#Angua: after the badass discworld character | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the0phrastus · 2 years

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More from my series of Terry Pratchett Discworld character studies. See Sergeant Angua in the last post.

Cheery Littlebottom is a disgraced Alchemist who quickly became the forensics expert in the City Watch, and went on to spark a gender revolution. We first meet Lance Constable Littlebottom in the book Feet of Clay. She's a new recruit in the Watch. She's originally from Überwald, and was in the Ankh-morpork Alchemist's Guild for a while, but was a bit careless with the volatile compounds and kicked out. She's like a one woman CSI department, so their loss is Ankh-morpork's gain. Even though she's not a main character in any of the books, Cheery is definitely one of my favorites.

Sergeant Detritus of the Ankh Morpork City Watch. Another one of my favorite Terry Pratchett characters. Detritus is a troll who’s pretty green as we follow him through the book Men at Arms, but he’s already a sergeant in Feet of Clay. One of the weapons he favors is a re-purposed siege crossbow named the “Piecemaker” that he’s modified to shoot multiple bolts at once.

Carrot Ironfoundersson was raised in a mine near Copperhead but ends up making the journey to the great city Ankh Morpork to join the Watch. Commander Vimes and a few others in the Watch possess a strict and streetwise morality, Carrot enters with an edition of The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities Ankh and Morpork--and he's ready to use. What makes Carrot unique--and so different from anyone else wielding a book of laws--is his ability to interpret a law and balance that against an examination of his own perspective and the motives of others to resolve any problems. It's this simple wisdom that usually carries him through the fray--that, and his joyful spirit. Carrot approaches his position in the Watch with such cheer and honesty that everyone around him has no choice but to get swept up in the sheer force of his upbeat will. His genuineness and optimism balances out and sometimes runs roughshod over the cynicism and distrust that's the baseline sentiment of the Ankh Morpoork City Watch.

My favorite witch, and quite possibly my all-time favorite Terry Pratchett character, Esmerelda Weatherwax, 'Esme' as Nanny Ogg calls her, and 'Granny Weatherwax' at some point to those living around Ramtops. She is said to embody all three roles in a coven (maiden, mother, and crone), and although she's always pictured as the last, in the book Lords and Ladies, we get a glimpse of just how badass she was when she was younger. So for this study I wanted to paint her as she was in her mid-fifties, out for a stroll through a mountain meadow with her favorite swarm, at a time when she earned the name 'Aaoograha hoa' from the trolls (She Who Must Be Avoided).

Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari is the definitive benevolent dictator. He's an honored graduate of the Guild of Assassins, rebel fighter against Homicidal Lord Winder, killer of tyrants, and friend (possibly more) of the vampire Lady Margolotta of Überwald. Pratchett kept his cards close with Vetinari, and all of us--readers and Ankh-Morpork citizens alike--remain in the dark about most of the details of Vetinari's life, habits, vulnerabilities. This may be one of the reasons Night Watch is one of my favorite Pratchett books--because we get to see Havelock when he's a young man, at school, learning the guild craft of assassination and camouflage. We get to see a side of the future patrician that we'll never see again, but after one read of Night Watch the character hints and pieces of his nature you pick up will follow you and fill in the shadows of every scene with Vetinari in every other book. He's one my favorite fictional characters.

#saltwaterwitch #Terry Pratchett #Discworld

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morporkian-cryptid · 4 years

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I need to yell about the new Watch trailer

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY EVEN TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH

I wanted to add a cut, but Tumblr won’t let me. So... yeah. Expect a lot of capslock yelling.

That purple thing at the beginning is Ankh-Morpork? WHY ARE THERE SKYSCRAPERS AND NO TOWER OF ARTS?

“the sudden appearance of this creature” is timed with Vime’s disappearance with the magic lightning bolt. But it’s about the dragon. Way to confuse the viewer.

The dragon is visible during a fraction of a second. I had to pause the video to see it. What’s the fucking point of showing it, then??

