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    Tiffany Aching 

A serious, lateral-thinking young witch in training, sensible and practical though prone to making mistakes due to her youth and inexperience. Matures both physically and emotionally with each book she's in. Her greatest allies are the Nac Mac Feegle or Wee Free Men, a tribe of Pictsies (little blue barbarians who were kicked out of Faerie for being too disruptivenote ), and Granny Weatherwax.


  • Acrophobic Bird: Tiffany's connection with the Chalk is such that she can't ride a broomstick higher than a yard or so without getting sick to her stomach, because she needs to feel the earth under her feet.
  • Astral Projection: can do this in A Hat Full of Sky as part of her borrowing trick. She mostly uses it as a mirror and doing so is what allows the Hiver to take over her body.
  • Badass Bookworm: One area in which she is not like Granny Weatherwax. While Granny is "grudgingly literate" and doesn't generally trust books, Tiffany gathers her most useful pieces of knowledge from books. Basic literacy and knowledge of the broader world can be important witchly responsibilities in poor rural areas where no one else has the brain cells to spare.
  • Better as Friends: Decides this of herself and Roland.
  • Big Sister Instinct: Averted at first, towards Wentworth, as in The Wee Free Men, she resents him for being an irritating, spoiled toddler and taking her place as the baby of the family. However, she does protect him, and after Wentworth grows up to be a much more pleasant child and Tiffany does some growing up of her own, she's much more protective of him.
  • Brainy Brunette: A very clear example of one. In her first book, The Wee Free Men, she's annoyed at her brown hair because in all the stories Brainy Brunettes are delegated to supporting roles while the blondes and redheads get all the attention and all the fun. She comes to accept this side of herself eventually. In the next-to-last Tiffany Aching book, I Shall Wear Midnight, a pretty blonde Letitia surprises Tiffany by revealing that she wished she was a Brainy Brunette, because they're allowed to be witches, whereas the girls with blonde hair and rich fathers are only allowed to be "ladies."
  • Brutal Honesty: While she learns to temper it at least a little, her default setting is extreme bluntness - which might have something to do with the fact that she regularly deals with the Feegles, who as a whole wouldn't recognise subtlety if it bit them on the spog.
  • Cute Witch: At least, by the highly traditionalist standards of Discworld witches, which means cuteness is way secondary to practicality. This changes rapidly over the course of the books she's in.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She's particularly good at the deadpan part.
  • Frying Pan of Doom: Solid iron and very effective against elves.
  • Good Is Not Nice: She can be nice, but she tends towards a kind of brusque efficiency that strongly resembles Granny Weatherwax. Considering that Granny is her main background mentor, this is not surprising.
  • Heal It with Water: Under Granny Weatherwax's tutelage, she develops a magic for taking away pain from a patient: she channels their pain through herself into a bucket of cold water, which accepts the pain-energy and noticeably heats up, in some cases coming to the boil.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: She wasn't meant to be a witch. She forced the world to give her the power to protect the Chalk, which she regards as hers in a very visceral sense. On top of that, she's the most powerful witch of her generation (not that she's immediately aware of it).
