If I could manage Miss Treason’s general death arc… that’s what I want, is the point. I want to do that.
Summary
As Tiffany works through the funeral, she hears that Granny has put her name forward for Miss Treason’s cottage, which has Annagramma very upset. Tiffany assures her that she doesn’t want the cottage, but she asks Miss Tick why they’re going to allow Annagramma to take the position when they know she’s a terrible fit for the area. Miss Tick doesn’t have an answer for her. The funeral finishes up and everyone heads home, leaving Tiffany with Miss Treason for the final night. She cleans the cottage, writes down everything she can think of about the area to help Annagramma, then goes to talk to Miss Treason. The witch gives Tiffany her broom, a dictionary and one other book (Tiffany selects the mythology book). She teaches Tiffany poker, and tells her to be mindful of her young man, then they fall asleep. When they wake in the morning, the town is on the lawn, there to praise Miss Treason and get last bits of advice. Tiffany takes her down into her grave (which the Feegle dug for her), and Miss Treason is taken by Death. Tiffany puts her boffos into the grave with her so no one knows her secrets, cleans the house up, and goes outside, running into the Wintersmith again. He insists that Tiffany is “her” and tries to grab hold of her.
Granny shows up to stop him, and asks for Tiffany’s necklace—it’s how the Wintersmith finds her. Tiffany hands it over, and Granny and Mrs. Earwig have a very chilly meeting as the cottage is handed over to Annagramma. The Wintersmith remembers that Tiffany said she needed a person made of human stuff and goes looking for things to build himself out of so that he can be right for her. Tiffany and Granny head to Lancre and Granny gives Tiffany the necklace to drop into the river, so it’ll be carried far from her. That night at Nanny Ogg’s, Tiffany has a dream that she’s on a ship heading to an iceberg version of herself. The Wintersmith tells her that he wishes to marry her. The Feegle arrive in her dream to help, but the ship does hit the iceberg. She wakes being given tea by one of Nanny’s daughter-in-laws, and finds that Horace has made a home with the Feegle. When Tiffany puts her feet on Nanny’s floorboards, they sprout and grow. Nanny gives her slippers, and she, Granny, and Miss Tick explain that Tiffany is taking on the attributes of the Summer Lady because she joined the dance. They think she’ll have to embody the role a little more fully and help send winter on his way when the seasons change.
Tiffany does the rounds with Nanny and comes back to a book the Feegle got her from the library, which is a romance novel. Tiffany has a hard time understanding why no one is doing any work, and why the heroine feels she needs to marry one of her two suitors. Roland continues to write letters to Tiffany as his aunts find his escape routes and try to wall him into his room. The Wintersmith keeps obtaining more and more advice about how to build a human form. Annagramma arrives at Nanny’s in a panic one evening: She can’t handle the steading. She wants the skulls back and she doesn’t know anything about medicine or childbirth or staying up all night with the dead. She asks Tiffany if she’ll come do those thing for her. Tiffany agrees to help her through the first few rough tasks, but that’s it. She thinks that Granny did this on purpose so people would learn that Mrs. Earwig is a bad teacher, which she doesn’t think is right. Nanny tells her not to assume and that Tiffany can do this as long as she’s still working for her. Tiffany aids Annagramma, who comes out looking alright despite not knowing anything. Tiffany heads back to Nanny Ogg, who tells her that she ought to treat the Wintersmith more imperiously, like a queen, if she wants him to back off.
Tiffany has a letter from Roland where he tells her that he went to a ball and danced with Lord Driver’s daughter and looked at her watercolors. She gets jealous hearing this, and goes downstairs to eat, but can’t get the cutlery drawer to open, which summons Anoia (Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers). Anoia tells Tiffany to send the Wintersmith packing, as men are always “raining on your lava” (she used to be a volcano goddess). Annagramma shows up again—she sent Mrs. Sumpter’s pig up a tree, and she hates all these people with their piddly little problems. Tiffany tells her off and also insists that she tells the truth; it turns out that Annagramma’s family is poor and doesn’t even have a cottage. Tiffany says that the other young witches will help her, but that she’s got to listen and be grateful. The coven doesn’t want to help, but they listen to Tiffany once Petulia agrees. Tiffany tells the Wintersmith to leave her be and stop making ice in her shape and name. After Hogswatch, a cornucopia lands. You (Granny’s kitten) gets lost inside it and they have to send the Feegle after her. Once they’ve returned, Tiffany learns how it works: You simply ask it for any kind of food or drink, and it provides it.
