Fantasy Explorations

The humor and the heart of The Colour of Magic

• Solseit • Episode 12

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In this episode of Fantasy Explorations, we explore Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic', exploring its unique world-building, humor, and character dynamics. 

The discussion highlights the absurd yet cohesive nature of the Discworld, the significance of humor in storytelling, and the intricate plot that intertwines various characters and themes.


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This might be the story that has the most absurd world building than any other story that I've read so far in fantasy. And yet, it's cohesive. It actually makes sense in its own wacky way.

Intro
Welcome to Fantasy Explorations, the place where to geek out about fantasy. I'm your host, Solseit, and I'm in love with fantasy, in all of its forms. I have been exposed to fantasy for most of my life, and I want to keep learning about this genre, so this is the adventure we're on.

The Colour of Magic
In today's episode, we will review The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. But before we get into the nitty gritty details as to why this show is so interesting, I want to spend a little bit of time as to why I think this world, the world that Terry Pratchett builds is unique and the reasons why I've decided to embark on this journey of reading this world. 

Some assembly required
So the first element is that some assembly is required. And this means that this world is truly unique in the way that it approaches world building. This is a series that is 41 books long, but it is an Ikea set. Assemble as you want. This is to say that this world is actually made of different self-contained series, but also series that influence other series.
So the reading order for the series is either really 1 to 41 or one series at a time in whichever order one prefers. My choice, and it's mostly my brain that forced me to go in this direction, is to go for the first option, which is from 1 to 41. And that meant for me starting with The Colour of Magic, which we're going to review in a few minutes. But there are a few self-contained series within the world.

The first one, actually is the beginning of the entire Discworld world, is Rincewind and to some extent Unseen University. And it is an interesting choice and we'll see it in the review later, but it's an interesting choice to choose Rincewind as the first protagonist that we come across because it has all the characteristics that do not make a trustworthy protagonist. 

Then we have another series called Witches. And that is the one that I'm the most excited for at this moment in time. And I have a gut feeling that it will be a very interesting ride, pun intended, I guess. And from what I can see is that the series focuses on specific women who have very important roles to carry out, but they also use psychology effectively, but also in a conniving way. So I'm curious about what that actually means. 

Death is another series that has gotten me very interested based on what I saw in The Colour of Magic. So it feels self-explanatory, right? It's a series dedicated to death going around doing his own managing his own business. But then how can you possibly mess up a Death series? Like, how can you possibly make the story so complex and appealing and absurd that one wants to read a Death series? So I'm looking forward to that one. 

We got also City Watch, which is the urban fantasy series within this world, and it focuses on the City Watch, essentially the policing within the city of Ankh-Morpok. It is essentially a crime series in an urban fantasy setting, so that really works really well for me. 

Then there is Tiffany Aching which is essentially a continuation or a spin off, I guess, of the Witches series. I think it's mostly tailored YA, young adult, but it's irrelevant. I'm looking forward for it. 

And then the other one that really got me interested because it's essentially two things. One is the premise. And so the series is Moist von Lipwig, which is the story of a former criminal who is given a second life as an abiding citizen, by using his skills as jack-of-all-trades for the good of this city. And then the second thing that really gets me going is the title of the first book that introduces this series, which is Going Postal. So I don't know, like I have very good feelings about this. 

But all of this is, again, it's overlapping series, but there is also a few standalone series. I think there is also another series called Industrial Revolution, but I couldn't find a whole lot online nor I want to because I want to be as spoiler free as possible in this analysis, in this journey of learning what this world really is and what it is all about and so I'm fairly excited for every single one of them and a few in particular are my standouts. 

Humor
Now the second element as to why this world has such a unique drive, such a unique impact on me is humor; and, while this is not the first book in fantasy that is rooted in irony and humor. I believe that this is the OG fantasy series where humor is the essential tool to tell the story. And in this particular case is humor and a strong sense of absurdity that permeate every single line of this story. 
The Colour of Magic is a pretty compact book. It's less than 300 pages long. And it still packs a punch, not only in terms of world building, but also in terms of story. There is a lot of details that build up on this. How do you see heroes? And there is a pantomime really going around the depiction of heroes. And then there is a whole discussion around theology and what do theologists and astrologists set in a world that it's a Turtle? What can it possibly be and we'll talk about that a little bit later. So what is really impressive about this story is that there is so much even on a deeper thinking level that is coated with evergreen humor. And really, ultimately, there is so much to think about. There is so much to reflect upon. And I found myself chuckling more often than not. 

