u/enriquekikdu

In my semi-chronological (reading out loud the witches series to my wife at night while I try to keep on the pace of the other books on my own for the rest of the day) first readthrough, I just finished Equal Rites a bit before The Light Fantastic.

After two books that went full on parody we get to a book that explores gender and power dynamics. And as an autistic non-binary person I am I identified with Esk from the very start.

The way her dynamic with his brothers consisted of them saying factually wrong things about how magic works and Esk understanding it from an instinctual level was fascinating to read, specially after coming from two books about a failure wizard.

But the real juice of the book is on her dynamic with Granny Weatherwax, the way she at all costs wants her to be a witch, but Esk’s true instincts being the ones of a wizard. That push and pull between both ways of doing magic really hit hard as a non-binary person, the same way I personally felt broken when trying to perform the male standards, it felt as something I could do while at the same time always felt like betraying my nature.

Loved how Granny had the wisdom to see while against a woman practicing the magic of men, she listens to the flow of things and things told her Esk was to be a wizard. Their travels were so much fun and my favorite part of the book. Esk’s shenaningans were a treat.

But the most powerful scene of the book came when she was traveling the caravan with Simon and Treatle, and she brought out the idea of a female wizard and they just went full on misogyny, treating witches like nurses.

The rage Esk felt at that scene where she thought to herself she was gonna be a wizard AND a witch just to prove them, is the most accurate representation of how it feels to exist as a non-binary person. I was so excited to see where the book moved forward from there.

And to make matters more exciting narration talked about ancient Lovecraftian gods trying to enter the plane of existence through wizards minds, and Esk manifesting in her mind “let them come, I don’t care anymore”, I was expecting her lack of control of both sides of magic opening some portal to a Lovecraftian invasion, and Esk herself learning to close that door through better understanding both types of magic. Maybe it was me reading too much on that scene but keep in mind it wasn’t that crazy when in the previous book we had a full on star to deal with. At the very least I was expexting Esk to go and find a way to joint both kinds of magic.

But the second half of the book didn’t deliver on that, the scene of an admission test was a failure, and from then it was Esk disguising as a maiden to access the wizard’s magic with little to none success because she didn’t know how to read.

It is as if Sir Terry was at this point very unprepared to deal with the themes that he presented here and so went through the funsies side of it, which isn’t bad, I like Terry’s funsies. But it was underwhelming with the expectations set by that super powerful scene.

Simon’s mind invation was interesting, and Granny’s fight with Cutangle plus their little adventure to retrieve the staff was super fun. And honestly I’m fine with Terry shifting the focus to Granny after setting Esk aside.

I adored Esk and can’t wait to read more of her… or so I’d say if I didn’t know she won’t appear again for another like 35 books. Why, Terry? Well at least Granny will appear a lot, I loved her as well and I know she goes on a great developing as a character.

Equal Rites had my favorite first half of the four Terry Books I’ve read, and a clunky second half with a lot to love still. I can tell Terry had at this point much to learn as an author but all the same he was on the way for greatness. Can’t wait to see how he keeps growing.