Gudrun the Stupid

This man was to inventing what B.S.Johnson was to architecture. Acording to the wizards of Unseen University, the briefly achieved pinnacle of Gudrun's career was when he climbed to the top of the Tower of Pseudopolis, in the firm belief that an intricate arrrangement of feathers and extension rods secured to his arms were all he needed to crack the secret of man-powered flight. He was disabused of this notion via practical experiment several seconds later, but alas was unable to write his notes up, on account of being dead.

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Presumably the Discworld equivalent of Daedalus, whose name means "Cunning worker" in Greek, and who flew on wings of feathers and wax with his son, Icarus, from the Cretan tower wherein he had been imprisoned by King Minos so that the knowledge of the one safe way through the Labyrinth would remain secret.

There was also a British monk who decided to use home-made wings to jump off of the monastery's tower, flying 200 metres before crashing. He survived it though.

Gudrun, in Scandinavian circles, is generally a woman's name. Is this another reason for his nickname? His/her last flight is recorded in The Science of Discworld II: the Globe.