I just re-read Snuff, by Terry Pratchett, and I was struck again and again by the fact that Vimes’s wife, Sybil, is one of the best examples I can think of of a fat woman just casually existing – in a romantic capacity – in a story. She’s not fetishized, but she’s not desexualized, either. No one is especially sexualized in Pratchett’s books, but she’s in a healthy romantic relationship, and it’s implied that there’s plenty of mutual physical attraction there. There are a few humorous references to the impressive effect of her expansive bosom on impressionable men. She’s attractive, and she takes up a lot of physical space, and it really feels like there was no conflict there for the author. That shouldn’t be so rare, but it is.
There’s a sweet scene where she and Sam are in bed together that paints a great little picture of realistic intimacy. She rolls over to talk to him, and this shift in her weight causes the already very fluffy bed to bury Vimes. Her bigness is never depicted as something wrong – It’s just part of her presence. It’s a part of her charm, but not all of it.
She also takes up a lot of social space. She was already the richest person in Ankh-Morpork when she married Sam, and she has a massive social network. She’s extremely generous, opinionated, and confident. She breeds incredibly dangerous dragons as a hobby. She’s fierce as hell when she needs to be, and doesn’t apologize for knowing more than others, whether that’s about dragons, etiquette, or history. She calls Lord Vetinari, the tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, by his first name. She proposed to Sam, not the other way around. Sam may not always be the most attentive or responsible of husbands, but he loves Sybil and never seems to resent her for being so powerful. He maybe resents her a bit for taking away his bacon sandwiches, but he still worships the ground she walks on.
She’s just an awesome character, constantly popping into the narrative to say something insightful or hilarious, and she once again makes me wish that I had read these books when I was a teen, because I desperately needed more examples of women who take up space and don’t say they’re sorry for it. Too often, we teach young women to shrink themselves into as small a space as possible, and then are shocked that they don’t thrive. Women are almost exclusively rewarded for smallness and delicacy, and our largeness is rarely celebrated, even though it can be an absolutely glorious and powerful thing.
Writing days this past week: 2
Reblogged this on No Bucket List.
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Your dragons sure are cute.
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Also, I’ve never read any Pratchet but this makes me interested in reading this one.
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I honestly can’t recommend his books enough. I think you’d particularly love all his books about the witches of the Discworld. Some of the most dynamic and real female characters I’ve ever read, and the least defined by looks, age, or male interest. Granny Weatherwax is a character that everyone should experience, and so is Tiffany Aching. His writing is also hilarious, so there’s that.
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Second for the Witches books. Nanny Off is also unapologetically large and in charge.
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Ogg, that is. Blasted autocorrect.
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@Deryn: I’m sure Nanny Ogg could make a double-intender out of Nanny Off.
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Guards! Guards! is a great introduction to Vimes and Sybil as well as Discworld as a whole! Highly recommend it!
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Thanks for this, Jasmine. You make me want to read books I would otherwise skip. Needless to say, Pratchet is on my list next. 🙂
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Pratchett wrote humans who were female but neither fetishized nor stereotyped. If I hadn’t loved him for the puns, I’d have loved him just for that.
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Sybil proposed to Sam?
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I thought so, but I could have remembered it wrong.
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I think I’ve seen that in fanfic, but I’m sure it’s not canon. (Then again, neither is Sam proposing. I imagine it was a quiet discussion between them, not a sweeping gesture.) The rest is spot-on, and I ADORE her.
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As a 6’3″ woman, I appreciated Lady Sybil more than I can explain when I was younger. There’s nothing I can do to become small and delicate, I’m built like a brick outhouse and I’ve got a wingspan close to 7 feet. Some of us just have to become larger than life, because the space that society has carved out for us is way too small.
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