Terry Prachett: Why Gandalf Never Married (1985)

http://www.ansible.co.uk/misc/tpspeech.html

by iamelgringo • 17 years ago

95 39 17 years ago

ansible.co.uk

Silentio• 17 years ago

A well done feminist critique of fantasy, literature, and "real life," and he pulled it off with a sense of humor.

Read "The Colour of Magic" if you get the chance, it's hilariously funny in spots, especially if you're a little bit of a fantasy geek.

ensignavenger• 17 years ago

I have read several Pratchett books- and I have found every one of them hilarious! The BBC movies aren't too bad, either.

jimm• 17 years ago

Equal Rites, which came after that book, deals with this topic more directly. A seventh son has a seventh son...no wait, a daughter. She has raw magical power, and with some help gets to the wizard university. I'm not going to say any more; I don't want to spoil anything.

ninguem2• 17 years ago

But it's all jommetry.

keenerd• 17 years ago

It is also worth noting that Equal Rites was published 1-2 years after this speech. Was Prachett trying to gauge the reaction to his satire by explicitly stating it?

electromagnetic• 17 years ago

If you don't feel like reading The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic (the sequel that completes the story) then look for the DVD of The Colour of Magic (it originally ran as a double-bill made-for-tv movie, the first was CoM and the second part was LF).

There's also the Hogfather, a book released later in the Discworld universe, that got turned into a double TV movie. It is a much more faithful reproduction as they had more time, which in the case of the Hogfather was truly necessary.

GavinB• 17 years ago

"Let's talk about wizards and witches. There is a tendency to talk of them in one breath, as though they were simply different sexual labels for the same job."

This is one of the many reasons that Harry Potter is so subversive. Witches and Wizards are just words for the same thing in different genders, and it's ingrained in every kid's head.

Rawsock• 17 years ago

If you want real subversive fantasy, I recommend Andrzej Sapkowski's The Last Wish and the other of books from the saga. It has everything: The main character is a male witch (or witcher), the female wizards have formed a secret society to take over the world and nonhumans (elves,dwarfs) are subjected to human racism and bigotry.

whatsreal• 17 years ago

If you are just looking for fantasy that equalizes male and female practitioners of magic Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series levels the playing field. In fact, it is seriously tilted towards women for the first part of the series.

unalone4• 17 years ago

As long as they don't start burning wizards on the stake...

I think it'll be interesting to observe how fantasy terminology evolves within the next 30 years, as leagues of Harry Potter readers start writing fantasy.

derefr• 17 years ago

The obvious, technical reason for all this was skirted by Prachett, but never addressed directly: a "witch" is, by the oldest definition, a woman who is "in communion with" or "consorting with" (sleeping with) a devil or demon, and that is wherefrom she takes any power she may possess. A wizard has no such requirement--his magic is actually of an internal nature.

To put it another way: all magic--all power, really--actually comes from men, and more specifically, from their "wands" (ahem.) A woman doing magic is just serving as an avatar or proxy for her boyfriend's "will." Further, because she is committing a carnal sin by not being married to this creature (by definition: you need a priest, and no priest will marry you to a devil), she starts off on the "evil" side of the line, even if she wants nothing to do with it.

Then there's the whole matter that she's "draining his willpower for her own purposes"--mythology tends to discretize single creatures into multiple over time, so "witch" and "succubus" were likely the same idea. Even if she was sleeping with a perfectly good Wiz, she'd still be a vile temptress.

That all seems more in line with medieval European folklore to me.

(Of course, the question of what happens when someone marries a wizard is left unanswered; it's usually assumed that wizards are too ingrained in their world of rites and formulae to go a-courting, but what if a girl were to just love them anyway--like I'm sure the wives of many mathematicians today do? Would she gain "legal" access to his magical energies, or is there some sort of biblical clause against that? In fact, would the wizard be allowed to marry at all? Would a priest condemn Merlin in his time, even in his role as the king's advisor?)

jacoblyles3• 17 years ago

It seems to me that the character of the wizard borrows a bit from the clergy. If you sit through a Catholic or Episcopalian mass, with its incense, music, communion, and ritual incantations, it certainly has the feeling of a magical rite. Also, believers do think that these rites have the ability to effect the world in extraordinary ways outside the normal rules of cause and effect (heal the sick, cast out demons, etc.); so the rites could be said to be magical.

The fact that priests do not marry also adds to the case.

anamax• 17 years ago

Unmarried (and presumably celibate) priests isn't universal, even in the "older" churches.

For example, at least one Eastern Orthodox church allows married priests. (IIRC, they have to get married before they get ordained.)

Rabbis are almost required to be married.

patio113• 17 years ago

Little known fact: some Catholic priests are permitted to marry.

Theology, like programming, has edge cases. Here's an example: you're an Anglican. Anglicans have apostolic succession -- i.e. if you're a priest, you were admitted by a bishop, who was in turn once a priest admitted by a bishop, who was in turn ... by St. Peter who was chosen to lead the Church by Christ Himself. Despite the fact that Anglicans are not Catholics, and do things differently (such as permitting priests to marry), under Catholic theology their claim to holy orders is good if a little misguided.

But what if one who is married converts to Catholicism? They're still a priest until they forsake it. Their marriage was licit when they entered into it. We're famously touchy about dissolving marriages -- either it was illicit when it was entered into (perhaps due to reasons that were not discovered yet) and thus requiring an annulment, or its good and binding until death.

