What does Terry Pratchett mean to you? Nobody really thought they’d have to replace the ‘does’ in that sentence with ‘did’ this soon. For a lot of his readers, acknowledging this brings something more than sadness. Can you call it grief if you never knew someone in person? Even when they taught you how to be a better person, if only inside your head.

But let’s ignore the fact that Sir Terence David John “Terry” Pratchett now walks in a black landscape, looks at tiny hourglasses in a library and possibly feeds Binky a sugar cube or few. His world is still alive, so let’s talk as if he is too.
Discworld. That’s where we started. The world borne by four elephants on the back of a turtle swimming through space. A world we could keep, one where we could belong, because everyone could. From Nobby Nobbs who had to carry a certificate to prove his species to the Librarian for whom only bananas and books mattered. It taught us to appreciate the ridiculous. It taught us to suspend our disbelief and dive in. It was our first brush with fantasy that was at the same time too fantastic and yet not too alien.

We learnt to be angry. In a Captain Vimes kind of way. Where injustice mattered. Right from fighting crime on a shoestring budget in Night Watch to standing up for the rights of those infinitely less fortunate, like in Snuff. We learnt to survive and that it is okay to be afraid and still go on, because you had to, forced by circumstances that leave you with no elbow room. Our inner Rincewind that makes us ‘like’ memes that say “I can’t adult today. Please don’t make me” found its first acceptance in that world.

We learnt to look at values, a word Pratchett would never use, afresh. Work, friendship (often inter-species), grit, and a will to fight and keep on fighting, we learnt to appreciate these things in that fantastic world.
And he understood humans, their fears, foibles, weaknesses and beauty. He understood women. His was a world where women mattered. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Agnes Nitt, Perdita X, Tiffany Aching, Glenda Sugarbean, Ysabell and the indomitable Susan Sto Helit… the list is endless. He didn’t make us ‘extras’ in that world, unlike many others before and after.

His sharp critique of ‘all-is-well’ institutions — academia, governance, administration — taught us the power of irreverent questioning. It taught us to look below the stairs and look hard. It taught us how privilege works.

But this is no self-help world. It is a wonderful, fantastic, larger-than-life world that cushions. In times of grief, one would conjure Death, dropping all-caps and murdering a curry. In times of spiritual crisis, one could think of Cohen storming the bastion of gods. In times of chaos, one could think of The Lady rolling the dice. The list goes on. But that world doesn’t.
We will not know how Moist von Lipwig tackles taxes. We will not know how Tiffany Aching will grow up. We will not know what happens to the Duke of Ankh as he ages and angers further. We will not know what Sam will grow up to be like. We will not have the sheer, sinful delight of holding a new Terry Pratchett book.

But we will revisit that world. It is ours. And there is no ‘rereading Pratchett’. We will be returning home. Where Bursars take dried frog pills to get by, where a prince of blood prowls the streets to keep a city safe and romances a werewolf, where a deliciously ribald old lady compiles naughty recipes, where a conman turns an administrator because nobody can do it better. Discworld lives. 

OUR FAVOURITE SIR TERRY QUOTES

 

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.” 
— Small Gods

“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.” 
— Hogfather

“‘And what would humans be without love?’
‘RARE,’ said Death.” 
— Sourcery

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” 
— Diggers

“And, as always happens, and happens far too soon, the strange and wonderful becomes a memory and a memory becomes a dream. Tomorrow it’s gone.” 
— Wintersmith

“‘Multiple exclamation marks,’ he went on, shaking his head, ‘are a sure sign of a diseased mind.’” 
— Eric

“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.”
— Moving Pictures

“DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING,” said Death. “JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”
— Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
— A Hat Full of Sky

“If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story.”
—  The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

“It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing.” 

OUR FAVOURITE SIR TERRY CHARACTERS

Sam Vimes
The commander of City Watch (on last count he was ‘His Grace, His Excellency, The Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes’), responsible for keeping crime under control in the city of Ankh-Morpork, is a conflicted character. Virtuous by nature, he is always fighting The Beast, his dark side, a battle he sometimes loses when angry. He knows his city so well that he can tell where he is just by the feel of cobblestones beneath his boots.

Masklin
One of the major characters in the Bromeliad series, Masklin is a Nome by birth and initially lives in the English Countryside with others of his kind. Perplexed by his sense of responsibility, he decides to leave on a truck. He is a born leader and tries to protect the lives of the other Nomes. His only vice seems to be his inability to lie and he cannot sugar-coat his words even when there is impending doom. 

Granny Weatherwax
Esmerelda Weatherwax (in the triple nature of Maid, Mother and Crone) is officially the Crone, except she has never been able to get the appearance of one. No matter how hard she tried, she had perfect skin, no warts and all her teeth. She is considered more powerful than Black Aliss, the most well-known witch on Discworld. A ‘Good Witch’ who gives people not what they want but what they need, Granny Weatherwax can do the impossible, except get her broom to start smoothly. 

Tiffany Aching
She is a trainee witch and we see her grow from nine years old in The Wee Free Men to 16 in I Shall Wear Midnight. She possesses the ability of First Sight and of Second Thought and is adept at self-concealment and absorbing heat from the objects around her. She has shown skills in the same areas as Granny Weatherwax, including the art of “Borrowing” or stepping outside of oneself. She apprentices with a lot of witches including Nanny Ogg and is good enough to be noticed by Granny Weatherwax. 

Rincewind
Rincewind is our inner self. A cynical coward who fears the worst because the worst always comes true for him, Rincewind had adventures at almost every turn and would desperately like not to have another one for as long as Discworld exists. He’s the one wizard who has no idea of wizardry and has been in Unseen University since time immemorial because he just couldn’t magic enough. His status as a wizard came courtesy an adventure he didn’t want. But he sure is attached to his staff and the Luggage, a gift, that also follows him around. 

Nanny Ogg
Witch Gytha Ogg is the Mother to Granny’s Crone. She loves to eat (though she has just one tooth left), has been married three times, has 15 children, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren and she is well-liked. She drinks, sings bawdy songs, writes dirty recipes and her annual bath night is feared by all. She is very broad-minded and people go to her for advice all the time. 

Death
One of the most sinister yet most liked characters in Discworld, Death is akin to the Grim Reaper and even resembles him in appearance. He speaks in ALL CAPS and directly into the mind of people (his voice is not audible), is visible to those who acknowledge him for who he is, rides a horse called Binky and loves cats and curry. He is fascinated by humanity and at the same time baffled by it. He has a daughter (adopted) called Ysabell and believes that his reaping is a “public service”.

OM
One of the oft-mentioned gods in the Discworld series, Om is omnipresent and omnipotent, in the country of Omnia. Unlike the other gods, he is a monotheistic deity. He is fairly lazy and inconsistent, often arrogant, rude and frivolous, having spent his initial years trapped in the tortoise form. The fact that people now believe in him has made him more powerful and aggravated his obnoxious attitude. 

Anindita Mitra

What does Terry Pratchett mean to you? 
Tell t2@abp.in