The Heroic Journey through the first Two Discworld Novels

            Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series serves as a major parody and love letter to heroic high fantasy fiction. In this way, the hero’s journey is expressed in most of the Discworld novel and poked fun at with every opportunity. In the very first book of the series, the Colour of Magic, our main protagonist, the wizard Rincewind, is beyond the reluctant hero. From the very start of his journey to almost the very end of the next book he vehemently refuses the call to adventure at every opportunity, only to be swept up in a journey he wanted no part in anyway.

            Throughout his journey, Rincewind receives a variety of magical and supernatural aid. Many times he is aided by an indestructible treasure chest with an appetite for destruction, other times he is aided by the direct intervention of Gods, and at the end he retrieves and wields his metaphorical ‘sword’ in the form of the spells of the Octavo.

            One curious piece of the traditional hero’s journey that seems to be missing, however, is the presence of a wise concrete mentor. Rincewind’s primary companion and the secondary protagonist of the first two novels, is the plucky, naïve, and unbelievably optimistic Twoflower, who is just a tourist going around to see the world. Twoflower could be seen as a mentor in some ways. He gets Rincewind to think a bit more positively about life towards the end, and by the finale has convinced Rincewind to try real wizarding again, but he’s not a sage teacher brimming with mysterious yet profound advice. Twoflower comes across much more as a doofus than a wise man, and takes up more of a companion role than a mentor.


            Despite this, Rincewind by the end returns home with his magical elixir, just in time to save the world, as a good hero should, before returning to his life as a changed wizard, but still a skittish, untrusting wizard nonetheless.

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