Commentary
Thought I was safe from crying for once in this set of books, but I forgot about Miss Treason’s send off.
There’s a great throughline here, that stretches all the way back to the earlier books, but particularly Witches Abroad, with the old woman who is being callously neglected by her community, and Granny Weatherwax setting that right. Miss Treason is mythological to her community, and she worked hard at that story because it made her impossible to ignore, but also protected her from harm. And she did it so well that these people loved her, even as they were afraid or confused by her. She was a fixture of their lives, and they all needed to see her go. To be there for her, and to be a part of the story as well.
People becoming myths is a central piece of this book, and it’s utilized in a number of fun ways. We’ve got Miss Treason, we’ve got Tiffany learning to be Summer, we’ve got the Wintersmith trying to become a human and further mythologize himself as a person, and we’ve got Annagramma… who thinks that she’s already achieved mythology because her mentor was all sight and no substance.
Tiffany believes that Granny is allowing Annagramma to fail to make a point about Mrs. Earwig, and Nanny rightly suggests that she check that impulse. The one thing that Tiffany will never be able to see in her own story is how the work of generations passes down—she’s too young for that yet. Granny needs Tiffany to take up her place in the witching community. That means Tiffany needs to see to her own generation, and that includes getting the rest of the young witches to pull Annagramma together because if they don’t, people will get hurt.
And that’s difficult to read because there are some people who truly can get away with never thinking of others before themselves. Pratchett is always adamant about including those people and showing how best to handle them—and it’s never telling them off and leaving them to flounder. Because the consequences of that are too great, and you are never above thinking of everyone in the blast radius of your choices.
Angered decency. His favorite attribute to give central characters. You can know that people are sometimes terrible, maybe even undeserving, but that doesn’t mean you can be petty, and let others take the brunt of their ignorance. Not if you can fix it.
I will say that I’ve missed Gytha Ogg terribly in recent books, and having her around again makes everything just a little bit more… comfy. Granny is the best, but you miss out on the cushions and the brandy and the general lewdness when Nanny’s not about. And there’s an auntie-ness that Nanny bring as well, which Granny obviously cannot add to the proceedings. It’s a profound shift, going from the wonderful eeriness of Miss Treason’s home into the bric-a-brac and thick mattresses and plentiful dinners of Nanny Ogg’s, like being swaddled in kitsch and warmth. Tiffany deserves that experience too.
Asides and little thoughts:
- I need Terry Pratchett to know that wherever he is, in whatever sort of beyond, I cannot ever pass from this life to anything else because he has informed me that pickles don’t make it. Sorry. Not going where I can’t have pickles. Why would he tell me that.
- The Wintersmith has purple-gray eyes. If you were ever involved in the fanfiction community, you know that one of the tendencies of “Mary Sue” writing was to always give the girl or woman super special features, with purple eyes being one of the most common attributes. It seems fitting that the Wintersmith, a mythological aspect who is trying to shape himself into the right sort of young man for Tiffany, would take a cue from that line of thinking.
- Tiffany, trying to go to sleep: “The trouble is, you can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your mind.” Yeah. Me too, sweetie. Me too.
Pratchettisms:
Like an oyster dealing with a piece of grit, Tiffany coated it with people and hard work.
“We make happy endings, child, day to day. But you see, for the witch there are no happy endings. There are just endings. And here we are…”
The house feels like it’s dying and I’m going outside.
Tiffany nodded. She wasn’t crying, which is not the same as, well, not crying.
Mrs. Ogg’s face broke into a huge grin that should have been locked up for the sake of public decency, and for some reason Tiffany felt a lot better.
Change the Story, even if you don’t mean to, and the Story changes you.
Nanny stood up and tried to look haughty, which is hard to do when you have a face like a happy apple.
“You cussed. Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer.”
People wanted the world to be a story, because stories had to sound right and make sense. People wanted the world to make sense.
Next week we finish the book!
