Opinions on the Obscure, Off-Beat, and Outdated

Hogfather
Hello, and welcome to the column! Well, every idiot has an opinion, and in a
temporary lapse of her normal good judgment, Crystalwizard has been kind enough to
allow me to share mine. My job: to inform you, the unsuspecting masses, of weird and
wonderful things that you may or may not be aware are out there, and why they might be
worth your time. Sound painless enough? Well then, let’s get started!
You may have noticed the title for this month’s article is “Hogfather”. I’m sure
some of you are already smiling a knowing and expectant smile. But for those of you
who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, I’d better explain.
What is ‘Hogfather’? Hmm, that could be a much more complicated question
than it looks. Let’s see how simple we can make it.
“Hogfather” is the title of a novel written by Terry Pratchett. It is part of his
lengthy collection of Discworld novels (a series boasting over 30 books), and on the
surface it is about a holiday with disturbing similarities to a certain holiday of ours which
is fast approaching (you better watch out!).
But this isn’t quite the “Hogfather” we’re talking about today. No, you see,
“Hogfather” is also the title of a two-episode mini-series produced for Sky One
Television in the United Kingdom. It was first aired in December of 2006 and rerun in
December of 2007. You’ve no idea how ashamed I am to admit that I’ve just learned of
its existence in the past few weeks. But I am happy to report to all you Discworld fans
that it is available on DVD!
Now, for those of you who are (sadly) not familiar with the Discworld…
It started off as a sort of parody of the fantasy and sword-n-sorcery genres. The
Discworld is flat and rests on the shoulders of four giant elephants that are carried
through space on the back of Great A’Tuin, the star turtle. Things are…well…slightly
askew there. The series began with the misadventures of an incompetent wizard, who
associated with and confronted parodies of Leiber’s Fafhrd and Mouser, Howard’s
Conan, and Lovecraft’s Cthulu, along with other, more generic, fantasy tropes, like
dragons, and Death.
But a funny thing happened, pretty early in the series. Discworld became
something much more than that. It became one of those ripply funhouse mirrors,
showing with uncanny accuracy all the non-sequiters and double standards of human
nature and mankind’s institutions.
Hmm, what a lousy way to explain it. That makes it sound kinda stuffy. Be fair,
it’s hard to sum up thirty-plus books in a couple of paragraphs and still do it justice! I
better just move on to the movie before I lose my whole audience.
So, it’s Hogswatch, right? Well, Hogswatch is the major midwinter holiday on
Discworld. The night before is called Hogswatchnight, that’s when the Hogfather, a
jolly fat man with a red suit and tusks, drives his boar-driven sleigh all over the
Discworld delivering presents to the children.
Well, there are these forces of Universe, they’re called the Auditors of Reality,
and their job is to make sure the Universe runs the way it’s supposed to. They make
gravity work and atoms spin, and they do it with cold, impersonal, logical efficiency.
This is where the problem comes in. Mankind, as a general rule, is not logical.
Apparently, this vexes the Auditors, and they think the Universe would run much more
smoothly if they could get rid of Mankind, or at least, to change our nature.
To this end, they go to Ankh-Morpork, biggest city on Discworld, and
commission the Assassin’s Guild to kill the Hogfather, a symbol of all the frivolous
things they hate about Mankind. Now, consider that for a moment. If someone wanted to
pay you three million dollars to take out Santa Claus would you have any idea how to do
it?
Fortunately for the Assassin’s Guild, they have a member who ‘sees things
differently’. He is Mr. Teatime (uh, that’s pronounced teh-ah-TIM-ay). He is cheerful,
and very creepy, not only because of his disturbing glass eye. He is nasty, ruthless, and
takes a perverse pleasure in killing people. Not too surprising, he has very few friends,
which gives him plenty of time to sit around and ponder hypothetical assignments…like
killing the Hogfather. It’s a problem that Mr. Teatime has devoted some time to, and has
come up with a solution. Thus armed with a cunning plan, and a team of unscrupulous
lackeys, he heads off for…the Tooth Fairy’s Castle?! Don’t worry; it makes sense before
the end of the story!
However, Mr. Teatime leaves a corpse along the way, and Death comes to collect
the soul. Information given by this soul inspires further investigation, and Death soon
learns that the Hogfather has disappeared because people are not believing in him as
strongly as before. This is a great calamity, for the Hogfather is actually a sort of
composite of everything he was ever believed to be. He started off as a sort of pagan god
requiring a blood sacrifice to make the sun come up; and Death fears that if people stop
believing in the Hogfather the sun will not rise!
