#the shepherd's crown

[cosmermaid]

It's been years since I've read a Discworld novel and I don't remember what the actual plot of The Shepherd's Crown was.

What I do remember is fucking sobbing in my bathtub because of how obvious Pratchett made it that he was aware his time was coming and he wanted to face his own mortality, and did so by taking Granny Weatherwax with him.

For those who don't know Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eight years before he died, and advocated for the legalization of medically assisted suicide. He was open about how he struggled with Alzheimer's, and how he wanted to die while he was still himself.

I don't remember the plot of the book, but I do remember Granny Weatherwax cleaning her home, taking a bath and dressing in her finest clothes, then altering her "I ATE'NT DEAD" sign to say "I IS PROBLY DEAD" before laying down to pass away.

I remember Death greeting her with a kind judgement when he came to reap her soul.

FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT.

Like, it's so glaringly obvious that Pratchett was expressing that control he craved over his own end. Dying with dignity and leaving a positive impact on the world. Granny Weatherwax knew it was her time and took every detailed preparation she could. I think Pratchett did the same with the Shepherd's Crown.

[booksbabybooks]

In rereading Discworld, I marvel at how lucky we were that Sir PTerry lived to give us such a fitting send off to that universe: and how that send off is much richer if you view Raising Steam and The Shepherd's Crown as a dual goodbye.

Steam gives us "big ideas" Pratchett at his finest: what happens when you introduce a world-changing roundworld idea to Discworld (the railways). It showcases a host of favourite main characters (Moist, Vimes, Vetinari and the Night Watch) plus some beloved minor characters (Harry, the Low King) and develops their relationships in new and interesting ways (see how Moist, who has never had time for the police, is forced to reassess Vimes, and vice versa). It moves key issues forward - gender politics in the dwarves, how certain species are treated - and revisits old stories (Vertinari's secret double, the golden golems). Plus we get some genuinely exciting set pieces, and happy endings all round. It would, on its own, be a fitting finale.

Then we get Shepherd. A small scale, intimate book about one old woman's death and one young woman's destiny. About how a life can ripple through the world, but without pulling focus from those in her smaller circle. It's not scared of big ideas - from the gender dynamics of witches to the relationship between faeries and the world - but it ultimately feels focused on one compact group of (mostly) women. While Steam felt like a big, showy leaving party, Shepherd feels like a farewell between friends, bittersweet but lovely all the same.

Together, they reflect the strengths of Discworld, its ability to tackle big ideas but to do so by tying them to characters who feel like people you know, making them small enough to grasp. Read them in close sittings, and they fit together beautifully.

[tiffanyachings]

Reaper Man / The Shepherd’s Crown / Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

[sithbelle]

I don't think I've ever had a book make me cry before (and I'd like to think I've read a lot of books in my day), but The Shepherd's Crown had me bawling like a baby.

This book was simultaneously wonderful and very hard to get through. You can feel Pratchett's sense of running out of time, and I'd like to think he wrote the beginning of the story as a little window into how he'd like to go himself.

And now I'm done with my little project, and I'm feeling a bit lost. My original plan was to reread my own book now. After 41 wonderful novels, any weaknesses in my own tellings should be glaringly obvious.

But for tonight, I'm going to mourn the loss of such a brilliant storyteller and step away from reading for a minute.

GNU Terry Pratchett. May whatever heavens you land in love your stories as much as we do.

[sing-you-fools]

being a Discworld fan honestly should be, like, the #1 book recommending a person sort of things, and i hate that it's not because so many of his fans get it so wrong. like. i try not to get incensed about people being wrong on the internet, but how anyone reads these books and thinks this man was a bigot, thinks the representation he put in Discworld was at the expense of those represented, like. like. i'm furious about it. every time. especially as he continued to learn and grow both as a writer and as a person. even stuff that was originally meant to be a little silly, like a female dwarf, he found meant a lot to people, and he learned how to better include that story!