  • Improbable Weapon User: She becomes this twice. First in The Wee Free Men, where she is armed with a frying pan for most of the book, and then in Wintersmith, where she uses a Cornucopia as a gun.
    One big pumpkin, her Second Thoughts urged. They get really hard at this time of year. Shoot him now!
  • Little Miss Badass: She took on the Queen of Faerie with a frying pan and survived. At the age of nine.
  • Little Miss Snarker: Not constantly, but she has her moments. Boy, does she have her moments. And as she grows older, she graduates into full-fledged Deadpan Snarker.
  • Little Professor Dialog: "No, 'patronizing' is a big word. 'Zoology' is really quite short." Justified in that she's sharply intelligent, has an appetite for learning, and owns a dictionary.
  • Shipper on Deck: Everbody in the Chalk seems to ship Tiffany/Roland, as neither fit in very well with the other children. In I Shall Wear Midnight, Tiffany comes to the conclusion that they just aren't headed the same direction in life, and finds someone better suited to her personality and ambitions.
    • As of The Shepherd's Crown even that relationship isn't set in stone due to how they both have lots of work to do and very little spare time... though there is a ray of hope.
  • The Spock: While she does care, this is another aspect in which she's very like Granny Weatherwax. Specifically, she tends towards a certain cold-blooded practicality, which includes using her little brother as bait for Jenny Green-Teeth (who she promptly wallops with a frying pan).
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: By Wintersmith, she can sneak up on Feegles.
  • Stealth Mentor: has two of these in Nanny Ogg and more prominently, Granny Weatherwax, who is quite clearly grooming Tiffany to be her successor as the leader that witches don't have - though being Granny, this grooming takes the form of occasional advice and frequent testing of Tiffany.
    • In The Shepherd's Crown she takes over Granny's steading after the latter's death.
  • True Sight: One of Tiffany's defining qualities is First Sight: she can see what's really there instead of what she wants to see. Though it's a pain when she's trying to relate to people who don't have it, it's amazing when she has to journey through a land of nightmares to retrieve her brother.
    'Ye've got that little bitty bit inside o' you that holds on, right? The bitty bit that watches the rest of ye. 'Tis the First Sight and Second Thoughts ye have, and 'tis a wee gift an' a big curse to ye. You see and hear what others canna', the world opens up its secrets to ye, but ye're always like the person at the party with the wee drink who cannae join in. There's a little bitty bit inside ye that willnae melt and flow.
  • The Unchosen One: When there's nobody to stop the elves' incursion on the Chalk, nine-year-old cheesemaker Tiffany screws everything and decides that the whole land is hers, she will protect it, and you better not step in front of her or her frying pan if you like your head.
  • Will They or Won't They?: With Roland. They don't.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Played realistically. She's much better read than most people her age (or indeed, any age), and rather more worldly in some respects (growing up on a farm with a lot of older sisters, and having small hands can be useful at lambing time results in finding out certain facts of life pretty early on). Additionally, becoming a witch, with all the attendant experiences and responsibilities forces her to grow up rapidly, something she notes in I Shall Wear Midnight. However, as a rule she's emotionally about where you'd expect a 9 year old/adolescent to be, with the expected moments of immaturity, prior to I Shall Wear Midnight.

