Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld
Discussion: The Shepherd's Crown
This post contains spoilers for The Shepherd's Crown and all of the previous Witches and Tiffany Aching books. I'm not sure how to do hover-over spoilers on Imzy, so I'm leaving this description spoiler free.
I'm currently reading The Shepherd's Crown and it's making me sad, so I figured some company while I'm sad would be a good thing...




I'm only on chapter three or four. I started reading on a plane, after finishing another book. I got as far as
, and I... I thought I was OK - I had thought that might happen. Then we went around the world and saw people reacting, and I started to get sad. By the time we got to
, I had to stop because I didn't want to blub on the plane.
Hey! I know it's an old thread but I just read the book.
It feels... weird. More like Discworld fanfiction than an actual book. The characters we know and love are all there, but they feel... washed out, shadows of themselves. Nanny Ogg doesn't feel warm and kind, she goes on a rant about Mrs Earwig that's disturbingly petty. Magrat is practically begging to be allowed to do anything, when we saw her set her backbone in Carpe Jugulum.
The Big Event was weirdly handled, sort of abrupt and leaving me blinking and going "huh? No, this isn't happening." Which is actually a very apt description of how this happens in real life (and I react similarly, with a feeling of emptiness and denial) but not a very good handling of it literary-wise. The flickering reactions around the world felt cold, and some of them didn't make sense (lord Vetinari, really? Is this really something he should be handling?).
A lot of what's going on has happened before, and the reprise is not really interesting. Tiffany is pushed forward to take over a senior witch's cottage - seen it. Elven rampage of cruelty - seen it. Mrs Earwig is mean and superficial - seen it. Tales of rural people's physiology - seen it. Tiffany drifted apart from her boyfriend. Tiffany is set with too much responsibility. Tiffany works too hard. Seen it all. She goes to meet the King and it's the same scene Nanny did there, only far less awesome, because a) seen it, and b) Nanny worked it out herself, she knew where to go because of being Nanny, she could take iron into his realm because it was special iron she could access through her son, she was basically in her element. Tiffany's visit is just creepy and pointless.
Oh and speaking of iron, no iron could go into the realm of the elves. Nanny only got some because she and the Ogg clan are awesome. But now some dirty goblin walks into it with his pockets full of iron, and Tiffy brings a crowbar and a normal horseshoe. Please. And rulers such as the Low King(Queen) and Vetinari suddenly maintain diplomatic relations with witches? What? What is this mess?
I read it once, but I haven't read it again yet. I'm not ready.
Hey Daychilde!
Better way to go about things,
>! spoilers go hereOh, that's lovely and beautiful. Many thanks <3
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Use this code:
Hover over that image and you can see it works! :)
Testing:
Dang it. It's alt text, but doesn't show up upon hovering. :(
Yeah - I've tried a bunch of different options, including the Reddit markdown, but I can't get it working. I've marked the Parent post with spoilers, so I hope it's OK to talk within the thread...
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GOT IT!
Ahhh! Awesome! <3
I'll edit my post. :)
In the future, I recommend just using
>! spoilers go here😄 sorry, we probably need to document that better.
I felt that this was an excellent end to the series. I love that
. That just seems appropriate to me. And I think Geoffrey is an charming addition to the cast.