(spoilers ahead for Shepherd's Crown)

he leaned into it in the most loving and respectful way. fucking READ The Shepherd's Crown!!!!! the man found out trans women identified with his character so he learned how to represent them! and then, he wrote Jackrum! AND THEN HE WROTE GEOFFREY!!!!! with his last fucking book he gave us a character who says he doesn't really feel like a man or a woman, just himself, fucking ages before anyone else was writing nonbinary characters! AND HE PUT HIM IN GRANNY WEATHERWAX'S FUCKING COTTAGE Y'ALL! LIKE HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS BECAUSE I HAVE SOBBED SO FUCKING MUCH ABOUT IT! (Note that obviously Geoffrey doesn't have/use different language for himself, but that's how he feels and pronouns are not gender.)

thanks to how he handled Cheery and how he went from there, Pratchett included trans representation for ALL of us SO SO SO SO SO LONG before we were on anyone else's radar, and it's honestly so much more respectful than some of the stuff i've seen out there more recently!!!!!

he wasn't perfect, and a lot of social standards have evolved since the earlier Discworld books especially, but he always kept an open mind and listened and tried and grew. and there are people out there insisting he would be this hateful bigot!!!!! i hate them!!!!! let me hire the fucking assassin's guild!!!!!

[aeshnacyanea2000]

‘I don’t know about the world, not much; but in my part of the world I could make little miracles for ordinary people,’ Granny replied sharply. ‘And I never wanted the world – just a part of it, a small part which I could keep safe, which I could keep away from storms. Not the ones of the sky, you understand: there are other kinds.’

-- Terry Pratchett - The Shepherd's Crown

[rogue-rook]

I have SOME THOUGHTS about equal rites ushering in early era discworld by giving us eskarina, a girl who becomes a wizard with granny weatherwax's help, and now shepherd's crown is ushering out late era discworld by giving us geoffrey swivel, a boy who wants to become a witch with tiffany aching's help, neatly closing the narrative loop

[pratchettquotes]

"I hear that goblins believe that the railway engines have a soul, elf," she said softly. "Tell me, what kind of soul have you? Do you run along your own elvish rails? With no time or place for turning?" She looked at the kelda and said, "Granny Aching told me to feed them that was starving and clothe them as is naked and help the pitiful. Well, this elf has come to my turf--starving, naked pitiful--do you see?"

The kelda's eyebrows rose. "Yon creature is an elf! It has nae care for ye! It has nae care for anyone--it disnae even care for other elves!"

"You think then there is no such animal as a good elf?"

"Ye think there is such a thing as a gud elf?"

"No, but I am suggesting that there is a possibility that there might be one."

Terry Prachett, The Shepherd's Crown

[a-ramblinrose]

“I get up Aching, and I go to bed Aching,” she whispered to herself, smiling. One of her father’s jokes, and she had rolled her eyes when hearing it again and again as a child, but now its warmth curled over her body.”

Terry Pratchett, The Shepherd's Crown  

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Picked up The Shepherd's Crown at the library yesterday...only a few chapters in and I've started crying. You can tell this book was his good-bye.

Sir Terry Pratchett GNU

[stupidphototricks]

A little thing I hadn't noticed before from The Shepherd's Crown by Sir Terry Pratchett:

"I am intrigued, Geoffrey," she said. "Why do you want to be a witch instead of a wizard, which is something traditionally thought of as a man's job?" "I've never thought of myself as a man, Mistress Tiffany. I don't think I'm anything. I'm just me," he said quietly.

[tovetar]

"Don't get your knickers in a knot just yet, Tiff", she said briskly. "It won't solve anything an' will just make you walk odd. There's plenty of time later to talk about... all of that. Right now, we needs to get on with what must be done..."

Terry Pratchett, the Shepherd's Crown

[tiffanyachings]

also the line ‘but your candle will flicker for some time before it goes out...for i can see the balance and you have left the world much better than you found it’ would’ve clawed at my heart enough without being from book published posthumously

[wereadtoliveathousandlives]

Begging for someone in my life to read or have read the Tiffany Aching books because my irl reading friends will not I am muffed about it. I need to discuss.

[flammelikestoread]

Someone here pointed out to me that I Shall Wear Midnight was not in fact the last book in the witches cycle. This one is.

I might have cried a little while reading it.

Thank you Sir Terry Pratchett.

[goodgrammaritan]

"I am intrigued, Geoffrey," she said. "Why do you want to be a witch instead of a wizard, which is something traditionally thought of as a man's job?"

"I've never thought of myself as a man, Mistress Tiffany. I don't think I'm anything. I'm just me," he said quietly.

The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett