SPOILERS Wintersmith Discussion *Spoilers*

[Jan Van Quirm]

Ponder - on the surface the summer festival is an 'ordinary' celebration, but for witches (and for the land itself) it goes far deeper as they can sense the Wintersmith and Lady Summer.

Tiffany, having just been so close to becoming an elemental herself can 'see' the spirits of winter and summer as well as the Morris Men and people who're watching the more public dance. The Winter dance is an entirely different ceremony - the opposite of the summer dance in every respect in that it's just the human dancers (in black not white), the 2 spirits and a magically aware person i.e. a witch to witness it (so Miss Treason is there as the witness, but needs Tiffany to see the visible part of it for her).

In a way the incident with the Dance was Miss Treason's fault - she needed Tiffany's eyes so yes, she had to go with her, but she should have been a lot more upfront on what the deal was to the point of physically stopping Tiffany from dancing

Miss Treason shouldn't have taken Tiffany, or not without a proper briefing of what was happening because the elementals don't dance with each other at all - they SWAP places in the dance of the seasons in a ritual exchange of power so they each give way to the other at the proper time. Tiffany totally disrupted this by dancing with the Wintersmith which so threw him off balance that his ascendancy over Summer was too complete and she went off to sulk effectively, leaving him to court Tiffany and extend the duration of Winter.

The Dance itself is about transition or dying off and then rebirth in the cycle of the seasons and the Morris Men are the remnants of the pagan celebrations of that cycle at the major cross quarters of the year - so May 1st is Beltane and the time of the sun, regrowth and the herds returning to pasture - the opposite is Samhain (Hallowe'en/All Souls Day) to mark the transition into Winter, short days and longer nights when the sun is defeated, the crops are in and the leaves fall because winter will be king again. Miss Treason messed up by alowing Tiffany to go with her.

In fact we've just had Beltane last week so this is a great time to be looking at this book

 

[swreader]

SW.
Just out of interest, you talk about Granny's nasty trick. What nasty trick are you talking about? Granny said that Tiffany should get the cottage. That surely was an objective opinion based on the facts that Tiffany knew the people and knew about headology. Anagramma knew neither.
But Granny was over-ruled. She didn't make the choice to put Anagramma in the cottage. It was nothing to do with her.
So what was the nasty trick that Granny pulled?I don't understand.

Too much rice wine last night Pooh??! You're not as dumb as your post sounds.

Actually Granny is probably my favorite among Pratchett's characters -- precisely because she is one of the most complex characters and because she is, for all her heroic proportions, a flawed character given to nasty tricks and petty meannesses.

Tiffany knows immediately that Granny has performed a trick specifically designed to embarrass Mrs. Earwig--and not for any other reason--by suggesting Tiffany. As Miss Tick had deliberately (if a bit maliciously) told Granny, Mrs. Earwig will be proposing Anagramma. And Miss Tick mentions Petulia who she says has shaped up very well--"a good, all-around witch."

Granny (and Tiffany) know that Anagramma is the oldest (and therefore the most likely, all things being equal) to get the next cottage available, although the witches don't have to go by age. Tiffany, as Granny knows, doesn't want the cottage and both of them (as well as Miss Treason) know she's too young to have a cottage. Granny deliberately proposes Tiffany to annoy Mrs. Earwig and as part of the headology to make sure the other witches elect Anagramma (and not Petulia or someone else who is competent). Granny is NOT OVERRULED--she carries out her plan. And that plan is to expose Mrs. Earwig by putting an incompetent young witch, her pupil, in Miss Treason's place.

The rather clever part of this is that Granny sees herself in a "win-win" situation. If Tiffany, as she expects, steps up and organizes the young witches to act in dealing with the people and training Anagramma, she will have tested Tiffany at no harm to the people and taught her how to be responsible for the actions of other witches. If Tiffany had failed, Granny & Nanny and the other senior witches wouldn't have hesitated to remove Anagramma - because they have a responsibility to the people and it would have been obvious that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! It's rather like what Tiffany did in telling Petulia about the pig in the tree from Anagramma's stupid use of a spell. When things go wrong that a witch, or group of witches can fix, they have to do it. That's what being a witch is about.

