(no subject)

[skygiants]

So I have been curious to see what I'll make of Hogfather, because a lot of people really like it and somehow I could never remember it.

And . . . I think I'm not actually that surprised that I couldn't remember it. But I'm also not surprised that people like it! It feels a bit like Reaper Man to me -- there's a lot of sort of marking time and muddling around with grumpy Albert and the Death of Rats and some mildly funny-ish wizard hijinks to fill out the book, and then all the real meat of it comes at the very end.

Except Reaper Man has the emotional throughline of Death and Miss Flitworth in the rest of the book, Hogfather doesn't really have that, or at least it feels to me like it doesn't. And I suspect this might partly be because, uh, Christmas is not really a thing that I have strong emotional associations with? I mean, I have some! Trees are pretty and Yorkshire pudding is tasty and all, I am perfectly willing to have Christmas spirit by association. But I think maybe you need some more Christmas feelings than I've got to feel like Hogfather has that emotional pull. And I've gotten used to watching Death develop, in the Death books, and he's not doing that so much here -- which is fine, I mean, he does great! But he's not changing, he's not a protagonist like he usually is. There isn't enough grandfather-granddaughter stuff either, it's all filled in with Christmas stuff. (I was sitting there at the end of the book going "AT LEAST GET HIM A CARD, SUSAN! He tries so hard!")

All of which is not to say I don't love Susan and her poker, because I do. Or the message of "humans need stories," because I do. But there's a little too much book for just that.

I am curious what other people think, though! Your feelings about Hogfather, please share them with me.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

I've never really liked Hogfather that much. It always felt too much like a book about discussing traditions and their history. I also recall reading it as my partner went to get their visa for South Korea so its associated with long trainrides on NJ transit and waits in New York.

The times I've reread it there are moments I like but its not like the Guards' books or some of the Witches' books that I reread all of them. It just doesn't work as well for me.

I've reread it, but I'd rather reread The Folklore of Discworld. That one is more about let's talk traditions versus story and traditions and yeah, I don't recall it or reread it that much though I do own it. It's hard to give up Discworld books. I really am a librarian.

[skygiants]

Haha, long transit waits are never good things to associate a book with, though I guess that may not be entirely Hogfather's fault. I like the traditions and their history part! But it feels like the parts of that that are effective come mostly in a wham at the end.

[ceitfianna]

So do I, I love when Pratchett talks stories, but this one just doesn't work as well as others for me. I don't have as coherent a reason why, it just doesn't.

[recessional]

Wandering in from network:

I feel like neither Hogfather nor Thief of Time which comes after are actually Death's books, although he's in them and doing important things. It's sort of like, by the end of Soul Music Death knows who he is and who he wants to be (and doesn't) and whose side he's on, so to speak, so you're right, he totally doesn't develop in Hogfather.

Susan does, though, and I think it's much more Susan's book: about how she can't leave this part of her behind, even if she wants to, but also confronting her with things that not only aren't "normal" but aren't practical or sensible either (this theme continues into Thief of Time) - it's about how Susan has to live in that precarious place where on the one hand her feet-on-the-ground, ruthless-practical-and-sensible personality is utterly necessary, but she also has to be able to open herself up to things beyond that, or it doesn't work.

I'm fond of Hogfather because in some ways it's the actual articulation of the reason the Auditors and their agenda is as bad as they are. If Reaper Man and Soul Music are Death figuring out what his philosophy and position actually are, and that the rules can go hang when the rules are wrong, then Hogfather is the statement of it. (And then Thief of Time is the full development).

I don't know if that makes any sense outside my head, but the story's actually one of my favourites. The solstice stuff (and the issues of death and rebirth and so on) do speak to me, though - not, as it were, the Hogfather as he is "now", but the old things, the memory things.

[skygiants]

Hello! :)

And yeah, Hogfather is definitely Susan's book much more than Death's. Thief of Time is one hundred percent Susan's book, and that's one of my favorites, but I think it works for me better because it's not even pretending to be a Death book, really, and so Susan gets a much more straightforward chance to develop and grow into herself. Hogfather actually feels a bit like going backwards, in a way, which I think is maybe another reason that it frustrates me a little -- Soul Music ends on a nice, graceful note with Susan learning to live in between her two worlds, and to have her going back to rejecting her grandfather's world utterly makes me a little sad.

You are definitely right that it's important for the Auditors, though! It sets up Thief of Time in a lot of ways, really. Maybe the reason it doesn't satisfy me one hundred percent is because I'm looking forward to Thief of Time and this is only part one.

