Rincewind
Rincewind | |
---|---|
Discworld character | |
First appearance | The Colour of Magic |
Created by | Terry Pratchett |
In-universe information | |
Affiliation | Unseen University |
Rincewind is a fictional character who appears in several of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. He was a failed student at Unseen University for wizards in Ankh-Morpork, often described as "the magical equivalent to the number zero". He spent most of his time running away from people who wanted to kill him for various reasons. The reason that he was still alive and running was explained by noting that while he was born with a wizard's spirit, he had the body of a long-distance sprinter.
Rincewind was portrayed by
Appearances
In books
In
Rincewind and Twoflower parted ways at the end of The Light Fantastic and Twoflower gave Rincewind his sapient-pearwood Luggage. Rincewind's adventures continued, and he was chased across various regions of the Discworld in spite of, or often driven by, his desire to find somewhere he can relish boredom in peace and quiet.
During the events of The Last Hero, in which the Discworld risks being destroyed if Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde succeed in their plan to "return fire to the Gods with interest", Rincewind said that he did not wish to volunteer for a dangerous mission. When asked to explain, he said he merely refused for appearances, because someone was bound to nominate him because of his knowledge of the geography of Cori Celesti or his friendship with Cohen, so even if he refused, somehow events would conspire against him and he would end up going on the mission anyway as he attempted to escape.
Raising Steam mentions Rincewind in footnotes, which refer to him as a professor at the university, studying the effects of different flowers on the nervous system.
In other media
Rincewind is the main character of the text adventure The Colour of Magic, based on the book of the same name.
Rincewind is also the player character of the 1995 Discworld video game. After a dragon is spotted in Ankh-Morpork, Unseen University's archchancellor sends Rincewind to find the source of the trouble. In the sequel, Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!?, Death disappears and the archchancellor puts Rincewind in charge of finding him and convincing him to get back to work. In both games, Rincewind is voiced by Eric Idle.
Character
Rincewind has the ability to pick up the essentials of foreign languages quickly and fluency only slightly less quickly, and appears to have the ability to blend in to any situation. During
Some of Rincewind's talents once stemmed from a semi-sentient and highly destructive spell that had lodged itself inside his mind and scared off all other spells (mentioned in The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic; though even without the spell's interference he was still an extremely incompetent wizard). The spell occasionally tried to make itself heard when Rincewind was going through a stressful time; as he was falling to his near-death, he said the first seven out of eight words of the spell.
In Sourcery and Unseen Academicals Rincewind claims that he never knew his mother as she ran away before he was born.
Rincewind has received several titles during his stay at the Unseen University; some of them because nobody else wants them, others to keep him busy doing work unrelated to magic.[3] These titles and their accompanying tenure include the condition that he cannot have any salary, influence, or opinions. They do, however, include meals, his laundry done, and (as a result of all the impressive-sounding but essentially meaningless titles that have been bestowed upon him) up to eight buckets of coal a day during the entire year.
Concept and creation
Pratchett said that Rincewind's job is "to meet more interesting people", saying that there is not much he can do with a character who's a coward and doesn't care who knows it. Pratchett noted that one of his major problems was that he has a "lack of an inner monologue".[4]
The Luggage
The Luggage is a large chest that follows Rincewind literally wherever he goes—even onto Roundworld, which Rincewind initially only visited virtually. It is made of sapient pearwood, a magical, intelligent plant that is nearly extinct, impervious to magic, and only grows in a few places outside the
Its function is to act as both a
One of the most notable features of The Luggage is its ability to follow its current owner anywhere, including places like inside its owner's mind, off the edge of the
Reception and legacy
In her review of Night Watch, A. S. Byatt noted the lack of recent appearances of Rincewind and the grimmer presentation of the Witches and Ankh-Morpork as signs of Pratchett's imagination getting darker.[6]
While the current release (version 3.0.0) of
Rincewind and Discworld witch Nanny Ogg appeared on first-class Royal Mail stamps in March 2011. The issue included wizards, witches and enchanters from British fiction, and also included characters from the Arthurian Legend, from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and from the Narnia series of C. S. Lewis.[11][12]
Paul Whitelaw, writing for The Scotsman, felt that David Jason was "clearly several decades too old" to be Rincewind in the film adaptation of The Colour of Magic.[13]
The Cretaceous gymnosperm species Phoenicopsis rincewindii is named after Rincewind.[14]
References
- ^ "Sir David Jason for wizard role". Digital Spy. April 24, 2007. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
- ^ Breebaart, Leo. "The Annotated Pratchett File v9.0 - The Colour of Magic". www.lspace.org. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
- ^ The Science of Discworld
- ISBN 0-575-07712-3. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
- ^ (Sourcery paperback p22)
- ^ AS Byatt (November 9, 2002). "A comforting way of death". The Guardian. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
- ^ VideoLAN. "VLC 3.0.0 Vetinari - VideoLAN". www.videolan.org. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
- ^ VideoLAN. "VLC 2.1 Rincewind - VideoLAN". www.videolan.org. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
- ^ shredder12; Sahni, Shashank (March 13, 2010). "Some VLC 1.1.0 Facts". Linuxers. Retrieved June 30, 2010.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ VideoLAN. "VLC 2.0 Twoflower - VideoLAN". www.videolan.org. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
- ^ "Terry Pratchett celebrated by new Royal Mail stamps". BBC News. December 30, 2010. Retrieved February 1, 2011.
- ^ "Royal Mail's new stamps from magical realms". The Guardian. March 9, 2011. Retrieved February 21, 2017.
- ^ Whitelaw, Paul (March 25, 2008). "TV review: Far, far away – yet strangely familiar". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
- ^ Watson, J., Lydon, S. J. and Harrison, N. A. (2001)."A revision of the English Wealden Flora, III: Czekanowskiales, Ginkgoales & allied Coniferales". Bulletin of the Natural History Museum (Geology Series), 57(1), 29-82.
External links
- Discworld & Pratchett Wiki
- SkyOne's The Colour of Magic Archived April 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- Rincewind's reading order