Vetinari is blinking way too often. WHERE’S THE COLDNESS? WHERE’S THE CHARISMA?

...does Vimes have a MOHAWK?

Why is he wearing eye-liner?????

The dog is either Gaspode or Wuffles, probably Wuffles judging by the collar, and he looks like neither of them

...is that a SURVEILLANCE CAMERA behind Vimes???

Vime’s badge is more or less okay, at least it has Ankh-Morpork’s symbol on it

THE NEON SIGN. NO. JUST NO. And the Watch House looks like it’s made of concrete, which... No.

Are those bamboos???

Besides the fact that Cheery’s way too tall for a dwarf and DOESN’T HAVE A BEARD???????? DAMMIT????? , I really like her style

I am gay for Angua von Überwald

For a second I thought Angua had a gonne and I nearly burst a vessel, but thank the gods it’s only a crossbow

Carrot is visible for just a split second

SYBIL’S SWAMP DRAGON!! :D (one of the rare good points of this trailer)

Excuse me but SYBIL RAMKIN IS FAT. I refuse this caricature of a magazine model. I can accept that she isn’t white (even though that goes against her identity as a diverted symbol of the rich nobility) but FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS LET HER BE FAT! FUCKIT!

Vimes’ eyebrows are more expressive than Vetinari’s. I’m already angry that they made Vetinari into a woman for no fucking reason, but if this actress doesn’t know how to lift an eyebrow I swear to the gods I will sue BBC America. SHE SHOULD HAVE RAISED AN EYEBROW IN THIS SCENE

WHY ARE THERE ELECTRICAL WIRE EVERYWHERE?? THIS IS A MEDIEVAL CITY JUST BEFORE THE COAL INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION WHY DO THEY HAVE ELECTRICITY

Oh hey Cheery has a beard now? ........fuck, please tell me she didn’t shave after coming out as a woman 0_0

Why show the very beginning of Angua’s transformation and not outright her wolf form? People who don’t know the books won’t understand anything and people who already know... already know, so it’s pointless :/

Sybil is cool and badass but she’s not Sybil

All the clips are way too short to introduce any of the characters, or even understand anything about what’s going on, if I hadn’t stopped the video every second I wouldn’t have seen Carrot, or the dragon

Showing the iconograph imp is completely useless if you don’t explain what it is :/

WHY DOES VIMES HAVE AN ELECTRIC GUITAR? WHY IS THERE A ROCK CONCERT? WHY IS THERE THE MUSICIANS’ GUILD’S LOGO BEHIND THEM WHEN THEY ARE EXPRESSLY AGAINST ROCK MUSIC? ROCK MUSIC DOESN’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE IT DISAPPEARED WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

VIMES HAS A MOHAWK

ANGUA HAS A MOHAWK

IS THAT CARROT PLAYING THE BATTERY??? CARROT WOULD NEVER PLAY ROCK MUSIC OR WEAR MAKEUP WHY THE FUCK

Vimes flipping Vetinari... just... no

“No Sir” is the only redeeming thing in this shit show

...There’s no number on Vimes’ badge. Okay that’s just a detail, but the number is kind of an important detail.

THE TAGLINE IN BRIGHT PINK FONT? WHY BRIGHT PINK? W H Y???

I really like Angua’s chara design (because... gay) but it’s got nothing to do with her descriptions in the books. AT ALL.

CHEERY IS ALMOST AS TALL AS CARROT which is ironic considering that Carrot is technically a dwarf, but... still

WHY DOESN’T CHEERY HAVE A BEARD SHE SHOULD HAVE A BEARD FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS PLEASE GIVE THIS DWARF HER BEARD BACK

Sybil... Where is the real Lady Sybil Ramkin... SHE IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A VALKYRIE AND INSPIRE WARRIOR CHANTS SHE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE A FUCKING TWIG!!!!! GIVE US OUR SYBIL BACK!!!

