Talk:Geoffrey Swivel

Re: breaking the sound barrier. "There was a distant boom", but flying unprotected at 1200 Km/hr without being torn to shreds seems too fantastic for Discworld. I think it was mentioned before that 70 mi/hr was about tops for a broomstick, which is already a severe wind to hang on in. --Old Dickens (talk) 17:35, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Edit of 2 July

I'm having some trouble finding justification for the accusation of sexism and the apparent elitism in the latest submission here.

See Tiffany's (and Nanny's) rather glowing assessment of Geoffrey on p.322 . Mrs Earwig then says that "he's no witch", as the Wizards would say Eskarina was no wizard, but she's found her own method and path and her art is just as good, if a little different. Geoffrey has no training at all, but he's acquired Granny's steading on sheer talent and will have to develop his unique style as well. Calm-weaving may be his specialty, as other Witches and Wizards have theirs, but it doesn't have to limit him.

Petulia Gristle is undeniably "good with pigs": so good that she won the Witch Trials by doing the Pig Trick without a pig. She can also bore an elf to death. They don't get to be Witches "on the sole qualification of being 'good with pigs'". That would be a farmer.

Who said Tiffany "wasn't meant to be a Witch"? Not Miss Tick, and it seems generally counter-intuitive. How is she not "willing to accommodate Geoffrey's aspirations"? --Old Dickens (talk) 00:06, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah... agreed with Old Dickens. Tiffany was indeed hesitant to call Geoffrey a "witch." However, that's not because she didn't recognize him as a witch; that's because she was controlling for other peoples' reactions to him. Tiffany didn't want to have a long argument with people laughing at the boy witch. ("Nah, witches can't be boys", they'd say, obfuscating the fact that Geoffrey was clearly qualified to do witching). So she called him a "calm weaver." Ta da -- no argument, since no one had ever heard of a "calm weaver" before. I think the scene in the Dwarf broom repair shop is where Tiffany first coins the name, and it seems clear from the context that she is testing other peoples' reactions to Geoffrey, not questioning his competence. I've removed this section for now, but I'm certainly open for discussion. Moishe Rosenbaum (talk) 00:09, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

So Geoffrey can't call himself a witch because it would cause trouble with older witches who don't think there can be a male witch. Tiffany calls him a calm weaver to avoid an argument. Yet Eskarina is called a wizard. Why isn't she called a Magic Useress, so as to avoid damaging the delicate sensibilities of older wizards who object to a woman wizard? How many standards do I see here. I see one standard for Geoffrey and one standard for Eskarina. I see two standards. Almost as if there were originally one standard and it were doubled somehow. Onomatopoeia (talk) 17:13, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

This needs a reference to somewhere where Eskarina was acknowledged as a Wizard by a Wizard or even by herself. I can't recall where she's ever been called a Wizard by anyone, in-universe; we may use the term for lack of a better word. --Old Dickens (talk) 19:13, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Same old story

Geoffrey is the unregarded youngest of three brothers who goes out in the world and achieves great success. Sounds familiar: see Croydon Minimus and several Roundworld tales. --Old Dickens (talk) 00:43, 13 November 2016 (UTC)