case: (Default)
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2025-06-29 02:26 pm

[ SECRET POST #6750 ]


⌈ Secret Post #6750 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 33 secrets from Secret Submission Post #965.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
I like the character, but it doesn't bother me that you don't feel the same way. Different strokes and all that.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 06:44 pm (UTC)(link)
ANON ARE YOU ME???

I could have written this secret. Some of what Granny does is straight up bullying. And it makes her occasional genuinely cool moments curdle for me, because I keep feeling like 'why are you trying to make me like this person who takes so much pride in being bitter and unkind?' Yeah, sugary-sweet/polite 'nice' is not enough to be good, but being actually kind to the people around you - especially your student! - is in fact a big part of it! I'm a teacher myself and the way Granny treats Magrat in the early books really bugs me. And then she's a hypocrite who acts like other people being vaguely rude in her direction (like calling her and nanny Old Bats or whatever) warrants humiliation and magical punishment, and clearly we're supposed to think she's so cool for it. And I just don't.

It sucks. Of the three things that bothers me about discworld, it's probably the one with the biggest impact on my enjoyment.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Part of the reason, for me, that Granny Weatherwax works is because Pratchett makes it clear that the fist person Granny has hurt and bullied was herself. Her approach has left her a mean, bitter, lonely old lady who has maybe one single friend in Granny Ogg and even she sees herself as much as Granny's careworker as a friend.

Granny does a lot of good, but has cost herself a lot of life to do it. She is someone who can be admired for the strength of her convictions, and the value of her deeds, but not someone to be emulated in lifestyle. I thought that came through quite clear, especially in the Tiffany books.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 08:45 pm (UTC)(link)
nayrt - Agreed. I don't think Pratchett is holding her up as an example for everyone to follow. It's clear that her approach might work a lot of the time, but it's not ideal for everyone... herself included. Granny has her flaws and weaknesses, and she's not immune to the repercussions from her actions.

ayrt

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
I haven't got to the TA books yet (I'm going chronological against all advice), so I'll keep that in mind. But even to the extent that she's cut herself off from things, she's so arrogant about how superior Common Sense and Simple Living are that it's hard to sympathize. Granny would hold so much about my life in disdain, I can feel it dripping off the page. Vivid character writing, but extremely unpleasant!

And so far I don't really get the sense that Pratchett doesn't see her as a moral exemplar when you get right down to the stuff that really matters. When it comes to 'who you are in the dark'. Granny being bitchy and provincial is funny; Granny's still the one who gets to have so many of the banger philosophical lines at the climax of Witches Abroad, or Lords and Ladies. And most of the fandom definitely adores her, which makes any fandom gripe 10 million times more annoying.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
How Granny treated Magrat always made me look at her askance, like if this is your idea of helping her I suggest you stop before she explodes. Nanny Ogg at least knew to be kind to people.

At the very least she later admits Magrat's a good doctor because she puts in the effort to learn about herbs and medicine.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Nanny Ogg at least knew to be kind to people.

Sometimes. The books made it clear that she's the Mother-in-Law from Hell.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-30 12:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Nanny knows, she doesn't always act.
thewakokid: (Default)

[personal profile] thewakokid 2025-06-29 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Nope. L take. Good characters have flaws.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 08:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Good characters can still have flaws that annoy the snot out of you, this is not mutually exclusive.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
+1
Plus, there are good character flaws and deal breaker character flaws, all that are very subjective to the particular audience.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-29 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I guess Granny Weatherwax is all right, but Discworld has such wonderful characters that she doesn't even graze the top ten for me. Or twenty. She's like ... fine? I don't dislike her, but I don't like her much either.
meadowphoenix: (Default)

[personal profile] meadowphoenix 2025-06-29 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
i don't feel this way about her, but i do feel like people use her popularity as a justification to be as unkind as they wanted to be anyway, and sometimes i get pre-annoyed at similar characters because i can see the fandom responses happening and feel the urge to go "please read the book for meaning and not memes" rising within me.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-30 12:30 am (UTC)(link)
Yes! The books make it clear that Granny Weatherwax is a very intelligent, very moral person who has serious difficulties with actually treating real people as living, feeling being, including herself. This is not something to emulate! And like a lot of fictional characters, I can find her very interesting without ever wanting to be around her. Especially the cut-and-paste smartass version.
meadowphoenix: (Default)

[personal profile] meadowphoenix 2025-06-30 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
I think Pratchett walked a fine line between examining types or archetypes of people and humanizing them as individuals, and i do think that understanding how to read them with some emotional distance isn't really easy for a lot of people, but yeah, finding her funny and sometimes on point doesn't mean she's not immensely flawed or off-putting.

(Anonymous) 2025-06-30 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
The only good parts of the Granny Weatherwax books always get cut up and posted around the internet so I don't have to re read those books :D