SPOILERS The Wee Free Men Discussion **Spoilers**

[raisindot]

By contrast I find Tiffany's becoming more irritating in this book on re-reading and it's because she's so sure of herself to the point of being obnoxious in a frustratingly sensible way. However - I can forgive her that because I think here with us seeing her at the beginning of her road and still very young, the forthright way she deals with things is in context - when you're that age things are more black and white I think, and it's only as we get older and more perceptive and sensitive to other people and how they act and what they need, that things start to blur and go to shades of grey. So the Tiffany of the later books as she goes into her teens is more intuitive and her approach gets less 'strident' I suppose as she grows up and life becomes less clear cut for her in some respects.

As the parent of teenagers, one of whom was and still is a male version of Tiffany in terms of the 'forthright way he deals with things,' I found the Tiffany of this book quite realistic and far more appealing than the hormone-charged teenager of "Wintersmith." I think the strident attitude reflects not only her upbringing as a child of the farm, but the genes she's inherited from Granny Aching.

In a way I think Tiffany is Granny Weatherwax Jr from the outset, only not quite so spiky and it's the emotional tone that still keeps Granny on top as the thinking witch's witch...

Totally agree here. The 'stridency' of Tiffany doesn't bother me because you can see that she's moving in the Granny direction. Her second and third sight, her stubborness, her righteous selfishness and her physical and spiritual connection with the land are textbook Grannyisms. Granny may still be the thinking witch's witch, but she immediately recognizes Tiffany's potential as a runner-up and future challenger (when Tiffany tells an imperiously inquisitive Granny that "I don't ask you your business," Granny's resulting deference is a recognition of a kindred spirit (Nanny Ogg would never have dared such a flippant response).

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

It just a personal taste thing - I'm not saying Tiffany's eight year old character isn't believable, because she's totally believable in context so it all works, but I just don't find her character too 'sympathetic' perhaps?

Hard to explain but I get very annoyed with characters who are too great at everything and hardly put a foot wrong, always brave, always decisive, always bloody right. That kind of thing. I didn't really like Miss Tick that much for the same reasons, but I liked her for not being too impressed with Tiffany in some respects and was a little annoyed with Granny for being so 'nice' to her. Strong characters are great but they need their little quirks and negatives to make them more balanced I think.

And Nanny does cheek Granny all the time, just not in that way - they have an appreciative relationship with neither subordinate to the other, as they have different strengths that support the other's weaknesses. Look at the way Granny has to go all around the houses to get the latest gossip while Nanny just goes up and asks people to buy her drink or whatever. And Nanny's too undisciplined to go Borrowing too well etc etc

 

[Kin Arad]

Hard to explain but I get very annoyed with characters who are too great at everything and hardly put a foot wrong, always brave, always decisive, always bloody right.

I feel the same, but i always feel really bad because i feel like i should like them

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Well it's one of those things - the more badly behaved you are the more 'interesting' you become

 

[deldaisy]

You are doing writings on African genocide Jan? I would be interested to read that. Have always been astounded that the Rwanda massacres were so readily flipped off the radar after taking soooooooooo long to be recognised on the world stage in the first place.

I feel the famine in Somalia is in its own way an act of genocide too.

Always had an interest in the history of Africa. My father was from South Africa.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

The genocide parts are about Rwanda more or less - fictionalised but using stuff that happened there or in Biafra and Somalia, with a nod to colonial and 'missionary' attitudes. The central storyline's based on that and the remit of aid workers, but the surrounding plots is kind of following a safari party with a nod to the Canterbury Tales

Just put the 2 latest instalments up on Dreams - the hardest-hitting ones are in the adult forum though and you have to register to read those

 

[deldaisy]

Sounds great. Will get registered and reading on the weekend.

 

[Tonyblack]

What did you think about the china shepherdess figure?

