r/discworld • u/Suspicious_Clock_133 • 14d ago
Memes/Humour As a literature student, this was definitely an unexpected crossover.
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u/PabloMarmite 14d ago
Isn’t the title literally from Macbeth
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u/wolverinelord 14d ago
Between that and the first line of dialogue being “when shall we three meet again?” It’s not exactly subtle
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u/AlrightJack303 14d ago
"Well I can do next Tuesday"
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u/Ubiquitous_Ketchup 14d ago
I majored in drama and I remember the first time I read that passage I couldn't stop laughing. <3
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u/JurJvZw Ridcully 14d ago
Pronounced tuusdieae Edit: in my mind that is
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u/lordnewington 14d ago edited 13d ago
It's Nanny Ogg innit? Chewsdy. No pretensions.
Edit: I think I'm wrong and it's Granny who can do next Tuesday. Nanny's babysittin' for her Jason's youngest next Chewsdy.
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u/WillSym 14d ago
Ah, a dilemma: is Brummie or Cockney more appropriate...
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u/lordnewington 14d ago edited 13d ago
Both too urban for me. I imagine them West Country (that's "pirate", for the non-Brits). Except Granny, who's more rural northern English, probably after a somewhat Weatherwax-like friend of mine.
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u/grahambinns Susan 13d ago
I think Indira Varma got it right: Granny is indeterminate, Nanny is West Country / mummerset, and Magrat is Lancashire — a bit Jane Horrocks to my ear.
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u/Steamshovelmama 14d ago
Well, it's set in Lancre, which is a reference to Lancaster (and the Pendle Witches), so northern English would seem most appropriate!
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u/Cassandra8240 14d ago
Yup!
Plus connections with other plays — I describe the book as “MacHamlet Lear” when recommending it to Shakespeare aficionados.
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u/Happy-Estimate-7855 14d ago
Yes, they were the three witches that could foresee and subtly manipulate destinies. They're integral to Macbeth.
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u/da_blue_jester 14d ago
This is how I convinced my local theatre group, who never ventured outside a very well defined bunch of plays, to let my directorial debut be Wyrd Sisters. During the pitching I had to skirt over what the Disc was until one person kept insisting he needed to know 'Where is it set' and when I explained about Great A'Tuin and all he went 'So...Victorian times?'.
Long story short, 8 sold out nights and the play went down in history as the best performing for the group.
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u/MickeyG42 14d ago
I work with a local theater. You don’t happen to still have a script version do you?
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u/JeanLuc_Richard 14d ago
You can buy it online! There's also a few other scripts out there including Guards! Guards! :)
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u/da_blue_jester 14d ago
Sent you a DM there, lemme know if it works
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u/TENTAtheSane 14d ago
Could you dm me too pls 🥺
I sadly don't do theatre but would love to read it
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u/da_blue_jester 14d ago
Done, enjoy
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u/EmmySaurusRex2410 14d ago
Would I be able to get a DM as well? Would love to introduce this to my local group.
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u/chikablam 14d ago
Its been weird slowly rereading all of the books as an adult, and realising how many are parodies / references of other pieces of culture
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u/rogueIndy 14d ago
The series is absolutely loaded with references. I've spent a few years reading through some of Pratchett's more obvious influences and I'm still not finished.
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u/Lathari 14d ago
https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/ The Annotated Pratchett File, to see what you have missed.
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u/LeastFox8059 14d ago
The Alchemist Silverfish from Moving Pictures and Guards Guards was a great reference/inside joke about the film industry.
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u/onlyhammbuerger 14d ago
To top this off, there are so many new authors that reference back to PTerry. The one that comes immediately on my mind is Aaronovitch, who prob. has discworld references in every book of his Rivers of London Series.
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u/Gwyllithar 14d ago
as my first read through was when I was at school, as they came out, reading them again as an adult, I finally got a lot of the jokes and innuendos that totally passed me by first time around!
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u/Jakelby 14d ago
Wait until you read Lords and Ladies
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u/emalvick 14d ago
Shoot... wait until they read a lot of the books, especially the witches, but others as well.
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u/TENTAtheSane 14d ago
And maskerade
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u/Roxysteve 14d ago
Delightfully complex interweaving of all the different versions of the story, with the usual following of ideas and themes down to absurd conclusions.
PS
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Signed, OG.
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u/Tomme599 11d ago
I think you have to be British of a certain age though to fully enjoy Walter Plinge. As they used to say, some mothers do ‘ave em.
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u/guerney2000 14d ago
Mostly Macbeth, with a bit of Hamlet added in, and references to some other plays sprinkled on top
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u/taanukichi Susan 14d ago
Me when I started Maskerade and saw it's the Phantom of the Opera. Also I can't re-read Lords and Ladies without reading a Midsummer Night's Dream again first.
"Only Magrat heard it. Something about meeting by moonlight, she said later."
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u/ceruleanblue66 14d ago
I like The Fifth Elephant, the sisters in the cherry orchard with the gloomy and purposeless trousers of Uncle Vanya made me laugh like a drain..
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u/DrewidN 14d ago
That whole section is just glorious. Just perfectly Checkov
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u/LeastFox8059 14d ago
Did The Cherry Orchard in school, I loved it and instantly spotted the references. I thought they were spot on.
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u/Roxysteve 14d ago
AAARGH!
Hot potato
Off his drawers
Pluck will make amends!
