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I’m generally supportive of having more balance in roles where it doesn’t matter (Dibbler is a good example, doesn’t matter if they’re a man or a woman so long as they’re a shameless rogue), Vetinari is a bit of a stretch (although I can see Anna Chancellor being suitably devious and intimidating), but one of the minor characters is a female “wizard in waiting”?? There’s an entire fething book called Equal Rites precisely because that’s not a thing! I’m concerned about what they’re doing to the lore here and that’s very sad, because I was looking forward to this.

But if they wanted to do gender equal rights why not do the freaking Equal Rights story or one of the many Witches books?

Bleh if they can't even cast people as the right gender for the story that kinda shows how much authenticity we can expect from their translation of the material into Tv format.


The sad thing is that once you start making changes like that it cuts up how characters work; how some jokes and references and relations start to fail (please don't tell me Vims is going to start getting the hots for Vetinari to create some kind of sexual tension between then?!). It also tends to fall apart if you try to make a series out of it and do more productions because you have to start changing more and more in order to make it fit until you've got nothing left of the original.

Well, none of Vetenari's characteristics are specifically male.

Former assassin's guild member. Mind like a steel trap. Ridiculously good understanding of the human condition (regulated Crime, for instance).

It's all in the acting, and not the contents of the pants.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Because in terms of the casting itself, there's a world of difference between 'we've decided to cast a woman as Lord Vetenari' and 'we've decided to cast this specific woman as Lord Vetenari.

One is a conscious decision to make a change. The other is presumably casting the Right Person for the role.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, none of Vetenari's characteristics are specifically male.

Former assassin's guild member. Mind like a steel trap. Ridiculously good understanding of the human condition (regulated Crime, for instance).

It's all in the acting, and not the contents of the pants.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Because in terms of the casting itself, there's a world of difference between 'we've decided to cast a woman as Lord Vetenari' and 'we've decided to cast this specific woman as Lord Vetenari.

One is a conscious decision to make a change. The other is presumably casting the Right Person for the role.

If you're making an adaptation, the Right Person is one who can embody all aspects of the character, including their described physical characteristics. Whether Vetinari's other qualities are inherently masculine or not is besides the point; Vetinari is a man, therefore they should cast a man. Unless you're purposefully setting out to do a "novelty" production(all female X, all male Y, all BAME Shakespeare, deliberate OTT sendup of the original work etc), the primary and most important job of an adaptation is to reflect the source material as accurately as the new medium allows.

Arbitrary gender swaps of major characters weren't, last I checked, a required characteristic of television as a medium.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, none of Vetenari's characteristics are specifically male.

Former assassin's guild member. Mind like a steel trap. Ridiculously good understanding of the human condition (regulated Crime, for instance).

It's all in the acting, and not the contents of the pants.

The older I've become the more I've come to realise that there are no real things such as "gender characteristics" in the way that many might think of them. Furthermore in the world of fantasy with no genetic or social barriers save what the author creates; there are no barriers at all.

Ergo there's no reason for Vetenari to be male based on characteristics, but also no reason to be female either. The same is true of practically every character. Carrot and Angua don't even have to be man and woman as their traits can be adopted by a persons of any gender and they could as easily be reversed or the same or whatever one might choose.

Therefore there's every reason to want Vetenari to be male because that is who he is within the story as a complete character creation. The complete character is a male with all those qualities you identify. The gender is part of the whole package along with the clothing, style, race etc.... and everything else connected to them. Once you start changing one aspect the others are up for grabs too - change enough and you can end up with something like the Sci-fi channels adaptation of Earthsea - something that might have some roots or connection to the original material, but is far removed from it once you've made all those little and big changes.


In the end I guess part of what I'm saying is that I'd like to see more of what I envision in my mind as I read the book, to appear upon the screen. To see that minds eye image become reality. Of course things can change, I would wager every reader has retold parts of stories; or changed parts of characters within their own minds eye; heck there's a whole rafter of stuff we call fan-fiction which does just that (only instead of being in the minds eye its committed to words to be shared with others).



For Discworld its sad because there are loads of ways they can do just this that really fits within the world. Dwarves for example are a fantastic area where they could have worked female actors into playing as if they are male dwarves; or there's the entire story of Monstrous Regiment

I’d argue there is reason for Carrot and Angua to remain male and female respectively.

