You just… you just know good and god damned well that Terry Pratchett either was a witch or or had a very intimate knowledge of witches. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, Agnes Nitt, Tiffany Aching… they are all very real characters who each practise very real brands of witchcraft.
[Text ID: ‘It’s daft, locking us up,’ said Nanny. ‘I’d have had us killed.’ / ‘That’s because you’re basically good,’ said Magrat. ‘The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.’/End ID]
Magrat whirled away in the buffeting wind, clinging tightly to a broomstick which now, she feared, had about as much buoyancy as a bit of firewood. It certainly wasn’t capable of sustaining a full-grown woman against the beckoning fingers of gravity.
As she plunged down toward the forest roof in a long shallow dive she reflected that there was possibly something complimentary in the way Granny Weatherwax resolutely refused to consider other people’s problems. It implied that, in her considerable opinion, they were quite capable of sorting them out by themselves.
My re-listen of the Discworld series in order of publication has yielded some art. Wyrd Sisters is when the trio witches start and I love them. Can’t wait for all the next books. It just keeps getting better!
i keep trying to reread wyrd sisters but i can’t get further than this cause every time i see it i have to turn my phone off and close my eyes for twenty minutes…..this is SO funny. you just know there’s a little recipe book in goodie maysherestinpeace whemper’s old cottage with an entry that says RECIPE FOR HOT LEAD BONES: step one you get some lead step two you put it in their bones
[id: “Witches just aren’t like that,” said Magrat. “We live in harmony with the great cycles of Nature, and do no harm to anyone, and it’s wicked of them to say we don’t. We ought to fill their bones with hot lead.”
The other two looked at her with a certain amount of surprised admiration. She blushed, although not greenly, and looked at her knees.
“Goodie Whemper did a recipe,” she confessed. “It’s quite easy. What you do is, you get some lead, and you-” / end id]
Magrat Garlick sketch. I remember I related to Magrat most out of any discworld character back when I first read the books when I was younger. Her storyline of not really knowing who she is or what she actually wants in life, thinking she’s failing at everything, trying loads of different hobbies/approaches to witchcraft and none of them fitting, man it just hits different when you’re a skinny wee teenage girl! (The description of her body being like two peas on an ironing board stayed in my brain forever because it was so accurate to me too) I think that’s why Lords and Ladies holds such a special place in my heart, when Magrat finally takes a bit of control in her life. It’s so nice to reread the books as an adult and recognise what i loved about Magrat whilst not personally relating to her at all anymore. I know it’s said all the time but TP really got people man.
I tried to make a full oneshot out of this for Discworld fan works week, but in the end the only thing that really worked was the conversation that first came to me. (If anyone else can see more of what happens around this conversation, they’re welcome to have at it.)
Those who do good works will not be forgotten.
“I thought about holdin’ the sign, you know. Just to see what’d happen.”
THEY WOULD HAVE BELIEVED IT. YOU WOULD HAVE ROTTED TO A SKELETON BEFORE THEY WOULD DOUBT IT. EVEN THEN, THEY WOULD QUESTION.
“Heard Gytha tellin’ the little princesses that I could be watchin’ em from the rabbits an’ deers and suchlike, to make sure they’d be good. Those girls get enough fanciful notions from Magrat without Gytha fillin’ their heads with more fluff.”
WILL YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, DOUBT THE POWER THAT STORY MIGHT HAVE?
“Hmph. Don’t see why they’re so keen to keep me around, watchin’ ‘em. Didn’t much like watchin’ ‘em when I was alive.”
BUT YOU DID SO. YOU DID WHAT WAS NEEDFUL.
“’Spose you’d understand all about that, eh?”
YOU HAVE DONE GOOD WORKS.
“…You always this praiseful?”
I SIMPLY BELIEVE THAT CREDIT IS OWED WHERE IT IS DUE.
“Well, I suppose we all need somethin’ to believe in.”
QUITE SO. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN, ESMERELDA WEATHERWAX?
“Me. Always have. And I don’t believe in mopin’, so shall we be getting on?”
