SPOILERS Equal Rites Discussion *Spoilers*

[swreader]

I noticed something today (for the first time) that further demonstrates the linkage between Esk and the staff even before she becomes a wizard. After Granny (with the aid of the staff) rescues Esk from being stuck as an Eagle, Granny says to her, as she gives her the staff "Here. It's yours. Take it. I just hope this is the right thing to do." Terry says that's not at all the way an apprentice wizard receives a staff but by sheer coincidence Granny got the essence of it.

Esk's reply is "it's very nice," she said uncertainly. "The carvings are pretty. What's it for?"

To the best of my recollection no one else can make out the carvings, let alone think them pretty. Directly thereafter, Esk ignites the fire, the fireplace, chimney, etc. but while she is holding the staff she only uses her fingers.

I think this fits with the fact that the staff continues to protect her until she childishly discards it, but that when it becomes her staff as a full wizard, it is simply a blank staff--almost a stick.

 

[Tonyblack]

The carvings are interesting because although, as Sharlene points out, Esk says the carvings are "pretty", later i the book she can't actually make out the carvings. And it's not until she gets the staff while with Simon in the desert that she actually sees the carvings clearly.

 

[poohcarrot]

...that the staff, by his command, is ordered to use magical powers to protect the new owner until such time as the owner can be confirmed as a wizard.

Thus because Esk wants to do some things like thank the trader who told her about caravans, she is able to, with the help of the staff to see the tobacco worms in the centre of the bales and warn "the nice man" of their presence.

Paragraph one.

If the staff has orders to protect Esk, why does it cause her pain when Granny tries to burn it?
What would have happened if Granny kept on trying to burn it, would it have killed Esk?

Paragraph two

Isn't this suggesting (like other people have) the staff is communicating telepathically with her?
I put this incident down to her basic magical ability being an 8th of an 8th, nothing whatsoever to do with the staff.

 

[poohcarrot]

...and another point.

Do wizards actually need a staff?

There are numerous examples of wizards doing magic without a staff.

As far as I can see, a staff is just like a witches pointy hat, it just says "Look at me, I'm a wizard." It's headology. It's just like Rincewind's badly spelled hat. Incidently, I don't remember even one example of Rincewind having a staff, yet he is a wizzard.

 

[Lady Vetinari]

Ah but Rincewind HAS NEVER PASSED exams - and has not even reached Level One - Archchancellor Weatherwax wanted to take his hat from him remember? So maybe he was not allowed a staff - as technically, he's not even supposed to have a hat!

 

[poohcarrot]

Esk never passed any exams.

Rincewind is the professor of cruel and unusual geography, so obviously he's a wizzard.

In going postal the student wizard in Genua was made a wizard on Ridcully's whim.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

It's the wizard/fairy godmothers who are the power supply for the staff/wand/mirrors; reflective surfaces which, unlike the pointy hats used by both genders/disciplines, are instruments for the individual to channel their thaumage of power for whatever purpose it's needed for. In effect a wand/mirror etc or a staff are only as good as their user. Magrat was rubbish with the wand because it wasn't set for her properly but for Desiderata; who in turn wasn't that great at mirror magic like Lily; who put so much energy into that she wasn't a match for Esme, her younger sister because she'd invested too much of her own magic into external focuses and 'lost' her real self and power capacity on the way. Staffs and Wands aren't powerful in their own right - they feed on their users ability and as they augment power so they drain the source which is actually within the person all the time.

Similarly Esk's still growing power potential isn't that compatible with Drum's staff which is why he left the runes on there to keep his spell of protection intact whilst Esk 'grew' into it and discovered how to use it for herself. The fire incident was merely a mexican standoff - 'burn me and the girl gets it too'. The staff was 'saving' itself and Esk by demonstrating the cyanide pill option if you want to put another more sinister slant on it.

The hats are purely and literally headology, there to make sure people recognise the 'badge of office'. Rincewind doesn't need a staff except as a walking stick, as it would be useless to him - he's not a typical wizard anyway and his methodology is all invested in his ability to understand people and how they communicate, pure instinctual radar to detect danger and then get away from it as quickly as possible with his patented Flee don't Fight reactive training. His disciplines are social and innately physical so he's more a witch than wizard in some respects.

As for broomsticks - well they're not staffs with bristles. If Granny can't use one too well (and Tiffany ain't great with 'em either) then I'd say that they're actually simply transport with spells (and rustic symbology as well naturally ) and not truly wired into their riders ability at all. Actually wasn't there a wizard who tried riding a broomstick and couldn't get the hang of it? Rincewind I expect, but he certainly couldn't handle it at all...

 

[CrysaniaMajere]

Lu-Tse used a broomstick too and he's no wizard.

 

[CrysaniaMajere]

...that the staff, by his command, is ordered to use magical powers to protect the new owner until such time as the owner can be confirmed as a wizard.

Paragraph one.

If the staff has orders to protect Esk, why does it cause her pain when Granny tries to burn it?
What would have happened if Granny kept on trying to burn it, would it have killed Esk?