Carrot is ‘old fashioned man’ by design. As in physically strong, honourable, bit clueless about women. Angua is largely a feminist character, who loves Carrot despite his traditionalism.

And at this stage, we don’t know Vetenari is going to be female, just played by an actress. There’s still room for Vetenari to remain a male character.

But as I said, proof will be in the acting.

Very true but barring voice-overs for cartoons and other animated productions, I don't really recall seeing many women playing male characters on the big screen; nor even the TV screen. It's done in theatre a lot, but then its really obvious which is which typically behind the act.


Remember I'm not saying anything against the skill of actresses nor that I don't want to see more on the big screen. Just that when I see an adaptation that aims to be faithful I like it to be, well, faithful. Sometimes things change due to the nature of the medium and constraints, I totally accept many (not necessarily all) the chances to Lord of the Rings films to make them work in the time limit and constraints of film.

 Yodhrin wrote:
If you're making an adaptation,...

They're not. They're making a TV series inspired by Pratchett's Watch books. It's not intended to be a direct adaption.

 insaniak wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
If you're making an adaptation,...

They're not. They're making a TV series inspired by Pratchett's Watch books. It's not intended to be a direct adaption.

It's an adaptation of The Watch and its setting. They claimed they would be using the location, characters, and other details from the novels, but the plots would be wholly or largely new material. And you know that damn fine well, given you know to use the qualifier "direct" in front of adaptation, which necessitates there be other types of adaptations than direct 1:1 translations of the novel entire. They're still adaptations, and whatever it is they're adapting should be faithful to the source.

I figured it was going to be gak as soon as I saw BBC mentioned, no worries though I have the books and will just not watch them feth the corpse of the discworld.

The only sadness is that either this will bomb and then that’s likely it for tv adaptations or it’s successful and we get a raft of spin offs were the only relation to the books is the names used.

 Yodhrin wrote:

It's an adaptation of The Watch and its setting. They claimed they would be using the location, characters, and other details from the novels, but the plots would be wholly or largely new material. And you know that damn fine well, given you know to use the qualifier "direct" in front of adaptation, which necessitates there be other types of adaptations than direct 1:1 translations of the novel entire. They're still adaptations, and whatever it is they're adapting should be faithful to the source.

I used that qualifier because there is a difference between a direct adaption that tries to accurately recreate the source material, and an adaption inspired by a particular work. This is the latter kind, as it says right up front on the BBC website.

Whenever a production says that it is 'inspired' by something, you can guarantee that there will be substantial differences from the source material.

I’ll be afraid to watch it, if it does come out. I tend not to check out movies based on the books I love - they never live up to what I hope for. That and, usually for me, the way things look in visual media has a chance of overshadowing what I have imagined, that I already like the way it is.
And I’m not sure how good will Pratchetts humor translate into a medium other than books..

They already have Littlebottom.
That role will be interesting, depending on where in that character's story they begin from.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
I’ll be afraid to watch it, if it does come out. I tend not to check out movies based on the books I love - they never live up to what I hope for. That and, usually for me, the way things look in visual media has a chance of overshadowing what I have imagined, that I already like the way it is.
And I’m not sure how good will Pratchetts humor translate into a medium other than books..

Good Omens turned out quite nicely I felt? So whilst I share your concern, I feel there is some hope here.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
I’ll be afraid to watch it, if it does come out. I tend not to check out movies based on the books I love - they never live up to what I hope for. That and, usually for me, the way things look in visual media has a chance of overshadowing what I have imagined, that I already like the way it is.
And I’m not sure how good will Pratchetts humor translate into a medium other than books..

Good Omens turned out quite nicely I felt? So whilst I share your concern, I feel there is some hope here.

No optimism allowed! Only Doom! Doooooooooooooooooooom!

 AduroT wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
I’ll be afraid to watch it, if it does come out. I tend not to check out movies based on the books I love - they never live up to what I hope for. That and, usually for me, the way things look in visual media has a chance of overshadowing what I have imagined, that I already like the way it is.
And I’m not sure how good will Pratchetts humor translate into a medium other than books..

Good Omens turned out quite nicely I felt? So whilst I share your concern, I feel there is some hope here.

No optimism allowed! Only Doom! Doooooooooooooooooooom!

that's my secret Captain, I'm always disappointed...

I'll give it a go but with so much choice it'll have to at least B+ to get me stick with it