swreader said:
Teppic said:
rockershovel said:
Magrat always seems to be gullible - as reference her collection of magic knives and other pseudo-New Age clutter
Certainly. And even when she threw them away into the River Lancre she never really stopped believing in them:
She'd secretly hoped for a string of multicoloured bubbles, or even a hiss. But it just sank. Just as if it wasn't anything very important.
And later:
She thought wistfully of her bags of charms and talismans at the bottom of the river. They'd never really worked, if her life was anything to go by, but maybe - it was a horrible thought - maybe they'd just stopped it getting worse.
Magrat may be gullible in WS & WA, but by the end of L&L she is hardly gullible. She takes on the Queen and would have killed her, but for the appearance of the Oberon figure She's justly annoyed that everyone (even Shaun) have been instructed NOT to tell her anything about what the Lord & Ladies are and what they are really like. And in CJ, both she and Nanny fall under the spell of the vampires, but once they are freed from it and realize what is going on, all of them including Magrat play important roles.
Magrat, after all, is only slightly older than Agnes/Perdita. She's still a young witch and Queen. Unsophisticated, perhaps--but gullible? I think you underestimate her.l
Fair enough. What I think I meant was, she seems to still
want to believe in the "fluffier" stuff in Lords And Ladies even in rejecting it. Her naivity may have gone to the extent that she can defeat the Elf Queen, but she still has soft spot for the sack full of "pseudo-new age clutter" that she throws into the River. She'd love it to be more than junk, but she ultimately knows it isn't.
I'm yet to read the subsequent Witch books so I don't know how she develops further as a character.
I think, getting this thread back on to The Truth, this is interesting. And it's a theme Pratchett comes back to many, many times. In the Witch books its mentioned several times that witches have an advantage over normal humans in that they can see what IS there rather than what we WANT to be there. The same fact, I think, is said about Wizards. And that is why, it is said, humans can't see Death but witches and wizards can. And it's also why Magrat, at the end of Lords and Ladies, is able to see the Elf Queen for what she is, rather than as a personifcation of perfection she dare not lay a hand on. With Granny's help, she is able to see what is, rather than what ought to be. In fact, there's a quote in Lords and Ladies which is very pertanant to The Truth:
"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember. They remember the glamour. All the rest of it, all the truth of it, becomes . . . old wives' tales."
So, if we take the established fact that humans see what they want to see rather than what is there into The Truth, why should't so many of them in Ankh Morpork buy into The Inquirer's version of events rather than The Times'? It seems entirely consistent with Terry's portayal of...I don't want to use this awful phrase but I can't think of anything better....the human condition.
The fact that this observation about people can span the witch novels, people's perception of Death, and a brutally funny parody of the British Press is really brilliant. And that's why I think The Truth is one of my favourite DW books; it contains great philosophical insight into how people think whilst being a great parody of an aspect of the real world, in this case journalism. I don't think some of Pratchett's other parodies, and I'm thinking particularly Moving Pictures, Reaper Man and to a lesser extent Soul Music, have this same depth.
And then of course you have the Deep-Throat connection Tony's already pointed out, plus commentary on immigrant groups like the vampires and dwarves, the Watch are there from a different persepctive (again, how people SEE them), Vetinari is not in control so we see something different there too, and two of the best "character jokes" in the novels; a vampire who tries to use a flash (dedication to your work!), and a thug who is an amazing art connoisseur.
I want to listen to it again now! Writing this I'd forgotten how good it was. But I must carry on with the Witches books, so Masquerade is up next for me.
Dragging this discussion kicking and screaming back to characters that are actually in this book. . . 