[katta]

I don't really have feelings about Hogfather. Maybe it's cultural, as with you - Swedish jul is not wholly like English Christmas. IDK.

Hmmm... Like recessional says, this is more of a Susan book than a Death book, and I like Susan, so that's a plus. And Teatime is a suitably creepy villain. The TV version was okay (and Michelle Dockery is pretty), but by and large... I just don't have a whole lot of feelings, one way or another.

[skygiants]

Teatime is indeed reasonably creepy! I've never seen the TV version, and I do want to (mostly because Michelle Dockery is pretty, and also the fact that I don't have huge amounts of feelings about it means I will probably be fairly happy with whatever the TV version does.)

[holyschist]

The TV version is incredibly faithful. So faithful that the approximately two places that it isn't really jar me (there's one in particular where I think it was softening Pratchett's cynicism about religion, which slightly irks me).

It's really well-done production and casting-wise, too, I felt.

[adiva_calandia]

The main thing I remember about Hogfather, and definitely the thing I found most compelling, was the exploration of how stories change and shift and become part of culture. Like, the exploration of mythos as opposed to his earlier books about fairy tales.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that's the part that really did work for me -- the Tooth Fairy, the old Hogfather and the chase, the poker that only kills monsters, all of that is really, really good. It gets kind of bogged down in the middle with ho-ho-ho and glingleglingleglingle, but by the end he's totally on stride.

[campkilkare]

The Christmas stuff in Hogfather is just all right, but there are some moments in there that do really stick with me--Susan and her poker, the horrors of the tooth fairy castle, Death's snowman impression, and above all Mr Teatime.

Mr Teatime is a really awful guy.

[skygiants]

All of these things are the bits of Hogfather that are excellent!

I think Teatime stands out a bit because he's sort of an unusual villain for a Pratchett book. Usually you get people like Vorbis -- it's not that they enjoy cruelty, they just have very directed machine minds. An outright sociopath is something a bit new.

[campkilkare]

It only kills monsters.

[varadia]

Real children do not go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs.

[skygiants]

Dammit, Susan, I TOTALLY went hoppity-skip as a child!

. . . well, mostly I went galumphity-skip and then fell over, but whatever.

[varadia]

See? No hoppity!

The hoppity is fundamentally entwined with the drugs.

*solemn*

[skygiants]

That would explain it! Truly, you have enlightened me. :O

[brooms]

But I think maybe you need some more Christmas feelings than I've got to feel like Hogfather has that emotional pull.

i think you're correct. it's my favorite discworld book, but i'm a person with a lot of feelings about christmas who first read it on christmas week.

[skygiants]

That makes perfect sense! It is an excellent Christmas book.

[serriadh]

I quite often re-read once I've finished work and gone back to my parents' house for Christmas Eve. It works well then, but I think you need to grok a certain sort of Christmas feeling for it to work on you.

[skygiants]

My family has Christmas traditions!

. . . my family's Christmas traditions are "go watch an entirely unrelated movie and eat Chinese food." >.> They're great traditions, but less directly relevant . . .

[serriadh]

Heh, that's what I meant by 'a certain sort of Christmas feeling'. Chinese food and unrelated movie sounds awesome, though!

[minkhollow]

Hogfather is the one that got me to stick around. Because of that, it'll always have a special place in my heart, even though it's not my favorite (Soul Music and Moving Pictures tie for that, though Pyramids and now Unseen Academicals are up there as well).

A thing of note: Whenever I read the book I manage to start out liking Teatime, even though by the end I'm like 'NO NO STAY DEAD DAMN YOU.' Every time, for some reason. This effect did not carry over to the TV version, where he's just plain creepy. XD

OH ALSO: Hex! This is the book where Hex really starts becoming a character instead of just a set piece, and it is glorious.

[skygiants]

ahahahahaha. I mean. I guess in the beginning of the book Teatime is . . . plucky? Sort of? THE PLUCKIEST LITTLE SOCIOPATH.


I do love Hex becoming a character -- I forgot to talk about Hex and Death having a chat about the Hogfather, because THAT'S GREAT.

[innocentsmith]

Commenting late because I just found this and I have many Hogfather feelings!

It is one of my best beloved Discworlds, because it is so very much Susan's book, and Susan is my favorite. I think of this series as the "Death's Family" series, really, because it starts with Mort as protagonist, shifts to Death himself, and moves on to Susan. Death has reached the point, by the end of Soul Music, where Pratchett has pretty much finished the character development he wants him to undergo, while Susan is just starting to get a grip on who she is (which doesn't come easily, because she can be a pretty terrifying force in her own right, and other people around for her development may wish to run for cover.

