Maybe I don't get what these boards are for but here goes.. Mistress Weatherwax is now a supporting character to Ms. Achings. PTerry has talked about the disc getting crowded, is this a solution? Is it the natural evolution for characters that grow to big/powerful?( Vimes and the watch have been backround for AM stories) Is it a return to her roots as she first appeared in Equal Rites? Do you like the new perspective, has it changed your view ?

I find it okay as a solution... if it is well written, and fits the story, it is more than just a five minute cameo à la "enter the stage, don't steal too much time, but bring your fans". I thought Vimes was a good sidekick character in MR, it worked well... The worn old policeman exercising everything he's learnt about politics during the last years without rubbing it under our noses, contrasted the cunning young soldiers quite well. He also became proof that it is not a final solution for veteran characters to end up as a cameo guest in later books, but more a way to tie one time settings into the bigger overal setting of the Discworld, something I like because it makes DW feel like a huge setting instead of a label for a number of loosely related places where the stories happen to take place.

It depends on the story really, and the writing... A character death can, after all, be an overly dramatic end in an attempt to wring some drama out of a character that has learnt every trick the author was able to come up with, or it can be really good though cruel writing.

As in Granny's case: I prefer her in guest appearances than dead. She was probably also a means to tie the new setting of the Chalk into the overall Discworld.
One thing I like about the Discworld series is that I never got the impression that PTerry was writing a character to death -in more than one aspect- because he happened to be popular at the time. That's different to a lot of B class fantsy series', where the marceting machine alone would have dictated 12 Granny or Rincewind novels, 12 Vimes novels, and no "one termers" because that's not what readers asked for.

Rincewind and the UU faculty have a similar fate, only now they support The Science of Discworld books. You won't believe how dog-eared my copies are...

I am of the same mind as Hsing. Rather than have Granny in a mediocre story, I'd rather have her in a (certainly strong) supporting role in a good and fresh story.

Thanks for the opinions Hsing and Saccharisa . I bought this computer hoping to find a place to discuss Pterry. You've got The Science of
Discworld in Greece? I've only seen it mentioned in bibliographies I'll have to see if my local bookstore will order them for me ( there is more than one right). Hsing's mention of Vimes in MR seemed to hit the point about different roles one character can play in different stories. I like seeing Granny through Tiffany. My favorite Pterry books are the ones I didn't see coming, the way he fiddled with his presentation in Going Postal or the darker tone of NW. Of course I also love the stories and characters I've reread so many times so when PTerry finds a new use for an old character....Hurah!

I don't think it's too far off that at the moment, actually. He's been in just about every book of late. Six of the last seven main books, I believe.

If any characters being done to death, it's Vimes. I'd fully expect him to be in "making money" as a side character as well.

And of course, let's not mention the Igors. Technically, different characters, but still.

More than overdone

the problem with Vimes is that he's become such a large part of Ankh Morpork that not many things can happen there without it affecting him in some way.

a simple way to fix this would of course be to kill him off!

Yeah, he is very present whenever we go near the city.

I also think it would be difficult because in addition to being the second or third most powerful man in Ankh-Morpork he is the only upperclassman who communicates with the street people which gives him information he wouldn't normally get. None of the other main characters from the other novels would be able to get there and do anything important without him knowing and pTerry wouldn't be able to kill him off without several fan mobs.

I think Sam Vimes Jr was introduced as a future replacement for Sam Vimes Sr.

But, as those who attended Dutchcon know, I have Views about these matters.

And they indeed deserve their capital V

Ooooooh, Views eh?

What about us who could not attend Dutchcon? We would like to know your Views on this subject. Please?

In a nutshell, my Views are that Tiffany was introduced to replace Granny, who Pterry is going to kill off, and that Sam Vimes cannot be sustained as the literary device he currently is and will therefore have to be killed off, which is why Pterry introduced Sam Vimes Jr - because if you start with a character from when he was a baby, that gives you a lot more time to write about him than if you start from when he's in his late forties and suffering heart trouble.

Although he'd have to jump forwards a few years to do that, I think, and drag the entire Discworld scenery along - the settings are more tied together than in the beginning of the series, when he could easily make all Discworld except for one tiny country make a 15 years jump in one book so the young hero starting out as a baby could return as a young man only few years (if at all) later. I don't think I want a Discworld version of the Disney Babys, and not many other grown up readers would. Especially in the Watch environment, which always had some whodunnit atmosphere.

As for Granny - he hasn't come up with any new ideas for this character for some time now. As I said, a worse writer wouldn't need too many new ideas and just make it do the same stunt again and again in a different frilly dress... Granny has always had more of a common theme underlying her stories, but in a way that worked, and the stories themselves never had a "second warming up" feeling. Still, now getting a story with her in it that makes me go "Whoa, how totally unexpected" would surprise me.
Everything's possible.

I don't think Vimes is going out in the next book. I just think Pterry's planning for when he does.