    The Nac Mac Feegle 

Also known as the "Wee Free Men," "the Little Men" or "Person or Persons Unknown, Believed to Be Armed," the Feegles are race of tiny, blue-skinned, heavily tattooed pictsies who were thrown out of Faerie for rebelling against the tyrannical rule of their Queen... or possibly for being drunk. Debuted in "Carpe Jugulum".


  • Amazing Technicolor Population: All Feegles have blue skin, though the books are a little vague on whether their skin is naturally blue or has just been turned blue by tattoos and body dyes. The general consensus is that it's the woad and the tattoos, judging by the fact that the first Kelda is described as chestnut coloured. The book covers, however, suggest otherwise.
    • Later books reveal that there's an orphaned Feegle out there Wee Mad Arthur who passed for a gnome until discovering his heritage, and Discworld gnomes have never been described as unusually-coloured. This points to the Feegles' colour being culturally applied (ink, dye, paint, etc.) rather than genetic.
  • Badass Family: A Feegle tribe is almost all family, and they kick serious arse.
  • Battle Cry: Parodied. They have dozens of battle cries, and each Feegle shouts out his personal favourite whenever battle commences. The one they all generally join in on, however is also the longest: "‘Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willnae be fooled again!"note 
  • Berserk Button: Leave out some booze for them and ye have a friend for life. Leave out some milk, and they'll smash everything you've got.
  • Blood Knight: A consequence of their religious beliefs. The Feegle will fight anything and everything that looks at them the wrong way, each other, and if all else fails, themselves.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Yes, a race of six-inch tall Boisterous Bruisers.
  • Book Dumb: Though all Feegles treat words and knowledge relating to them as magic, the level of education varies from tribe to tribe. The Chalk tribe in particular, however, is actively astounded by the concept of learning to read and write, and terrified of lawyers. The Long Lake tribe, on the other hand, write extremely complicated legal documents.
  • Dimensional Traveler: Feegles can step between worlds at will. If they want to get around within a world, they have to do it the old-fashioned way - though it's later suggested that they can find shortcuts.
    • A Feegle employed as a Watchman in Ankh-Morpork, an Air Watch constable who patrols the sky on a tamed bird of prey, discovers he can use the Craw-Step to get from Ankh-Morpork to Howondaland in a matter of minutes.
  • Dumb Muscle: An almost universal trait among male Feegles, who regard their heads as nothing more than another weapon. The clan Big Man tends to be only marginally smarter than the others. On the rare occasion a genuinely intelligent male is born he will usually become a Gonnagle, Warrior Poets who fight by reciting intentionally atrocious poetry and by playing Magic Music on their painfully high-pitched mousepipes.
  • Everyone Has Standards: They're pretty shameless about stealin', drinkin', fightin' and the like, but their falling out with the Elf Queen came about because even Feegles draw a line, such as stealing from those who don't have much to begin with.
  • Fearless Fool: It'd be wrong to say they're not afraid of anything — things like lawyers, books, angry witches and annoyed women (especially wives) can make them quite nervous — but physical danger doesn't intimidate them at all, and they'll happily attack anyone or anything a hundred times bigger than them.
  • Fiery Redhead: All Feegles have red hair, and most of them have big tempers.
  • Gender Rarity Value: The Feegle clans never have more than 2 females at a time: the current Kelda, who gives birth to each generation, and one daughter who will grow up and marry the Big Man of another clan to become a Kelda in turn.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Logic is not generally their strong trait to begin with, and sometimes they'll part ways with it entirely. Tiffany's habit of applying common sense to problems produces a lot of awe in the Feegles.
  • Legacy Character: Once a Feegle is dead, his name is passed on, so in a way they're all legacy characters. Sometimes involves some shuffling; for instance, if Wee Jock dies, the next-largest Feegle of that name (that is, Not-As-Big-As-Medium-Sized-Jock-But-Bigger-Than-Wee-Jock Jock) will take up the mantle of Wee Jock.
  • Memory Jar: Overlapping with Genetic Memory; Keldas pass on to their daughters the materials needed to create a Genetic Memory Jar, by which they can access the collective experiences of their female ancestors, and even catch glimpses of what their female descendants will know.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Imagine the strength and belligerence of a seasoned bar brawler compressed into six inches. Now imagine that man climbing up your pants leg and headbutting your kneecap or punching you in the unmentionables. Now imagine an army of them. That's the Feegles.
  • Single Sex Offspring: Apart from Keldas, Feegles are almost always male.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Do NOT think that stepping on them will subdue them. It will only make them angrier.
  • The Unintelligible: Border on this trope when they're first introduced in Carpe Jugulum due to an exaggerated Scottish accent. In the Tiffany Aching books, where they are among the main characters (and is meant for younger readers at least to start with), the accent has been toned down that it's usually clear what they're talking about (although the books still have a "Feegle glossary" for some of the stranger dialect words).
  • Use Your Head: The preferred attack of the Feegles, even though they have swords. They grab you by the ears/eyelids and bonk you between the eyes (or nose), generally with roughly the same effect as a stone from a slingshot. Sometimes repeatedly.
  • Violent Glaswegian: A universal Feegle trait.
  • We Used to Be Friends: With the Elf Queen, upon a time, before she and the Elf King split up and the Queen got worse.
  • Women Are Wiser: It's generally agreed that the few female Feegles are the ones who get most of the brains and the Gonnagles get most of the few left over, with the Big Man scraping up the last scraps.
  • Zerg Rush: Yeah, the Feegles have no sense of subtlety. They're basically a big, blue, moving carpet when they're on the warpath, and you'd do best not to be in their way.

