Talk:Book:Carpe Jugulum/Annotations

Deleted comment and discussion:-

Corgi PB (British) p. 279: Magrat Garlick and Nanny Ogg are escaping into Überwald with Princess Esmerelda. Magrat is being gloomy about their prospects for survival, as they are entering ever more deeply into vampire country. The dialogue, in the hijacked vampires' coach, runs:

And it could be worse said Nanny.

How?

Well...there could be snakes in here with us

Could this be a nod to the plot of the film Snakes on a Plane?

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Snakes on a Plane released 2006. Carpe Jugulum published 1998. Terry's very clever, not prescient. --Old Dickens 19:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Whoops... red face, didn't check respective release dates. But the film aside, I wonder if the concept of "snakes on a plane" has been around for some time, as a metaphor for the worst possible thing happening in the worst possible place, of being trapped with one's fears? All the makers of the film needed to do was to take a frightening thought that was already in the public domain and flesh it out with a plot... (Q: how to prove the phrase was there before the film?)--AgProv 20:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

www.urbandictionary notes an early sighting of the phrase in early 2005 (predating the film by a year) and suggests it was already in wide use before the film to denote a situation where the worst that can possibly happen is happening... "combining three of mankind's greatest and most potent fears: of flying in aircraft, of serpents, and of being trapped in a restricted space/being buried alive". Interesting: wonder if it can be attributed back further in time as a phrase?--AgProv 22:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

And Snopes.com records variations on a theme of the urban legend of the snake(s) in the car (or train!), which bites the driver/passenger, or otherwise causes disproportionate terror and damage in a closed confined space with no opportunity to escape. Therefore a routine journey becomes an occassion of terror and crawling dread, giving the urban myth its force and power. These are dated back to 1988 or earlier...[1]

I was curious as to why Nanny's very specific choice of words seemed to evoke a film that, as Old Dickens pointed out, wasn't to be released for another eight years. But how simple, when you realise what's happening: TP is evoking an urban myth which carries some force and power behind it. Enough force and power, in fact, for the film-makers to consider the same urban myth some years later, and think Hey, if we update this as "Snakes on a Plane, then we've got a blockbuster horror thriller!

We could have our annotation after all - to the urban myth, and not the film! --AgProv 22:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)