Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Witches Abroad, Godmothers running amok, and Greebo
6 Plays58 minutes ago
Come with us to Genua with the Witches of the Discworld and chat about illusion, the soul, beeeeeness and of course the brilliance of Pratchett!
Free story! maryckehoe.com
Connect with us! Maryckehoe.com/mythic-connect
Check out the books! bookshop.org/shop/mary-c-kehoe
Shout out to Eleanor @mulleinandmoss check it out if you love wild harvested herbs and amazing teas, balms, and bath salts!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Mythic Mirror'
00:00:00
Speaker
What is the price of mirror magic? Can you use magic to make good things happen? Should you? And finally, how do you stop spelling banana?
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to Mythic Mirror, a podcast for fans of myth and fantasy who want to live a magical, fulfilling
Meet the Hosts: Mary and Carolina
00:00:29
Speaker
life. I'm your host and fantasy author, Mary C. Kehoe. And I'm your co-host, Carolina Carter. And we are continuing talking about Witches Abroad today.
Character Transformations: Grebo and Magrat
00:00:40
Speaker
So Carolina, what was your just one quick favorite moment that jumps out at you?
00:00:49
Speaker
Oh, you know, sorry, I was so set on this other thing. I really need to talk to you about how uncomfortable Grebo makes me feel as a character. I was so ready to jump into that. All right, we'll jump in with that.
00:01:03
Speaker
I love the character of Grebo, but I would be lying if I said he didn't make me feel deeply uncomfortable, especially in the form of a human.
00:01:14
Speaker
That all, I was reading the book like but with one eye open. I was just like, please, please don't let anything untoward happen.
00:01:25
Speaker
Especially since you spend the whole book with him as a cat, so you know him. But as a cat, all of these traits of what he is, his his entire being makes sense. And then as a human, you're like, oh, oh no, this is a lot. What's going happen? then I know. And he goes to meet, what's her name in the garden? I was like, oh no, no, no, no. I cannot.
00:01:53
Speaker
I cannot read this. This isn't one of those books. Getting hot just thinking about it. Not hot in a good way. Hot in like an uncomfy blushing kind of Anyway.
00:02:05
Speaker
But as for a favorite moment, I guess my favorite moment is we've talked about Magrat and how she's a little small furry creature. And in the second half half of the book, she discovers that she is a mongoose. And that's my favorite. Let's talk about that. i have that...
00:02:23
Speaker
question here later so we can jump to that talk about it now does Magrat find herself? She does. In what way? How how is she a mongoose?
00:02:35
Speaker
um She faces unspeakable fear and strikes out at it and discovers that while she may be a small furry creature she is mongoose.
00:02:50
Speaker
And she learns about what it means to be a witch through the first two thirds of the book. She has this growing resentment about how the two older witches don't actually ever do any magic.
00:03:07
Speaker
And then not only does she see them do magic and she sees granny face off with Lilith and Mrs. Goggle,
00:03:20
Speaker
but she learns the importance of when to use magic and how, which ah this is part of
Magic's Limitations in Happy Endings
00:03:28
Speaker
the end of the book. But when she talks, when granny is talking to Mrs. Gogol and she says, you can't use magic to make things right. You can just stop them from being wrong.
00:03:38
Speaker
And why can't you use magic to make it right? You know, and you you see with Lilith the whole time, that's what she's been trying to do. And when when the witches are going through all of the different stories that Lilith has left in her wake and Granny says, you can't use magic to make happy endings, just endings.
00:04:02
Speaker
he Which I think you see, i don't know, I felt it the most with the wolf in the Red Riding Hood story of yeah just so...
00:04:16
Speaker
like a ah piteous being of this not human, but not wolf caught in the
Identity and Carelessness: Werewolves and Lilith
00:04:23
Speaker
middle. You, you've, there's so many stories about werewolves, but I've never seen that character in a book of this, this wolf that thinks it's a human, but can't be, but it can't go back to being a wolf and it's trapped and it's begging the witch to end it.
