Discworld Read-Along #6: Wyrd Sisters
Good morning! Or afternoon. Or evening! Adieu.
I’m T. L. Bainter and I’ve been a Pratchett fan for coming up on 20 years, now. This is my channel where I talk about stories of all kinds and today I have the next entry into my ongoing Discworld Read-Along! This is a series where I’m reading through Discworld chronologically with anyone who wishes to participate. Once a month, I give my thoughts on the next Discworld book and collect your thoughts on the book to create discussion posts like this one. If you want to participate—whether you’re a Discworld veteran like me or a normie who’s never read the books before—I would love to have you along for this journey!
Now, on to the discussion.
Summary
Let’s do a quick recap of Wyrd Sisters. This is the second book in the Witches collection, following Equal Rites, which we read a few months back. Instead of following a young girl learning to be a witch, we follow three women who are already witches, a couple of whom have been so for an incredibly long time. We have Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. There’s some Death in there, too, of course.
Each of these characters has a remarkably unique voice and approach to the world and what it means to be a witch. They’ve formed a coven, which really seems more like a simple gathering of friends who happen to also do magic. You get the feeling that they’re kind of “forcing” the witch part of their gatherings and companionship, largely at the insistence of the younger witch Magrat, who has her own fantastical ideas of what a witch ought to be.
The story is a usurpation/”one-true-king” style plot. We begin with the real king being pushed down the stairs. And stabbed. Except, if you hear the Duke tell it, that isn’t what happened, because the it couldn’t have happened; the Duke was asleep when he saw it happen, so it couldn’t have happened! Obviously, the Duke and Duchess killed the king to stake their claim to the throne. They aren’t good rulers either—not at all—yet it seems that they’re the only viable heirs to the throne.
Except that the king has the son.
Except that son is a baby, and baby’s don’t typically make great rulers.
The witches (Nanny, Granny, and Magrat) happen upon the infant and decide to give him to the players—or thespians, I suppose—to stow him away. Witches aren’t supposed to be involved in politics; it isn’t proper. This new king, though, really gets on their bad side. He keeps trying to tax them, he captures them, and he doesn’t even have the know-how to properly torture them like the old king did.
The usurper king is frustrated by his inability to control the witches, leading his Fool to suggest the use of wit and wisdom to control them. This Fool turns out to be an incredible and fascinating character—and one of my favorites in the book—and he and Magrat later meet by chance and fall in love (or some semblance of it). It’s surprisingly adorable.
The king ticks the witches off a bit too much, which leads them to finally get involved and save the kingdom from the king who doesn’t really care about them at all (not even enough to rule them, really—he views a good chunk of them as worthless hillbillies). While this is ongoing, we notice a severe decline in the king’s mental well-being, perhaps wrestling with the guilt of what he’s done to the prior king. He goes more and more insane as the pages continue, with his rather awful wife trying to reign him in.
The Fool is sent by the king to find a playwright, by whom he will secure his position as king and hopefully rid himself of the witches for good. The Fool does find a playwright in Ankh-Morpork… who happens to also be associated with Tomjon, the now-adult lost prince. The playwright creates the play at the Fool’s request in what is probably one of my favorite sequences we’ve read in this series so far during this read-along, with much crossing out of words and turns of phrase.
Then, in another of my favorite sequences so far, the play is staged catastrophically. The show must go wrong, so they say, and wrong it does indeed go. The witches get involved, the fake witches are arrested, the Fool is tragically stabbed only to reveal that he is, in fact, still alive because it was only play dagger, and so on. By the end of it, confessions are given and Tomjon is revealed to be the true king.
Yet, Tomjon doesn’t want to be king. He wants to be a player. He wants to continue on with his troupe. He enjoys it, and the thought of being king sounds boring. It turns out that the Fool is related to Tomjon illegitimately and so he takes the throne instead. Hopefully, he lives happily ever after with Magrat, but I guess we’ll see what happens there. I’m sure we’ll see the Fool—or as he’s now known, Verence II of Lancre—again, someday.
My Thoughts
I have a lot of thoughts on this one, but I’m going to try to condense them. First of all, everything involving the Fool was hilarious because it wasn’t. To clarify that confusing statement: the Fool is staunchly focused on education, doing things the way he was taught, and following the rules of being funny. Yet we constantly explore his mind and learn that there’s quite a lot more to him than meets the eye. I love the dark and tragic backstory of the Fool, perhaps an indication of the fact that the best and truest humor often rises from the depths of tragedy, not from following a guild-approved regiment.
