# Will Pterry ever give us any gay Discworld characters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 25, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584 "2006-01-25T18:59:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kylede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kylede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kylede)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/61 "2012-10-05T05:48:43Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > If I might gently suggest, sexuality is minor compared with the much larger issues of equality and sociology. We in the late 20th and now 21st century occasionally think about sexual orientation but really its at best a side-bar to the worries of real life. Yeah, um… What a bigoted moronic response to an issue with extreme consequence. Just claiming you are gay in certain countries is an offence punishable by death!!! The amount of hate and vitriol I want to fling at you can’t be captured on this page, because I have too much respect for TSD to sully it’s forums with you trying to defend this horrible comment. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/62 "2012-10-05T08:49:29Z")
> [@Kylede](#): > > The amount of hate and vitriol I want to fling at you can’t be captured on this page, because I have too much respect for TSD to sully it’s forums with you trying to defend this horrible comment. Yes, because it’s so much more constructive to fling hate and vitriol than to sit down and explain how sexuality fits quite nicely within the purview of equality and sociology. Seems to me that if you did respect TSD you would have gone that route instead of where you choose to go. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/63 "2012-10-05T10:52:16Z")
> [@Kylede](#): > > What a bigoted moronic response to an issue with extreme consequence. Just claiming you are gay in certain countries is an offence punishable by death!!! > > The amount of hate and vitriol I want to fling at you can’t be captured on this page, because I have too much respect for TSD to sully it’s forums with you trying to defend this horrible comment. Your response seems extreme. FWIW I agree with the point you responded to. In most of the western world (the world in which Terry exists) homosexuality has minimal consequences and levels of acceptance and tolerance are moving in the right direction. On an individual basis I can see it being a source of misery and persecution, for (U.K.) society at large? definitely not top of the list. In any case, homophobic/racist/sexist/species-ist are all part of the same bundle of prejudices and human frailties that Terry Pratchett comes back to time and time and time again. Though he touches upon sexuality here and there as a part of the wider human condition to have a specific full storyline about it would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Why focus on the discrimination due to sexual preference when one has a full spectrum of special discrimination to play with? In fact I’d go further. He does homosexuality a favour by treating it as “no big thing” just another facet of being human (or troll, or dwarf, or vampire or Nobby). From what I know of his work and his personal convictions he strikes me as a strong humanist and that outlook is mirrored in his treatment of this and many other issues. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/64 "2012-10-05T11:05:07Z")
> [@Kylede](#): > > Yeah, um… > What a bigoted moronic response to an issue with extreme consequence. Just claiming you are gay in certain countries is an offence punishable by death!! Well, Klatch and Howondaland, sure. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/65 "2012-10-05T13:55:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > In _Jingo,_ there’s a scene where we see Leonardo sketching a diagram for a pedal-powered ship or something, complete with muscular, naked young men working the pedals. “His hands fairly carressed the paper.” > > Don’t wanna hijack this, but does anybody know if Pterry himself is gay or straight? (He’s entirely single AFAIK, but for some reason that does not seem to be a remarkable condition for SF writers.) He is certainly married and probably finished writing. I just saw a film on assisted dying he narrated as he is entering the largely unknown world of the Alzheimer’s victim. The sad thing is that, although assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, he won’t want it until he has lost marbles and, at that point, it won’t be allowed since you must be of sound mind to choose it. You cannot give an advanced directive. But he mentioned that his wife declined to be in the film. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/66 "2012-10-06T00:40:16Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > He is certainly married and probably finished writing. He is? He hasn’t seemed to have slowed down much. ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/67 "2012-10-06T03:12:53Z")
_Snuff_ very much had the feeling of being finished by someone else - much of it, especially toward the end read to me like someone influenced by Pterry, but not the man himself. I was wondering about 2/3rds of the way through how much of the actual writing he did. It made me sad, and that will probably be the only Discworld book I will never read again. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/68 "2012-10-06T17:32:33Z")
His new non-Discworld one, _Dodger_, has just come out. I think he’ll write until he can’t. Personally I’m just hoping we get the third Moist von Lipwig book he’s already teed up; anything else is gravy. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584/69 "2012-10-06T20:18:30Z")
How many times do I have to scroll down the front page of Cafe Society before I finally STOP being struck by the initial thought that this will be a Pee Wee’s Playhouse Thread. For non-Pee Wee fans: [Pterri (yeah, with an “i” instead of a “y” but I get confused anyway)](http://tdwgeeks.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/pee-wee-and-pterri-medium.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-pterry-ever-give-us-any-gay-discworld-characters/341584.md?page=3)