They may be fewer and farther between than their male counterparts, but when he remembered to include them, Terry Pratchett wrote some instantly unforgettable female characters. They are policewomen, shepherds, cheesemakers, midwives, teachers and soldiers, entrepeneurs, cooks and dragon breeders. In no particular order, here are my pick of the Disc’s top 10 women.
Spoilers ahead for pretty much all the Discworld series.
10. Letice Earwig
It’s pronounced Ah-wij, if you must know. Appearing in the Tiffany Aching series, Mrs Earwig is set up as an antagonist to the traditional Granny Weatherwax. Fully literate, married to a retired wizard and harbouring a healthy scepticism towards a witch’s usual life of backbreaking labour, Letice is rich, snobbish and frostily polite to the people she hates.
But unpleasant as she is, Mrs Earwig is one of the feww characters to be solidly resistant to the glamour cast by the elves. In The Shepherd’s Crown, the Fairy Queen demonstrates the ferocious power of her people, targeting the witches’ self doubt. When she gets to Mrs Earwig, however, she finds that there is no self doubt to target. Whatever else she may be, Mrs Earwig is still a witch.
Best Book: A Hatful of Sky
Best Line: “There was an air about her that she was taking notes about the world in order to draw up a list of suggestions for improvements.”
Most likely to: insist on completing purchases with expired coupons.
9. Roberta Meserole
Did you ever wonder where Vetinari learned it all? In one of the Patrician’s earliest appearances, he vaguely considers offering half the kingdom and his elderly aunty in marriage to whoever slays the dragon currently terrorising the city; once we finally meet Lady Messerole, this joke becomes even funnier.
Known as Madam — or Bobbi to her friends — Lady Meserole’s interests include elderly tom cats, diamonds and overthrowing the yoke of maniacal despots. She is clever, manipulative and ruthless. Bonus points for being the person to make Vimes realise he has a thing for powerful women.
Best (only!) Book: Night Watch
Best Line: “She counted slowly to ten before she screamed.”
Most likely to: be described as “overbearing” by Richard Littlejohn.
8. Sybil Ramkin
First introduced in Guards, Guards!, Lady Sybil Ramkin is the wealthiest, most blue blooded aristrocrat in the city. She descends from a long line of military figures who died in heroically stupid ways, and has inherited their iron clad bravery.
But Sybil eventually becomes more than a comedic plot device. As the books progress, Sybil is largely defined by her kind, considerate nature. Whether it’s keeping in touch with old school friends who try to snub her or simply insisting on seeing the best in Corporal Nobbs, Sybil’s kindness is played refreshingly straight. It isn’t a quirk, or a character flaw, but a sincerely valuable trait which is respected in narrative.
Best Book: The Fifth Elephant
Best Line: “The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
Most likely to: describe the cruelest, pettiest, most vindictively unpleasant sub-par scum of a human she’s ever known as “a little forthright”.
7. Adora Belle Dearheart
If Sybil’s greatest strength is her kindness, then Adora Belle’s is… something else. Possibly her four inch stilettos? When Moist von Lipwig tries to slip his parole in Going Postal, he finds himself drawn to the severe young woman currently pointing a crossbow at him. And things just sort of escalate from there.
Adora Belle, whose name would probably be funnier if she weren’t serious about that crossbow, is a passionate advocate of Golem rights, keen chain smoker and astute business woman. From running the Golem trust — an organisation which allows Golems to work off their contract and buy their freedom — she ends up running the entire Ankh Morpork Semaphore industry. She’s smart, wilful and takes crap from nobody.
Best Book: Going Postal
Best Line: “She quite liked the bit where he was hanged, and made him repeat it.”
Most likely to: calmly blow cigarette smoke into the face of her jilted lover.
6. Sergeant Jackrum
Did I mention spoilers? Monstrous Regiment follows the story of Polly, a young girl who illegally enlists in the army to find her brother and bring him home. While she’s there, she is mentored by Jackrum, a large, muscular force of malevolent spite and ruthlessness. Becoming something of a father to his “little lads”, Jackrum slyly aids Polly’s masquerade. Oh, and Shufty’s. And Tonker’s. And Lofty’s, Igorina’s and Wozzer’s.
Jackrum survives as a sergeant — the rank which Lady Meserole tells her young nephew to respect the most in Night Watch, incidentally — by politely listening to orders, moving away from hearing range and promptly disregarding those orders. There have been attempts to forcibly resign him over the years, but he always circumvents them.
The revelation that Jackrum is yet another disguised woman in the Borogravian army only makes me like the character more. Barbarically ruthless she may be, but Jackrum at least makes her stance consistent, and enables other young woman to be as bloodthirsty as she is. Empowered women empower women, Jackrum. Unless, of course, you’re blackmailing the disguised women you know into keeping your discharge papers away for just a little while longer.
Best Book: Monstrous Regiment
Best Line: “The devil was our sergeant.”
Most likely to: punch a Nazi.
5. Susan sto Helit
When Death adopted a daughter, who then had a child of her own, Susan was the result. Although she isn’t technically related to Death, genetics on the Disc are a little strange, and she ended up inheriting some of his powers. With self styling hair, nerves of steel and the ability to stop time at will, Susan naturally gravitates towards teaching as a career.
And she excells. If she’s not taking her class on trips around the world while keeping the head teacher firmly away from her classroom with an icy death glare — a power I personally envy with all my soul — then she’s assuring her young charges that, while the monsters under the bed may be real, they can also be dealt with by means of a poker.
Best Book: Hogfather
Best Line: “Hi, inner child. I’m the inner baby sitter!”