00:04:42
Speaker
Yeah, that was really sad. and And granny's looking at the woodcutter coming in. She goes, of course, there has to be a happy ending. Just that got me terrible.
00:04:54
Speaker
yeah Yeah, that was i was genuinely very sad. That part was heartbreaking for a very funny book. It did have a moment where you just that is sad.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah. And it takes this being that before that in the scene of, you know, it's coming and scuffling at the door and, and getting inside and standing up and walking like a human.
00:05:18
Speaker
So he creates this yeah scary being and it's tying into the human brain of what freaks us out.
Lilith's Ideology and Story Manipulation
00:05:28
Speaker
This wolf is standing up and opening the door and something trying to get in from the outside and then totally turns it. And you, and it's one of those moments of compassion.
00:05:39
Speaker
You just feel horrible for this being. And you realize just how evil, Lilith is in her carelessness. You know, she created this two years ago or however many years ago and then just left it because it didn't matter to her anymore.
00:05:56
Speaker
Right, and that's making good endings. Right. Yeah, that's just a sacrifice toward her good ending. And she thinks she's the good one. Yes, that she's turned Genua into sort of this fairy tale factory where these fairy tales are going over and over again and just happy ending, happy ending, happy ending, but nobody has any free will. The two absolutes that she holds in the highest regard is beauty and order, which is very interesting because...
00:06:26
Speaker
Beauty and truth is, like I feel like, a widely accepted, like that those are the two things you should be striving for in life. And when you just twist that a little into beauty and order, you get this ugly evil that masquerades as order and beauty.
00:06:46
Speaker
Well, and it's interesting because you have order that is just naturally a part of the cosmos, which includes the chaotic universe. You know, where you have, ah can't remember if we talked about this in another episode, but where you have the Nautilus shell and, you know, Fibonacci sequence and and how math is creates nature and yet nature looks so haphazard. But there's an order to it, just like Terry Pratchett's writing. Mm-hmm.
00:07:19
Speaker
But when you try to make it your human order, when you try to make it the happy ending that you have in mind, that's when it becomes evil. Right.
00:07:31
Speaker
Which is interesting because i feel like her view of the world would be that free will is what's wrong with the world. Mm-hmm.
00:07:42
Speaker
I mean, to argue, be the devil's advocate, I could argue that. But it's also the only thing that makes life worth living. Right. Because you can't grow if you don't have free will.
00:07:54
Speaker
And what's the point of being if you're not transforming into something? Right. Deep thoughts, Mary. Yeah. Well, you said something and and it made me think of something and now I can't remember.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah. She keeps, one of the things she keeps repeating is how people just don't know how to play their part. Mm-hmm. Which is extra interesting with her as a character because she's fractured herself into so many parts, kind of like a horcrux.
Mirror World: Identity and Fractured Selves
00:08:22
Speaker
I feel like her standing between the mirrors and many, many mirrors in order to achieve this order, in order to achieve this beauty, she's fractured herself. And I was just sitting with that and thinking about what that meant and how like these, what reflections have ah or don't have rather is any weight. They don't bear consequence. They don't, they're never present.
00:08:46
Speaker
um And they're just, they're just reflections. And the never being present, I guess, is what I thought of. How spoiler free are we going? Spoiler light? No, go ahead. You can say whatever.
00:08:58
Speaker
i think Spoiler heavy. When she ultimately is trapped in the mirror world and death says she can get out if she can find the real one. And she can't because she's never been present within herself. she's ah She's fractured herself. I shouldn't say never, but she's fractured herself across the mirror verse and truly and truly is lost. Cannot find herself. And mirroring that...
00:09:24
Speaker
When Granny Weatherwax is asked the same question, she says, is this a trick question? Death says, no. She goes, this one. And she's out, which I loved.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah. There's the whole subplot or a theme, I guess, of self and finding yourself. You've got Magrat in the beginning with reading all this, the self-help and mystical books of how to find yourself. And you have granny throughout the whole thing, just so herself and her beingness. And in the end, that's what gets her out.
