O, waily, waily! Oor hag o’ hags be leavin’!
Nae, that canna be richt. Ye has got the story muddled, Daft Wullie.
Sorry, Rob.
And so I come to the end of the Discworld stories. ‘Tis a bit of a sad day. To know that there never will be any more tales of the Disc has been a source of sadness for many a Terry Pratchett fan for many years now.
But, just because the 41st book in the series, The Shepherd’s Crown, brings the line to an end, that doesn’t mean I have to stop reading them or writing about them.
I will probably read them all again at least once…probably tan, tethra, or more times.
On this reading of The Shepherd’s Crown, for some reason, I wasn’t as impressed by the story or moved at the end of it as I remember being the first time through. I guess I was just overexpecting.
Another Full Cast of Characters
What Terry started in Raising Steam, he seems to have finished here. I noted in that article that he included a plethora of characters. In this book, he used almost everyone he left out of the previous one. Notably absent from Raising Steam were the fine folk of the Lancre area. Well, a tale about Tiffany takes care of that, doesn’t it?
Just look at this list (or this one).
- Tiffany Aching
- Granny Aching
- Rob Anybody
- Jeannie
- Queen of the Elves
- Preston
- Thunder & Lightning
- Roland
- Letitia
- Granny Weatherwax
- Om
- Offler
- Ly Tin Wheedle
- Orinjcrates
- Xeno
- Ibid
- Goldeneyes Silverhand Dactylos
- Leonard of Quirm
- A’Tuin
- Nanny Ogg
- You
- DEATH
- Miss Tick
- Greebo
- Verence & Magrat
- Agnes Nitt
- Ponder Stibbons
- Archchancellor Ridcully
- Vetinari
- The Abbot
- Esk
- Daft Wullie
- Miss Treason
- Nanny Gripes
- Letice Earwig
- Eunice Proust
- Derek Proust
- Drumknott
- Petulia
- Dimity
- Lucy Warbeck
- Big Yan
- Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin
- Lord Lankin
- Wentworth
- Joe & Mrs. Aching
- Hannah & Fastidia Aching
- Jason Ogg
- Annagramma
- Black Aliss
- Wee Mad Arthur
- Dr. Mossy Lawn
- Wee Dangerous Spike
- Hamish & Morag
- Wintersmith
- Shawn Ogg
- Casanunda
- King of the Elves
- Hodgesaargh
- Dr. Bustle
- Queen Ynci
- Horace the Cheese
And then Terry created a few dozen new characters, apparently because just revisiting all his old friends wasn’t enough. (I won’t list them here. Read the book.)
The Crown and the Hag
The physical Shepherd’s Crown – the shell of some ancient sea creature that Daniel Aching (an ancestor of Tiffany) discovers in the Prologue – doesn’t really come into the story all that much. It’s really just there as a symbol of what’s important to Tiffany.
Spoiler Alert: Stop here if you haven’t read the book yet and want to be totally shocked by what happens in Chapter 2.
Because one of the most important things in the story is this.
Spoiler Alert 2: I was serious about the spoiler alert above. This is your last warning. Stop now or forever hold your peace.
You. Have. Been. Warned. There. Will. Be. A. Reckoning.
Granny Weatherwax dies. She ain’t aten’t dead. She’s not just out borrowing.
Although, You (the white cat) just may have eventually told us something about this, had the stories continued. Suspicions have been aroused in this area.
Draw what conclusions you will, but this is the conclusion.
Or is it?