So going back to the review, the review will be structured again in three things that I find they work for me. World building on one hand, and so what is the world building in this world? The plot and so how the story unfolds. And then the last one is emotions, which I usually use again to talk about my emotions, but it's mostly about the characters and how they make me feel. 

And so with this, you've been warned, we're going right away into a spoiler section because I don't think it's realistic to make a good spoiler free in this particular context. 

Spoiler review 
So, you've been warned, this is the spoiler review for The Color of Magic. Ready, set, go! 

World building
Let's start with world building. This might be the story that has the most absurd world building than any other story that I've read so far in fantasy. And yet, it's cohesive. It actually makes sense in its own wacky way. Every single place and location brings so much more information about the world, and also about theology, physics, astronomy of this world. And I found myself utterly in love with the world building. There is also lot of different ways to slice the world building. And it's generally a lot of information. Once again, it packs a punch in less than 300 pages. So I've decided to highlight a few of the world building elements that I particularly enjoy that I found unique and added so much depth to the story.
The first is going to focus on the geography / astronomy of this world. We're going to then turn into the element of world building that I love the most, which is creatures and being that belong to this world, especially when they have a meddling ability. And last but not least, I will briefly mention another essential element of world building, which is the history of the world. 

So let's go to geography and astronomy. It all starts with A’Twin, the turtle or also known as the Great Turtle. This is where we find this world, a flat world on top of the Giant Turtle, which is also known as A’twin, which is also the Great Turtle. And there are astro-zoologists. I'll let you sit for a second there with this concept. Astro-zoologists who study their turtle with poignant questions such as the sex and whether A’twin will mate in the future.
And while they seem very absurd, almost dumb questions on the surface, I cannot stop wondering what the sex or the mating actually means for this Discworld. For instance, if a twin is a female, what does that mean for the flat world that lives on top of the turtle? So yes, it's absurd, but does astrozoology make sense in this context? It does. And if I were a this world citizen, I would definitely want to know if there's going to be a catastrophic event that might happen to my planet. 
The world is flat and there is an illustration by Steven Briggs that is as wacky and delicate as the world building is. We have essentially one main continent with a few islands here and there. 
Also, what I love about this world building and the map of the world building next to the round stains of coffee or tea is the amount of languages that were involved to create the world. At the very least, I spotted English, German and Italian, which more specifically is referenced because of two cities, Genoa and Brindisi. So I feel naturally compelled to enjoy this world. And I'm sure that there is a lot more influence outside of the languages that I've identified. And so I'm hoping to slowly peel the onion and find more about this. This map also makes me want to explore this world. The artistic skills needed and used to represent this world visually is incredibly appealing to me and I cannot get to, once again, peel the onion and find out more. 
One more reference to the, let's say, geography approach of this world is a literary choice that, again, makes the world pop, which is that Terry Pratchett used in several occasions a zooming in and out of scenes technique. So we often start a scene with a description of a quarter or even larger than that, maybe the entire city. And then we keep zooming in until we get to that character and that particular interaction that we want to explore for the plot purposes. It is truly an effective tool to allow world building exploration and in-depth analysis of location with a bit of an absurd twist, which is quite effective in giving us both the stakes, but also the context that we are experiencing. 

As for creatures and beings, I find myself fascinated by the personification of gods and ideas. The highlight for me is the personification of gods. They reminded me of Greek gods meddling in human affairs, allowing for a leg up or down, depending if one is the recipient of their favor or the opposite. I also like how the gods look like they were gambling, but also maybe playing a D&D inspired game by using dice. And this game has a direct impact as to what happens to our protagonists. The choices that the gods make are also important. And as gods are fickle beings whose decisions are, let's say, as human as they can be driven by emotions, that has a peculiar impact on the overall story. 
“He was not, of course, an atheist. On the disk, the gods dealt severely with atheists. On the few occasions when he had some spare change, he always made a point of dropping a few coppers into a temple coffer somewhere on the principle that a man needed all the friends he could get. But usually he didn't bother with the gods and hoped the gods wouldn't bother him. Life was quite complicated enough. There were two gods, however, who were really terrifying. The rest of the gods were usually only sort of large-scale humans on the wine and war and whoring, but Fate and the Lady were chilling.” 