Tiffany seemed embarrassed that she'd given it to her granny. Granny seemed puzzled by it.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I think that bit was a little like Granny with the play in Wyrd Sisters? Granny Aching similarly dealt with realities rather than illusion and so the 'fantasy' of a Little Bo-Peep (Marie Antoinette) style romantic shepherdess had no meaning whatsoever for her so it was a bit like culture shock in the cargo cult sense where you couldn't expect a Stone Age Man to understand Grand Opera but he might like Animal's drumming from the Muppets.

Where the reality is fantastic anyway, like on Discworld, the ones who 'guard the edges' don't have time or inclination to prettify what they do and so they don't necessarily understand the romanticised view of something that to them is their day job kind of thing so in some respects they don't need much imagination either when they have First Sight and Second Thoughts to rely on?

 

[supersully]

In regards to the sheperdess statue, it was impossible to win something, Tiffany won the 'best' prize and gave it to Granny. I saw it more as Tiffany starting to display her talents as a witch, and Granny's response as coming to terms with Tiffany's talents?

 

[Tonyblack]

It shows the regard Tiffany had for her Granny that she wanted to with the statue for her, not for herself or her mother. I think you're right supersully that Tiffany has somehow used her power to win the statue, even if she wasn't aware of it.

 

[raisindot]

I thank Granny Aching knew exactly what it was and what it represented, even if its meaning was of a place outside her hard reality.

It really symbolized the lack of understanding and communication between them. When she won the shepherdess, Tiffany was still a girl with romantic notions and lacked the strong 'connection' to the land Granny Aching had. The shepherdness was a foreshadowing of the Queen's world--a place of unreality and aspiration, with connection to the 'real world' itself. For Tiffany to give the shepherdess to Granny Aching was about as large an insult (however unintentional) that she could give, as it represented everything that Granny wasn't nor desired to be. Granny's awkward acceptance of the statue represented her own inability to fully communicate with Tiffany.

In a sense, it represents the starting point of the innocent "sightless" girl Tiffany had been before Granny Aching died (and the story started), and its final manifestation at the end of the story represents what Tiffany has become.

 

[swreader]

Hard to explain but I get very annoyed with characters who are too great at everything and hardly put a foot wrong, always brave, always decisive, always bloody right. That kind of thing. I didn't really like Miss Tick that much for the same reasons, but I liked her for not being too impressed with Tiffany in some respects and was a little annoyed with Granny for being so 'nice' to her. Strong characters are great but they need their little quirks and negatives to make them more balanced I think.

I agree and disagree with this characterization of Tiffany. And I also disagree JiB, that giving Granny the Shepherdess is an unintentional insult (though Tiffany worries about it for most of the book).

Tiffany is 7 years old when she goes with her Father to the fair and wins the very best prize at the hoop-la stand. I really doubt that this is any indication of "her powers as a witch" for several reasons. First, that kind of physical magic is something that has to be learned. And further, Pratchett makes a point of describing Tiffany's throw as "any old how" which suggests that she wanted the pretty prize for her Granny but wasn't (at 7 years old) thinking about the implications. It was the BEST prize, which was important to Tiffany--the prettiest and the biggest. And for Tiffany, age 7, that was what mattered. And she was still 7 when she found Granny dead, did what was necessary and went home and told them that Granny was dead, and the world had ended.

Tiffany is not always right, or unafraid in this book. She is scolded, for example, by William for acting like a spoiled child asking for sweeties instead of using her eyes and head to find the gate into Fairyland. She is frightened by a number of things in the Queen's dominion, and frightened by the fact that she has apparently saved Roland but not her brother. " She has learned so much from her Granny--and it is the recognition in the scene where she sees the light (Granny search for a lost lamb), and finds herself in the bones of the land which gives her the strength to dispose of the Queen.

I do agree that the 9 year old Tiffany seems much more certain of how to proceed and what needs to be done. She accepts responsibility for her actions better than she will in Wintersmith (at least initially). But I think that the teenage (almost 13) is perhaps the hardest stage for girls -- probably boys too. The world changes then, and what you thought you knew suddenly becomes different.

That is why, at the very end of the book, she takes the Shepherdess figurine (which she has worried about and wanted to destroy for two years) and buries it with Granny. She has learned that Granny understood and is with her still, so the figurine should be with Granny.