THERE IS NOTHING RIGHT IN THIS FUCKING SHIT SHOW WHAT THE FUCK

If it weren’t Discworld, it would be cool, but they can’t make this and try to sell it as Discworld. They’re trying to forcefully modernize this universe to appeal to a larger audience, and in the process trampling everything that made the book series actually modern and just... HAVE A PURPOSE. Cheery’s beard isn’t just a beard, it’s a defining elements of the whole debate around dwarves’ gender. Sybil’s fatness is necessary to showing that she can be badass AND fat. Carcer.......... the fandom has already delved into why making Carcer black goes directly AGAINST the message his character was originally supposed to convey. Also why do they show him for two seconds in the trailer with no context or explanation whatsoever? And I will not talk about Vetinari or I might start actually screaming.

The clips are way too fast to understand anything unless you pause the video every second. You can only understand/notice the characters’ introductions if you already know them and have followed the casting process. They didn’t introduce any plot line - the lightning and Carcer are shown for just two seconds without explanation, the dragon is in one clip not even lasting a full second, the word “dragon” is never even uttered, nor is it stated to be a threat at all... I showed it to a friend who has never read the Watch books, and they said they hadn’t even understood that Vimes was a cop and the Watch was the police. This trailer is trying to cram in all the characters, plot lines and mostly the universe’s frankly questionable redesign, without actually saying anything.

I’ve changed my mind, I’m going to watch the series when it comes out, so that I can see firsthand how bad it is. I don’t have any expectations so I can’t be disappointed.

#discworld #BBC America The Watch #long post #rant #capslock

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bluekaddis · 3 years

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Ten Female Characters

I was tagged by @laurelsofhighever (and also, for similar list, by @lethendralis-paints) so I answer in one post :)

Rules: list ten favourite female characters from ten different fandoms, then tag ten people

In no particular order:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist (manga and Brotherhood) - Riza Hawkeye (THE QUEEN)

2. Trylogia - Aleksandra Billewiczówna (I can’t help it, I was basically named after her)

3. The Office US - Pam Beesley (relatable on many levels)

4. Harry Potter - Minerva McGonagall (badass professor)

5. Jane Austin novels - Elizabeth Bennet (so iconic)

6. Downton Abbey - Violet Crowley (retirement goals)

7. Discworld - Angua (I love many Discworld women but she is also a werewolf so...)

8. The Vikings - Lagertha (the only reason I did not drop the show after season 4)

9. Gintama - Tsukuyo & Nobume (cheating a bit but I honestly can’t chose between them)

10. Dragon Age - Josephine & Cassandra (cheating even more but at this point I don’t care)

tagging: 10 people is a lot so just feel tagged if you want to list your own favs ;)

#tag game #thanks for the tag!

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wicker-nemesis · 5 years

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My top 5 media of 2018

So, as 2018 (and basically tumblr let’s be honest) draws to a close, I find myself wanting to rank the best media I, uh, participated in this year.

Yes, I should’ve done this every year. Yes, two (technically four) of them weren’t even made this year, I just found/completed them in 2018. But hey, might as well. Besides, one of them is a Secret Weapon, and I always make exceptions for Secret Weapons.

So, here they are...

5.) Assassin’s Creed Origins (Plus The Hidden Ones+Curse of the Pharaohs)

“Sleep? I never sleep. I just wait, in the shadows, and I will kill you all! Everyone, who sniffed the air that day, IN SIWA!”

I may not be 100% on board with Odyssey, but I can honestly say that Assassin’s Creed Origins is one of the best entries in Ubisoft’s clusterfuck of a series, and, along with Titanfall 2, my favourite next gen game.

It has an engaging, if dragging in places plot, interesting sidequests, an awesome three dimensional main character in Bayek (Who has more gravitas than Alexios and Kassandra IMO) , an amazing open world that is easy to spend hours just wandering around, trying to find it’s many secrets, and the DLC expansions make for actually substantial continuations. (Especially Curse of the Pharaohs)

4.) Star Wars Legends - Thrawn Trilogy

“Mourning the loss of a friend and teacher was both fitting and honorable, but to dwell unnecessarily on that loss was to give the past too much power over the present.”