    Rob Anybody 

The irascible chieftain of an irascible people, and the most prominent Nac Mac Feegle in the books.


  • Bad Liar: He's really, really, really bad at it. It's got to the point where he acknowledges it, but blithely assures the person questioning him (usually Tiffany) that his Explanation (deserving of the capital letter) is much more interesting than the truth.
  • Berserk Button: Do not try to dig up his Feegle mound. Do not even think of digging up his mound. He will start a war over it. And he will win.
  • Book Dumb: As the Big Man of the Chalk clan, he is one of the smarter male Feegles, though this admittedly isn't saying much. Books are not only a mystery to him, but a scary one as well. That said, by Wintersmith, he can read quite well.
  • Happily Married: As of A Hat Full of Sky. Can perhaps be a bit of a Henpecked Husband at times, but like Sam Vimes he doesn't seem to mind terribly much.
  • Undying Loyalty: Exhibits this towards Tiffany. He's fought a Hiver, The Queen of the Elves, and Death (who mostly seemed fairly unbothered by the attempts to headbutt him), among others, for her. And notably, when his Berserk Button was thoroughly pushed, he restrained his impulse towards violent murder at her command.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Or rather, "Why Did It Have To Be Lawyers". Also (initially) literacy-phobic.

    Daft Wullie 

Not a very bright Feegle at all, but still manages to be the second most prominent Feegle in the Tiffany Aching books, after Rob Anybody.


  • Cloudcuckoolander: Definitely has traces of this at times; many of his words and actions make sense only to him.
  • The Fool: While most Feegles are rather short on brains, Daft Wullie makes the rest look like geniuses in comparison.
  • Mad Libs Catch Phrase: The following Running Gag:
    "Daft Wullie?"
    "Aye, Rob?"
    "Ye ken I said I’d tell ye when [there wuz times you should’ve kept your big gob shut/ye wuz guilty o’ stupid and inna-pro-pre-ate behaviour]?"
    "Aye, Rob?"
    "That wuz one o' them times."
  • Shout-Out or perhaps Homage. Daft Wullie is a portmanteau referece to Wee Wullie and Daft Bob, notable Gordon Highladers in McAuslan by George MacDonald Fraser.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: He's good at making those.

    Big Yan 

One of the other more prominent Feegles. Absolutely enormous by Feegle standards, being about nine inches tall.


    Granny Aching 

Tiffany's grandmother and possibly a powerful witch, even though she never used any overt magic (which to Granny Weatherwax just means that she was a very good witch indeed). Dies before The Wee Free Men.


  • Cool Old Lady: She had the respect of everyone of the Chalk. In fact, despite witches not being tolerated on the Chalk, people not only accept, but celebrate Tiffany, because she's Granny Aching's granddaughter. Even Granny Weatherwax remarks that not only may she have actually been a witch, but she was probably a very, very good one.
  • Honorary Uncle: Or rather, Honorary Grandma. Everybody called her "Granny Aching," something which Granny Weatherwax sees as another sign that she may have been a witch, even if she never considered herself/was considered to be one — as elderly witches usually do pick up an honorific like that, "a honorific, like Old Mother So-and-so, or Goodie Thingy, or Nanny Whatshername."
  • Interspecies Friendship: Had a friendship with the kelda - Rob Anybody's mother - before she died.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's unclear whether she was actually a witch; if she did any magic, it was extremely subtle. Granny Weatherwax suspects that she was and, moreover, takes the lack of any overt magic as a sign that she was a very good witch indeed.
  • Posthumous Character: Having died two years before The Wee Free Men, she only appears in flashbacks and visions. In The Shepherd's Crown Tiffany sees her together with Granny Weatherwax after Tiffany finally settles on The Chalk in a shepherd's hut.
  • The Quiet One: She seldom spoke much, but when she did, people listened.

