It was lonely on the hill, and cold. And all you could do was keep going. You could scream, cry, and stamp your feet, but apart from making you feel warmer, it wouldn’t do any good. You could say it was unfair, and that was true, but the universe didn’t care because it didn’t know what “fair” meant. That was the big problem about being a witch. It was up to you. It was always up to you.
Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith
i think the witches of discworld might be my favorite modern interpretation of the witch archetype ever
they’re not glamorous or ugly or good or evil or mysterious or sexy or wicked
they’re just people who do the jobs that need doing, when there’s no glory in it, because someone’s got to
they’re the women who are just always there, who clip old men’s toenails and give young girls birth control and play cards with death for a child’s life, not because they’re particularly nice, not because they get credit for it, and not even because they have to—but they chose to be the witch, and so they deal with it.
i love the idea that magic isn’t really all that important at the end of the day. i love that most of magic is just knowing things other people don’t, and using them, and thinking. i love that witches are powerful, incredibly powerful, and their magic isn’t flashy at all. i love that a witch’s value is not measured by what kind of spells she can perform but by how she responds to a cry for help. i love that wizards think witching is a perfectly lovely career, for a woman, of course, when witches hold the universe together just as much as the wizards do, and cure sheep.
witches do what needs to be done, because even if it’s not your fault, it’s your responsibility.