Talk:Sto Plains

"The idea that the inhabitants of the Sto Plains were the most technologically advanced, literate - basically better - is a parody of the notional "Western World" of Roundworld, whereby the white nations of England, Germany, France, Holland and Spain dictated the limits of knowledge and understanding..."

Interesting idea, but I'd argue the Sto states really only reflect a smaller fraction of Roundworld's Western Europe. France has its mirror-image in Quirm; Germany finds its reflection in Überwald. Slavonic Eastern Europe really begins in Borogravia and Zlobenia and beyond. As we see in Witches Abroad, there is a substantial (but as yet un-named) area out rimwards towards Genua, that carries all the vibe of Roundworld's Spain and Portugal. If Lancre (Lancashire? Northern, hard-headed, rural) and Ankh-Morpork (London - the cockney spiv mentality, et c) are the Discworld analogues for various kinds of Englishness, then that only leaves the Benelux countries to be represented by the Sto states.

Given that cabbages are the cash crop and common currency, Sto Helit = Britain's nearest European neighbour after France, Belgium. (look at the fields and fields and fields of Brussels sprouts). With no North Sea to set firm national boundaries, there'd be a certain amount of Eastern England there too - Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent - fading into really extreme dialects of Morporkian, even distinctly different languages, that would correspond with Flemish, Dutch, Frisian, Luxembourgois, Plattdeutsch, etc. So if Sto Helit = Belgium, Sto Lat = Luxembourg. Sto Kerrig = Holland? (Elsewhere, I've pulled together odd snippets in the canon and comments by TP, together with a liberal dash of speculation, to suggest that in Howondaland, there is a lost colony rather like Fourecks, but peopled by white emigrants from Ankh-Morpork and Sto Kerrig, who speak a recognisable version of the Sto Kerrigian tongue adapted for local use. But this is rather like saying South Africa was colonised by Dutch people who still, hundreds of years on, speak a recognisable Dutch dialect. A crazy proposition and utter fantasy. But I've got a lot of fanfic out of the idea!)

In fairness, it has to be said that in the early Discworld books and some marginal writings of TP himself, there is a certain Polish vibe about Sto Lat (the name itself is from a Polish folksong). However, the introduction of Borogravia and Zlobenia from Monstrous Regiment onwards has pushed the Eastern European/Polish zone of the Discworld a long way further on past the Sto Plains, much where you'd expect to find it, pushed hard up against the analogue of Germany/Austria. --AgProv 22:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Big Cabbage

In the almanack there is considorable mention of the town called big cabbage, howver it only appears to be menioned in the almanack, Is it worthy of a page of it's own? ==BOZZ 13:55, 24 November 2010 (CET) Big Cabbage also gets bigged up in the earl pages of Making Money as the location of Moist's former mentor in things larcenous. --AgProv 20:36, 13 January 2012 (CET)

Ankh-Morpork isn't just London

From my reading Ankh-Morpork is a mix of many big cities around the world. New York is quite prominent in the mix for 1.