Which means married Anglican priests who convert to Catholicism (slightly more complicated -- you need the bishop to sign off on it) are now married Catholic priests.

endtime• 17 years ago

It's interesting to see how Pratchett thought about this over two decades ago, given that I have read most of his Discworld books. There is a sharp contrast between witches and wizards in his work. While in many ways his witches do the "dirty work" and the wizards sit in the university, the way it's presented is such that the witches are about helping people and getting things done, whereas the wizards are a bunch of doddering old windbags in slippers who don't really do anything at all...and when they do, they usually screw something up pretty badly.

Granny Weatherwax (a witch) is easily one of Pratchett's best characters. (She shows up in Equal Rites, and then again in Wyrd Sisters, which is a sort of retelling of Macbeth...and in several books since.)

patrickg-zill• 17 years ago

Gandalf was one of the Istari, a race or order of Men sent by the Valar to serve as opponents to Sauron.

It is strongly hinted that Gandalf took on the form of a Man, but was actually one of the lesser Valar, called Maiar.

The Silmarillion explains much of the background of all this.

In a time before Viagra, the significance of Gandalf appearing as an old, wise man would necessarily preclude sexual activity.

demallien• 17 years ago

Oh, Gandalf definately wasn't human - even the LotR itself was surprisingly clear on this point, considering how much magic was presented obscurely in the book.

On the otherhand, I would have thought that LotR was the perfect refutation of Pratchett's thesis - I mean Galadriel was one of the bad-asses on the White Council, with ambition to boot! She was one of the holders of the three elven rings, marking her a peer of Gandalf's, and it was she that was tempted by the One Ring's power.

And then, in that other grand fantasy series, The Belgariad, there was of course Polgara, another strong female magic-using character, even though she ended up playing second fiddle to her father any time some direct application of power was required.

Overall, I can't help feeling that the speech was in response to Pratchett's own innate tendancy against female magic-users, as a close examination of most of the major series shows that many, if not most, had strong female magic-using characters, both good and evil. At least Pratchett was able to see that he had a bias, and apparently fought against it to create Granny Weatherwax - full marks to the man :-)

talboito• 17 years ago

Its tempting to counter with something snarky like a good "whoosh!", but maybe a better response would be to remember that human beings write science fiction and fantasy.

AndrewO• 17 years ago

I wonder how his same talk would be given today. In a post-Harry Potter, World of Warcraft world, the idea of a female wizard no longer raises eyebrows in the same way.

Still, interesting and entertaining.

jacoblyles3• 17 years ago

Not to mention Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time".

whatusername2• 17 years ago

I was thinking that as I read it.. I wonder if Jordan was influenced at all by this speech? (Eye of the world came out in 1990)

Jordan was definitely trying to play with gender politics through his work. From the only female magic users (at the start of the story at least), to the Queens of Andor and entire city of Far Madding - he liked to shift some of the gender-balance on its head. The constant Village Council / Womens Circle examples also bring this up.

That being said - the hero is still the young male with a sword. And the bad guys: Fain / Moridin / Shaidar Haran are all male as well. So while it does play some havok with traditional magic use (at least for the first few books) - most of the male-centric fantasy genre is still intact.

donaq• 17 years ago

Way before Harry Potter, there was Polgara the Sorceress and her mother Poledra. While both of them could be said to have played second fiddle to the preeminent Belgarath, there was no doubt that their power was of the same nature as that of his. There was also Sephrenia and her goddess Aphrael, but then I guess David Eddings wasn't as popular as J.K. Rowling is.

unalone4• 17 years ago

One of J. K. Rowling's truly great accomplishments (that is, one of the things that if anything isn't praised enough) is that she takes a very liberal worldview and she portrays it in such a straightforward manner that very few people think to argue with the things she's talking about.

She describes a world where there's no difference between men and women. There are heroes and villains on both sides. Furthermore, women aren't made out to be fundamentally superior or inferior in terms of emotion versus ration. She makes the difference apparent - you get dumb guy moments and giggly girl moments - but at the same time, every character has dumb blind emotional moments, and moments where a clear head prevails.

She does similar things with racism and libertarianism. (That's not to say Rowling is ultralibertarian, but she expresses certain views - like the fallibility of government and the acknowledgement that people aren't created entirely equal - that promote the agenda, while simultaneously being mature enough to acknowledge that government isn't inherently bad and that people are defined by more than just their talent.) The funny thing is that the one thing she's accused of - promoting witchcraft - is the least radical of the various things she tries to do. Combine that with a very adult understanding of death couched into a book series that, for the first few books, was considered fluff kid fantasy, and you realize that Rowling is very underrated as a kid's author. People ignore her merits for her popularity, which is a shame.

Eddings, from all I've heard, is a talented writer, but he's not good at reaching out to a wide audience. He's a niche writer. Rowling, meanwhile, has a talent for making people fall in love with her writing that I've rarely seen in any writer, and she combines that with surprisingly mature plot development.

jodrellblank• 17 years ago

For more Wizardry / Hacker tales you could read Wizard's Bane (available online here: http://www.baen.com/library/rcook.htm ) a tale of a programmer transported to a world where magic exists.

sketerpot• 17 years ago

I prefer Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. Wizardry is hacking. Oh, and teleportation spells can take you to other planets. It's excellently written, and as addictive as Harry Potter. More information:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YoungWizards

Eliezer• 17 years ago

University of the Island of Gont? FAIL. He is thinking of the school at Roke, not Gont. In Gont they herd goats, which is what Ged did as a kid. Boy, you sure can tell the old Pratchett beats the young Pratchett for domain knowledge.

Female wizard (not witch): Herald-Mage Savil. That book was 1989, though.

Terry Prachett: Why Gandalf Never Married (1985)

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