Considering that I personally feel that the ST era is an utter debacle, I chanced upon the youtube audiobook versions of Heir To The Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command and got hooked onto them pretty fast.

OT characters getting justice and actual happy endings, new interesting characters like Thrawn (Basically an evil Vetinari), Paelleon, Talon Karrde, Mara Jade and Garm Bel Iblis, barley any rehashed plot points (apart from the throne room duel) and a plot that dosen’t feel like it goes nowhere at any point.

you can start listening to the audiobook on youtube here.

3.) Discworld - Feet Of Clay

“WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.”

Managing to find it in a box of ex-school library books, Feet Of Clay was my first foray into the Discworld city watch storyline, which I got hooked into almost immediately. A fantasy murder mystery set in an interesting world, with well written characters, like Vimes, Carrot, Angua, Cheery, Vetinari (Basically a good Thrawn),Based Dorfl, and some well written setpieces and character moments.

2.) Steven Universe - Ruby and Sapphire Wedding arc

“Ruby, my future used to look like one single, obvious stream, unbending 'til the end of time. In an instant, you pulled me from that destiny, and opened my eye to an explosion of infinite possible futures, streaking across space and time, altered and obliterated by the smallest force of will! What I mean is, you changed my life. And then, I changed your life. And now, we changed our lives.”

I got into Steven Universe after watching too much of something that’s best left in the 80′s, and the first thing I saw of that show was a cute moment between Steven and Garnet. Got hooked ever since. Ruby and Sapphire’s relationship feels actually more sincere to me than most relationships in most TV shows, (animated or otherwise) and is also an LGBT relationship that isn’t just revealed at the end of a shows run (Hell, they’ve basically married and SU still isn’t over yet).

The wedding arc feels like the incredibly adorable and badass culmination of not only their relationship, but of the Crystal Gems’s character development. Hell, it got me back into the show despite me almost dropping out of it before the PD reveal.

video of the first episode of the arc, Now We’re Only Falling Apart is here.

And now, rising from the woods, The Beornen brings us the greatest one of all...

1) Alton Towers - WICKER MAN/SW8

“You and the flames. It is time. HE IS HERE! What an honour, to see yourself bound in wicker, encased in his soul. Can you see yourself in him? THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE WICKER MAN TO RISE! TOGETHER, WE SHALL FEED THE FLAMES! Let the ceremony commence.”

After going on it twice, I can honestly say that the GCI Wicker Man/Secret Weapon 8 is a awesome themed experience that I have waited for since early 2016. Britain’s first wooden rollercoaster in 21 years, and with a theme that I was skeptical about at first, but has been executed extremely well. The ride is a good, not 100% perfect family wooden rollercoaster, elevated by a fantastic themeing, it’s own written language, music, pyrotechnics and a pre-show that manages to do in a minute what most blockbusters fail to do in an hour.

For those reasons, Wicker Man is my no 1 favourite media of 2018. So I urge you, come to Alton Towers...

#assassin's creed origins #Thrawn Trilogy #Discworld #Rupphire #Alton Towers #Wicker Man

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lytefoot · 6 years

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Percy Weasley for 003 :D Percy and Oliver (Perciver) for the shipping one! (002) And idk which fandoms you're in apart from HP, but any beloved book series apart from HP for the fandom ask game (001) It's okay if you don't want to do any of these ^.^

Okay, these are all fun.

For 001, I’m going to do Discworld, probably my longest-running continuous fandom.

Favorite character: This is a hard one, but Granny Weatherwax just edges out His Grace Commander Sir Samuel Blackboard Monitor Vimes. Honorable mention to Reacher Gilt, my favorite villain ever.

