h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've only ever read a couple of Discworld books and I've never come across The Luggage. Would someone mind explaining to me exactly what it does...? Thanks!

what ever it wants


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WITH ATTITUDE!

The luggage is made out of sapient pearwood. (Sapient pearwood comes from trees that evolved near the blast radius of a wizardly duel. They're full of magic.) It has the ability to follow its owner anywhere - through time, across dimensions, around the globe. Its mode of travel is several (sometimes hundreds) of little pink feet. It opens to deliver fresh laundry and sometimes eats the bad guys. It holds an apparently infinite array of items - like Mary Poppin's black bag.

and it can look at you...even though it doesn't have eyes
pluss I do belive if you put dirty clothes in they come out clean and folded or something...I do belvie I read that in one of the books

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it also has a family! it meets another "luggage" and next time they are seen, trailing behind them are several "miniture luggages"
i think this was in interesting times

oh that's right


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And in The Last Continent it explores its sexuality... well.. at least it paints its little toenails.

and gets a nice shimmery coating...

As a student battling my way to Oxford train station with a big heavy suitcase (couldn't afford a taxi!), I longed for a Luggage to kick the out of all the tourists who unexpectedly stopped dead in front of me. And something that could take all my possessions inside but still stay outwardly the same size - useful when migrating home for the summer

It also desires the complete and total destruction of every other sentient life-form. Don't forget that.

American tourists don't count as that, do they? Never mind.

*puts on "trying to be nice to people even when I'm in a foul mood" hat*

Better than the flying carpet that Nobbs, Colon and Vetinari use, though!

Here's what the Discworld Companion (2nd Edn, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, 1997, pp 266-267)has to say:

Luggage, the. In appearance: a largish, metal-bound chest which is capable of extruding a large number of little legs, ending in horny-nailed, calloused feet, to help it move about. It is made of sapient pearwood, a magical timber which can cause its constructs to portray characteristics similar to that set of characteristics known as 'life'.
Pearwood constructions can be set to do small tasks, such as carry water or guard property. Since it is a magical substance sapient pearwood is impervious to magic, and in the Sto Plains is much sought after for the manufacture of wizards' staffs, since its capacity for storing magic is up to ten times greater than that of other leading timbers.
In the case of the Luggage, built to serve as a self-propelled travel accessory and bodyguard, one of the sets of characteristics know as 'life' is a particular characteristic known as 'faithfulness' and another one known as 'murderous intent'.
When it opens its lid - often in order to snap it hard on something it considers to be threatening its owner - the Luggage may reveal clean laundry, or a king's ransom in gold. As often as not, though, it displays teeth like bleached beechwood and a tongue as large as a palm leaf and red as mahogany.
Although it has a keyhole, it cannot be opened when it is in a locked mood.
The Luggage will follow its owner everywhere. The word is absolute - everywhere. One use for sapient pearwood in the Agatean Empire - where it is quite common - used to be the manufacture of grave goods that the dead could be certain of taking with them.
The Luggage is currently owned, or at least chooses to follow, the wizard Rincewind. Its progress across the Disc is marked by debris, people who get nervous at the sound of hurrying footsteps, and communities who are unusually polite to strangers.
No other item in the entire chronicle of travel accessories has quite such a history of mystery and grievous bodily harm.