History WMG / Discworld

Relatedly, its possible male witches are ''more'' common than female wizards; witches are by and large allowed to do their own thing in their own style on their own terf. Wizards ar expected to gravitate to a stratified scholarship in a comfortable if crusty building filled with stubborn old men, and institution that may not neccessarily be friendly or enticing to women in the Discworld even if the staff could be convinced to act otherwise. Possibly the more technical minded era Ponder Stibbons and company are pulling in may change that, however.

In ''The Wee Free Men'', Tiffany relates the story of Mrs. Snapperly, an old woman who was cast out of her home and eventually died because people thought she was a witch. Tiffany's response: Become a witch herself to make sure no one ''dares'' try that again. When asked by Nanny Ogg why she got into witchcraft in ''The Sea and the Little Fishes'' Granny Weatherwax responds with "I dunno... even I suppose." In her youth, Granny witnessed a similar incident. Not identical, given Lancre's respect for witches, but same in the essentials, an act of cruel stupidity that someone with respect could have prevented. Thus, she sought out the most respected position she could think of: Witch.

[[WMG: Greebo was originally a human that got turned into a kitten.]]
The human-ifying didn't tell him "Yer a human! Be human!" It just made his shape remember, "Oh, yeah, I'm a human..." only he had gotten used to his cat form over the last twenty years. His human side was keeping him alive and in shape ([[IsntItIronic heh]]) for however long it was between the end of an unusually long-lived cat's lifespan (or at least end-of-prime) and at least the events of ''Wintersmith''. He probably got convinced into being a cat after being lecherously rude in the presence of, or towards, a witch, and decided he ''liked'' being a cat (once he aged up a bit from being a kitten, anyway) because he could fight/eat/have sex with pretty much anything, since he was a cat and not a human any more.
* Impossible, I'm afraid. Greebo's eye is that of a cat, therefore he must have been born a cat; it is utterly impossible, even for the gods themselves, to change the manner or nature of a being's eyes. This is why the Duc had to wear sunglasses.

** The logical end of this line of thought is that Ankh-Morpork will become a {{Magitek}} [[Main/{{Transformers}} Transformer]].

* The Discworld series are classics of what is essentially British humour. Pratchett would be very aware of the idea of the Establishment - people from the right social backgrounds, who went to the right schools and universities, who got into the influential jobs afterwards in business, the Law, newspapers, the [=BBC=], the armed forces, the police and, oh, politics. Britain is also a society where the Upper House in government is still composed of unelected Lords (Think of Vetinari's City Council here). Crucially, people in the Establishment all went to the right Schools - Eton, Harrow, Westminster, et c. Now translate this to the Discworld. The Assassins' Guild School. (Its current most famed alumnus is one Havelock Vetinari). Hugglestones. (William de Worde). And the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies. There is a ''reason'' why its distinguished alumni are called The Ladies Who Organise. Some of them, like Sybil Ramkin, have a small but significant say in Organising whole ''countries''. The Discworld doesn't need an Illuminati [[note]] Think back to ''Literature/GuardsGuards'' and consider the comic ineffectuality of the "Illuminati" who ''did'' try to emerge[[/note]]. but what it '''does''' have - is an Establishment.

* The Discworld series are classics of what is essentially British humour. Pratchett would be very aware of the idea of the Establishment - people from the right social backgrounds, who went to the right schools and universities, who got into the influential jobs afterwards in business, the Law, newspapers, the [=BBC=], the armed forces, the police and, oh, politics. Britain is also a society where the Upper House in government is still composed of unelected Lords (Think of Vetinari's City Council here). Crucially, people in the Establishment all went to the right Schools - Eton, Harrow, Westminster, et c. Now translate this to the Discworld. The Assassins' Guild School. (Its current most famed alumnus is one Havelock Vetinari). Hugglestones. (William de Worde). And the Quirm Academy for Young Ladies. There is a ''reason'' why its distinguished alumni are called The Ladies Who Organise. Some of them, like Sybil Ramkin, have a small but significant say in Organising whole ''countries''. The Discworld doesn't need an Illuminati [[note]] Think back to ''Literature/GuardsGuards'' and consider the comic ineffectuality of the "Illuminati" who ''did''' try to emerge[[/note]]. but what it '''does''' have - is an Establishment.

[[WMG: The Disc was created by the Company, in Pratchett's other work [[Literature/{{Strata}}]].

[[WMG: The Disc was created by the company in Pratchett's other work [[Strata]].

* WMG/MovingPictures

In his early appearences Detritus is characterized as a dumb troll. Later troll characters [[CharacterizationMarchesOn seem to be more clever overall]], so its then explained Detritus ''specifically'' is quite dumb and tough even for a troll; he has worked in many different places and been fired from all of them. However, he later joins the Watch in an attempt to become more respectable and turns out to be fairly intelligent ("indefatigable" is perhaps a better word...) and having good work ethic. His hate for drug dealers also seems disproportiate to other criminals, with Vimes explicitly he has "a nose for drugs" despite having other troll officers he could assign to a case. It's possible Detritus had a certain Habit that effected his mind and quality of life ealier in the books, quitting perhaps around the time of his self-improvement post-''MovingPictures''.

* WMG/TheSheperdsCrown

* WMG/TheShepardsCrown

** Granny's inflexibility on the matter could also be related to her strict sense of right and wrong she imposes on herself on other matters; not because she isn't ''aware'' there are shades of grey in certain matters, but because she cannot tempt ''herself'' to think in that way out of worry she might act immorally.

* WMG/TheSephardsCrown

[[WMG: Rincewind's first name is [[http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/magical+trevor/ Trevor]].]]
A ginger wiz(z)ard who gets into trouble wherever he goes? That sounds familiar....

[[WMG: Rincewind's first name is Willard.]]
Those aren't Zs, he just rolled with people's misreading it after a while.

* Ponder has a ''lot'' of control of the important offices in the [=UU=]. (He even became the acting Bursar when the latter decided to disregard decimal places as a mere nuisance.) He is probably the most competent of the faculty.
** He also understands the ''purpose'' of the Unseen University quite well to keep it running in that same direction (keeping the wizards well-fed and happy, so that they won't start another mage war.)

[[WMG: The wizards aren't allowed to have sex...]]
...not because of the dangers of the result might be a sourcerer, but because of the OTHER possible results of fathering a child when the genetic material is magical. Even if one is NOT and eight's son's eight's son.
* For what it is worth, the book that introduced the concept of a sourcerer began with describing the seven first sons of a wizard as "as powerful from birth as any wizard in the world". So, if wizards had sons, even if they stopped before getting to the eight, that would drastically increase the population of wizards - and we all know what wizards can do if they aren't careful. Of course, later books seems to have retconned down the whole eighth son-eighth son business and the severity of the 'not having sex' rule, but this ''is'' Wild Mass Guessing.
* FWIW, the first competent wizard in the series, Greicha of the Wyrmberg, had two sons who ''weren't'' wizards. Granted, he may not have been an eighth son of an eighth son himself.

[[WMG: Also, The Disc was created by [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Magratheans]].]]
Why NOT?
* Er, because the Creator didn't mention anything of the sort in ''Eric''?
** The Creator is quite obviously, from his general demeanour, a version of Slartibartfast... who would be unlikely to mention the rest of the Magratheans since he never felt they gave him enough credit anyway...
*** Except the Circle Sea is a literal ''circle'', which is about as different from Slartibartfast's beloved fjords as geography can get.

* Igors follow orders unquestioningly (90% of the time), just like golems.