It's a nasty trick because--given the fact that witches gossip so much--everyone will know just who really trained Anagramma, and that she knew absolutely nothing about being a witch when she got the cottage. And Mrs. Earwig will know that they know, but there will be nothing she can do to defend herself.

 

[poohcarrot]

Granny is NOT OVERRULED--she carries out her plan. And that plan is to expose Mrs. Earwig by putting an incompetent young witch, her pupil, in Miss Treason's place.

...but what I'm saying is that Granny DIDN'T put Anagramma in Miss Treason's place. Other witches did.

Where does it say Granny put Anagramma there?

 

[joemcf]

Poohcarrot...

Basically, near the end Tiffany implies that that Granny Weatherwax conned the rest of the witches into putting Annagramma into the cottage to show up Ms Tick...or i think it was ms tick. Might have been ms earwig.

Anyway, i quite liked this one. Was the first Tiffany Aching one i had read, and liked the feegles, though being scottish i found that some of the translations were off.

I liked the whole Boffo idea in the book, how people need the boffo to believe in the witches and trust them (to an extent). I thought Ms Treason stopping the clock was very nice and quite sad, how she kept her show up to the very end.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

TACTical voting of course (no wonder you don't get it! ). All the senior witches were out to get Mrs. Earwig and so they gave her enough rope to hang herself and heap scorn on her showy ineffective training methods. All Granny did was make it look like there was a choice by nominating the plausible workable Tiffany option. All the other witches recognised the 'sensible' choice, but knew Tiffany wasn't 'right' for running Miss Treason's patch because her heart didn't belong there.

Granny never intended Tiff to take the cottage and knew the other witches wouldn't let her have it, purely for age reasons officially, but in fact because they knew she didn't want it enough. In reality Granny was putting the boot in solely for the purpose of making it look like the witches were choosing Annagramma, so Mrs Earwig would think they were backing her, when in fact they were all giving Mrs. Earwig what she really wanted (because her protegee 'won' over Granny's choice) in order to crush her ego, discredit her as a competent witch and as a teacher of witches. The witches wanted Annagramma to spectacularly crash and burn OR for the young witches to help her overcome the disadvantages of her faulty education and run the cottage in the proper manner.

I think Granny chose Tiffany (rather than Petulia who would have been the more stable and competent candidate amongst the other young witches and in fact a far more suitable candidate than either Annagramma or Tiffany) because she knew the other witches wouldn't choose Tiffany because she belongs to the Chalk and nowhere else. Petulia would have been a much better choice all around, and would have won if anyone else had nominated her, but then the seniors wouldn't have been able to embarass Mrs. Earwig so thoroughly by looking as though they thought her girl was better than Granny's. So it's all tactical headology with Granny orchestrating and giving the others a chance to give the Earwig a good stomping - witches aren't very nice remember? :twisted:

 

[joemcf]

@Janvanquirm.

Thats what i was trying to say in less words. Maybe i failed completely.

Did anyone else the whole boffo idea. Its the one thing about the book that i really liked and thought was brilliant. The way they use the scary image and the evil stereotype to make people do as they wish and help them when they need it. Even the hat, which every which has, is a kind of boffo because they instantly get listened to and people do whatever they say.

 

[poohcarrot]

But SW said Granny pulled a "nasty trick" by nominating Tiffany.

I don't think it was a nasty trick.

If she hadn't put the thought into Tiffany's head that she could run the cottage, Tiffany might not have helped Anagramma (and she might not have grown up enough to defeat the Wintersmith). Then Anagramma would have crashed and burned and ALL witches would have suffered. Granny did what she thought was best for ALL witches.

