( No Title )
I’m hardly the first person to compare them but Terry Pratchett and J K Rowling really are polar opposites in terms of the way their writing treats weird characters. In Rowling’s writing, any weirdness is there to be laughed at (for example: Professor Trelawney, the fake seer who doesn’t know she’s an actual seer). In Pratchett’s writing, though, the characters’ weirdness is taken 100% seriously and the humor arises organically from the situation itself and is never at the characters’ expense (for example: in Making Money, the man who was born a clown and was never told so until he was 13 years old). In Rowling’s writing, the main characters poke constant fun at Professor Trelawney, making joke predictions and fudging homework and talking about how divination isn’t a legitimate field of study. Even after she gets fired and more or less drops the act, the joke changes to “look at this sad drunk lady” and the main characters express little sympathy. The narrative is saying she’s there to make one real prediction and otherwise she’s only there for comic relief. This sort of thing happens over and over in Rowling’s writing, where any quirkiness is there to be laughed at and the misfortunes of characters we’re not supposed to like are supposed to be funny, and it sends a message of conformity under threat of ridicule. In Pratchett’s writing, the clown man’s story is treated as a great tragedy: imagine growing up not knowing why you are the way you are, and then finding out the truth as a teenager! And knowing that your own mother kept the truth from you! This man was so deeply traumatized by this he denied himself any humor or fun for decades, and when he has a crisis and runs off to become a clown again, he is given support and medical treatment and is welcomed back to his job at the bank and accepted for who he is. The fact that this whole situation is hilarious is secondary. And again, this sort of thing happens over and over again in Pratchett’s writing, where characters’ quirkiness is embraced and often seen as irreplaceable by the end of the book, and it sends a message that our quirks are valuable and weirdness should be acceptable. It just strikes me as a much… kinder approach to people, you know?
This is a really good analysis. In JKR “conformity under threat of ridicule” is a stick used to beat *everybody*, Harry as well as the minor characters, but the solution presented is to take charge of the stick, not to break it.
The differences between JKR & Pratchett become even clearer when we look at how “subaltern species” are treated. For instance, both JKR’s goblins and Pratchett’s dwarfs start out with potentially worrying similarities to Jews and antisemitic stereotypes.
But as the Discworld series developed, Pratchett’s dwarfs and their society became more complex and multilayered … and also, in important ways, *more Jewish*, in ways that read to this Jew as though he was having thoughtful discussions with Jewish friends. For instance: “Any three dwarfs having a sensible conversation will always end up having four points of view” (from Raising Steam), which echoes “two Jews, three opinions”.
JKR’s goblins do *not* become more complex as the series goes on, though I must confess I haven’t re-read them or paid attention to the various adaptations and extensions in the last decade or so. I’m pretty sure I would have heard if she had done any work to make them more complex or less potentially antisemitic–my impression is that they have, if anything, become *more* so.
Most striking of all is the contrast between JKR’s house elves and Pratchett’s goblins. Both species are looked down on, treated as non-persons, and frequently enslaved … but in Pratchett this is unequivocally presented as a *bad* thing, even though Pratchett’s goblins are viscerally disgusting (or at least take a LOT of getting used to).
The overwhelming and consistent difference between their worlds is that for Pratchett *every* character is potentially a POV character. In JKR’s world, only certain special characters are POV characters, and it’s not really worth thinking about the internal lives of most of the others: in her imagination they’re things, not people. And as Granny Weatherwax says, sin “is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
‘In JKR “conformity under threat of ridicule” is a stick used to beat *everybody*, Harry as well as the minor characters, but the solution presented is to take charge of the stick, not to break it.’
yes, absolutely. this is also the basis of TERFism.
Discussion ¬