00:10:04
Speaker
She never had a question of who she was. And this actually, I was thinking about this. i was talking to a friend of mine ah before starting this book, talking about finding the most innate part of yourself.
00:10:20
Speaker
And what that is and how to frame your life around that piece that makes you who you are. And my my friend calls it the bones of your soul, which I really like.
00:10:34
Speaker
Shout out to Eleanor and her mullein and moss.
Discworld Delight: Quote Guesses
00:10:38
Speaker
Yes. That is most poetic, but that's what Granny Weatherwax has. And that's what keeps her, you know, she's so mad at Lilith, her sister, for making her the good one. But it's like that her deeply practical goodness that doesn't have any room for niceness but is just so itself is the very strength that makes her win every time. Yeah.
00:11:11
Speaker
Yeah. And how can we find what our innate Venus is? That's the quest. Venus. I wasn't be being this Venus. Venus. Venus. I don't know.
00:11:25
Speaker
I get it now. The first time you said it, I was thinking more of like B-sides, like A-sides and B-sides. Our B-ness. I was like, the okay, the software program we're running in the background, the B-ness.
00:11:40
Speaker
Nope. Anyway, i get what you're saying, Elle, and I could not agree more.
00:11:47
Speaker
We'll just go with the bones of your soul. It's way better than B-ness anyway. The bones of your soul. I like it. I like them both. Yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
May we take this moment to tell people what our Discworld Delight from last week was and do a Discworld Delight moment now? Yes. It seemed like a natural stopping point. Well, yes. So last week, I don't know if we had any correct guesses because you...
00:12:15
Speaker
Didn't ask me. Oh, let me read them. too Well, I had a bit of a week myself. I am in pain and I don't handle pain at all. and It's not that I don't handle it well.
00:12:26
Speaker
I just don't handle it. So here are our guess ah guesses. Thief of Thief of Thief of time. Thief of time. Thief of time. Thief of time.
00:12:37
Speaker
Mary, was it thief of time? Indeed it was. Wow. Thief of time. Yeah. These guys are good. I know. It's kind of outrageous. One even said thief of time. ah Dana Clemens says thief of time where lobsang is talking to Susan.
00:12:55
Speaker
And she would be correct. right, for this week's Discworld Delight, here we go. They spread out without speaking.
00:13:06
Speaker
Some of them had drawn their swords. They weren't laughing and joking now. They were watchful. Dun, dun, dun.
00:13:16
Speaker
What's going on in that one, then? Is that part of the quote? No. Oh, that was me. I like it. I was like, an unexpected turn. Just what I expect out of Terry Pratchett.
00:13:31
Speaker
I assumed it said, dun, dun, dun. And then, what's going on in that one? i
00:13:41
Speaker
Nope. That's just us.
00:13:46
Speaker
Now back to it. Yes, back to it. i have something else I need to talk about with you.
Nanny Og: The Unsung Hero
00:13:53
Speaker
who I want to talk about Nanny Og and how she's really the unsung hero of this book because you have the villain, Lillian.
00:14:06
Speaker
Lillian? Lilith. Lilith. standing on her own, trying to make the world bend to her will. And kind of the other pillar over here is Granny Weatherwax, who also is just like a I'm going to do it on my own. I stand on my own. i go against things head on. And in the, not in the middle, but in the mix is Nanny Og, who is She knows stories. She lives and breathes stories. She sings songs. She drinks in taverns. She makes friends. She's the web builder. She's the connector. She's like truly holding it all together, but not like the weight of the world's on her shoulders, just like that. She's just weaving life along. And, you know, she's the one who connects them with their allies. And once they get to the city, just because she's herself and she goes out and she meets a friend. Yeah. And I love that character so much.
00:15:04
Speaker
I don't know who Granny would be without Nanny Og. Both of them together. Maybe bad. Maybe bad. No. No. She definitely wouldn't be happy.