Most likely to: teach at Hogwarts.
4. Glenda Sugarbeam
No group on the whole of the Disc is more uncomfortable with women than the Wizards. They’ve had a few glorious takedowns over the years, from Eskarina Smith’s decision to join them to Adora Belle Dearheart’s interactions with Ponder Stibbons, but Glenda is able to hit them where it really hurts. Their stomachs.
As head of the night kitchen, Glenda wields an indominable power over the wizards, and is able to use this authority to stand up to them on more than one occasion over the Patrician’s meddling in people’s lives. She ticks off the Lady Margolotta — vampire, politician and narrow runner up for this list — over her treatment of the orc Mr Nutt, and casually rejects a job in the Patrician’s palace.
But the most empowering thing about Glenda is her relationship with her best friend, Juliet. While her instinct has always been to cynically dash Juliet’s modelling dreams and exert unhealthy control over her life, she gradually is able to reflect on her own behaviour and make a conscious effort to change herself. She chooses to stand with Juliet, not in front of her, and in turn is able to free herself from her own repressive standards.
Best Book: Unseen Academicals
Best Line: “The best you can expect is a thunderstorm.”
Most likely to: literally not give a fuck.
3. Cheery Littlebottom
Some of my favourite books of all time involve young women passing themselves off as men to prove to the world that they’re as good as their male counterparts. When she isn’t allowed to fight for those she loves, Eowyn dons armour and goes the fuck to war regardless. Alanna from Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness saga lives as a boy for eight years, having won so much respect by the time she’s revealed that nobody wants to punish her for her deception.
It was only reading Feet of Clay for the first time that I realised how important this message could be in reverse. Cheery Littlebottom hates the taste of beer, can barely swing an axe and detests drinking songs about gold. She is quietly jealous of the clothes and makeup that human women get to wear and begins to wonder, why can’t this be me?
Cheery causes schisms in her community when she shyly dons a hardwearing, knee-length leather skirt for the first time. Her tentative experiments with eyeshadow nearly cause the collapse of dwarvish civilisation. And when she persists with her label of “female” for long enough, something amazing happens. More and more dwarves begin to reveal that they, too, are women. Even the Low Queen herself steps forward to eventually join in Cheery’s movement.
And Cheery does all of this without resorting to violence, cruelty or petty infighting. When she learns that Dee — advisor to the Low King who openly detests Cheery for being open female — is also a woman, she doesn’t triumph over her rival. She quietly takes the other woman aside for a private conversation and healthy bout of crying.
Best Book: The Fifth Elephant
Best Line: “Why not me?”
Most likely to: quietly walk away from a man harassing her at a bar.
2. Granny Weatherwax
In a society composed strictly of a sorority of equals, Granny Weatherwax is the leader the Witches refuse to admit they have. Tiffany Aching describes her as the “soul and centre” of witchcraft; most villains describe her as an “interfering old baggage”. Granny Weatherwax is immensely powerful, stubborn and unpleasant. Her chief skill is “borrowing” — stepping out of her mind to inhabit another living thing, such as a badger, owl, hive of bees, the walls of Unseen University or her own blood.
Granny Weatherwax always knew that she would make a better villain than a hero. However, when her sister decided to become an evil fairy godmother, she realised that she’d have to pick up the slack, good guy wise. The result is that Granny is cantankerous, rude and rigidly in control of herself.
She has little time or respect for book learning or the type of magic the wizards employ. What she does is “woman’s work” — it’s hard, messy and essential. You certainly don’t learn it out of books. Then again, Granny disapproves of about everything; opera, theatre, travel, witches who settle down to become heads of state, her own skin… She’s conservative, and she’s very hard to please. But that makes earning her approval so much more satisfying.
Best Book: Carpe Jugulum
Best Line: “I aten’t been vampired. You’ve been Weatherwaxed!”
Most likely to: counter protest a Take Back the Night demonstration by sitting in a chair on her lawn watching it quietly.
Honourable Mentions:
Miss Grace Speaker: Compiler of The Times Crossword and Vetinari’s chief rival. “A woman like that content to dispense dog food? I think not.”
Rhys Rhysson (Blodwen): Low Queen of the Dwarfs, trail blazer. “I am the king of my enemies, as well as my friends.”
- Tiffany Aching
As a child, she had a keen interest in reading and zoology. One day, she saw a mysterious elven creature in a river, so she lured it out with her baby brother as bait and hit it hard with a cooking pot. When she was 9, she invaded the Fairy Queen’s lands to rescue the son of the local baron, armed only with a frying pan. She’s fought of Hivers, the anthropomorphic spirit of Winter, the summation of all humankind’s most evil impulses and an army of sadistic elves. Mostly though, she helps the sick, births babies and makes good cheese.
Tiffany Aching is a motherfucking boss.
Inspired by her grandmother, Granny Aching, as well as her mentor, Granny Weatherwax, Tiffany learns that leading people well doesn’t involve micromanaging every aspect of their lives, but encouraging them to help each other and themselves.
But she isn’t just a carbon copy of those who came before. Tiffany collects sentimental objects — a practice which Granny Weatherwax openly abhors — and enjoys reading. As head witch, she allows a man to train as a witch for the first time. Inspired by and grateful towards the women who paved the way for her, she’s nontheless her own person with her own ideas of what the world should be like.
Tiffany Aching, you are the witch!
Best Book: A Hatful of Sky
Best Line: “There will always be another witch like me.”
Most likely to: smile at Granny Weatherwax and continue marching anyway.