The perfect example of this is when the Fool is having flashbacks to when he used to be beaten, and it states that being whipped with a belt hurt, and the fact it had bells on it didn’t help. That is the kind of terrible, hilarious, tragic, comedic phrasing throughout this book that I absolutely love. It’s brilliantly dark, and that’s exactly what I love. This sort of thing is found in Wyrd Sisters from beginning to end. Even when Death takes out the Fool’s hourglass to check if he’s actually dead, it’s noted that his hourglass has bells on it. Every single time this was mentioned was a laugh out loud moment for me; I’m not sure if it was like that for anyone else, but the dark and tragic irony of the Fool was simply hysterical for me from page one to the moment I closed this book.
We also have an absolutely wonderful romance! I was quite a bit younger when I last read Wyrd Sisters—probably still in my teens, as this isn’t one I’ve revisited since I first read it—and I didn’t recall at all how well-written the romance in this book was. Terry Pratchett leans on his strengths in humor while writing the romance of this book, paying special attention to the awkward and uncomfortable nature of it. This is actually what makes the romance so well-written—it’s real and raw. It feels exactly like everyone’s actual first experience falling in love, not some fantastical overwritten version of it. He pays special attention to the “staring at the feet” and “not saying much of anything” and “bizarre first kiss” moments, not lingering too much on what typical romance stories would.
I’m also a big fan of the heavy Shakespearean elements of this novel. While not a big Shakespeare buff, I caught many of the references and fully understood why this Discworld novel was ready-made to become a play. I haven’t watched the play, but now I want to just to see how well it captures the vibes of this story. Reading this book was practically like reading a screenplay. I could see the stage settings, hear the audience, and gather the over-the-top inflections often heard in plays by the players. It was brilliant. The play elements of this story work quite strongly in its favor, and I loved it for that.
While I think I’ve made it clear that I really enjoyed this one, I do think I need to mention that there are some weak elements to it. For one, there are a couple of jokes in here that don’t hold up quite as well as they ought to. There was absolutely no ill-intent in them, but not everything in a story like this is going to be perfectly suited for modern audiences 40-50 years later. In truth, I’m surprised at how well almost everything in every Discworld novel thus far has held up after all this time. It goes to show how ahead of his time Terry Pratchett really was from day one of Discworld. There are just a couple of things in the story that I found to be a bit unnecessary and that didn’t really do much to bolster our leads or progress the story.
Next, I have to say that while I love the Shakespearean elements of this novel, it does lean very heavily on them. If you are not a fan of Shakespeare, I can absolutely understand not enjoying this book. While it’s a great read and an excellent story, it does feel like you’re reading a more comedic version of an old Shakespearean play. It follows all the beats, it hits all the tones, and ultimately if you aren’t a fan of that style, you likely won’t enjoy this book nearly as much as I did. I can understand why I didn’t find this book memorable on my first readthrough, and I can also understand why some folks gave it three or fewer stars this time around.
My last complaint is pretty minor: I feel like the story should have wrapped up a bit more neatly, with everything concluding during the play. There was a lot of fuss and time skipping. We had several pages to get through even after the book technically ended, which was a bit ludicrous to me when the conclusion of the play was perfectly set up to likewise conclude the story in dramatic fashion. I found myself kind of trying to hurry the ending of the book along, especially since I knew where it was going. I think I would have enjoyed the ending quite a bit more if it had all been part of the play, concluding with a bow and curtain close (or stage freeze).
Your Thoughts
And now, we get to the best part of these discussion videos! At least, my own favorite part. That’s your thoughts. For each book we read in this Discworld Read-Along, I put out a poll right here on YouTube asking you to give me a star rating and any commented thoughts you might have on the book. When it comes time to film the discussion video, I compile everything I heard from y’all and give my own insights into what you have to say! So without much ado about nothing, let’s dive into your thoughts, beginning with the star ratings.
Star Rating
I was a bit surprised by the split here—before I discuss that, though, I want to say thanks to everyone for voting in this poll! It’s awesome to get feedback from my fellow Discworld fans. I never in a million years thought I’d have more than one or two people voting in these polls, so I’m very grateful for each of you! And to those of you who didn’t vote, you’re dead to me.
Not really, probably.
Probably.
Anyway, let’s take a look at the split.
Star rating results for Wyrd Sisters, the sixth Discworld book in our chronological Discworld Read-Along.
Very strong leanings toward five stars, with a big chunk of four-star ratings as well. We do have some two-star votes as well, though. My guess is that these are the people I mentioned earlier who don’t really care for the Shakespearean themes of the novel. However, if you gave this book two stars and it was for a different reason, I’d love to hear what didn’t work for you in this story! Honestly, if you leave a review, I’d love to hear any reasons why you gave the book the rating you did—we all enjoy and dislike different things in different stories, and part of my goal with this series is to get insight into the many different folks who are reading and enjoying Discworld!