00:15:16
Speaker
No. No. I did love when they first get to the city that morning where each of the three goes. ah You know, Nanny Og finds the cook and becomes friends.
00:15:28
Speaker
And then Granny sees a bee heading. And that one, the way that's written is great. Yeah. She thinks he's going to lose his hand because he's a thief.
00:15:39
Speaker
And then she hears a noise and looks back at the stage and knows why the citizens of Genoa are so quiet and clean.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah. and that And that she had heard of other places where they'd chop off a hand of a thief to keep him from doing it again. And in Genoa, they'd chop off his head so he didn't think of stealing again. And she knew where the witches were in Genoa. They were in charge.
00:16:09
Speaker
And poor Magrat goes and almost gets herself in trouble. Always. Always. Always. Little Magrat. Yeah. The little wet hen.
00:16:22
Speaker
The little wet hen. Yeah, the beheading and the wolf part were the two parts where you're like, you know, a bit like the Brothers Grimm and fairy tales. You're like, there is a very dark underbelly to this very funny book.
00:16:37
Speaker
But that's how life is. And that's how fairy tales are.
Magic Ethics: Granny vs. Lilith and Mrs. Gogol
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah. And then at the end, when they're about to be, you know, they're in the midst of facing down Lilith and Mrs. Gogol comes with Saturday, Baron Saturday.
00:16:55
Speaker
And and then Granny has to confront her as well. because this also isn't right. She's watching, ah you know, it seems like, oh, great, they won. They scared Lilith away. And and Mrs. Gogol is leading ah Embers up the steps. And Granny's standing there going, no, this isn't right.
00:17:16
Speaker
And, you know, now we'll just have Mrs. Gogol in charge. And Nanny is like, well, she's not too bad. And Granny says she's not too bad in the swamp. And I love this line, that magic is too important.
00:17:31
Speaker
to be used for ruling people with. Then she has to face her down and and tell her no. Yes, and that, um first of all, another use of mirrors where she reflects ah her belief back to her, where Madame Gogol is using the voodoo doll against her, and because she knows that her belief in that is so strong, Granny sticks her. Granny knows that Mrs. Gogol's belief in it is so strong.
00:17:59
Speaker
Right. Sticks her arm into a flaming torch and the voodoo doll it lights on fire and burns Madame Gogol. And it's A, a cunning use of reflection and headology and B, a fascinating look at belief and the way not only it shapes us, but also can be used against us. And maybe sometimes that's good, maybe sometimes that's bad, but it's just that, so I guess that if you believe it, it is real.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah. This one, this book's interesting because you see so many different ways of doing magic. You've got Lilith with her mirror magic.
Mirror Magic and Soul Reflection
00:18:41
Speaker
You've got, uh, Madam Gogol in the swamp using the swamp and all of that magic. And then you've got the witches with their version and seeing them and how they interplay off of each other and how granny is so smart and she understands everyone else so well that she can use their, the way they do magic and morphs hers by just by using their magic or their belief. And going back to Lilith with the mirror magic, I think one of the lines that sets it up for the end when she can't,
00:19:20
Speaker
get out when she's trapped in that mirror space is when she's discussing it with the, with the duck about, mirror magic and why it's so powerful and that you don't have to depend on anyone and that when you're when you're using mirrors, it's all just yourself that you're using.
00:19:40
Speaker
And in the end, the only one you answer to is your own soul. And it talks about how when the mirror stretches on for infinity and there's nothing but you, and then it says, but it was wrong.
00:19:53
Speaker
Infinity holds many things, including hunger. That idea that her soul she's taking for granted the soul and slowly it's getting weakened and diffused through all these reflections and mirror space till she's lost her, the aspect of what makes her, her it's lost in all the reflections.
Power Dynamics: Lilith, Granny, and Nanny
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, and to weave it all together is Lilith, Granny Weatherwax, and Nanny Og, and the each way they interact with stories, Lilith using them to gain more power and beauty and force an ending, Granny Weatherwax facing them head-on and trying to subvert them, and then Nanny Og, who kind of knows them so well that she can just laugh at them, and that when they are laughed at, they lose their power.
