Fools

[vilakins]

I’ve just been reading Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters and I can’t help but wonder whether the Fool, AKA Verence II, is based on Vila. OK, I know that Pratchett despised B7 but maybe he once saw The Keeper and decided to use Vila’s Fool as a character. After all:

• The Fool is a clever man pretending not to be
  
• He has “a face like a spaniel that’s just been kicked”.
  
• He’s of a nervous disposition
  
• When Magrat really looked at him, she realised that the Fool was not a little man. He was at least of average height but he made himself small, by hunching his shoulders, bandying his legs, and walking in a half-crouch…

I suppose it’s just coincidence, but he talks rather like Vila too--but then, so does Rincewind.