Granny Weatherwax
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| Characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series | |
| Character details | |
| Full name: | Esmerelda Weatherwax |
| Description: | A witch who rarely needs to use magic |
| Associations: | Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, Agnes Nitt |
| Location: | Lancre |
| Story appearances | |
| First seen: | Equal Rites |
| Also in: | Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, Carpe Jugulum, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, The Sea and Little Fishes |
| Other details | |
| Notes: | Sister of Lily Weatherwax |
Esmerelda Weatherwax (usually called Granny Weatherwax) is a character from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. She is a witch and member of the Lancre coven.
Granny Weatherwax is the Crone. In fact it has been suggested she embodies all three, but the Crone is the most obvious (though you wouldn't know it to look at her; despite her best efforts, Granny Weatherwax still has perfect skin, not a single wart and all her teeth). In the books, the triple nature of the coven is always referred to as "the maiden, the mother and... the other one" in her presence. She is the most powerful witch in the Ramtops, if not in the entire Discworld, but powerful witches rarely do magic. While she can cast some extremely impressive spells if pushed, much of her power comes from headology, a sort of folk-psychology which can be summed up as "if people think you're a witch, you might as well be one". For instance, Granny could, if she wished, curse people. However it is simpler for her to say she's cursed them, and let them assume she's responsible for the next bit of bad luck that happens to befall them; given her reputation this tends to cause such people to flee the country entirely.
Granny Weatherwax's reputation even extends to beyond species barriers--the trolls of the Ramtops call her Aoograha hoa ("She Who Must be Avoided") and the dwarf name for her, Ke'ez'rek d'b'duz, translates to "Go Around the Other Side of the Mountain".
It has been said that the difference between headology and psychiatry is that a psychiatrist will convince you that there are no monsters coming after you, whereas a headologist will hand you a bat and a chair to stand on.
She has a near-unshakeable belief in her own abilities, which has thus far proved accurate, and an extreme distrust of stories. She was intended by nature to be a "wicked witch", but at an early age realised she had to be "the good one" to balance her sister, Lily (Lilith). Ironically Lily, who became a fairy godmother, was convinced she was the good one, because she gave people what she thought they wanted. Granny Weatherwax gives people what she knows they need. As Pratchett would put it, being Good and Right doesn't make you Nice, and she isn't.
Knowing what is Right is the bedrock of Granny Weatherwax and it is this that keeps her from using her considerable psychic and occult abilities. As she explains in Maskerade, if she was a bad witch she could break people's bones where they stood and manipulate their minds at will but she can't be that bad witch. She knows what's Right. This, of course, has not stopped her from becoming increasingly powerful, to the point where she even managed to resist the fatal embrace of a vampire's bite and instead cause her assailant to become weaker from within, craving tea and biscuits.
Granny Weatherwax is reckoned to be more powerful than the most well-known witch on the Discworld, Black Aliss (real name: Aliss Demurrage), who is responsible for any number of witcheries in fairy tales, such as putting a castle to sleep and getting pushed into an oven by naughty kids. It does seem that her teacher's teacher's teacher's teacher was Black Aliss. ("I learned my craft from Nanny Gripes, who learned it from Goody Heggety, who got it from Nanna Plumb, who was taught it by Black Aliss..." - Granny, in Lords and Ladies). She is the granddaughter of Alison Weatherwax, a witch about whom little is known, including when or if she died.
In the last Witches novel, Granny was recorded fighting the vampire Count Bela Magpyr in Überwald in Carpe Jugulum. Though she has yet to appear in another adult Discworld novel, Granny has made appearances in the Tiffany Aching stories (classified as children's books), The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky.
The summary of Granny Weatherwax's attributes can also be interpreted as those of a wise military officer; In 'The Art of Discworld', Granny has the look of a grizzled female astronaut - ice blue eyes that let you know that she does not brook mischief, yet her face set around those eyes that tell you she actually does care about all around her. There is also a portrait of a young Esmerelda Weatherwax - and she was clearly just as harsh and unyielding then. A third counterpoint is a portrait of a smiling Granny offering the viewer a scone from a plate at a garden party- and the undertone of this portrait is still 'watch it !'
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