"First Among Shepherds": Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching Series from an Arthurian Perspective

Throughout his career writing on the Discworld, Terry Pratchett employed what he referred to as ‘white knowledge’; a wide spectrum of intertextuality and allusiveness that pervaded the structure of his stories, the dialogue, the narration, and that was even discussed in scenes constructed to comment on the very absurdity of its existence. In my MA thesis, I examine closely the allusive qualities of the white knowledge present in Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series: The Wee Free Men (2003), A Hat Full of Sky (2004), Wintersmith (2006), I Shall Wear Midnight (2010) and The Shepherd’s Crown (2015). Specifically, I analyze Pratchett’s use of the Arthurian tradition and his references to our understanding of the Arthurian tradition, as constructed by Malory, Tennyson and T. H. White. My aim is to demonstrate how Pratchett constructs Tiffany Aching as an Arthurian palimpsest, alluding to what came before whilst subverting and challenging the very texts from which she is imagined. In my first chapter I analyze the third Tiffany Aching book, Wintersmith, as an example of the Arthurian story of the Fisher King. I also argue for Tiffany Aching herself, in the first two books, existing as a subversive, humanist, reversed Fisher King, who draws strength and power from the land rather than inflicting sterility upon it. In the second chapter I examine the Arthurian tradition of love triangles, and examine from a feminist, genderqueer perspective Pratchett’s habit of placing characters in roles outside of their traditional gender binaries. In the third chapter I look at Letitia Keepsake, a character introduced in I Shall Wear Midnight, and examine her subversive relationship to the Tennyson poem “The Lady of Shalott”.