Least Favorite character: Also hard, because all the characters in Discworld are so compelling, even when they’re awful people… and a lot of the ones that started off as annoying one-shot gags grew into someone cool in the later books. Sergeant Colon, probably, simply because he really should have learned something by now.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): I really don’t do a lot of non-canon shipping in this setting. Carrot/Angua is definitely my favorite. Sam Vimes/Lady Sybil. Moist/Spike. I do like Susan/Lobsang, which isn’t quite canon. And Tiffany/Winter definitely had its charm.

Character I find most attractive: Angua, probably? Although lately I’ve been imagining Carrot looking like a red-haired Chris Hemsworth, so it’s close.

Character I would marry: Well, Lady Sybil is taken–she’s otherwise amazing. Maybe Rincewind? I’m a sucker for boys who need some looking after.

Character I would be best friends with: Either Agnes Nitt or Cheri Littlebottom.

A random thought: I really need to go back and reread some of these.

An unpopular opinion: I don’t know if this is unpopular or not, but I really don’t like reading the two books that were published after Sir Terry died. They’re so obviously unfinished, and it makes me very sad.

My canon OTP: Carrot/Angua. The scene at the end of The Fifth Elephant that ends with Angua asking, “Do you promise?” is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever read.

Non-canon OTP: None. I don’t really have any non-canon ships in this setting.

Most badass character: Granny Weatherwax, no doubt. *When she was bitten by a vampire, the vampire started craving tea and biscuits.*

Pairing I am not a fan of: Err… a lot of people ship Vimes/Vetinari, and other than that one scene in Feet of Clay, I just don’t see it.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Nobody. Seriously.

Favourite friendship: Angua and Cheri Littlebottom. I love the way these two grow into themselves together.

Percy and Oliver (Perciver) for the shipping one! (002)

when or if I started shipping it: So Oliver Wood is one of those characters that isn’t particularly on my radar, so I don’t actively ship it–but i do like it when I encounter them.

my thoughts: This is the kind of ship that “opposites attract” was made for.

What makes me happy about them: I like that their obsessiveness throws each other into stark relief.

What makes me sad about them: That we don’t actually see them interact in canon, like, at all? Harry is still largely blind to his classmates outside Ron and Hermione when Percy and Oliver are still at Hogwarts.

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: So not a big ship of mine, so I tend to see them as background in these sort of… slightly silly “lol everyone’s gay now!” fics (which always means somewhat lazy Drarry, because Draco is literally the only boy we could possibly ship Harry with, uh huh, there are no other super-obvious candidates) which are fun sometimes but I’m usually looking for something with a little more substance.

Things I look for in fanfic: Not really a ship I look for, but if I did, I’d want one that actually explores the relationship.

My kinks: For this ship? All the puns. Quidditch puns, Wood puns, quidditch speeches out of context!

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Percy: So JKR gave him a total blank slate love interest, who I’ve filled in to my satisfaction. (My Audrey is a muggle woman that Percy met while he was working on the repairs to the Floo network after the war. They had a muggle wedding. Arthur was ecstatic.) But I have no particular commitments to ships for either one of them–I’m willing to buy whatever you’re selling.

My happily ever after for them: Percy finally remembers which position Oliver plays. Oliver remembers which department Percy works for and why its important regardless of its total lack of quidditch of any kind. They adopt a child who has no interest in either sports or government and shows a worrying propensity to be good at maths; they love the child anyway.

Percy Weasley for 003

How I feel about this character: Percy is #1 on the list of characters that deserve a redemption arc. I don’t think he truly deserves the degree of passive-aggressive “You *owe* me, Percy” he’s going to get from the rest of the Weasleys for the rest of his life.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Audrey, I guess? I feel like this is cheating, because Audrey is a name on a list, making her essentially an OC. I’m willing to be sold on Percy ships in fic.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Poor Percy has never really felt like he fit in with his brothers. I’d really like to see him build a closeness with them after the war.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Percy is 100% Gryffindor from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. The way he walked out on his family is Gryffindor conviction from start to finish; just because he was *wrong* doesn’t mean he wasn’t *brave.*

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish we’d seen more of him at Hogwarts. He wasn’t really on Harry’s radar before he took his heel turn, and so it wasn’t nearly as upsetting as it might have been. He also ended up somewhat one-dimensional as a result.