 

[Doughnut Jimmy]

So does Granny Aching come back in the appearence of the dresden shepherdess purely to tell Tiffany that it's ok and she wasn't insulted?

Because the fact that she "chooses" that appearance annoys me as if her workaday self isn't good enough for the spirit world?

 

[Tonyblack]

It strikes me that the queen tries and nearly succeeds in playing on Tiffany's feelings of guilt and self-doubt. It's like the queen can see that as a weakness inside Tiffany.

The fact that she doesn't much like her brother and saved Roland while leaving her brother behind. And the guilt she still feels about the shepherdess. The queen attacks all that and it's not until Tiffany takes stock of things and decides who she really is and what is important to her.

That's when she gets her real power. She feels the power of the land and ultimately her Granny appears to let her know that she is happy with what Tiffany has become - her replacement in watching the borders.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I agree with the symbolism of the shepherdess and certainly disagree with it being perceived as an insult by Granny Aching - that part is all in Tiffany's head when she sees how it's received by Granny.

I probably expressed it badly when I said Granny Aching didn't understand the shepherdess - of course she did, but it more bewildered her is probably putting it more accurately and again it's because her perception of herself which owes nothing to art/artfulness, whilst being spiritual almost as well as physical and instinctive. With Tiffany it's all still too rigid and deliberate most of the time.

I'm coming at this from an artistic viewpoint now and it's the knotty problem of whether true art can be taught? Most of the truly great original artists didn't consciously teach their students - they 'showed' them and what they showed isn't something that can be described because it does come from the heart and the imagination. Like anyone with some musical inclination can be shown the right notes to play a piano concerto, but only a great pianist could play it to the max and get the right emotional tone in it. That's what I meant by Granny not really 'getting' the china shepherdess in that it's somebody elses superlative and it's not necessarily someone who knew the land or sheep - it's a parody of a shepherd and to a true exponent it's unrecognisable virtually, because it's all show and no heart and so it's symbolic in the wrong way. It's like trying to compare Botticelli's Venus with the Venus of Willendorf - it can't be done but they're both art because they both encompass a spirit that's only revealed to the artist in 2 and 3D respectively. Granny Aching embodied shepherding as an art form in other words - the shepherdess is nothing to do with that except on a superficial, childish level as the best prize at a fairground, which is why it appeals to Tiffany age 7.

However - china is made from the earth too and so, in a way the material is right, it's just the shape and look of it that's wrong and perhaps this is how Tiffany's own perceptions are reconciled as she's needing to channel the earth magic in fairy land, to balance her earlier wrong associations with the shepherdess to 'make it right' for her by working out for herself that Granny didn't hate the figurine - she just had a job with accepting Tiffany's hero worshipping her perhaps? Because she was a shepherd by heart and soul and instinct which had nothing to do with artistic impressionism. And we see this as Tiffany's education progresses and she becomes progressively more instinctive and interpretive/experimental in how she learns as well as what she learns (this deciding what she'll learn, versus the learning by doing she does with the mountain witches later on).

It is all attitude with Tiffany and we're certainly agreeing about her getting less 'certain' and more instinctive about things as she grows and ages. The Tiffany of ISWM is far more 'grey' around the edges than WFM Tiffany and I like her better for that even though she's more workaholic than ever and has to learn to take help and delegate occasionally.

 

[Tonyblack]

You have two weeks to read or reread Men at Arms for the discussion starting on Monday 3rd October.

 

[Tonyblack]

You have one week to read or reread Men At Arms for the discussion starting on Monday 3rd October.

 

[raisindot]

I'm bumping this up, if only to show my disappointment that this great book has elicited fewer comments than Interesting Times.

 

[Nullus Anxietas]

I don't think Tiffany was anything but a 7 year old when she won the price and was very proud she could give something so beautiful to her Granny.
I expect Granny at the time was wondering whether Tiffany saw HER that way. When later she stares at the figurine I can't help but wondering if Granny was thinking about the past and how she would have looked in a dress like that.(it being Granny probably thinking of all the reasons why the dress would be in impractical.)