Cultural Palimpsests: Terry Pratchett's New Fantasy Heroes

EVERY CULTURE HAS ITS HEROES. THEY APPEAR IN ITS ARTIFACTS, WHICH, AS Harriett Hawkins notes, both mirror and shape culture that creates them (xiii). Thus, a culture's heroes are not just result of, but actual participants in, discourse on heroism. A hero or heroine is a person who is admired, who exhibits noble character traits extraordinary degree, who does great deeds, who is at least implicitly superhuman, often linked gods, even immortal. In words of Bonnie Tyler, a hero is strong, sure, larger than life, and usually fresh from fight. (1) Heroes embody and defend a society's most important values. They are folk models of ideal member of a given society. Thus, changes in characteristics of heroes who appear in a society's cultural artifacts can be argued both affect and reflect developments within that society. It is against this background that I will examine Terry Pratchett's revisions of modern fantasy hero--who in turn is a specialized version of cultural hero--in order argue for a description of Pratchett's heroes as palimpsests. That is, at first, Pratchett simply ridicules heroic tradition, but then he moves on a complete and thorough reinvention. All of his reinscriptions overlay both concept of hero in general and concept of modern fantasy hero in particular. I will first offer brief sketches of these lower layers before exploring Pratchett's various versions. In reacting against previous types of hero, Pratchett scrapes clean surface, before reinscribing with his own type of hero. Just as present layer of a palimpsest contains traces of what went before, and will in turn shine through whatever comes after, so Pratchett's reinscriptions both reflect and contribute cultural discourse on heroes. Reading Pratchett's heroes as palimpsests reflecting and affecting our cultural discourse on heroes provides insights into workings of that discourse, such discourses in general, and way literature can, and often does, interact with them. Heroes and Cultural Discourse A discourse is a machine for producing statements. (2) Those who understand discourse are able read these statements as gestures towards meaning. In many cases, production is far less important than reception. Understanding of and participation in such discourses is usually intuitive and unconscious. (3) Heroes, however, are exceptional: The cultural discourse on heroism reflects part of a society's collective unconscious, and individual hero becomes an organ of group, whose function is to convey contents of (Neumann 423). That is, hero embodies part of social unconscious tell society what's on its mind. Heroes--be they actual people or figures from legend, myth, or fiction--are a nexus of traits, characteristics, and actions their society admires and respects (Westfahl 377). To a certain extent, they are site of cultural discourse on heroism. Furthermore, hero serves as a model for development of individuality in humankind generally, that is, his or her interpretation and performance of heroic discourse embodies a social ideal that may be exception, but [...] is also exemplar of a process which subsequently affects all individuals in varying degrees (Neumann 426). Finally, genuine hero actively participates in process and adopts a responsible towards it (425). The hero is consciously aware of part of society's unconscious he or she embodies, and so is able not just participate but to take up attitude towards discourse, whether that manifests in the form of creation, or of interpretation, or of action (426). Heroes are not just a site of cultural discourse on heroism; they are interpreters and performers of that discourse, they help shape it, and they can change it. …