My OTP: None. I’m willing to buy whatever Percy ship you’re selling.

My OT3: As above, except if you’re going to include Percy in a trio, Oliver Wood really ought to be in it, too.

#ask game #percy weasley #oliver wood #discworld #also

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the0phrastus · 6 years

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DISCWORLD CHARACTER STUDIES--The first seven!

I painted all of these in Art Rage 5 and Photoshop CC. Each one took 4-5 hours to draw and then paint. I use a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet and UGEE 2150 graphics display table. More of stuff here: https://SaltwaterWitch.com

Sergeant Angua of the Ankh Morpork City Watch. She’s one of my favorite characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Delphine Angua von Überwald is the only werewolf in the Watch–that we know of. She’s the independent one in the family--the sons and daughters of Baron Guye von Überwald and Serafine Soxe-Bloonberg of Genua (both werewolves), and the only one with the will to break free from the family tyranny and head to Ankh-Morpork. We first meet Angua in Men at Arms, where she’s learning to adjust to the culture, sights, of smells of the big city, keeping her lunar activities secret. In Feet of Clay, Angua’s paired up in the Watch with a new recruit, Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf with definite opinions about werewolves--based on their general nastiness and vicious treatment of everyone in Überwald (everyone except vampires). Angua ends up saving Cheery’s life, revealing her wolfish identity at the same time. Even so, the two become close friends. In later books we see that Angua’s shrewdness, strength, and self-reliance has earned her a few promotions, and she becomes one of Vimes’ most effective and dependable sergeants.

Sergeant Detritus of the Ankh Morpork City Watch. Another one of my favorite Terry Pratchett characters. Detritus is a troll who’s pretty green as we follow him through the book Men at Arms, but he’s already a sergeant in Feet of Clay. One of the weapons he favors is a repurposed siege crossbow named the “Piecemaker” that he’s modified to shoot multiple bolts at once.

We first meet Sam Vimes as a miserable Night Watch captain in Guards! Guards!, when he’s scrambling to keep his sanity as a lowly copper, when all he has are the scraps that remain after the guilds and nobles have divided up the wealth and decided what law and order will look like. As you’d expect, it’s been beaten into a shape that best suits them. He’s often drunk, unable to do his job, haunted by the deeds of his ancestors, but if you stick with Vimes, you see that he knows the streets of his city like few others, he understands the workings and motives of the Ankh-Morpork guilds and aristocracy like an insider, although he will never be one. Above all, he’s just a good guy who has never had it easy, but who has taken the opportunity to learn something at every turn, from his humble beginnings to his marriage to the most powerful woman in the city. We can always rely on old Vimes. We can rely on his solid moral core, and even the need to “go spare” when it’s necessary. That’s Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Duke of Ankh–also known by the lofty title, Blackboard Monitor. He’s another one of my favorite Terry Pratchett characters–he may be my favorite, although I’m very fond of Granny Weatherwax. This time I’ve painted the mountain pass scene in The Fifth Elephant, when Sam, Sybil, and party are waylaid by bandits. Vimes has other plans, and he has three tools he can use: the one-shot assassin’s weapon he confiscated from Inigo Skimmer, a cigar, and a match to light it.

Corporal Cheery Littlebottom is a disgraced Alchemist who quickly becomes the forensics expert in the City Watch, and goes on to spark a gender revolution. We first meet Lance Constable Littlebottom in the book Feet of Clay. She’s a new recruit in the Watch. She’s originally from Überwald, and was in the Ankh-morpork Alchemist’s Guild for a while, but was a bit careless with the volatile compounds and kicked out. She’s like a one-woman CSI department, so their loss is Ankh-morpork’s gain. Even though she’s not a main character in any of the books, Cheery is definitely one of my favorites. I’m going to sum up with a passage from Feet of Clay between Captain Carrot (he starts off on the conservative side) and Sergeant Angua:

“Do you think there’s something a bit…odd about Littlebottom?” “Seems like a perfectly ordinary female to me,” said Angua. “Female? He told you he was female?” “She,” Angua corrected. “This is Ankh-Morpork, you know. We’ve got extra pronouns here.”