Plus by nominating Tiffany, it was a massive boost to Tiffany's self-confidence, at a time when she'd been acting like a love-besotted 6 year-old, and was in the middle of a life and death battle with an elemental.

 

[bikkit]

My opinion: It was brilliant....when i was eight

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

joemcf - no problem! Actually I simply hadn't seen your post as in fact we posted within about 10 mins of each other and my response was taking longer to write than yours!

pooh - that's why I was saying neither you or swreader are wrong in essentials. You're just wanting to make Granny a hero and swreader wants her to be machiavellian when in fact she's neither of those things - just a manipulative old other one... :twisted:

Like I was saying Petulia would have made a much better choice than either Tiffany or Annagramma in terms of ability and attitude, but the latter was 'the next up' for promotion and yes she was disastrous, but in fact Granny also gave her a chance to save the situation by realising for herself that she just wasn't good enough. If Tiffany hadn't helped her then of course the other witches would have come in to clear up the mess (probably very soon if A hadn't taken the plunge) and had a bloody good gloat to boot. Granny's nomination of Tiffany was to annoy the Earwig and let Tiffany know that she was considered capable. She immediately saw it as a bad thing to do which is why she thinks Granny's being unfair and malicious in recommending her. It's just a question on which slant you put on it. It was nasty because the community suffered but it was also very clever as they now have two capable witches where they might have had a complete failure - Annagramma was magnificent in protecting Tiffany from the Wintersmith once she'd succumbed to the Way of Boffo.

More significantly though, if Annagramma hadn't come begging to Tiffany for help, Tiffany wouldn't have done anything more about it as, like you said, she had so many other things to handle that she couldn't ignore at all, so really a lot of credit must go to Annagramma for knowing how much trouble she was in and asking for help. It took real guts for her to do that because she's so jealous of Tiffany, but Annagramma also has just enough humility (and a strong dollop of self-preservation) to see that she was the right person to go to as she knew the cottage and its dependents thoroughly - she could have gone crying to Mrs. Earwig or even Granny for that, but she knew Tiffany would help her as she'd been so sensible about handing over the cottage.

What Tiffany learned along with all the other things is that it that this is not all about her and how great a witch she is. By nominating her Granny was teaching her a lesson as well - to trust in her own ability of course, but also that she's not going to come out on top the whole time even if she is 'the best'.

Granny has been recognising herself in Tiffany all along I think and wants her to know her own shortcomings. They're both from witching stock so learning about the power comes easily to them - too easily as we've seen with Lily Weatherwax so it all comes down to attitude as much as ability and the most important thing of all is that the witch puts her community first always. For Tiffany that community has to be the Chalk. She's only learning everything else she needs to be a good witch in the mountains because the Chalk's only other witch has gone. The Tiffany books are also about how Granny wants to avoid another Diamanda Tockley situation and Mrs. Earwig is therefore the enemy of everything the mountain witches stand for. Annagramma's public abandonment of the Way of the Earwig is a major and much needed victory.

 

[swreader]

Wintersmith, in my opinion, shows the weaknesses perhaps caused by Terry’s disease more clearly than any book to that time. But, after four or five very careful readings I changed my initial opinion (that it was one of the poorest books he’d written) and came to appreciate the generally skillful way he dealt with an adolescent, who is almost (but not quite) a full witch.

Tiffany carries this book in a way that she has not carried any of the others. Because of her nature, her age & inexperience—she stumbles into a very adult activity. The Dance of the Seasons can be seen without too much of a stretch as the old earth magic joined to a dreadful awareness of the possibility of ecological disaster by failure to preserve the balance of Nature. Tiffany, in some aspects, is the typical teenager—balanced unsteadily between child and adult. And to further complicate her life, not only does she have to deal with the whole idea of “boys,” but she also has inadvertently caused an elemental to fall in love with her and to behave in a most unusual way. No one can advise her among the witches, because no one has ever seen this phenomenon before. Dealing with a besotted elemental places terrible strains on her, but she learns to deal with boys and men as well as to become a mature witch by the end of the book.
And she learns, most clearly, not to idolize Granny Weatherwax but to learn from her while accepting her own separate self.

