Daniel Keast

Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

Books I've Read, Discworld

This is the third Discworld book, and the first in the witches series. It introduces Granny Weatherwax, one of the main characters of the whole series.

At the start of the book a wizard passes on his staff to a baby who has just been born in a rural village. This child is supposed to be the seventh son of a seventh son, but turns out to be a daughter called Esk. The father and Granny Weatherwax hide the staff and try to ignore what has happened. As the girl grows and clearly has magic growing within her, Granny decides to try to train her as a witch. This does not work. She has a different kind of magic inside of her. By the end of the book she is trying to become a student of the Unseen University of Ankh-Morpork to train as a wizard.

The book has interesting thoughts on traditional gender roles in fantasy books, and presents witchcraft in a novel way rather than the usual evil crones. In particular the way that Granny discusses her “headology” is fascinating. Esk is disappointed to learn that Granny almost never uses “real” magic as she considers it. Granny mostly uses a deep understanding of people’s perception of her to make it seem like she has. This is something like the placebo effect, and in Granny’s mind as much magic as what Esk wants to learn.