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

Hogswatch ISNT at christmas! It's at New years eve! Read the Hogfather and read the Discworld diarys!

It's true that Hogswatch is at the end of the Discworld year, but it has been said many times that the real-world equivalent of Hogswatch is a combination of New Year/Hogmanay and Christmas... Think how many Hogswatch traditions translate to our Christmas traditions?

It's actually before Christmas.

Usually it's on the first weekend of December, but this year it fall on the second weekend.

It's thoroughly celbrated in Wincanton. See www.artificer.co.uk

Come on people, of course its Christmas, uve got Santa(most of the time) stupid party games and booze. Just because the timing makes sense, doesn't mean its wrong. Why xactly ISN'T is christmas? give me one good reason.

Because Christ has nothing to do with the Disc.

There's no Christ-parellel on the Discworld... I guess if Terry had written a Christ-like redeemer figure into the Omnian religion, it would have made it unambiguously clear that doctrinaire Christianity was the target, as well as offering less-evolved American Bible Belters more reasons to burn the books.

As it stands, Omnianism could be any or all of the Big Three monotheistic patriarchal religions, as the reader of "Small Gods" can see elements of Christianity (the Exquisition),Judaism (wild-eyed prophets of doom wandering the desert and made even more swivel-eyed by mushroom consumption), and Islam (doctrinaire religion evolving in an inhospitable desert). In "Small Gods", it's a trinitarian poke at all three.

Although by the time of "Hogfather" and Constable Visit, Omnianism has become something akin to Jehovah's Witnessing, right down to the JW refusal to celebrate Christmas. (If Omnianism is a default religion on the disc, another reason why Hogswatch canot be at "Christmas"?)

I can't help thinknig that if Terry had elected to have a Christ-figure in the Discworld (shades of Zarquon in h2g2?)it would have become something like "Life of Brian" with very literal-minded Discworlders questioning every precept and reaching conclusions of the "Obviously it's not to be taken literally, he really means ALL manufacturers of dairy produce" kind.

And there'd be no point, as the pythons had already covered this ground!

Well, if memeory serves, the Hogfather was on at Christmas! Does that count?

I'm just happy to have a party when it's cold and dark... And I dunno how the solstices work on a discworld... But they work just fine on this ball we sit on

Hmmm... I suppose if the Discworld is a roughly circular disc, and the Sun's orbit is elliptical, then there are going to be moments in its orbit where parts of the Disc are correspondingly nearer to or further away from the sun for appreciable periods of time (hence Disc seasons) and because of the relative angles of Sun and Disc, you are going to have a shortest and a longest day in various areas. Just as there are areas hardly warmed by the Sun (the frozen Hub) and areas which get a lot of the Sun virtually every day (the Nef desert and the steaming jungles of Howondaland) and which are equivalernt to equitorial.

Just don't ask me to work out the maths of it...

so can hogswatch be around the time of the new year/winter solstice etc? Sounds reasonable to me dammit, it's only a bleedin archetype after all!

Hogswatch has elements of Christmas. It also has elements of various other things. At the risk of offending certain Fox News commentators, it takes place "during the holidays."

Hogswatch falls at the end of the Common Year. That being the 400 days that measure the season from Winter's Edge until the snows come again and Hogswatch is celebrated. Thus Hogswatchday is the first day of the dread month of Ick.