Death likes humans, though he doesn’t quite understand them, so to preserve
them, he must save the Hogfather. With the guidance of his servant, Albert, Death steps
into the Hogfather’s boots and tries to inspire belief in the Hogfather. He also enlists the
aid of his Granddaughter…uh…time out.
Death adopted a daughter early in the series. He also had a mortal for an
apprentice (briefly). The two fell in love, eventually married and had a daughter, named
Susan, now grown and working as a governess for a noble family in Ankh-Morpork.
Ok, time in. He also enlists the aid of his Granddaughter to find out who is doing
this to the Hogfather and stop them.
Through further misadventures, Susan makes her way to the Tooth Fairy’s Castle
and learns Mr. Teatime’s cunning plan. You see, there is a very old type of magic that
gives you control over a person if you have say…a lock of their hair, or nail clippings, or
teeth! Mr. Teatime has collected all of the Tooth Fairy’s teeth into a large pile, had his
wizard cast some magic spells, and is controlling the belief of the children of the world!
This was his plan to kill the Hogfather…but other ideas have since occurred to him, and
he is currently plotting greater—more personal—goals.
So, let’s see…can Death and Susan save the Tooth Fairy, the teeth, and the Belief
of Children from Mr. Teatime? Can they save the Hogfather from the Auditors? It’d take
a Hogswatch miracle, and I’m not gonna ruin for ya. …Nevermind how many books
came after this one. It’s still worth watching!
The sets, costumes, and the special effects are especially good! At least, better
than most made-for-TV movies over here in America. The cast is superb; though as an
‘ignorant American’ I’m afraid I don’t recognize many of them. I know Lord Downey,
Head of the Assassin’s Guild, was played by David Warner, the bad guy from “Time
Bandits” and “Tron”. And Mr. Crumley, the store owner, was played by Tony Robinson,
who used to be Baldrick in the “Blackadder” series. Also, it turns out that Albert, Death’s
manservant, was played by David Jason, who used to be the voice of Count Duckula, the
vegetarian vampire duck (no, really!) of cartoons and comic books! (Well, I guess ya see
how intellectual and literary I am.) Also in the cast are Michelle Dockery as Susan, Marc
Warren as Mr. Teatime, and Ian Richardson as the voice of Death. Oh, plus a cameo of
the author himself! Terry Pratchett plays a toymaker!
A fellow named Vadim Jean adapted the story and directed. I understand that he
went on to adapt and direct “The Colour of Magic”, based on the first Discworld novel,
which was shown on Sky One back in March of this year. I also understand that he is
directing “Going Postal”, based on a more recent Discworld book, slated to be released in
2009. Rest assured, I’ll be checking those out, too, as soon as I can.
But right now, we’re talking about “Hogfather”. Personally, I think it was a
marvelous job, following the source material faithfully. The character design reminded
me of the illustrations by Paul Kidby, and I was tickled to see live-action interpretations
of the Faculty of Unseen University, Corporal Nobbs and Constable Visit from the Night
Watch, not to mention Hex the Thinking Machine, and the Death of Rats. …Which were
not actually played by live people. But, hey! After reading about them in so many
books, it was neat to see them!
There are only one or two things about “Hogfather” that disappointed me. First
off, by the time of this story, there are supposed to be dwarves and trolls and gnolls and
gargoyles living in Ankh-Morpork, but none get into the film. But, to be fair, this didn’t
really occur to me until after the movie was done. Secondly, I seem to remember the
book as being funnier. Sure, there are plenty of funny concepts in the movie. But they
were not played up for comedic purposes. This caused me to pause and think about it,
and that’s when I realized how much of the comedy comes from Pratchett’s style of
narrating.
Nevertheless, “Hogfather” is a terrific treat. I highly recommend it.
It’s been suggested to me to come up with a rating system for the many things I’ll
be telling you about each month. Between you and me, I haven’t a clue of how to set one
up. So I got my trusty old D&D percentage dice and came up with a nice easy system.
The Lower the number, the Worse it is. So it’s just like tests used to be, you’re aiming for
100 (double-0 on the dice).

I tossed the dice and ended up with a 97, which sounds about right. That’s about
as close to perfect as I expect to rate anything.
So, there you have it. “Hogfather” is great, and you should see it! At least, that’s
one idiot’s opinion and, hey! You don’t have to accept it. You could check it out, and
form your own opinions! I know it’s available to rent from Netflix, clips are available on
YouTube, and a quick web-search will tell ya where you can buy it.
Well, I guess that’s all for now, folks. Happy Hogswatch everyone! Or, you
know, whatever holiday you might be into! ;)

----Oddcube