Talk:The Neverlands

Hmm. As the Discworld evolves, its referents to Roundworld geography move with it. "Sto Lat" and the rest, with the name straight out of a Polish folksong, were in the time of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic meant to be part of a vague and strange Other somewhere outside Ankh-Morpork. So they initially got a Slavonic/Polish vibe. Then the perception of the world changed. With the cabbage economy, you get references to a wide flat Sto Plains growing a lot of brassica, and things like "Sto Lat Sprouts" (Brussels?) figured heavily. So with Quirm evolving into a Discworld France and Überwald/Borogravia becoming the Germany-Bavaria-Switzerland-Austria continuum, the three Sto states started to fit the mental map as a Benelux thing: Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland. But then you see how close to Ankh-Morpork they actually are.... even though if the North Sea were not there, you could see a situation where there'd be no clear dividing line between English and Dutch/Flemish - the two language groups would shade into each other. Just listen to old boys from Suffolk talking to each other. English words, Dutch cadences. Then the Slavonic world moved further out, to Zlobenia and Far Überwald with Otto Chriek and others. As you'd expect, if Ankh-Morpork and Lancre have a vaguely "English" feel to them. Everything else that's "European" would map to a relative distance nearer or further away.

And now Terry, or his co-workers (or his heirs?) move Holland to the other side of the continent altogether, next to "Italy". Feels wrong. And I'm not going to alter my fanfic writings to account for this.... Holland in my overlapping Discworld will forever be Sto Kerrig, thank you very much, along with its stroeppy Howondalandian offshoot! AgProv (talk) 14:58, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

With no mention of tulips, cheese, herring or cafés full of aromatic smoke and giggling, the place sounds more like Peter Pan's territory than the original home of this wiki. It also abuts that other storybook land, Genua. I'd agree to ignore the dikes as overly speculative or coincidental. --Old Dickens (talk) 15:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm beginning to wonder if the original conception of the Neverlands was Holland and this was a set of rough unformed notes in Terry's deep Stack of un-used bits. Whoever accessed Terry's notes to build on them for the Atlas may well have put together odd notes taken at different times and condensed them together for an Atlas article that seems to conflate two different sources. (and in keeping with the way JRR Tolkein wrote more books after he died than before, I'm cynical enough to consider that before Terry's wish for all his files, rough drafts and notes to be erased on his death was scrupulously honoured and the "Delete" button duly pressed, somebody took copies.)AgProv (talk) 12:10, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

So, am I more cynical for wondering if the Emporium crew didn't make it up out of whole cloth? I don't think there was ever a mention of the area in the text. --Old Dickens (talk) 14:41, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

That is possible; I've just checked the original Discworld Mapp and while the shape of the coast in that area is right, no such country is actually named. There's just a blank space. Now what did Terry call his back-file of notes, drafts, loose ideas and rough bits - was it the Stack or the Pit? AgProv (talk) 22:25, 14 April 2016 (UTC) Got it - it was called The Stack. I'm betting it still exists. AgProv (talk) 21:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC)