Talk:Eumenides Treason

(Re: edit of 5 Feb 2012) I've been confused as to the locations of some of the Witches of the Tiffany series, too. Has anyone found any evidence? --Old Dickens 01:44, 5 February 2012 (CET)

We know they're basically all mountain witches. Well, hedge witches, according to Mrs. Proust. But they're all living in "the mountains," including the ones from Lancre. And, the mountains in which Lancre is located are the Ramtops. So...that's where I get Ramtops. It's more general than Lancre. I don't think most of the witches we hear about are in Lancre, since Lancre is supposed to be small. (Large in area but the area being largely vertical.) Granny W. in Bad Ass and Nanny Ogg in Lancre Town and maybe a couple more in remote villages seem like plenty of witches for a small kingdom. How many steadings could there be? Seebs 02:00, 5 February 2012 (CET)

That's the question. They don't seem to be in Lancre, but where, then? Are they even in the Ramtops, or down in the foothills/Octarine Grass Country? We don't hear much of other Ramtops communities, compared to The Chalk, Sheepridge, Ohulan Cutash and the plains. --Old Dickens 04:13, 5 February 2012 (CET)

I think you're meant to be confused, Old Dickens. Remember that-with the exception of Nanny Ogg, witches lived miles from anywhere, and may even change their position if local villagers/farmers become disapproving of them. I'm fairly sure that Granny Weatherwax didn't live in the 'centre' of Bad Ass. Marmosetpower 12:35, 26 February 2012 (CET)

"Miles from anywhere" isn't reasonable: they need to be within reach of their communities, and vice-versa, that's what they're for. Hilta Goatfounder lives in Ohulan, Letice Earwig seems to live in some unspecified town (she's veddy sophisticated), Agnes is just down below Lancre Town in Mad Stoat. Almost any Witch mentioned is associated with a village; it's the larger areas containing the villages that aren't reported. There aren't enough data to be confusing. Old Dickens 15:48, 26 February 2012 (CET)

I think you mean "there isn't enough data for it to be confusing". So you're saying that you don't know where Mad Stoat or Ohulan are? Actually it depends on what sort of Witch they are whether they live near people or not. If they wish to practice midwifery then yes. If they are the female form of a hedge wizard, which most of them seem to be, that's not necessarily the case. But yes, it does seem like most of them live near towns. Marmosetpower 20:45, 27 February 2012 (CET)

No, I think I meant "there aren't enough data to be confusing".¹ Certainly I pointed out where Mad Stoat was and Ohulan was last seen just at the foot of the mountain below Lancre. I don't recall the female hedge wizards, but there are several non-standard types. Most of them, though, as described in the Witches and Tiffany series live among and look after a community of people. Old Dickens 23:50, 27 February 2012 (CET)

¹ If there were enough of them to justify the collective noun it might be confusing.

Additionally, we ought to bear in mind that a chief component of interaction between witches revolves around ensuring*, in the finest "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" style, that no witch becomes sufficiently misanthropic, isolated, or power-hungry to develop a sudden wish to pervert her talents towards harming - and a witch's responsibility to maintain a steading and care for the community that dwells within it is, in this respect, an enormously important aspect of keeping her healthy, functioning, and socially integrated.

• through a heady blend of the celebrated Brownian motion of society, sugared conversation over tea and biscuits and a ley-network of implicit threats

As such, given the nature of the Witches' Collective as a sort of self-policing sorority of Platonic Philosopher-Queens - well, if Plato had been a feminist, anyway - it strikes me as fantastically unlikely that they would condone such a flagrant breach of established protocol as purely egocentric "hedge witchery" - even if, for the sake of argument, we exclude the threat of witches subject to no genteel supervision turning into Black Alisses. Such "hedge witchery" would fly in the face of the distinctly political function Pterry's practitioners of the Craft serve - it'd probably undermine whatever fragile social contract it is that actually binds the organized witches in their contemporary form.** We all know how prideful and haughty they tend to be. Even "research witches" go about their business in the name of benefiting their peers and their peers' steadings (cf. Hat Full Of Sky). Sator 00:39, 28 February 2012 (CET)

• I sort of think that we actually see this principle put into motion in its early stages, in the form of the conflict between the intentionally public-good-minded Granny Weatherwax and the egocentric Mrs. Earwig.

But how do you get a "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" if there isn't a proper hierarchy in witchery? One witch could tell another what to do, and then she could be ignored. Witches tend to want people to boss about. 'Hedge wizardry' is just a general guideline to the sort of witchery that goes on, basically a follower of the natural or Wiccan way, not necessarily involving people.

I think basically what you're asking is why no one is conversation says what Kingdom Ohulan or Mad Stoat are in. The probable reason for this it no one talks like this, it would sound far too contrived. After all the listener knows where the places are. It only really becomes important if you're creating a map, or in this case, an encyclopaedia. Marmosetpower 13:37, 28 February 2012 (CET)

Tiffany Aching refers to them collectively as living in the mountains several times in I Shall Wear Midnight, all of them I think besides Miss Tick. Page 10, Miss Level is included with Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax as "support from the mountain witches." Page 88, Tiffany recalls ""going round the houses" up in the mountains," which could be her time with Miss Level, Miss Treason or, I believe both. (Especially because Miss Treason was the last place she was before returning to the chalk.) Page 242, Tiffany groups Petulia and Annagrama with "the rest of them back in the mountains." None of that sounds like foothills or grass country to me. Seebs 04:45, 5 February 2012 (CET)