I get the impulse. Generally speaking though it’s less risible to she/her a non-binary person than they/them a transwoman. Degendering is a pretty common tactic from opponents these days.
So many incredibly insulting things in that mess, but rewriting Cheery Littlebottom as non-binary stands out. One major character arc is about her openly embracing her identity a woman AND a dwarf!
A Discworld dwarf being non-unary IS non-binary representation to anyone who understands metaphor.
My favorite thing about Carrot is that he was raised very conservative but consistently shows a willingness to reevaluate his opinions once they start impacting his friends and colleagues
My favorite thing about Carrot is that he’s the perfect Marty Stu chosen one character and there is a conscious in and out of universe decision that he never be the main character
(For the benefit of non-Discworld-familiar folks, that's why he's using 'he', because of the whole "all dwarfs are assumed to be male unless they personally tell you otherwise" trope)
there's that one bit where we have the Dwarvish opera about the most famous romance in their history, and who was what gender isn't considered anybody's business except theirs.
I always found it interesting that even kind, heroic, honest, reliable Carrot had trouble wrapping his head around this, just because he grew up being told things were one way. We all have causal bias that need to be checked at some point
Carrot was raised as a dwarf, and even as he was regularly hitting his head against the ceilings of dwarven tunnels, it still took someone telling him to let him know he wasn't really a dwarf. For all his qualities, even the obvious escaped him sometimes.
I'd have to reread but I think the pushback from Carrot from the conflict with the worldview he was raised with ends with Angua saying he's being an asshole and it clicking for Carrot bc he's a good dude.
The disgusting, disingenuous, evil display of bad faith by TERFs who tried to claim Sir Terry for their cause, despite EVERY FUCKING THING HE EVER WROTE, says everything about what they are.
Conservatives love dead people. They can't speak up on their own behalf. See also: how many conservatives like to say Martin Luther King Jr. would be a staunch Republican today based solely on... a single fragment of a sentence from one speech. Not, like, any of the socialist programs he proposed.
And when TERFs tried to posthumously claim him as one of their own, his daughter told them off so hard that, to the best of my knowledge, they didn't try again.
It was worse when they made out they read the Discworld books and that somehow gave them an insight; clearly if they did read them the messages/morals in them went waaaay over their heads.
"Actchewly what Jerry Prattchette MEANT when he said 'don't be a dick' was 'cutting off your dick means you are still a dick'. ACTUALLY. And Granma Witherwaxed hates the trans - it's obvious"
I know one doesn't expect TERFs to be great readers or sophisticated thinkers, but if there's a Grand Unified Point that Pratchett was constantly making throughout his whole working life, it would be something like: who you were born to be is not nearly as important as who you believe you are.
Oh no some lady wrote an op-ed in The Guardian in response to RHIANNON PRATCHETT weighing in, TL;DR: "there's no way to know how Terry would have felt about trans people because he died like a million years before the transes were invented, so let's all forget we tried to hijack him for our cause."
And so many people stood up and cheered when she told them off, they should have been reduced to little piles of cinders.
Sooner than misrepresent Terry Pratchett, they'd be better off to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!'"
If you would like a recommendation, there's another author with a similar feel and a knack for people I'm a fan of.
(I'll even put a definition of Evil one of her characters gives as up there with Pratchett's definition of Sin!)
(I also figure I should ask you if you want the recommendation first!)
Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher is fantastic (@tkingfisher.com) . She's written a host of things--from the (Finished!) webcomic Digger, which has the aformentioned definition of evil that I'd put up there with Pratchett's definition of Sin, to interesting horror--
It's no different for the Assassins' Guild. They would make *absolutely* certain to know your gender before inhuming you. To do otherwise would invite mistaking you for someone else and that reduces otherwise proper inhumation to mere thuggery.
one of my favorite days on twitter, as the entire slumbering giant of the Discworld fandom rose as one to back @rhi.bsky.social and tell these people to go directly to hell
It reminds me of when the white boys marched in Asheville, and one had a Johnny Cash shirt on, and all the Cash kids some who hadn't spoken in a long time, all of them signed a letter telling that dude Johnny would have hated him.
That was a good day, Terry was wonderful, happy to have known him personally. And to say that he always used the preferred name given to him as well (all but one of my books is signed to Alien. The other was signed before I was called Alien)
Their argument boiled down to "hurhur, he joked about a bloke in a dress".
completely ignoring that 1) he stopped doing it after a fashion (pune not intended) & 2) it was never in any way derogatory, & at times could even be rather affirming.
I still hold that Nobby is positive gender-fluid NB rep
How can they miss all the stuff in there? Like "Natural Causes" for leaders? Or the entire race of Dwarves? PTerry was VERY progressive....and very astute about people
I understand not knowing who someone is, but imagine feelings so self important you don't even check the last name on the screen name that's right in front of you. 😂😂
Comments
At first, it went well. But, Guards! Guards! has so many eerie reminders of current events that I kept getting distracted with real world thoughts.
Escapism fail!
A Discworld dwarf being non-unary IS non-binary representation to anyone who understands metaphor.
This is the actual name of a hamlet I drive through on my way to work every day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Mile_Bottom
From Dildo.
From Condom.
I wish this was more common
(For the benefit of non-Discworld-familiar folks, that's why he's using 'he', because of the whole "all dwarfs are assumed to be male unless they personally tell you otherwise" trope)
I love Pratchett's dwarves
Carrot's is that he's taken a few too many knocks on the head.
His respect for other people is one of his best traits.
Monstrous regiment contains a completely unhidden trans story and it's glorious. They just ignore it.
Sooner than misrepresent Terry Pratchett, they'd be better off to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!'"
She blocked me so I guess I'll never know.
The last 7 or 8 years have a lot to answer for
(I'll even put a definition of Evil one of her characters gives as up there with Pratchett's definition of Sin!)
(I also figure I should ask you if you want the recommendation first!)
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/17/johnny-cash-children-charlottesville-far-right-protester-t-shirt
Even when it's largely stopped being subtext.
completely ignoring that 1) he stopped doing it after a fashion (pune not intended) & 2) it was never in any way derogatory, & at times could even be rather affirming.
I still hold that Nobby is positive gender-fluid NB rep