Discussion Main / CruelElephant

Corrected this:

• In the Discworld novel Soul Music, the roadie to the Band with Rocks In is a strangely shaped troll called Asphalt, who is rather conical in shape. He explains this is down to his previous career as a zookeeper tending to elephants, who derived amusement from sitting on him. Repeatedly.

Not sure where the editor got the idea that Asphalt was conical (with the implications that he'd been shoved up the elephant's rectum): the book just describes him as being extremely short and wide due to being squashed. Here is the relevant paragraph (p. 202 in my paperback):

"It looked like a troll, except that it was shorter than a dwarf. It wasn't smaller than a dwarf — what Asphalt lacked in height he made up in breadth and, while on the subject, also in smell."

No mention anywhere of him being conical, just flattened and badly-smelling (which makes sense, given that his previous job was mucking out after animals at the circus).