoiler|the eyes of a frog}}.

* [[Tautological Templar]]: Lady Lilith.

* [[Title Drop]]:

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[[Category:Witches Abroad]]

[[Category:~~Discworld~~]]

[[Category:{{TOPLEVELPAGE}}]]