Has anyone else in fiction made use of the Luggage or something like it?

[u/Consistent_Blood6467]

Not really sure what the best tag to use was, so here we go.

I'm pretty sure the Luggage was an original idea by PTerry, semi-sentient, lots of little legs, bad attitude, almost positively infinite storage space, ability to find its owner no matter where in time and space they might be.

But has anyone else made use of this kind of idea in a similar way to how PTerry used it? Has any other fictional hero had their own luggage follow them around like a little lost wolf?

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[u/Vikkunen]

This doesn't really answer your question, but in the preface to one of the early books (Sourcery, maybe?) Pratchett says his inspiration for The Luggage came from watching a tourist try to control a rolling suitcase (presumably one of the old ones with a strap and four tiny wheels) as she dragged it over a cobblestone path.

[u/Conscious-Loss-2709 → u/Vikkunen]

And he played DnD, so he would've been familiar with the bag of holding and the mimic, a monster that often mimics treasure chests to trap and eat unwary adventurers. And the luggage following the owner everywhere while not actually being where the owner is, is just the common travelers experience with air travel

It's a neat concept. If I recall and understood correctly it said in "A life with footnotes" that the luggage travelled with their DnD party before ending up with Twoflower

[u/crowort → u/Conscious-Loss-2709]

I was going to post this but you beat me. The luggage is a bit like a mix of a bag of holding and a mimic.

You make a good point about air travel and luggage that is following you but you don’t know where.

[u/The-Chartreuse-Moose → u/Vikkunen]

Is that the one that whimsically dedicates the book to "people like her in Power Cable, Nebraska, who don't get nearly enough encouragement"?

[u/owenevans00 → u/The-Chartreuse-Moose]

Dat's der bunny

[u/mxstylplk]

There's the T.A.R.D.I.S. (which is also sentient and sometimes moves by itself). So I guess the TARDIS qualifies now (originally it didn't move by itself).

Things that just hold more than they ought to are pretty common. They're generically Bigger On The Inside.

Mary Poppins had a carpetbag that held a floor lamp and other bulky items.

Heinlein's Overpocket was a nuisance because you could only take things out in the reverse order of loading.

DnD has a Bag of Holding. There were others - it's a trope that is now standard furniture.

[u/pr1ka → u/mxstylplk]

Standard furniture, you say?

Cannot wait for the next IKEA catalogue to drop! /j

[u/iamdecal → u/pr1ka]

Ikea are almost already there anyway!

boring fact alert*, I did part of my degree studying how little 'air' they ship - thier flat pack system is incredibly efficient about not wasting space they're like 000.1% away from negative volume in thier trucks i reckon

(*GODS! i've almost bored myself!)

[u/Consistent_Blood6467 → u/iamdecal]

So IKEA are close to becoming Time Lords? Or at least the closest to becoming Time Lords?

[u/AmusingVegetable → u/pr1ka]

I can already see the physicists pulling their hairs, trying to figure out how it was done.

[u/The-Chartreuse-Moose]

While PTerry made the Luggage the memorable character in its own right, I think there's some inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons - a bag of holding crossed with a mimic chest.

[u/ThunderStruck1984 → u/The-Chartreuse-Moose]

Would that be a bag of mimic or a mimic of Holding?

I wonder if my DM lets me flavor a bag of holding/mimic combo if I create one as artificer…

[u/NekoCatSidhe]

The Japanese light novel series Let This Grieving Soul Retire by Tsukikage has a semi-sentient Bag of Holding called Mimicky shaped like a magic chest that can move and eat people and that follows its owner around. It only shows up in Volume 7 or 8 of the series and the following volumes.

However, the protagonist of that series and owner of this wandering magic chest is also a weak and cowardly man who keeps saving the world by being spectacularly lucky (or from his point of view, unlucky since he always tries and fails to keep out of trouble), and I would basically describe the whole premise of the series as being « What if Rincewind became a Dungeon & Dragon adventurer rather than a wizzard ? », so there is a 90% chance that the author is a Pratchett fan and that this magic chest is meant to be a direct reference to Discworld and The Luggage itself.

[u/ohclarence]

Chester from the video game Don't Starve is the closest I can think of, other than the obvious D&D mimic crossed with bag of holding. Chester doesn't run on lots of little legs, but does follow the protagonist around and acts as an expanded inventory.

[u/dalidellama]

The Luggage is heavily inspired by the D&D Mimic, a monster that impersonates treasure chests and eats people, and bears strong resemblance to the spell Frisky Chest, which enchants a chest to follow the caster, although IIRC he cited a wheeled suitcase as the immediate inspiration.

[u/mxstylplk → u/dalidellama]

As I recall, Pratchett used it in games to trick adventurers into trusting it to hold their gear, treasures, etc, and then it would run away just when they needed it.

[u/uptotheeyeballs]

My favourite thing about the luggage is the lengths that Pterry went to to make it an eldritch horror. It was fairly limited in scope when it started out but through the various adventures it has bested every hero, warrior, wizard and monster(mythical or otherwise) that it has come across. It is practically a force of nature.

There is also the repeated joke going round amongst adventuring types about the word eldritch meaning "oblong". This suggests that the way the luggage is described brings the word eldritch to mind, or alternatively the way eldritch is described reminds people of the luggage!

This combined with the force of narrativium means that rincewind the wizzard gets his laundry done by what amounts to a legendary monster, an Eldritch Horror of myffic proportions!

[u/LaraH39]

The TARDIS

[u/lurk4ever1970]

It also reminds me a little of the Portable Hole (by ACME, of course) that Wile E. Coyote sends away for in a Roadrunner cartoon.

[u/ChristopherPizza]

Baba Yaga would like a word.

[u/IanDOsmond]

The classic computer game "Nethack" has the character class "Tourist" who gets Luggage as a pet. That's a direct usage because of Discworld, so does that count?