And so how do you top, from a fantasy perspective, gods meddling in human affairs? By creating outstanding personification of ideas, of human ideas. And the best example of this is in the character called Death, the personification of our idea of death. In fact, Death's job is actually to go around and end individual lives in the world. 
“Death and Fate looked at each other. Death grinned. He had no alternative, of course, being made of implacable bone. The whetstone sang rhythmically along the blade as he continued his task.” 
And so how do you make an idea an interesting character? So on one hand, you make him fallible and in a peculiar way, where death is always ready to do his job, but events often call for a different turn of events, again, God's meddling in human affairs. And the other way is by giving him visuals that make him stand out on the page. How do you do that in a written story? By giving his voice small caps. And there is no quotation mark, is nothing else on the page that indicates that Death is talking. It's just small caps. And it honestly feels fitting. 

Last but not least, I briefly mentioned that history is also built in this story. We have reference to the First Men, their war against the gods, and also the mage wars. And I cannot wait to dive much deeper into this world building. 

Plot
As for the plot, it's a story that allows us to explore a lot of different locations in this world, hopping here and there getting to know different people and heritage. And also we keep moving at the pace determined by the whims of the gods. 
The essence of the story is that we need to entertain and in fact we need to help a wealthy individual exploring the world. And Rincewind, one of our main protagonists, is tasked with ensuring that Twoflower, the wealthy individual, is served what he is looking for which is real life experiences in the city of Ankh-Morpok. Twoflower is an insurer. He has a boring life, a 9 to 5 corporate life. And this is until he decides to go on an adventure. And we generically referred to experiencing real life, but more specifically, he wants to get in brawls, meet real heroes, and experience events where the stakes are so high, which may include his own death. And to give you flavor as to what we're talking about and the whimsical writing style that impermeates every single page of this book, 
“no, what he didn't like about heroes was that they were usually suicidally clueless when sober and homicidally insane when drunk.” 
The story starts in the city of Ankh-Morpork, but it doesn't end there. In fact, every chapter takes us in a different location, exploring different elements of the worldbuilding and characters. With sometimes more, sometimes less sane take on life. For example, we end up in explore an area called Wyrnberg and the city of Dragonholm. The protagonists, Rincewind, Twoflower and The Luggage, we're going to cover him later on in the episode, they meet a hero, called Hrum, who is pretty dumb if I'm being honest, but this is not even the greatest oddity. The greatest oddity of this particular place is that dragons do not exist, or better, they went extinct. But one can summon them with imagination, so the stronger the imagination is, the stronger and more beautiful the dragons actually are. Which incidentally means that once you are too far away from Dragonhome, then the imaginary dragon also fades away. 
But this is not even the oddest thing that happens in this book. And we have a couple of situations that I think are kind of like the cherry on the cake. And one is more of an interaction rather than a plot element, but I think it has a much larger repercussion overall in the story, which is the revelation of Scrofula, who is impersonating Death and once again making death essentially relatable as a fallible character, not being great at his job in this particular context, and then Scrofula, as I was saying, slips and tells Rincewind that people actually reincarnate, but people are not supposed to know that this is their destiny. This is a quite interesting element of the plot, which again, I'm curious to see what it means for the rest of the series in this world. 
We also have another very absurd and unique situation, which is we are in a fantasy world, but we end up on a space quest at the edge of the disk with a primary goal to learn the sex of the Great Turtle. And so, once again, like, it's such an absurd plot, but somehow it actually makes sense. 

But on top of that, one of the typical criticisms when it comes to plot lines, it's when we get a Deus Ex Machina moment, essentially a scenario in which suddenly there is a solution to a problem that wasn't supposed to be there. Now here, in this specific story, we get a very unique take on Deus Ex Machina, which makes sense in the absurdity of the events. 
“The whole mind of Fate is bent against you, said the Lady, but all I can do is give you just one small chance. The rest is up to you.” 
This Deus Ex Machina is appropriately used in this context, as we have divinities interested in twisting people's fate for the good and the bad. And this leads to unexpected and hilarious consequences, such as a space quest while impersonating astronauts. And of the quote that I just read where the lady is explaining to Rincewind and Twoflower what she's doing for them, what I love the most about this encounter is how chill Twoflower is he casually comments that this is the first time he has seen a goddess. He might actually be my favorite character of this entire story. I love how positive he is, how naive and incorrigibly looking at the glass half full side of events. He's really a trooper with a strong spirit. 