Tiffany leaps literally into the Black/Winter Morris precisely because of who she is. Neither Granny nor Miss Treason foresaw the strength of her bond with the land and neither expected what happened. Miss Treason tells Tiffany that many others have joined in the dance without harm, but when Tiffany joined, something happened that has never happened before (page 74 U.K. hardback). Because Tiffany is so much a part of the land, both Lady Summer and Wintersmith are aware of her and she upsets the balance of the seasons by her actions. Tiffany isn’t excusing a mistake when she says ‘I didn’t mean to’, she just hasn’t yet identified her full power as a Woman and a Witch. But, as Granny says, Tiffany has to play out the story, and dance to the Wintersmith’s tune until she is strong enough and wise enough to restore the balance by stepping out, by being the center through which the power of summer overthrows winter as it always has.

And Tiffany is able to do this because Pratchett begins to show her development as an adult. The book opens with Tiffany bringing the cat, “You” to Granny. Tiffany is already sensing that Granny needs something, that she is far from perfect. Granny acts like a spoiled brat not a proper witch when Tiffany visits. And Tiffany is wise enough to manipulate Granny for Granny’s own good. She’s not yet stronger or wiser than Granny, but she’s becoming aware of the strengths and perils of being a witch. Tiffany has learned that most of witchcraft is not “zap, zap, glingle, glingle, glingle” but instead it is, as Granny has acknowledged, helping people (even those you don’t like, or who are stupid or vain) when life is on the edge.

By the end of the book, Tiffany is wise enough and strong enough to see through Granny’s machinations. She says (p.391)
“You planned it, didn’t you?” she said. “If you’d suggested one of the others they’d probably have got the cottage, so you suggested me. And you knew, you just knew that I’d help her. And it’s all worked out, hasn’t it? I bet every witch in the mountains knows what happened by now. I bet Mrs. Earwig is seething. And the best bit is, no one got hurt. Annagramma’s picked up where Miss Treason left off, all the villagers are happy and you’ve won! Oh, I expect you’ll say it was to keep me busy and teach me important things and keep my mind off the Wintersmith, but you still won!”

Tiffany doesn’t get an immediate reaction to her accusation that Granny was playing a rather nasty trick on Mrs. Earwig and exposing her to all the other witches. But she is now able to demand a “reckoning” from Granny—that Granny show her the way to take away pain, something no other witch but Granny has been able to do. Pratchett does, in this novel, a fuller example of the exposure of both Granny & Mrs. Earwig that he had earlier done in "The Sea and Little Fishes", a short story appearing in Silverberg's First Volume of Legends. If you haven’t read this, rush right out and get it (the 2nd link is to the Amazon UK site).

There are a number of flaws in Pratchett’s creation of this novel. I think the opening scene (which doesn’t quite happen) is confusing and a mistake. The ending, with Rob trying to read heroically, takes away the grandeur of the real story. Pratchett here, as he does in later novels, tries to do too much, and puts in unnecessary bits while not developing other important characters enough. The tendency will be much more evident in Making Money—but you can see it here.

 

[Tonyblack]

To me this series is about following a young girl as she develops into a powerful witch. The fact that there isn't a Witch School as there is in the Harry Potter books is saying that witchcraft is about learning from life.

Mrs Earwig's brand of "Magik" is the sort of thing that might be taught in Hogwarts, but not in the Ramtops.

Every witch we have met in the DW books has their own way of doing things. None of them are right or wrong and some of them work better than others. Is Boffo really much different to Headology? The difference to me is that Granny Weatherwax has the magical ability to back it up. Miss Treason has had to use Boffo as her health (hearing, eyesight and age) have let her down. But in some ways she's more powerful than Granny.

