“There are thousands of good reasons why magic doesn’t rule the world..."
"...they're called 'witches' and 'wizards'."
This is not one of the things I meant to write today, but sometimes you just have to go with what forces its way to the top.
If I had waited another two or three months to get an AIM account, I would be AgnesPudifoot. It's not that I didn't like Magrat's character journey, but she writes herself out of her own coven, and the Maiden who takes over for her is not only awesome on a stick, she's also the main character in Carpe Jugulum, which is the Discworld book I have read the most. I have, on many occasions, found myself wondering just why I ever liked Miss Garlick enough to name myself after her.
The wonderful Captain Chaotica!! sent me a collection of Discworld audio books for Hogswatch, and I have been working my way through them while at work*. I am currently up to the bit of Wyrd Sisters where Tomjon and Hwel find themselves in the Drum, and I am very much remembering why Terry Pratchett is my favourite living author**.
Sitting at my desk this afternoon surrounded by my grey walls, populating a spreadsheet with all the instances of incorrect data, listening to the various different illnesses propogating around me***, after spending the first 100 pages of the recording - which is read superbly by Celia Imrie**** - I knew why I always found her endearing but was still baffled as to what inspired me to borrow her name.
Enter The Passage of Supreme Magrat Awesomeness:
Magrat slid helplessly down a bank. She was soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Somehow, she thought bitterly, when you read these spells you always think of it being a fine sunny morning in late spring. And she had forgotten to check what bloody kind of bloody fern it bloody was.
A tree tipped a load of raindrops onto her. Magrat pushed her sodden hair out of her eyes and sat down heavily on a fallen log, from which grew great clusters of pale and embarrassing fungus.
It had seemed such a lovely idea. She'd had great hopes of the coven. She was sure it wasn't right to be a witch alone, you could get funny ideas. She'd dreamed of wise discussions of natural energies while a huge moon hung in the sky, and then possibly they'd try a few of the old dances described in some of Goodie Whemper's books. Not actually naked, or skyclad as it was rather delightfully called, because Magrat had no illusions about the shape of her own body and the older witches seemed solid across the hems, and anyway that wasn't absolutely necessary. The books said that the old-time witches had sometimes danced in their shifts. Magrat had wondered about how you danced in shifts. Perhaps there wasn't room for them all to dance at once, she'd thought.
What she hadn't expected was a couple of crotchety old women who were barely civil at the best of times and simply didn't enter into the spirit of things. Oh, they'd been kind to the baby, in their own way, but she couldn't help feeling that if a witch was kind to someone it was entirely for deeply selfish reasons.
And when they did magic, they made it look as ordinary as housekeeping. They didn't wear any occult jewelry. Magrat was a great believer in occult jewelry.
It was all going wrong. And she was going home.
She stood up, wrapped her damp dress around her, and set off through the misty woods...
...and heard the running feet. Someone was coming through them at high speed, without caring who heard him,a nd over the top of the sound of breaking twigs was a curious dull jingling. Magrat sidled behind a dripping holly brush and peered cautiously through the leaves.
It was Shawn, the youngest of Nanny Ogg's sons, and the metal noise was caused by his suit of chain mail, which was several sizes too big for him. Lancre is a poor kingdom, and over the centuries the chain mail of the palace guards has had to be handed down from one generation to another, often on the end of a long stick. This one made him look like a bullet-proof bloodhound.
She stepped out in front of him.
"Is that you, Miss Magrat?" said Shawn, raising the flap of mail that covered his eyes. "It's mam!"
"What's happened to her?"
"He's locked her up! Said she was coming to poison him! And I can't get down to the dungeons to see because there's all new guards! They say she's been put in chains--" Shawn frowned--"and that means something horrible's going to happen. You know what she's like when she loses her temper. We'll never hear the last of it, miz."
"Where were you going?" demanded Magrat.
"To fetch our Jason and our Wane and our Darron and our--"
"Wait a moment."
"Oh, Miss Magrat, suppose they try to torture her? You know what a tongue she's got on her when she gets angry--"
"I'm thinking," said Magrat.
"He's put his own bodyguards on the gates and everything--"
"Look, just shut up a minute, will you, Shawn?"
"When our Jason finds out, he's going to give the duke a real seeing-to, miz. He says it's about time someone did."
Nanny Ogg's Jason was a young man with the build and, Magrat had always thought, the brains of a herd of oxen. Thick-skinned though he was, she doubted whether he could survive a hail of arrows.
"Don't tell him yet," she said thoughtfully. "There could be another way..."
"I'll go find Granny Weatherwax, shall I, miz?" said Shawn, hopping from one leg to another. "She'll know what to do, she's a witch."
Magrat stood absolutely still. She had thought she was angry before, but now she was furious. She was wet and cold and hungry and this person--once upon a time, she heard herself thinking, she would have burst into tears at this point.
