SPOILERS Equal Rites Discussion *Spoilers*

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Tonyblack

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Jul 25, 2008
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Ziriath said:
Speaking of female wizards, do you remember Marchesa, that black girl from Krull? She has a staff and she said she is a 5th level wizard. It seems the witch-wizard sorting is mainly a convention of the 'civilised' land.
Indeed! Although I suspect that the A-M wizards wouldn't count her as she's foreign and they don't do think properly in foreign parts. ;)
 
Nov 15, 2011
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Ziriath said:
Speaking of female wizards, do you remember Marchesa, that black girl from Krull? She has a staff and she said she is a 5th level wizard. It seems the witch-wizard sorting is mainly a convention of the 'civilised' land.
Good point. The AM Wizards being stuffy traditionalists is part of the fun though isn't it. But it isn't all about the Wizards Poo-pooing Witchcraft as nonsense and not real magic. Granny doesn't like the Wizards for the same reasons.
 
Sister Jennifer said:
The AM Wizards being stuffy traditionalists is part of the fun though isn't it.
you could easily put Granny in that sentence instead of AM wizards :laugh: i think that whole area of the world is kinda like that.

Though granny does sort of acknowledge that men can be "close" to being a witch. she even remarks on this about someone, but i can't remember who. "as close to being a witch as you can get while still being male" or something like that.
 

Ziriath

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Oct 15, 2011
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raptornx01 said:
Sister Jennifer said:
The AM Wizards being stuffy traditionalists is part of the fun though isn't it.
you could easily put Granny in that sentence instead of AM wizards :laugh: i think that whole area of the world is kinda like that.

Though granny does sort of acknowledge that men can be "close" to being a witch. she even remarks on this about someone, but i can't remember who. "as close to being a witch as you can get while still being male" or something like that.
I think it was the royal beekeeper in Lords and Ladies.
 

=Tamar

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May 20, 2012
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Re: Equal Rites - revised and badly copy-edited?

Back on Nov 10, 2009:
kakaze said:
I think she knew about the spirkles and the weevils due to her three years of witchcraft training.
I knew somebody else had to have noticed that time reference.

I've been rereading Equal Rites along with the crowd at Mark Reads, and we haven't quite reached the section where Granny thinks of having spent three years training Esk. There is a problem there. Esk is eight years old when she begins training with Granny. Esk is still eight years old - "almost nine" - when she goes to UU, arriving when Simon does. Simon gives a lecture that she hears when he has only been there two weeks and shortly after that the climactic action of the story happens. She can't have spent three years with Granny!

Earlier in the book, when Esk is in the apple tree and Gulta and Cern are hassling her, and the staff turns Gulta into a pig, Gulta is referred to as the smith's fifth son. There are supposed to be seven boys in all, and Cern must be younger, so he might be the sixth. Where's the seventh?

I think Equal Rites began as a non-Discworld story with the seventh son of a seventh son trope and with Esk going to UU when she was eleven, a typical age for the hero of a UK children's book to go away to school, whether it's magic or not. A search-and-replace command would change the age from eleven to eight, but would miss the mention of three years. Similarly a reference to a seventh son could easily be changed to eighth, but a search would miss a reference to a fifth son.

A copy-editor should have caught those traces.
 
Hm, supposed there is a seventh son around who just isn't mentioned?
Or there has been a seventh son who died a short time after Esk has been born?
(If I remember right at her birth day it is mentioned that there are seven sons and Esk is the 8th child).
Not mentioned, too? :think: :think:

Okay, being fan I am able to interpret it in every way that it will fit. :laugh: ;)
And yes, these presumbly are some plotholes I until now haven't noticed.

But I have to confess although I like this book I seldom reread it, even if I reread the witch series I usually leave it out and begin with Wyrd Sisters.
 

=Tamar

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May 20, 2012
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Copyediting flaws and all, Equal Rites is still a fun book. I find that it helps to think of Granny as the protagonist, not Esk. It opens with Granny, she gets forced into taking care of the problems that happen because of the wizard, and when it's all over, it closes with Granny. It's the first, but not the only, time that the obvious protagonist turns out not to be the real main character.
 

RedDeeDee

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Mar 8, 2015
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So, I just finished Equal Rites for the first time. Now I'm here to share some thoughts, for the first time in these forums.

Important to note that I decided to read these things in order, so I'm only 3 books in. Why? Dunno. OCD, I guess. I'm quite aware it's of little importance, but oh well.

And I gotta say, Equal Rites it's kind of a dud. I like the characters all right, but it has none of the satire and humor of the first few. When it does, it's very far and in-between. The concept is fantastic, specially in a post-Harry Potter world. The execution is very... weird. The structure, specially. Doesn't it seem like a waste for her to spend so little time on the Unseen Academy, like 1/4th of the book, even more so when the journey is so uninteresting? And that climax kinda came out of nowhere, and was... well... anticlimatic.

Much alike the finale of The Light Fantastic in a lot of ways, most of them not good. I loved the cliff-hanger of The Colour of Magic. That cross dimensional confrontation of these last two? Not so much. And we barely get to know Simon. Of course, it shines when Granny Weatherwax is present. And as far as I understand, she gets even better in subsequent books. Cool.

Now... to Mort.

Thanks. Very happy to be here in the forum. And sorry if criticizing the book just in the wake of Terry's passing seems like in bad taste. But I think that continuing to keep the DW in conversation is the best way to preserve the memory of that remarkable and brilliant man.

Cheers.
 
Jul 27, 2008
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Hi and welcome, the reading in order of publication is the the way to see how the books progress over the years, hopefully you should find Mort better as the style is different, it is one of my favorite books but my top ten change slighty as I reread some again. :mrgreen:
 

RedDeeDee

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Mar 8, 2015
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Thank you all so much about the welcome!

One question. Without any details, does Esk reappears in any book(s) later on or only Granny Weatherwax does so?

Thanks again!
 

RathDarkblade

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Mar 24, 2015
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...Granny is a bit different in that one, if memory serves me right that was her first appearance, but it has been a long time since I've read it.
I just re-read "Equal Rites" and you're right, Dug. It is Granny's first appearance and Terry seems to have gotten most of Granny's personality down pat. But still, there are bits here and there that don't quite fit later books. For instance:

... Her skirt jingled with lucky charms, and a freshly-forged horseshoe, always a potent preventative in time of trouble, weighed down her handbag. (pg. 93)
A horseshoe? Fine, we see that later in LL. But lucky charms? It doesn't sound like the Granny of LL or even WS, who would turn her nose up at so-called "lucky charms".

A party of gnolls had crept up on them during the night. The nasty creatures, a variety of stone goblin ... (pg. 144)
Stone goblins??? :eek: All right, clearly Pterry didn't and couldn't have foreseen Stoolie the gnoll in J, or the fun he would have with goblins in Snuff and RS. Still, it's a bit jarring.

All in all, though, it's a fun book (the problems with Esk's age notwithstanding). :)
 

=Tamar

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May 20, 2012
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The charms may have been for sale. Later in the same book, Granny seems to have sold rather a lot of potions. One also shows up in Mort.
 

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