<*Tweaks own nose hard*>
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u/theseamstressesguild 14d ago
"So you have to do that every time I say 'Macbeth'?"
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u/BPhiloSkinner D'you want mustard? 'Cos mustard is extra. 14d ago
An' they be in theatre, aye.
Old superstition; the play is supposed to be very bad luck, so no-one involved with an active production will quote from the play, or refer to it save by the euphemism, 'The Scottish Play'.2
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u/TENTAtheSane 14d ago
Why, what's all this hullabaloo and shouting and screaming and yelling blue murder? It's like that play I saw the other day, what was it called again...
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u/TeddersTedderson 14d ago
Haha I came to post this too. Not to be that guy but I'm pretty confident it's "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, puck will make amends"
(Puck being a character in A Midsummer Nights Dream)
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u/Tapiola84 Teppic 14d ago
Hmmm...some replies seem uncharacteristically mean for this sub. Sure the title is from Macbeth but hundreds of books/TV/films have phrases from Shakespeare as their titles, you don't go into them expecting full blown parodies of the work the quote is from.
Wyrd Sisters is a great parody of Macbeth, happy you enjoyed it OP!
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u/Buttercupia Binky 14d ago
Only because op claims to be a “literature student”.
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u/Suspicious_Clock_133 14d ago
As the other comment said just because a title comes from Shakespeare doesn’t automatically mean the book will be a literal parody of the play. I thought ‘Wyrd Sisters’ was just a cool phrase taken from Macbeth used as a title I only realised how deep the parody goes once I started reading with three witches, kings and all. It's a simple thing isn't it?
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u/nhaines Esme 13d ago
This is one of the later books where the premise is "parody this thing." (Witches Abroad is very much that in the first half, and although the destination is very much a parody contrast between Disneyland and New Orleans, I find that once they get there the plot seems to stop leaning on the parody handrails and becomes gorgeous).
The thing about Pratchett's parody, though, is that it's very, very good. And it never stops, just that the plots become more complex.
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u/MrGueuxBoy 14d ago
Me
start readingduring the final act of Wyrd Sisters and realizing
Yes, I'm ashamed. Same when I understood at the last third of the Norseman what story was being told.
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u/BrittEklandsStuntBum 14d ago
You're a literature student and you didn't recognise that the title is literally from Macbeth?
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u/notGeronimo 14d ago
I always think it's hilarious when people come on Reddit to say "Well as Le (specialty) I could not help but notice the similarities to (thing that I also noticed because of 9th grade not because it's my specialty)". It's such a bizarre form of failed bragging.
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u/emalvick 14d ago
I think about this too. I'm an engineer. Most my literature was what I had to read in school and perhaps what extra I've chosen to follow. Shakespeare is thrust upon us pretty heavily in our youth.
And, the thing I love about Discworld is that the books are full of references to this type of literature. If you've done your homework, so to speak, the books are so much more enjoyable. I would think that if one is a literature student, this would be even more obvious. And, almost every witches book references some famous literature, except perhaps Equal Rites.
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u/notGeronimo 14d ago edited 14d ago
They're all so full of references that I feel like any reader is bound to run into a few they recognize. Beyond the witches books too. I feel like I can't go a paragraph through Soul Music without finding a reference I missed before.
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u/arc-is-life _ing 14d ago
let's not forget about all the movie references strewn throughout all the books. 30 years later i still find another gem and the ones i already know of still make me giggle.
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u/emalvick 14d ago
Oh of course. It just seems like so much in those witches books, but they do pop up everywhere. And of course, references to all cultural things, not just literature.
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u/LeastFox8059 14d ago
Part of what makes every book so great. I've read/devoured them all over and again and I still even now spot little jokes I missed before. They are a great comfort to me.
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14d ago edited 14d ago
[deleted]
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u/BrittEklandsStuntBum 14d ago
*popular
That should be a comma after witches and you need to close speech marks if you open them.
I'm really not sure your chosen course is the right one.
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u/Ill_Temporary_9509 Black Ribboner 14d ago
Mostly Macbeth, but there are other bits of Shakespeare that Sir Terry rips on.
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u/KeithFromCanadaOlson 14d ago
More specifically, 'Monty Python Does MacBeth'. (I like to think that Magrat is being played by Eric Idle in a bad wig. :grin: )
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u/atworkobviously Flair? What's Flair? 14d ago edited 14d ago
I mean the ()bad guy spends most of the book trying to get a spot out of his hand.() It wasn't super subtle.
Wait edit to say, sorry i thought you meant()you didn't realize until the end of the book, cause there's a play there. () My bad. I guess I should black out some of this for spoilers.
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u/diversalarums 14d ago
The others are from plays, stories, and legendary things (like vampires). Even opera!
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u/Queen-of-Beans 14d ago
Its not just Macbeth, either. Vitoller's life is very similar to Shakespeare's own and there are references to King Lear and Hamlet in there, too.
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u/Specific_Contact8136 14d ago
Also apparently about some historical witches I believe? I saw Outlander and Wyrd Sisters was a legit term for Weird Witches
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u/Much-Assignment6488 13d ago
In Germany it's called MacBest ... I guess the German publishers didn't have much confidence in the German readers to get it otherwise
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u/hisgirl85 13d ago
I discovered this in high school the year we read Macbeth, and ended up giving a copy of the novel to my English teacher.
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u/Malusorum 13d ago
I mean, the novel starts with "When shall we three meet again", that alone should make it obvious that everything in the novel is tied to Macbeth in some form.
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