(first time read; usually fairy tale parodies/satires make me feel like someone is kicking down my inner child’s sand castles, but Discworld do be Discworld, so I don’t know why I was worried)
Like………… objectively. Morally. From an ethical point of view… Greebo is horrible.
But. But, and here me out on this. But. He’s also endearing. Somehow. In the stupidest possible way.
I really am a cat person, huh.
I find it hilarious how the witches try to break the flow of the story and then Mrs Gogol just struts in with a literal deus ex machina and it actually seems to be working until Granny looks at the situation and is like “no, this is dumb” and goes to solve the plot herself and it is…. It’s what needed to happen?
In order to have a satisfying story, this book needed the confrontation between the sisters. Just solving the plot with a god wouldn’t have been satisfying. So this book about breaking stories still explicitly insists on ending its story the right way. Because it is still a story, and what it is saying is:
Treat your story as a story, always.
(Also, solve your local vampire problems by feeding them to a cat.)
I have too many feelings about the confrontation in the mirror room, and a lot of them have to do with how I am getting unreasonably attached to an old woman who is mean to people, but one thing I enjoyed a lot is how they’re both asked the same question in the end and only Granny figures out the answer, and she does so without struggling at all, while Lilith is presumably trapped forever.
The amazing thing is… All this is the second half. Solidly half this book is a travel log through rural Europe and every better known folktale thereof, and then the other half is fraught family relations and different angles on the same chosen identity and an absolute refusal of determinalism.
And then it returns to travel and binds the two halfs together and I get shrimp emotions again.
Also, last thing: Death running into the witches because he genuinly is just visiting this party, not there for a job or anything, and them always needing a second to realize it’s him is my new favourite thing.