More on gender and equality in Pratchett: “Creating a Space of One’s Own: Dialogues of Gender in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld” by Züleyha Çetiner-Öktem (https://goo.gl/uuEFzS)

Carrot Ironfoundersson, also known as Kzad-bhat, which roughly translated, means “Head Banger”, is a human adopted by dwarves. He was raised in a mine near Copperhead, probably banging his head a lot, but ends up making the journey to the great city Ankh Morpork in order to join the Watch. Even though Commander Vimes and a few others in the Watch possess a pretty strict and streetwise morality, Carrot enters the city fully prepared, with a completely memorized ancient edition of The Laws and Ordinances of the Cities Ankh and Morpork. And he’s ready to use it to ensure the safety of his fellow citizens. What makes Carrot unique–and so different from anyone else wielding a book of laws–is his ability to interpret a law and balance that against an examination of his own perspective and the motives of others to resolve the problems they face. It’s this simple wisdom that usually carries him through the fray–that, and his joyful spirit. Carrot approaches his position in the Watch with such cheer, generosity, and honesty that everyone around him has no choice but to get swept up in the sheer force of his upbeat will. His genuineness and optimism–some might say _extreme_ optimism–balances out and sometimes runs roughshod over the cynicism and distrust that’s the baseline sentiment of the Ankh Morpoork City Watch. His fellow watchmen often stand back and just stare in awe as Carrot singlehandedly diffuses the tension between armed angry mobs of trolls and dwarves, as he cheerfully explains the criminal code–or the tax code–to hardened thieves, murderers, and tax-evaders. He’s not flawless and carries some of the prejudices of his upbringing with him, but he’s honest enough to see what’s right, and what he must change in himself in order to make his adopted city a better place for everyone. We first meet Carrot in the book Guards! Guards!, where his idealism and hard work make such an impression on the Watch that he’s promoted quickly. In one of Terry Pratchett’s later books, Snuff, Carrot becomes Acting Commander of the Watch, while Vimes is forced to take a vacation.

Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari is the definitive benevolent dictator. He’s an honored graduate of the Guild of Assassins, rebel fighter against Homicidal Lord Winder, killer of tyrants, and friend (possibly more) of the vampire Lady Margolotta of Überwald. Pratchett kept his cards close with Vetinari, and all of us–readers and Ankh-Morpork citizens alike–remain in the dark about most of the details of Vetinari’s life, habits, vulnerabilities. This may be one of the reasons Night Watch is one of my favorite Pratchett books–because we get to see Havelock when he’s a young man, at school, learning the guild craft of assassination and camouflage. We get to see a side of the future patrician that we’ll never see again, but after one read of Night Watch the character hints and pieces of his nature you pick up will follow you and fill in the shadows of every scene with Vetinari in every other book. He’s one my favorite characters, not just from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but from _any_ book.

Granny Weatherwax: My favorite witch, and quite possibly my all-time favorite Terry Pratchett character, Esmerelda Weatherwax, “Esme” as Nanny Ogg calls her, and “Mistress Weatherwax” or “Granny Weatherwax” to those living around Ramtops. She is said to embody all three roles in a coven (maiden, mother, and crone), and although she’s always pictured as the last, in the book Lords and Ladies, we get a glimpse of just how badass she was when she was younger. So for this study I wanted to paint her as she was in her mid-fifties, out for a stroll through a mountain meadow with her favorite swarm, at a time when she earned the name “Aaoograha hoa” from the trolls (She Who Must Be Avoided).

#saltwaterwitch #Terry Pratchett #discworld #character study

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