Paragraph two

Isn't this suggesting (like other people have) the staff is communicating telepathically with her?
I put this incident down to her basic magical ability being an 8th of an 8th, nothing whatsoever to do with the staff.

1) The staff protects Esk but also itself. I think being magical it knows Granny wouldn't hurt Esk, so it makes a little trick to win and it wins because Granny hastily took it out from the fire.

2)I don't think they communicate because in that case she would have known in the end the staff was protecting her from the boy ( what was his name?) and was not attacking him.
I agree with it having to do with her magical abilities, she Is a wizard after all, isn't she?

 

[kakaze]

Granny looked.
This was what she saw.
The viewpoint was very high up and a wide swathe of country lay below her, blue with distance, through which a broad river wriggled like a drunken snake. There were silver lights floating in the foreground but they were, in a manner of speaking, just a few flakes in the great storm of lights that turned in a great lazy spiral, like a geriatric tornado with a bad attack of snow, and funnelled down, down to the hazy landscape. By screwing up her eyes Granny could just make out some dots on the river.
Occasionally some sort of lighting would sparkle briefly inside the gently turning funnel of motes.
Granny blinked and looked up. The room seemed very dark.
“Odd sort of weather,” she said, because she couldn’t really think of anything better. Even with her eyes shut the glittering motes still danced across her vision.
“I don’t think it’s weather,” said Hilta. “I don’t actually think people can see it, but the crystal shows it. I think it’s magic, condensing out of the air.”
“Into the staff?”
“Yes. That’s what a wizard’s staff does. It sort of distils magic.”
Granny risked another glance at the crystal.
“Into Esk,” she said, carefully.
“Yes.”

The staff provides power to the wizard, not the other way around. However, to be able to fully use the staff, you need to be trained, just like with any advanced tool.

 

[Sjoerd3000]

Wizards don´t need staffs to perform magic. However I believe they can store magic in a staff .

 

[poohcarrot]

Like a Duracel battery.

 

[Sjoerd3000]

Exactly

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Wizards don´t need staffs to perform magic. However I believe they can store magic in a staff.

That's what I meant - with Drum being dead his staff has some of his power still and Esk's starting to show her own ability re-activates the staff. In the passage kakaze's quoting Granny's lost her and Hilta's crystal ball is finding her through the staff which is finally being used again and needing to draw some extra ooompf into itself

But kakaze's right as well as the Disc has so much free-ranging magic knocking about, especially in places like the Ramtops and with Esk still not managing her own power too well it's needing to get as much magic as it can stored.

I read a little more of ER last night and got to the bit where Esk borrows the Eagle for too long and Granny used the staff like a broomstick to go out and find her (and has a terrible time of it as usual). So it is itself magical but it's also sentient in a way. I think what Drum did was put a spell on the staff so it's a little like the Luggage with Rincewind - it's a guard-dog effectively but it's been imprinted or merged with Esk in some way by Drum himself when he makes his 'death-bed' spell so she'll have some pre-existing magic to draw on whilst she grows up.

Drum's not 'in' the staff at all - that's a duracell or a piggy-bank that's rechargeable from free-ranging magic and from it's owner/charge. Drum IS a parasite - on the apple tree. Granny also visits the tree which is thickly covered in misteltoe - that's where Drum is, not in the tree itself. Also lots of druidic connotations there which also is fairly compatible with witch magic of course Terry certainly wanted Esk to get a cartload of magic to use, but she can only soak it up gradually as she doesn't have the experience to use it effectively - yet.

 

[kakaze]

Drum's in the misteltoe? Interesting idea, I'd never thought of that.

But it seems that he does have some effect on the tree. You'd expect a tree that's so covered in a parasitic growth to not do as well as the trees around it, but it actually grows taller!

Also, the branches twist to knock anyone but Esk out of the tree.

So I'd say that he's haunting the tree, not the misteltoe.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

The tree was there before Esk was born as somebody pointed out already so it can't be Drum altogether. Granny actually 'talked' to him and it's her observations that verifies the apple tree is the tallest in the area and absolutely covered in mistletoe. Mistleoe is parasitic but it doesn't necessarily kill it's host as it can photosynthesise (see Wiki) unless it's there in great abundance.

Mistletoe is a poison and has a lot of Druidic and Wikkan associations especially in the winter festivals and they used it in treating fertility problems. It also features in Norse Myth and in Greek too. So the tree should be dead and it isn't - Drum is the misteltoe that has invaded the tree's stem creating a symbiotic dependency where he's able to let Esk up and no one else - and communicate with Granny. The tree is 'haunted' through the misteloe's 'magicness' that Drum inhabits somehow after his death.

 

[kakaze]

Stop! Stop!

I give in!

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Gotcha! :twisted:

 

[poohcarrot]

I think he's in the apples, which are always sour, just like he was.

 

[kakaze]

I know!

He was actually Borrowing Granny!

After all, she was present when he died...

That way he was always around Esk.