Snowflake Challenge - Day 6

[evandar]

Challenge #6

Share your favourite piece of original canon. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.





“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?
"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"
NO
"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
...
"Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.”

― Terry Pratchett, The Hogfather

The climax of The Hogfather, where Susan saves the Hogfather and ensures that the sun will rise and that belief will continue to exist, features one of Pratchett's more well-known kernels of wisdom. Not as well-known or as widely quoted as the Vimes' Boots Theory of Economics, perhaps, but it's up there.

Susan saves the Hogfather, but he dies anyway and she believes that her actions haven't changed anything. He's dead. What was the point? The point being that for the sun to rise, the Hogfather had to die. That was his point: the blood and the sacrifice that existed long before the jolly fat man giving out presents. By saving him, Susan allowed the Hogfather's narrative to continue as it should and allowed belief to survive in the Disc. The difference between the sun and a ball of flaming gas.

It's a good meditation on the purpose of belief. Why humanity needs it and why we go searching for it.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Pratchett was so good at sneaking up and punching you in the ribs with ideas like that.

[mekare]

Oh that is so good!

[lebateleur]

The Hogfather is definitely one of my favorite Discworld volumes, and scenes like this are one of the reasons why. (That said, it's so hard to choose favorite Discworld volumes!)

[walgesang]

Thanks for this! It's been ages since I've read Hogfather and this makes me want to do another re-read this year. (and hope you feel better soon!)

[silveradept]

That entire sequence, and the one that follows it, about the falling angel and the rising ape, and the Big Lies, is also fantastic. It's very good about belief and the things that you can build with it.

[themightyflynn]

This is the second Discworld mention I've seen for this challenge! I'm currently reading slowly through the books again. They are some of the best-written things ever! And the lessons Terry Pratchett implanted in the stories are amazing!

[hamsterwoman]

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
...
"Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.”

Such a great Pterry line!

[rogueslayer452]

(Here via snowflake_challenge)

I love The Hogfather, both the book and the adaptation, and this was definitely one of the singularly best moments of the story for me. It was so beautifully profound. Terry Pratchett's works has a lot of these kinds of things featured, where he writes something so thought-provoking and that can truly rewrite your brain sometimes. A magnificent choice for this challenge. :)