00:20:45
Speaker
And her willow reinforced hat. Right. And her willow reinforced hat. Very important. That can stand any anything a farmhouse throws at it. Right.
00:20:57
Speaker
Right. And Magrat, who doesn't realize she's in a story. Yeah.
Book Recommendations Announcement
00:21:03
Speaker
Speaking of stories, we do have our bookshop.org lists up and running.
00:21:09
Speaker
They are, there's two lists. One we've called Mythic Kith. which is all of the book recommendations from our subscribers and listeners and viewers. So if you'd like to add more books to that list, let us know in the comments and we will put all the books in the list so we can all find them and read great books together.
00:21:33
Speaker
And then the other one, the other list is Mythic Mirror, which is all the books that we reference and feature or happen to mention and books that we love.
00:21:46
Speaker
So you can find that in the link in the show notes below. And if you're enjoying this podcast, share it with someone. Give us a thumbs up and or five stars.
00:22:00
Speaker
All right. I've done that bit. You did great. You did so great I could kith you. Oh, kith. Mary,
Favorite Moments: Granny's Reaction
00:22:08
Speaker
I'm quite remiss. I have not asked you what your favorite parts from the book were.
00:22:12
Speaker
There are so many. One of them that just really got me is when they are traveling down the river through the mountains and it's misty and dark and cold and they hear something following them.
00:22:27
Speaker
and And they're quiet and listening. And in this creature comes up to him paddling along on a tree. And it's creepy. And he comes up and and he reminded me of Gollum.
00:22:39
Speaker
And he it's birthday. It's my birthday. And there's this moment of silence. And then Granny Weatherwax takes the oar and whacks him in the into the water.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I loved it because it's this, it's like when absolute creepiness meets Granny Weatherwax, what happens? And she is unfazed.
00:23:03
Speaker
And not having it. Yeah. That one looked like a troublemaker. Yeah. and And Nanny not missing a beat. It's the slimy ones you have to look out for.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yes. And then at the end.
Good vs. Bad: Direction and Intent
00:23:20
Speaker
on a more philosophical note, when, when, uh, Magrat is asking about, ah Mrs. Gogol and was she good or bad with all the raising dead people and alligators and stuff.
00:23:35
Speaker
And granny says something along the lines of, you know, good and bad. It's hard to know. It's hard to know with people. I guess what matters is what way you're facing.
00:23:47
Speaker
And that is maybe where what I will end on is it matters which way you're facing because none of us are perfect. We just have to be going in the right direction. Yeah.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah, I guess my takeaway would be i would be an expansion on that. It's not about the ending. It's how you get there. And that to be aware that the way you are getting there is riding on the stories that you're telling yourself.
00:24:14
Speaker
And not to try to control the ending. Don't try to make it happy for someone else. Just make sure you're facing the right way. Right.
Personal Sparks of Joy
00:24:27
Speaker
All right. For sparks this week, what was your spark? My spark this week is as it's dipped in temperature quite a bit, I've been spending a lot of time by the fire reading with the cats.
00:24:40
Speaker
Oh, I need to go build myself a fireplace one moment. Yeah, you do. Please come over. All right. My spark is I've been now I have ducks.
00:24:52
Speaker
So in the morning I go outside and let them out and feed them and everything. And that has been getting me outside in the morning. And it's been really cool just to see the different mornings and and earlier than I would usually be outside.
00:25:09
Speaker
And it's just always so beautiful. And it's different each morning, but always beautiful.
Conclusion and Invitation to Next Discussion
00:25:16
Speaker
Thank you for chatting with us this week. And next week, we will be starting City of Brass, which if you don't have, you can find on our list.
00:25:25
Speaker
And it will be supporting independent bookstores and us. And you can get my free book at maryckijo.com. We are so grateful to be spiraling through this universe with you. It's not always easy, but no good story ever is.