"Oops," said Shawn. "Um. I didn't mean. Whoops. Um..." He backed away.
"If you happen to see Granny Weatherwax," said Magrat slowly, in tones that should have etched her words into glass, "you can tell her that I will sort it all out. Now go away before I turn you into a frog. You look like one anyway."
She turned, hitched up her skirts, and ran like hell toward her cottage.
~Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
The whole thing is beautiful, but the line that reaffirmed my love for her is, "once upon a time, she heard herself thinking, she would have burst into tears at this point." For all the same reasons lines of The Doctor's or of either Captain Jacks' or of Monk's or of Buffy's get me where I live, that sentence has a full stairwell-worth of resonance with me. We've still got a ways to go, but Magrat and I are both working toward our confrontation with the Elf Queen, getting there by degrees. It's only because she does eventually complete her hero journey that I (along with Pratchett) shifted focus to Agnes. Magrat's very awesomeness is what eventually dooms her to retirement from the business of being awesome. If that makes sense.
Magrat Garlick is my hero, and I'm so very glad I decided ten years ago to borrow her name.
Also, the handbag joke? TOTALLY didn't get that the first two times through. I may have busted out laughing in the middle of the office. Heh.
* One of the benefits of being a datamonkey - I can get in some reading! Discworld is particularly well-suited, since I've read them all (or at least, the first 30 or so) at least twice, so I don't have to pay absolute attention to every word.
** Neil Gaiman is a very close second, but the gap is growing wider as I work through Discworld again.
*** The office has been a veritable plague pit since January. One guy called from his doctor's office to say he has strep throat, bronchitis, AND pink eye. My eye has been itchy and runny since the instant I heard this (HOW DOES THAT WORK? What is it about conjunctivitus that makes even the most mildly hypochodric dead certain that hir eyes are already half crusted shut?)
**** Every single review I found when looking for her name a moment ago complained about how awful she is. I have no idea what is wrong with all of these people. The most infuriating is the oft-repeated "But...but NIGEL PLANER and STEPHEN BRIGGS read Discworld!!" UGH! I love Briggs and Planer, of course, but UGH! It is so much more than appropriate for the coven books to be read by an extremely talented woman, and I have no patience for these people.
(She does pronounce several names rather differently than anyone else I've heard before, but that's hardly a reason to accuse someone of "so ruin[ing] the experience that I couldn't listen for more than five minutes.")
This is not one of the things I meant to write today, but sometimes you just have to go with what forces its way to the top.
If I had waited another two or three months to get an AIM account, I would be AgnesPudifoot. It's not that I didn't like Magrat's character journey, but she writes herself out of her own coven, and the Maiden who takes over for her is not only awesome on a stick, she's also the main character in Carpe Jugulum, which is the Discworld book I have read the most. I have, on many occasions, found myself wondering just why I ever liked Miss Garlick enough to name myself after her.
The wonderful Captain Chaotica!! sent me a collection of Discworld audio books for Hogswatch, and I have been working my way through them while at work*. I am currently up to the bit of Wyrd Sisters where Tomjon and Hwel find themselves in the Drum, and I am very much remembering why Terry Pratchett is my favourite living author**.
Sitting at my desk this afternoon surrounded by my grey walls, populating a spreadsheet with all the instances of incorrect data, listening to the various different illnesses propogating around me***, after spending the first 100 pages of the recording - which is read superbly by Celia Imrie**** - I knew why I always found her endearing but was still baffled as to what inspired me to borrow her name.
Enter The Passage of Supreme Magrat Awesomeness:
Magrat slid helplessly down a bank. She was soaked to the skin and covered in mud. Somehow, she thought bitterly, when you read these spells you always think of it being a fine sunny morning in late spring. And she had forgotten to check what bloody kind of bloody fern it bloody was.
A tree tipped a load of raindrops onto her. Magrat pushed her sodden hair out of her eyes and sat down heavily on a fallen log, from which grew great clusters of pale and embarrassing fungus.
It had seemed such a lovely idea. She'd had great hopes of the coven. She was sure it wasn't right to be a witch alone, you could get funny ideas. She'd dreamed of wise discussions of natural energies while a huge moon hung in the sky, and then possibly they'd try a few of the old dances described in some of Goodie Whemper's books. Not actually naked, or skyclad as it was rather delightfully called, because Magrat had no illusions about the shape of her own body and the older witches seemed solid across the hems, and anyway that wasn't absolutely necessary. The books said that the old-time witches had sometimes danced in their shifts. Magrat had wondered about how you danced in shifts. Perhaps there wasn't room for them all to dance at once, she'd thought.