Tiffany has learned from lots of witches - including her own Granny - and she's decided to go her own way. Being like Granny Weatherwax - lonely and grouchy, is not for her. But being like Nanny Ogg isn't for her either.

I'm looking forward to the next book for several reasons - not least because I want to see where the relationship between Tiffany and Roland goes - or doesn't go.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I think Roland and Tiffany will do well together - with his nasty Aunties he's getting a good grounding in how not to get nagged gratuitously or at least how to completely ignore it

Tiffany will get a lot out of it as well I think. Roland after his experience in Elfworld knows how important it is to be independant and think for himself - certainly he's no longer the toothless pushover he was in Wee Free Men. So, if Tiffany tries to boss him too much he won't just take it unless it's 'right', but he also admires her, so he'll always respect her superior judgement (in some ways) most of the time. I think she'll like it that he won't always give in to her

Did you also notice that Granny's letting Tiffany off the hook on the dress uniform for I Shall Wear Midnight - she was saying about how the black clothes are alien for Tiffany

 

[swreader]

Just an observation--- as far as I can remember, Granny has never had an apprentice witch, and frankly I can't imagine her having one. Most girls would be scared to death of the redoubtable Mistress Weatherwax, and I can't quite imagine Granny taking the time to work with one. Although I do think that the scene in Hat Full of Sky where Granny & Tiffany do Miss Level's errands for her is both amusing and instructive (excluding the whole Hiver element). Granny is a firm advocate of getting people to do what is necessary by telling them something they can understand. I suppose that's a kind of headology. But it also demonstrates the maxim that a witch never lies, but does not always tell all of the truth. Tiffany demonstrates at the end of Wintersmith when she gives him every chance to renounce his dream of a world of Ice with Tiffany as its Queen, before she kisses him and destroys him. She doesn't lie, but she certainly doesn't tell him all the truth.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Can you imagine the terror of being Granny's apprentice!? I agree it just wouldn't work, but I think she's taken a keen interest in Tiffany's education all along, maybe nudging Miss Tick into organising this beginning with Miss Level and then the progression through all the witches ending with Nanny so far anyway.

I think in a way Granny does tutorials on the sly rather than practical work placements. Schooling doesn't seem to 'go' with witching somehow so Hogwarts style or Mrs Earwig's route doesn't suit the Discworld witches (although the Wizards do OK at UU in a haphazard sort of way but then men like studying if it involves the odd pint and regular meals... ). Tiffany's certainly learnt things from her by default or observation such as the going invisible technique - the taking the pain out of the body 'trick' is unusual in that Tiffany specifies that she wants to know how it's done, so Granny does teach, just not that obviously.

 

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

She's suposed to be silly when she's 8, not 13. It's like she's physically grown older, but mentally regressed.

Ooh! I've just thought of something.
Was it Death in the boat? He was a skeleton, he spoke like Death, and I know Death can be everywhere at once, but it didn't feel like the actual Discworld Death.

What planet do you live on again pooh? 13 year old girls are monstrous little hormonal termagants with colossal mood swings and a serious mirror addiction (whether or not they have acne) and massive mobile/cell dependencies. I'd love to see how you're handling your daughters when they get to that age - enjoy them when they're properly silly and sweet and think their dad's a big hero

LOL yah!!!

 

[poohcarrot]

Yo! Tina-pops! Who rattled your cage?

 

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Just thinking of you dealing with two teenage girls soon.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

*whispers "yes, my precious hehehehehehe, we will have our vengeance upon mustache lippy man verrrrry soon..."*

 

[joemcf]

although the Wizards do OK at UU in a haphazard sort of way but then men like studying if it involves the odd pint and regular meals...

I think you mean regular pints, meals, and the occasional studying ( if any at all)

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I was trying to be diplomatic :twisted:

 

[joemcf]

Wizard...Diplomatic. I think there's a wee problme with that sentence. Probably the fact you called the wizards diplomatic. Its basically what ridcully says, goes. Which i like. Him or Stibbons.