The topic today for top Ten Tuesday at Broke and Bookish is Heroines. I decided to narrow that down and discuss 10 women from my favorite series of all time, Discworld.

1. Cheery Littlebottom – Sergeant in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch

Cheery is a dwarf. She’s a female one to be precise about it but polite dwarves don’t talk about that. She decided that she wants to be open about being female and starts wearing a skirt and using pronouns like him and her. She causes quite an uproar in dwarf society with her outlandish ways.

2. Adora Belle Dearheart

She runs the Golem Trust making sure that Golems aren’t being abused by heartless masters. She’s tough and smokes like a chimney.

3. Angua – Ankh-Morpork City Watch

Angua is a werewolf and a woman on the police force. The bad guys think that the cops are using a wolf but no one suspects it is her. She gets sent in when things need to end quickly.

4. Lady Sybil

She starts out a gentlewoman dragon breeder who marries Commander Vimes of the City Watch and civilizes him against his will. She’s tough and big and loving and makes him be the best version of himself whether he wants to or not.

5. Polly Perks

She disguises herself as a boy to join the army. She wants to rescue her brother and get away from the life women are required to lead. She fins out that she’s better at soldiering than at hiding who she is.

6. The Keldas

The Keldas are the leaders of the Nac Mac Feegle, a type of fairy folk. They are the only females in groups of hundreds of men. They do the thinking. They can magically connect with the memories of all the previous Keldas and the Keldas yet to come. They also enjoy the occasional sip of Special Sheep Liniment, which is way too dangerous to give to actual sheep.

7. Petulia Gristle

She is a young witch who specializes in pig medicine. The other young witches make fun of her until they realize how much she is valued by others in a rural community that relies on pigs. She’s the closest the Discworld has to a vet so I have to cheer for her.

8. Tiffany Aching

She’s a young witch who was mostly self taught until she attracted the attention of some very senior witches. She has the help/burden of the Nac Mac Feegle. She’s saved the world a few times too.

9. Nanny Ogg

She’s a powerful witch who is the matriarch of a vast clan of Oggs. She torments her daughters-in-law. She loves her cat who everyone else thinks is an evil creature. She’ll drink you under table while singing bawdy songs like, “The Wizard’s Staff has a Knob at the End” and “The Hedgehog Song” which is so filthy that it can’t be written down.

She even has her own stamp.

10. Granny Weatherwax

She’s such a powerful witch that she doesn’t even need to do much magic anymore. Just her glare makes people do what she wants.

She doesn’t hold with nonsense.

Granny: “I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult. Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.”
Nanny Ogg: “But all them things exist.”
Granny: “That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ’em.”

The only things that scares her is knowing that she could take over the world so she tries extra hard to stay sort-of good.

Besides, her soul can hitch rides on animals and that’s really cool. I want to be her when I grow up.

Bonus – An extra shout out to the Mother Goddess who isn’t an actual character but is the topic of one of my favorite quotes ever.