What she hadn't expected was a couple of crotchety old women who were barely civil at the best of times and simply didn't enter into the spirit of things. Oh, they'd been kind to the baby, in their own way, but she couldn't help feeling that if a witch was kind to someone it was entirely for deeply selfish reasons.
And when they did magic, they made it look as ordinary as housekeeping. They didn't wear any occult jewelry. Magrat was a great believer in occult jewelry.
It was all going wrong. And she was going home.
She stood up, wrapped her damp dress around her, and set off through the misty woods...
...and heard the running feet. Someone was coming through them at high speed, without caring who heard him,a nd over the top of the sound of breaking twigs was a curious dull jingling. Magrat sidled behind a dripping holly brush and peered cautiously through the leaves.
It was Shawn, the youngest of Nanny Ogg's sons, and the metal noise was caused by his suit of chain mail, which was several sizes too big for him. Lancre is a poor kingdom, and over the centuries the chain mail of the palace guards has had to be handed down from one generation to another, often on the end of a long stick. This one made him look like a bullet-proof bloodhound.
She stepped out in front of him.
"Is that you, Miss Magrat?" said Shawn, raising the flap of mail that covered his eyes. "It's mam!"
"What's happened to her?"
"He's locked her up! Said she was coming to poison him! And I can't get down to the dungeons to see because there's all new guards! They say she's been put in chains--" Shawn frowned--"and that means something horrible's going to happen. You know what she's like when she loses her temper. We'll never hear the last of it, miz."
"Where were you going?" demanded Magrat.
"To fetch our Jason and our Wane and our Darron and our--"
"Wait a moment."
"Oh, Miss Magrat, suppose they try to torture her? You know what a tongue she's got on her when she gets angry--"
"I'm thinking," said Magrat.
"He's put his own bodyguards on the gates and everything--"
"Look, just shut up a minute, will you, Shawn?"
"When our Jason finds out, he's going to give the duke a real seeing-to, miz. He says it's about time someone did."
Nanny Ogg's Jason was a young man with the build and, Magrat had always thought, the brains of a herd of oxen. Thick-skinned though he was, she doubted whether he could survive a hail of arrows.
"Don't tell him yet," she said thoughtfully. "There could be another way..."
"I'll go find Granny Weatherwax, shall I, miz?" said Shawn, hopping from one leg to another. "She'll know what to do, she's a witch."
Magrat stood absolutely still. She had thought she was angry before, but now she was furious. She was wet and cold and hungry and this person--once upon a time, she heard herself thinking, she would have burst into tears at this point.
"Oops," said Shawn. "Um. I didn't mean. Whoops. Um..." He backed away.
"If you happen to see Granny Weatherwax," said Magrat slowly, in tones that should have etched her words into glass, "you can tell her that I will sort it all out. Now go away before I turn you into a frog. You look like one anyway."
She turned, hitched up her skirts, and ran like hell toward her cottage.
~Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
The whole thing is beautiful, but the line that reaffirmed my love for her is, "once upon a time, she heard herself thinking, she would have burst into tears at this point." For all the same reasons lines of The Doctor's or of either Captain Jacks' or of Monk's or of Buffy's get me where I live, that sentence has a full stairwell-worth of resonance with me. We've still got a ways to go, but Magrat and I are both working toward our confrontation with the Elf Queen, getting there by degrees. It's only because she does eventually complete her hero journey that I (along with Pratchett) shifted focus to Agnes. Magrat's very awesomeness is what eventually dooms her to retirement from the business of being awesome. If that makes sense.
Magrat Garlick is my hero, and I'm so very glad I decided ten years ago to borrow her name.
Also, the handbag joke? TOTALLY didn't get that the first two times through. I may have busted out laughing in the middle of the office. Heh.
* One of the benefits of being a datamonkey - I can get in some reading! Discworld is particularly well-suited, since I've read them all (or at least, the first 30 or so) at least twice, so I don't have to pay absolute attention to every word.
** Neil Gaiman is a very close second, but the gap is growing wider as I work through Discworld again.
*** The office has been a veritable plague pit since January. One guy called from his doctor's office to say he has strep throat, bronchitis, AND pink eye. My eye has been itchy and runny since the instant I heard this (HOW DOES THAT WORK? What is it about conjunctivitus that makes even the most mildly hypochodric dead certain that hir eyes are already half crusted shut?)
**** Every single review I found when looking for her name a moment ago complained about how awful she is. I have no idea what is wrong with all of these people. The most infuriating is the oft-repeated "But...but NIGEL PLANER and STEPHEN BRIGGS read Discworld!!" UGH! I love Briggs and Planer, of course, but UGH! It is so much more than appropriate for the coven books to be read by an extremely talented woman, and I have no patience for these people.
(She does pronounce several names rather differently than anyone else I've heard before, but that's hardly a reason to accuse someone of "so ruin[ing] the experience that I couldn't listen for more than five minutes.")