I fell behind a while ago (around the end of MR) and have been slowly catching up since, but there was one review I knew I had to come and comment on

Mark's been waiting for this so long!

Yes! The adaptation of Terry's short story featuring Cohen and a troll

The anime blush was my addition :D

I imagine it looks like this

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TV shows weren't constrained by the Local Governments Act, libraries were

Yes, Herenna's whole characterisation seemed to be that she wore real armour, not fantasy bikini armour (and even that didn't stop Josh Kirby depicting her that way on the cover)

It shows how much Pratchett grew as a writer over the course of his career

Thanks!

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When did Mal get promoted? I mustn't've been paying attention

I mentioned this in Rot13 a few sections ago and was asked to bring it up again when it was safe, and with Mark's delight at there finally being canonical queer characters I think it might be time

Just a note to say I'm not an expert in the subject so I may get things wrong

Before 2003 (2000 in Scotland) there was a law in Britain that became known as Section 28. It was part of the Local Government Act and stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28

What this effectively meant was that if you presented anything gay in a positive light, your book was not going to be stocked in any public library or school library. Publishers were unwilling to take that risk as libraries are (or were) the best way to get a large readership for a book, especially in children's publishing. Even someone with as large a readership as Terry Pratchett couldn't do it before the law was repealed, so a new writer wasn't even going to get as far as getting an agent if they wrote queer stories

I don't think it's a coincidence that Pratchett's first book after the repeal was this one. I haven't read any interviews with him on the subject so if anyone knows of any please link them below

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