As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
- Teatime's first appearance hints that he's the perfect person to take out Not-Santa. The very first thing he does on the page? Sneak into someplace undetected through the chimney.
- When Violet tells Bilious she's a member of Offler's League of Temperence, Susan reasons that it makes sense that Offler's followers would forego alcohol, as crocodiles don't go into bars often. There is a fairly well-known joke about a man walking into a bar with a crocodile under one arm, but considering how it's not a drink that's put in the reptile's mouth, it makes sense that it wouldn't want to go there voluntarily...
- The not-so-Good King Wencelas whom Death-as-Hogfather confronts is seen forcing a profoundly embarrassed and ashamed woodcutter to accept some Hogswatch charity in the form of the leftovers from his feast. In other words, by "giving" something in a way that causes such distress in the recepient, the king is committing an anti-crime.
- The Analogy Backfire when Teatime declares himself to be a guard's worst nightmare is framed as a joke, but in hindsight it makes some sense for him to take Teatime literally: that's actually what the tower's defenses are.
- The boogeyman at the start of the book asks Susan if she's a witch. Susan doesn't give it a name, but she uses textbook Headology to protect her charges. One of the witch books says that if a man thinks that monsters are after him, a psychologist would persuade him that monsters don't exist, and a headologist would give him a large stick and a chair to stand on. Susan knows there's no point in persuading children that monsters don't exist because they know they do, so she taught them that monsters can be defeated.
- This in turn is a reference to the GK Chesterton quote Neil Gaiman references in Coraline: Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that monsters are real, but because they tell us monsters can be defeated.
- Susan laments the creation of what Miss Tick calls Prohibitive Monsters—monsters adults make to prevent children from performing certain actions. The ones Susan encounters are largely pointless; they punish children for stepping on cracks, sucking thumbs, or writing with their left hands. But in Wee Free Men, Miss Tick's example is Jenny Greenteeth, who was made to prevent children from drowning in ponds. The first Boogeyman doesn't just protect children by taking their teeth. He is the first Prohibitive Monster, and he protects children by making them afraid of dangerous places—especially dark places.
- Let's look at the people in the Tooth Fairy's castle who didn't start acting like children: Violet, Bilious, Susan, Mr. Brown, and Medium Dave.
- Susan, Mr. Brown, and Medium Dave kept their heads because they're the designated adults: Susan is the inner babysitter, Mr. Brown is father, uncle, or grandfather to the thieves, and Medium Dave is Banjo's big brother. And Medium Dave fell to pieces when his mother arrived, since the big brother is only the adult when the parents are gone.
- Violet is a Tooth Fairy, even if she's never been to the castle.
- Bilious never had a childhood, and spawned from the adult concept of hangovers. He doesn't have anything to revert to.
- Going off of above, Medium Dave remained levelheaded.
- Death says at the end that children need to believe in little lies like the Hogfather, so they can believe the big lies, like justice and mercy. There's something else that children need to experience: loss of faith. Children eventually grow up and stop believing in the Hogfather, or someone says he's not real. They need to disbelieve the little lies so they can doubt the big lies. Vorbis suffered after his death because he lived without doubt his whole life, and when he realized that he never heard Om, he was catatonic for a century. Young Vimes had his faith broken on that night thirty years ago, and was left a cynical bastard, but he rose from his shell and became the best copper on the Disc because—not in spite of—his broken past.
- Death displays specific knowledge about horses - "any horse that grins is planning something" and "it's more hygienic to have a horse in the bedroom rather than the kitchen." He's had a wide variety of steeds, so yes he knows something about dealing with horses.
- When the excess belief starts to allow other gods and fairies to start existing, why is it that only the wizards wind up creating them? Back in Reaper Man, it's mentioned that the words of wizards have power, which is why when there's excess life, their curse words bring things to life. It's the same principle, except with belief instead of life.
- The first Tooth Fairy was something originally created to scare children, but ended up protecting them because of his compassion for them. Banjo, who's the next Tooth Fairy, is on first appearances a very scary man who's actually very kind and sweet-hearted underneath.
Fridge Horror
- Given how the new Death acted in Reaper Man, Teatime has no idea how lucky he was that he didn't manage to actually pull off "the big one."
- For extra Fridge Horror: That could have actually been a backup plan of the Auditors to get rid of their primary opponent.
