When People Talk About Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, They Usually Talk About Death, Susan, That Very Poignant

When people talk about Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, they usually talk about Death, Susan, that very poignant monologue about how children need to believe in Santa so that they can one day believe in Truth and Justice and Compassion, smaller fantasies to be ready for the really big ones.

I don't think we ever talk enough about the Tooth Fairy.

Teatime's plan to kill the Hogfather is simple. He breaks in the Tooth Fairy's palace, kill the Tooth Fairy to stop them from interfering, and use a wizard to complete a ritual using all the teeths there collected as sacrifice so that children all over the world can stop believing in the Hogfather, which was originally a Boar God of Dawn celebrated as the victory of light and human spirit over the darkest night of the year, thus killing him off by removing people's belief on him.

Now, the Hogfather is, again, an incredibly important part of humanity, but the Tooth Fairy? Oh they are far more than that.

If Hogfather was born from the embers of human's hope and spirit, huddled together in the dark of night to live another day, the Tooth Fairy was the exact opposite. The Tooth Fairy used to be the first Boogeyman, the first creature that goes bump in the night that was ever created by the children's mind, who see all the dark and skittering shapes, the teeth and claws and yellow eyes filled with hunger for their flesh, and give them a simple, monstrous shape, one they can recognize.

And they are very important for that. They are the little fears, the safe ones, the ones that won't really hurt you unless you let them, the ones that teach children that fears and monsters can always be overcome in the end.

The Tooth Fairy, filled to the brim with teeth, is inhabited by every childhood fear that was ever created on the Discworld, powerful fears that will kill you if you're not ready for them, an abusive mother, a violent bully, spiders and rats and angry dogs. Because those fears are necessary to human nature.

And the Fairy knows this. Over the millennia, as humanity and the children they terrorised grew, the Fairy grew to love them, because that was their role, ultimately, not to harm, but to protect.

That's why they trade teeth for gold, that's why Boogeymen exist, they are there to save children from those that would seek to harm them.

The only way they know how.

That's honestly incredible as a concept.