So, here it is: the first truly great Discworld book. I didn’t know that going in, but I had a good feeling about it. Practically speaking, this is Terry’s first proper book about the witches of Lancre; Equal Rites does feature Granny Weatherwax but it doesn’t feature most of the other trappings (and by the end feels like much more of a wizard story anyway). The Witches are one of the character groups that form a sort of miniseries within Discworld, along with the City Watch, Death, Rincewind, etc. Rincewind has obviously been heavily featured at this point, but Terry has confessed to not enjoying the character as much as many of his others. The Witches and the City Watch feel like the two main tentpoles of his universe, collectively featuring as the main protagonists of almost 20 books (counting Tiffany Aching) and making cameo appearances in several other stories. With the City Watch not having made an appearance yet, Wyrd Sisters comes off as the first example of the kind of story that would come to define the Discworld.

It’s also the first Discworld novel to feel fully driven by a specific story, with little room for tangents or humorous digressions that upset the tone. It begins and ends mainly as a riff on Macbeth, but takes the time to send up many other Shakespeare plays on the way. This provides plenty of room for material to parody, but ensures that the theme is very consistent, focusing on the power of stories/tales and their ability to affect the way people view the world. The Witches books tend to be overtly based in myth and folklore, and they start strong with those ideas here, setting a standard that many later books will follow. As a reader who has come to very much enjoy stories about stories, this is like coming home to where it all began for me.

The novel’s thematic focus is all well and good, but the real reason for its greatness is character. The main trio of witches are perfectly pitched, all some of Terry’s finest creations. Granny Weatherwax is more well-rounded than in her first appearance, balancing nicely between practical wisdom and old-fashioned habits. She is brilliant enough to always be the most important character in the room, but not so brilliant that she isn’t capable of learning new things. This is such a difficult line to ride; in many Discworld novels, Granny essentially wins by virtue of being Granny. This could easily lead to the character feeling like (though I hate to use this term) a Mary Sue. Yet she is never insufferable, always a delight. It’s hard to pin down why that is, although the contrast between her and the other witches is likely an important factor.

Nanny Ogg is simply one of Terry’s funniest characters, and serves as the even-more-practical witch who doesn’t care at all about how things are “meant to be done”. She is the witch most firmly rooted in the real world, with all that entails. And Magrat is the witch most dedicated to doing witchcraft “properly”, where it looks and sounds and behaves the way people expect. She and Nanny Ogg are both pulled closer to the middle of this spectrum throughout the book, and Granny sits right in between them, learning from both sides. In any situation, the three of them can be called upon to represent every side of an issue. It helps that they’re also hilarious together. Terry has sometimes struggled in earlier books at switching between the “funny bits” and the “plot stuff”, but the witch trio allows him to incorporate both at once without any tonal conflict.

More could be said about Wyrd Sisters. The villains are genuinely great, the mad king in particular being funny and creepy all at once. The Fool is also a great character, his central gimmick (a clown who hates jokes) allowing him to be funny and yet deadly serious. A pattern emerges in the details here; every funny character has their humor firmly rooted in character. The more out-of-place non sequiturs of the first few books are gone, relegated to the narration and footnotes, while the actual plot stays focused no matter how silly it gets. Terry has always been funny, but this is where you really begin to see him becoming a great writer, the kind of author that could tell a great story even if he cut out all of the jokes.

Nice to have them though.