Emotions
This last part of this analysis actually brings me to the last portion of this spoiler review, which was emotions. 
Now, this is a story that makes me happy. And while we explore a complicated set of emotions and circumstances, the entire book is a place of peaceful happiness. A place where you know things happen, but they do for a reason, most likely gods intervening, and our protagonists are going to be fine. And there is power in that. There is power in knowing that the people you care about in the story will be fine at the end of the day.

And so there is even more attention to how absurd the plot is and how absurd the events are that the story just gets bigger and bigger. Our protagonists in this story are essentially three. We have a lot of ancillary characters that come into play and have an opinion and color our pages. 
But there's three main characters Rincewind, Twoflower and the most loyal character of them all, Luggage. 
Let's start with Rincewind. He is already an odd choice as for a plotline. He, we are in a fantasy world and he's not the hard worker, experienced wizard that one would expect, a Merlin-like character. He is in fact, I guess, a parody of a Merlin character. Rincewind is a wizard, but he's really not that good at being a wizard. In fact, not only he's not good at his profession, but he's also lazy, making him essentially one of the most incompetent wizards out there. And there is an auxiliary reason as to why he is so incompetent, which is he only knows one spell, he wasn't supposed to end up in a particular section of the university, and due to a series of unfortunate but also fortunate set of events, he ends up learning only one spell. And what he does on a day-to-day basis is essentially living through his innate skill with languages. And this is the reason why he is selected to escort the other protagonist of the story, the whimsical Twoflower. 
The ever-positive Twoflower is a ray of sunshine in this entire story. On one hand, he is quite excited to experience anything that is not monotonous. On the other hand, he never loses his cool, irrespective of how challenging or hopeless the situations are. He's also obsessed with taking pictures, it actually becomes a recurring gag in the story. And there is one specific scene where it's hilarious the way that it was used. In fact, the taking picture is done through a box that lives on Twoflowers' necks, essentially it's a camera in our terms, and it's operated by a picture imp whose job is to paint the views, but also he is a quite peculiar caricature of an artist. Two Flower also comes from the Agatean Empire, which is in the Counterweight Continent, and it is an Asian-inspired location known for hard work. In fact, Twoflower's insistence of getting to know the world, making him the first of his kind, more in a second, is considered problematic by the Emperor. And so while at the beginning of the story, the Emperor calls the Patrician, who is kind of the mayor of Ankh-Morpork to ensure that Twoflower gets the most glamorous welcome, the Emperor ended up changing his mind and ensuring that Twoflower does not come back, so that he doesn't inspire other citizens of the Empire to learn to have adventures. We said that Twoflower is the first of his kind. In fact, he is the very first tourist on this world. And there's a hilarious line, not surprisingly about it. 
“Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant idiot.” 

And last but not least, get the Luggage. And so it's a bit more complicated to describe who luggage is. He, or it, is made of the rarest of woods, is sentient, and is the personal protector of Twoflower slash Twoflower's fortune, which there is an interesting wrinkle on this. He is technically not wealthy. He's just average in the Agatean Empire, but because all of his fortune is essentially made of pure gold, he is a very wealthy person everywhere else but from where he comes from. The language actually keeps Rincewind honest in a couple of situations. And what is impressive is how much humanity is described in the way that luggage acts. And it goes from menacingly opening the lid, to make a point, to making efforts to follow Twoflower, or to quote a passage from the book. 
“Rincewind turned in his saddle and glanced at Twoflower's luggage, which was currently ambling along on its little legs, occasionally snapping its lid at butterflies”, making it essentially a combination between an inanimate object and a wonderful pet, a loyal and protective pet to Twoflower. 

To Summarize
So to summarize, this is an absurd story, but it makes sense in a certain wacky way. It is also story designed to make the reader, or at least me, great. I read this story and I feel happy. It is a wonderful pick-me-up, an ironic take on humanity in a different and flat world where the stakes are high and the players many. In fact, I want to say that was the purpose that Pratchett had all along. 
“The Discworld is a world not totally unlike our own, except that it is flat and magic is as integral as gravity to the way it works. Though some of its inhabitants are witches, dwarves, wizards and even policemen, their stories are fundamentally about people being people.”

Outro
And with this we end our journey through the color of magic and I hope you've enjoyed the episode or at least had fun going down memory lane with me. 
Thank you for spending time with me today and next time on Fantasy Explorations we will dive into honorable characters in fantasy literature. 
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See you next time!