Myself, I’d give it 4.5 stars myself. It’s excellent, for sure, but the ending dragged a bit and there were some parts that I just didn’t enjoy terribly much. Overall, I had a great time reading it, though. It’s actually Nanny Ogg’s cat Greebo who’s going to make me lean more toward 5 stars and give this a five-star rating overall. So there you go! Seems that we’re all in wide agreement that this is definitely one of the better Discworld novels we’ve read as part of this read-along so far.
Comments
I’ve got a couple of comments to read and respond to, so let’s jump right into these!
This first comment comes from Spencer Creaghan (and before I read the comment, I just want to mention that I checked out the music on your profile and it is absolutely stellar)! Spencer says:
“It’s far from my favourite witches book, but dang it’s a great intro to the characters and the Discworld. I often recommend it to people curious about diving in. Granny is still a book and a half away from being GRANNY, but all the bits and bods are there; it’s great to see her evolve from the grump she is in this book the powerhouse role model of a woman she becomes over the next books (starting with Witches Abroad).”
Fantastic insights and review, Spencer! Really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts here, and I definitely have to agree with you—moreso than I thought I would agree with something like this before rereading it. My first Discworld novels were the Tiffany Aching books, and so the witches as a whole in Discworld have a special place in my heart. Granny Weatherwax even makes an appearance in A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith if I recall correctly, so she made an impact on me right from the start. I’m really enjoying seeing her growth chronologically for the first time, and I’m super excited for more Granny Weatherwax!
I also want to touch on the idea that this is a good entry into Discworld. I had personally never thought of this as a first novel, but in the previous discussion post a comment was left remarking that Wyrd Sisters is a really solid “beginning” to Discworld, or the true start to what Discworld really is. I was skeptical on that at first, but after completing it, I have to agree—this feels very much like the Discworld I know and love, and we’ve got Guards! Guards! coming up, which is notoriously the first Discworld novel I always recommend to newcomers. I think I’ve got to agree with the idea that this is an excellent start to the Disc, especially if you’re reading chronologically. I’ve got a new starting point to recommend for the future!
The last comment I want to visit for this discussion post comes from EvilDM Mark3, who also left great comments on the previous discussion post, so it’s always a pleasure to have you participate in this read-along. Mark says:
“My late father-in-law’s favourite, but then he was a Shakespeare nut. While clearly a Scottish Play riff, it still feels like its own beast in a way earlier books didn’t.”
The previous Discworld novels were all staunch parodies of something, be it a specific work or a particular theme of a fantasy novel. While Wyrd Sisters does still parody the traditional “one true king”, “Shakespearean”, and/or Scottish plays, it also really comes into its own much more than prior books did (except, perhaps, for Mort, which I still believe stands out quite strongly among the other early Discworld novels). As Mark says, Wyrd Sisters is its own beast; this will become more true as we continue reading Discworld, with our next book being Pyramids, an excellent book that will further establish Discworld as its own unique entity.
What’s Next?
That’s going to bring us to discussing what’s next! We’ve just finished the sixth book in Discworld, Wyrd Sisters, so now it’s time for book seven: Pyramids. I have a link below that you can use to grab a copy of Pyramids if you don’t have one already. I get a portion of the sale when you buy the book this way, so if you’re feeling generous, I’d appreciate you tossing your two cents my way. After that, you can toss your two cents my way again on May 31st, when I’ll be putting out the discussion post here on my YouTube Community tab regarding Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids. This means that the discussion video for Pyramids will be out on June 7th.
Heads up! After the video on June 7th, I’m going to be taking a summer break to focus on my TTRPG system that I’ve been creating. This is a great opportunity to catch up on the read-along if you’ve fallen behind! We’ll be reading Guards! Guards! during this hiatus, and we’ll be back in early August to continue the read-along! So if you’re behind at all, this is your chance to catch up on the reading!
Conclusion
Thank you all so much for taking the time to check out this post. As always, it is greatly appreciated. I never in a million years thought I’d get 50 or 100 views on any video, let alone a video where I just talk about a book from my favorite author. I also never thought I’d have folks out there who want to read this series along with me. Every single person who participates in this read-along—even silent participants—means a lot to me, so thanks very much! I love the community of Discworld and fantasy fans I’m getting the build here, and I can’t wait to keep reading along with you all.
I didn’t formally say thank you in any of my previous posts, so I just want to say a formal thank you right now for helping me reach 500 subscribers on my YouTube channel. Again, that is not a milestone I thought I’d reach. I started creating content because it was a cool hobby and I wanted to interact with other folks who had similar (or even differing) interests to me, and now I’ve been able to do that for almost two years now! I know that I don’t really treat it like a job, so my content is a bit scattered and inconsistent, but I’m having fun with it, and I hope that you’re enjoying it all, too.
Thank you, to each and every one of you—it means a lot!
Now, back to the wyrd.
