Discworld & characters all the property of Terry Pratchett
A character study of sorts focusing on Anagramma Hawkins, who though often unpleasant I've always found to be an interesting character - and I very much liked her development in Wintersmith.
Pride
Anagramma Hawkins made pride her armour. She was, after all, a witch, and you are far more likely to meet a witch who doesn't wear a pointy hat than one who is not, in her own way, proud.
Most of the time, she felt like pride was all she had. On days when there wasn't quite enough food, days when the farmer's children laughed at her, on days when she looked around and realised her family had nothing that could not be taken away but themselves and their pride, she knew her pride was all she had.
The first time she did magic, she realised she had found something else that no one could take away from her.
The news that little Anagramma was a witch had spread quickly through their village - though not as quickly as the fire she had out out through sheer force of will would have. People started to take their hats off to her in the street, to thank her, to nod and smile and ask when she was leaving for the mountains. The farmer's children lowered their gazes respectfully when she walked past, and no longer laughed at her for the stains and tears in her clothes.
And she had decided that no one would take that respect away from her, either.
Miss Level was, frankly, a disappointment.
She was the fear, the warning, the joke witch who had no respect and no pride.
Anagramma sat out her time with the two women with gritted teeth and upturned nose, scathing comments rolling from her with every exhale. Miss Level flinched away, and the young girl exhaulted at her victory.
She was proud and she was strong, and no one would doubt her again.
Miss Earwig was so much better. Tall and mysterious, proud and unashamedly witchy, she talked about Magyk and not just being some sad old woman with her nose in everyone's business doing their chores for them because they were too stupid or lazy to do things themselves.
Mrs Earwig took her to a clothes shop and had black dresses and cloaks made, helped her choose a hat in Zac Zac's, and nodded approvingly when Anagramma spent all of her money on a silver charm.
"A witch must look like a witch."
Yet though she looked in the mirror and saw exactly what she wanted to see, Anagramma's pride still burned at the way Mrs Earwig had sniffed "good riddance" when they threw her old clothes away.
She liked the way Mrs Earwig thought and talked, but she didn't really like her. But affection was second to respect, and she knew that the older witch held the key to getting it.
When she started the coven, Anagramma refused to admit she was nervous. It was her coven. And she was in charge. She had been there the longest, she knew the most, and she was the best. She made sure they didn't forget it, snapping and sighing, impatient and disdainful but also secretly glad of Petunia's incompetence, Dimity's foolishness. They were incompetent and foolish and she was not, and that made her the best, so she got their respect.
Too many years of bitterness and teasing kept her from wanting their friendship.
And then Tiffany Aching turned up.
A witch in sky blue and grass green, full of doubt and puzzled certainty, who listened to Anagramma's instructions with a tilted head and a slight raise to her eyebrow that suggested she didn't think much of what she was hearing.
She had enjoyed tearing the newcomer down, with her foolish claims that Mistress Weatherwax had bowed to her and given her an invisible hat. Not to mention her countryside bumpkin nature, with her absent minded mentions of cheese, of all things. The girl was clueless, clearly, couldn't even articulate what magic she had done properly, and didn't even know how to dress properly.
Anagramma didn't let herself question why it was so vital that Tiffany be mocked, why she was responding as though the other girl was a threat.
At first, she was glad that Tiffany had come to her for help, though she didn't show it. Even if the girl was a bumpkin, she was asking Anagramma for help and that meant she knew Anagramma was better than her. But almost immediately she became concerned. Suddenly, Tiffany was far better at magic than she had been, and Anagramma wasn't sure she liked it. After their shopping trip, she was terrified, and she scarcely tried to hide it.
She was bitter, too, that Tiffany could do so much and command so much awed respect so quickly.
During the Witch Trials, which she thought was a perfectly awful name, Anagramma wasn't entirely certain what was going on. Tiffany seemed to have lost whatever abrupt magical prowess she had gained just as abruptly, and yet she seemed more comfortable back in her old boots and green dress than in all of her witching finery.
The air shimmered in the middle of the arena, and everyone knew where Tiffany really was, even though she was standing right in front of them. Everyone knew what she had done, everyone knew how impressive it was, and Tiffany refused to stand up and just say it. She would have won, and yet she wouldn't even put the hat on. Even Anagramma would have fallen over herself for the honour of being lent Mistress Weatherwax's hat.
Tiffany could have won, could have left with everyone's respect, and she just let it pass her by. She could have had everyone's respect, but she didn't need it.
And that both confused and worried Anagramma, who needed everyone's respect and was never certain if she had it.
She finally had her own cottage, but everything started to go wrong immediately. They were all so small and stupid, and seemed to think she would actually care about their silky little feuds and problems. It was not what she had expected, what she had dreamed of. She had her own cottage, and nothing was going right.
They did not respect her.
It took everything crumbling around her to discover that pride alone was hollow; to realise that she had been taught magic, but not how to be a witch.
It wasn't until she was forced to beg for help and expected none that she realised she had really wanted the others to like her all along, because it wasn't until she asked that she realised how scared she would be that the answer would be no.
It was then that she learnt that Miss Level taught humility, pride in caring and helping, that Tiffany had needed no fanfare because she needed no-one's respect to know she was a witch. That there was competition and independence, but there was also isolation, and it could be a fine line that you crossed without even realising it.
She learnt that pride alone was hollow, but pride in a job well done, pride in protecting where possible, helping where needed, pride based in action not self-opinion was not.
Anagramma was a witch, and she was proud.