    Annagramma Hawkin 

An arrogant young witch and leader of a coven of other young witches before Tiffany showed up and didn't become its leader in the same way that Granny Weatherwax isn't the leader of the Ramtops witches.


  • Alpha Bitch: Oh so much. She really isn't a witch by natural inclination so much as a female wizard: witch magic is about guarding the boundaries, wizard magic is about power. She improves into a Lovable Alpha Bitch in Wintersmith.
  • Boomerang Bigot: Snubs Tiffany's heritage, but her own is no better despite her lies to the contrary.
  • Break the Haughty: After finding herself way in over her head in Wintersmith and Tiffany forcing the truth about her impoverished background out. She's still very prideful, but no more than a typical witch.
  • Character Catchphrase: Uses the word "literally" a lot and incorrectly.
  • Character Development: From bossy, overbearing Alpha Bitch with little clue as to what she's doing in A Hat Full of Sky and the early parts of Wintersmith to a brave, competent and helpful young witch in the latter parts of Wintersmith, taking a level in both Badass and Kindness as she goes along.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: In, ironically, Wintersmith. After taking over a deceased witch's territory she finds herself far in over her head because her teacher, Mrs. Earwig, hadn't taught her anything actually useful, so she has to turn to Tiffany for help.
  • Hidden Depths: While it seems like she's an arrogant Know-Nothing Know-It-All - or at least, incompetent at actual witchcraft, Wintersmith reveals that while she is arrogant, she's very, very clever, picking up on things extremely quickly, and that in terms of actually wielding magic, she's genuinely quite powerful.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: Acts as though nobody in the world exists other than her, because of a profoundly placed fear of being powerless.
  • Lovable Alpha Bitch: In a manner of speaking. Tiffany can more or less see through her snobby attitude to the confused young girl beneath it. Also, in the Wintersmith she instantly leaps to Tiffany's defense with a fireball.
  • Meaningful Name: Annagramma approaches being a proper witch entirely backwards.
  • Pride: Big time, indicated to be a case of an Inferiority Superiority Complex (partly because she recognises on some level that Tiffany's a much better witch, and arguably a good deal more powerful, partly because for all her snobbery, her family are poor tenants to a farmer). Lightens up a little after Tiffany and the other younger witches nudge her in the right direction.
  • Smug Snake: At first. She grows out of it, though, thanks to a case of Break the Haughty and the reveal of her Hidden Depths.

    Petulia Gristle 

Junior witch and a close friend of Tiffany's; she's got an amazing talent with animals and particularly with pigs — which has earned her the nickname "the pig witch."


  • Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: She's described as chubby and pink-skinned, not unlike the animals she specializes in working with.
  • Happily Married: She is the first witch of her generation to get married, and while we never actually meet her husband (a pig-farmer), the marriage seems to be a happy one.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: Petulia's main talent is "pig-boring"; the ability to talk at length to a pig until it drops dead from boredom. It seems laughable, but is actually extremely useful as it ensures a quiet and fairly humane slaughter-time... and, as becomes apparent, it does not only work on pigs and Petulia is able to use her ability so effectively that it can be weaponized; she can literally go out on a battlefield and talk the enemy to death.
  • Hidden Depths: At first, before Character Development reveals more of her true strength: She is shy and stuttering and completely without opinions of her own when around the other witches — but when she's on the job, and especially when she's working with pigs, she becomes confident, self-assured and hyper-competent.
  • Nice Girl: Probably the sweetest and most sympathetic witch of her generation.
  • Opinion Flip-Flop: She's introduced as a person with a severe case of this, who will alter her opinion several times during a conversation, just so she can agree with who spoke last. (At one point, Tiffany considered saying the sky is green, just to see if Petulia will agree with that too.) She gets better.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Learns to stand up for herself, and in the last book she's fighting elves and winning.