Also, the stuff set in the Tooth Fairy's castle is legitimately scary, and I really like all the stuff about belief and how it works on the Disc - I love all that in Small Gods, another of my favorites, but it's interesting seeing it in the quasi-modern setting of Ankh-Morpork, and being analyzed by the wizards and Hex. (And I believe the Eater of Socks really exists. It's the only explanation.)

The question of belief as a force of nature (or whatever you'd call it) is also used in a really clever way with Teatime, who I think is one of Pterry's best villains ever, though he didn't strike me as impressive the first few times I read the book. But what he does that's sort of revolutionary is, first, notice that all of these supernatural forces do have systems (which isn't something assassins usually take much notice of), and then figures out how to hack into them. You have to wonder if he had a farther plan for what to do with the huge amounts of extra belief sloshing around after he killed both the Tooth Fairy and the Hogfather, because he clearly does know it's there and can be used. Moreover, what would have happened if he'd managed to kill Death? (Aside for the baby Jesus crying and millions of kittens hiding under the bed.) Would Susan have inherited the position permanently? What exactly is Susan's long-term destiny, since we've established that she can't just live a normal mortal life without weirdness breaking out?

(A friend of mine wrote this fic about Susan post-Soul Music and pre-Hogfather, to answer the question of "So...whatever happened with Susan/Imp y Celyn, anyway?" and we talked, a few years ago, about collaborating on an AU Hogfather fic, in which the Assassin's Guild opened its gates to girls a few years earlier, and Susan's guardians sent her there instead of to the young ladies' school. We got halfway into writing it and then mutually chickened out, because assassin!Susan = TERRIFYING, and it was getting darker than either of us wanted to go with a Discworld fic. But it's still part of my associations with the book.)

I think the adaptation is...okay. Michelle Dockery is lovely, if a little warmer and more approachable than my ideal Susan would be, and a lot of the visuals are great, and the condensing of the plot is well done. The guy who plays Teatime is...well, it's kind of a love-it-or-hate-it performance, but he is, at least, quite creepy. Worth checking out.

[skygiants]

Late comments are always welcome! Even if then I also sometimes don't see them and answer them late too. *sheepish*

Hogfather feelings are also ALWAYS WELCOME even if I don't one hundred percent share them. It really is the "Death's Family" series. And I do love Death's family, and I love it best at its family-est. I would read all the fic about Susan and Death having awkward holiday celebrations each other (and maybe I just wish that's more what the book had been about . . . >.>)

I'm kind of terrified just by the idea of what Teatime's further plan for that belief would have been. The real question is what does Teatime want? Even by the end of the book I'm still not really sure I know. And it may be better that way.

(And ooh, thank you for the fic rec, I will definitely go check it out! Also, the idea of assassin!Susan is -- well, basically, I think that just leads to her becoming the next Patrician, which I can't feel would be good for anybody involved.)

[holyschist]

I am pretty fond of Hogfather despite not having a lot of Christmas feelings (well, I guess I do at this point: they're mostly resentment that cultural Christmas has been forced on me my entire life and at how hard it is to extricate myself from it. Last year I went to the zoo with my Jewish and/or atheist friends, and it was great, but it was still...something we were doing BECAUSE it was Christmas, and I don't, like, make a point of doing other things on Muslim or Pagan or Jewish holidays, you know?). I think a lot of that may be that I really love the TV adaptation a surprising amount, but I also love what it does with stories and belief, and Susan is ♥. I wouldn't call it one of my favorite Discworld novels (that belongs to the witches in general, but most especially Tiffany, followed by the Guard), but I enjoy it a lot.

[skygiants]

I do love the stuff with stories and belief, although -- hmmm. You know, it probably is the Death-arc book that comes closest to the Witch books in theme. There are a few of the scenes -- the scene with the old man and the king, in particular, comes to mind -- that could have been lifted right of a Witch book. Which is a bit surprising, because normally I don't think of those two sub-series overlapping as much. But if Death hadn't taken on the Hogfather problem, I feel like Granny Weatherwax would have.

(Also, I know exactly what you mean about cultural Christmas.)

[holyschist]

But if Death hadn't taken on the Hogfather problem, I feel like Granny Weatherwax would have.

I would read that AU so hard!

(Also, I know exactly what you mean about cultural Christmas.)

(Oh, good. I'm still trying to unpack it all myself.)