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Title:
Lords and Ladies
Series: Discworld
#14
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
260
Words: 89K
Publish: 1992
My
goodness, Pratchett just can’t keep himself from spouting off and
preaching at his readers. This could easily have been a 4star read,
or higher, as the story is wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But
yeah, I’m not reading a fantasy series to get preached at by some
wacko who only gives lip service to such things as logic and
theology.
Sigh...
★★★✬☆
From
Wikipedia.org
Granny
Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick return
to Lancre after their recent adventure in Genua.
Magrat is stunned when King Verence proclaims their
imminent marriage, having already made all the arrangements in her
absence. The sudden appearance of crop circles reveals to
Nanny and Granny that it is now "circle time", a
convergence of parallel universes when the Discworld is
susceptible to incursions from the "parasite universe" of
the Elves. Elves are capricious and amoral creatures that enter the
minds of animals and sentient beings in a more destructive way than
witches do, using "glamour" to alter human's perceptions of
them. They are normally kept away by a circle
of magnetized iron standing stones known as the
Dancers. When Nanny and Granny refuse to explain the situation to
Magrat, she leaves the coven, disavows witchcraft, and moves into an
apartment in Lancre Castle. She soon becomes bored with the courtly
lifestyle and unsure of her place.
Mustrum
Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, leads a small
group of faculty to attend the wedding. Along the way, they are
joined by the Dwarfish lothario Casanunda.
Granny
and Nanny discover that a group of local girls, led by Diamanda
Tockley and including Agnes Nitt, have formed a new coven
whose activities include dancing naked at the Dancers. The two
elderly witches try to convince them to stop, with Granny ultimately
besting Diamanda in a public witchcraft contest and discrediting the
new coven. But a defiant Diamanda later runs through the Dancers into
the land of the Elves, where she is knocked unconscious by a poisoned
Elven arrow before being rescued by Granny. Nanny subdues an Elf that
pursues them back into Lancre, using an iron fireplace poker; Elves
and their powers are severely weakened by iron. The witches bring
Diamanda and the Elf to Lancre Castle, where Magrat treats Diamanda
and Verence agrees to imprison the Elf (though Magrat inadvertently
frees it later). Meanwhile, Granny has begun to experience memories
of other paths her life has taken in parallel worlds, as well as a
growing sense of her own impending death.
Jason
Ogg and the other Lancre Morris Men plan a play to be performed
for the wedding guests. When they rehearse near the Dancers, the
Elves influence them to include Elvish elements in the play. As a
result, when the play is performed at the Dancers, it causes
sufficient belief—a powerful force on the Discworld—that the
Elves are able to make the guests dismantle the stone circle. The
Elves arrive, and the Elf Queen plans to legitimize her rule of
Lancre by marrying Verence. None of the members of the Lancre coven
are present at this time: Magrat has locked herself in her room due
to perceived insults in a letter she has discovered, written by
Granny to Verence, advising him to plan the wedding; Nanny is being
romanced by Casanunda; and Granny has been magically whisked away by
Ridcully, who hopes to resume a romantic connection they had when
much younger. The women only become aware of what has happened once
the Elves begin to wreak havoc in Lancre. Aided only by general
dogsbody Shawn Ogg, Magrat fights her way through the
infiltrated castle. She discovers a portrait of Queen Ynci, one of
the kingdom's legendary founders. Suddenly inspired by the idea of
becoming a warrior queen, Magrat finds and dons
Ynci's armour. Feeling influenced by Ynci's spirit (and unaware
that Ynci is a fiction, the armour constructed from cookware only a
few generations previously), she rescues a captured Shawn and sets
out for the Dancers. While Granny and Ridcully make their way through
the woods, resulting in Granny's capture by the Elves, Nanny and
Casanunda travel through a gateway to the abode of the Elf King, who
opposes the Elf Queen despite being her spouse.
At
the Dancers, Magrat arrives to confront the Elf Queen at the same
time as the people of Lancre, rallied by Shawn and Nanny. But the Elf
Queen quickly subdues Magrat with glamour. The captive Granny
mentally combats the Elf Queen and releases Magrat from the glamour
before succumbing to the Elf Queen's attack, her prone body being
covered by the bees from her hive, which have swarmed at the Dancers.
When the Elf Queen turns her powers on Magrat, attempting to stop her
resistance by dismantling her identity, she exposes the unexpectedly
valorous core of Magrat's being – something which Granny had
deliberately been stoking, aggravating and provoking all along for
just this very outcome. Magrat attacks and subdues the Elf Queen just
in time for a projection of the Elf King to arrive and send the Elves
back to their world.
Granny
appears to be dead, but then Nanny and Magrat learn that she has
actually borrowed her bees' hive mind, a feat thought impossible.
They break open a window in the castle, where Ridcully has reverently
laid Granny's body, enabling the bees to get close enough for her to
regain consciousness. Nanny points out to Magrat that Granny's letter
to Verence has had a great positive impact on Magrat's life, as well
as giving her the strength to fight the Elf Queen. Magrat and Verence
are married by Ridcully. Later, Granny and Ridcully make peace with
their past and their place in the universe. The growing sense of
impending death she had been feeling had been due to the impending
deaths of some of her parallel-selves.