    Roland de Chumsfanleigh 

Heir to the Baron who owns the Chalk, Roland was abducted by the Queen of the elves and rescued by Tiffany. He never really got over this, and was Tiffany's potential but ultimately averted Love Interest for a time.


  • Fake Ultimate Hero: In the Wee Free Men. In his defence, however, he did try to set the record straight but was ignored - or at least, so it seemed. His father later reveals that a chat with Tiffany's father confirmed Roland's story, and he knew what had happened all along.
  • Formerly Fat: In Wintersmith it is mentioned that Roland was "fat as butter" when Tiffany rescued him from the Queen of Elves.
  • The Hero: is described as such in Wintersmith, but only in the strictly storybook sense - however, he does develop something of an aptitude for it, earning Rob Anybody's grudging admiration.
  • Hidden Depths: Proves to be smarter, more sensible, and much more competent than he seems at first glance.
  • Stiff Upper Lip: Aside from his somewhat deranged demeanour in Wee Free Men (understandable, given that he'd spent two years in the hands of the Queen of the Elves), he maintains this by and large throughout the books. This lends an extra air of tragedy to his point of view sections in Wintersmith when it becomes clear that he's going through a truly horrible time at home, including an almost light remark about his chronically ill father - namely, that he should go and see him, or his father will forget who he is. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The Feegles, not necessarily disposed to like him, are notably sympathetic.
  • Teeny Weenie: Implied in The Shepherd's Crown - or at least, he has the traditionally male worry that it will be considered teeny, and that his new wife might gossip about this with Tiffany, her new best friend, who is simultaneously his sort of ex-girlfriend and the local witch.
  • Upper-Class Twit: At times. He's generally better in the later books, although the expectations placed on him by his social status can override his kindness and common sense.
    • It doesn't help that The Shepherd's Crown shows that a side-effect of the Soothings, the mental healing of the Feegle Keldas, means that he doesn't really remember his time in Elf-land or, possibly, the episode when he went to the Underworld with the Feegles to get the Summer Lady in Wintersmith. Since both these episodes were key to his Character Development, it's unsurprising that he goes backwards a bit, especially after his father's death and the influence of the Cunning Man, an overbearing mother-in-law, and Letitia's improbably effective curse on Tiffany. Tiffany also notes that hearing that a child has been taken by the fairies (which Feegles technically are, though Tiffany took the child to the Kelda to get her healed) would press all the wrong buttons for him, likely bringing up some absolutely horrific ghosts of memories. He gets better again after those influences are lessened and Tiffany has the chance to explain things to him properly.
  • Will They or Won't They?: With Tiffany in the first three books. They don't. In fact, Tiffany performs his marriage to Letitia by having them jump over a fire together.

    Letitia Keepsake 
A young noble lady (around the same age as Tiffany), and Roland's new fiancee and later wife, first appearing in I Shall Wear Midnight. Frequently emotional (bordering on damp) when introduced, not helped by her overbearing mother, the Duchess of Keepsake. However, there is more to her than meets the eye...
  • Achievements in Ignorance: According to Tiffany, the hex that Letitia cast really shouldn't have worked as well as it did, and attributes it to a combination of Letitia's natural witchcraft and Letitia's genuine belief that that was how witch magic worked (confusing it with the "Boffo" version, with a bit of wizardry mixed in).
  • Commonality Connection: Part of what finally helps her and Tiffany to move past their issues with each other is the revelation that they both read the same fairy tale book (down to the scary image of the goblin, on the same page even) that helped formed their future paths. Ironically, they both essentially wanted to be each other when younger; Tiffany wanted to be the traditionally beautiful princess that was the center of attention (which made sense when she was nine), while Letitia wanted (and in some way still wants) to be the Brainy Brunette that actually did stuff in the stories. Both wind up agreeing that it was probably foolish to think your future was set by hair colour.
  • Foil: To Tiffany. While Letitia looks like the storybook princess, Tiffany has been the Brainy Brunette pretty much all her life. And where Letitia is often emotional to the point of tears, Tiffany has become tougher from her training and life as a witch. Surprisingly, this also extends to their talents at witchcraft - while Tiffany has had to "demand" and earn her abilities, Letitia has some considerable natural talent as a witch, to the point that she could pull off stuff like the hex that really shouldn't have worked, purely because she thought they should have.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite initially coming across as a somewhat weepy Proper Lady, Letitia shows she's capable of some feats that even Tiffany isn't sure she could have done as easily, like befriending and calming the various ghosts at Keepsake Manor before she was even a teenager.
  • Insecure Love Interest: This, mixed with Green-Eyed Monster, led her to initially dislike Tiffany due to her past history with Roland, to the point that she cast a hex on Tiffany to drive a wedge between her and Roland.
  • My Beloved Smother: On this receiving end of this from her mother, the Duchess of Keepsake, who's otherwise seen as something of a bully, especially to those lower down the social ladder than she seemingly is. Letitia is too cowed by her mother's personality to object until near the end. It's further complicated by the knowledge that her mother does love her, thinking she's doing what's best for Letitia, and has her own virtues; for all the poor treatment she shows the servants at the Chalk, the Duchess also makes sure that their own workers are well looked after, even past their retirement. Indeed, many of the servants working at Keepsake Manor are tasked with looking after the older servants who can't take care of themselves anymore.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: While her hex on Tiffany was fueled out of jealousy and fear towards her, it's clear that Letitia never intended for the hate towards Tiffany to get as bad as it did. When it's laid out to her exactly what she had done (including in regards to the Cunning Man), she understandably bursts into tears while apologizing profusely to Tiffany (though the latter just gets annoyed by the tears at this point), and does what she can to fix her error.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Shares this role with Tiffany in I Shall Wear Midnight. While Tiffany's actions in Wintersmith were what caused the Cunning Man to stir early, Letitia's hex gave the Cunning Man a way to directly influence the people of the Chalk.
  • Walking Spoiler: It's hard to explain to bring her role in I Shall Wear Midnight without bringing up her natural talent at witchcraft or the hex she cast that caused so many of the problems in the book.

    Wentworth Aching 

Tiffany's younger brother. He is first introduced in The Wee Free Men as a sweetie-obsessed, spoiled toddler who is kidnapped by the Queen of the Elves and needs to be rescued. He grows up in subsequent books, and remains the only one of Tiffany's siblings to actually have a speaking role.


  • Annoying Younger Sibling: As a toddler, he's this by default. Tiffany really finds him tiresome — and not without reason, since he's not only the youngest Aching child (and implied to be an unexpected late baby) but also the only son, and took her position as the baby of the family, getting deeply spoiled. Also, she's nine. He grows out of it, though; by the time of Wintersmith onwards, the two are shown to get along very well, with Tiffany displaying no small amount of Big Sister Instinct towards him.
  • Berserk Button: When he's a toddler, everything seems to be this for him. When he grows older, though, it's hinted that his biggest Berserk Button is if someone begins badmouthing Tiffany.
  • Character Development: Given that he's a toddler in his first appearance, and at least in his teens in his last appearance (the narrative notes that he's "not quite old enough for the pub yet, but certainly old enough to hang around outside"), it'd be odd if he didn't go through this.
  • Demoted to Extra: In The Wee Free Men, while not a major character, he's got a fairly substantial role and is pretty much the reason why the plot happens in the first place. In the sequels he pretty much only gets one or two token appearances per book. Given that Tiffany is often away or dealing with a magical crisis, this is not surprising.
  • Spoiled Brat: Again, in The Wee Free Men, at least in Tiffany's opinion. But then, he's not even three years old at the time, and her opinion is somewhat coloured by the fact that she's nine, no longer the baby of the family, and expected to look after him.
  • Straying Baby: Gets kidnapped by the elves as a result of being this.

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