seen from Morocco
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Attention, rare sightings of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork 🦩 🖤
“From the back, Vetinari looked like a carnivorous flamingo.” - Men at Arms
“Thin, pale, and clad all in dusty black, the Patrician always put Ridcully in mind of a predatory flamingo, if you could find a flamingo that was black and had the patience of a rock.” - Reaper Man
Which Unseen University discipline are you studying?
Indefinite Studies
Recent Runes
Inadvisably Applied Magic
Cruel and Unusual Geography
Post-Mortem Communications
Approximate Accuracy
Extreme Horticulture
Morbid Bibliomancy
Recondite Architecture and Origami Map Folding
Slood Dynamics
Esoteric Studies
Wooly Thinking
Terry Pratchett never went to university, but did an impressive job of capturing the essence of faculty life.
Hard to drag and very good at kicking, indeed…
Mustrum Ridcully (the Brown, but never to his face), Archchacellor of Unseen University, is literature's best and most astoundingly successful wrong man for the job.
Some context is important. Before ascending to the highest level of leadership within the Disc's premiere magical establishment for learning, the position of the Archchancellor was filled by whomever had successfully assassinated the previous occupant. The quickest way to move up in the world, literally speaking, was to make sure someone else dropped by an average of six feet. Of course, this led to a lot of power-hungry madmen who were convinced they could control the Forces Man Was Not Meant To Know, many of whom died with remarkably similar facial expressions when they were inevitably proven wrong.
Then along comes Mustrum. Unlike many wizards, he is an outdoorsman. He is loud. He is physically strong. He is a mountain man in a pointy hat who believes in keeping rare species rare by hunting them (and everything else he meets along the way). He is a sportsman and, generally, considered to be exhausting by the rest of the faculty.
He is also, seemingly, impossible to dispose of by the usual methods. On top of everything else, Mustrum Ridcully is a very powerful wizard. By the age of 27, he was a Seventh Level Wizard (out of Eight), and that was quite some time ago. Still, in a building of magical Oppenheimers and Einsteins, he is Theodore Roosevelt; loud, boorish, and utterly unmovable.
He has a one-track mind, and on that track runs the Ridcully Freight Train. He can focus like the sun through a magnifying glass when he wants to. He is not Stupid, but he can be a bit Daft. He would fight to the front of the line to push the button labelled 'Do Not Press, Ends World' before the paint can dry. As such, he can occasionally end up in situations no self-respecting Dumbledore or Gandalf would, but no one with half a brain would mention such things aloud for fear of being brought along on his next hunting trip or fishing expedition.
He mostly concerns himself with University affairs, taking particular glee in any legal motions a given idiot might attempt to bring against it. They have a whole pond full of people who have tried to sue the University, you see. But he also understands that the wizards, in order to be left to their own devices, should leave the world to all of the other devices.
Rare are the times when Ridcully NEEDS to step in to save the day. In fact, he never actually DOES so in any of the books. Certainly, he helps out. Does a thing here or provides a bit of information there. Despite this, however, there is never any doubt that were it absolutely required, Ridcully COULD end basically any conflict in the books with a pocket full of fireballs (9 times out of 10, anyway). That he does not, and that no one ever asks him to, speaks to the wisdom of the man and the face he shows to the world.
All the previous Archchancellors would have demanded to shape history and show off their power, you see. And they did.
But compared to his peers and especially previous holders of his job, Mustrum Ridcully is an extreme outlier and total oddity, but he is also the only Archchancellor of the UU to hold to job for more than one book. Obviously, it was the other Archchancellors who were wrong.
And Mustrum Ridcully is certainly the wrong man for the job. Here's hoping he keeps it forever.
"Do you see the glass as half full or half empty?"
Rincewind: Empty.
Ridcully: Who drank half my drink??
Ponder: You'd need to know the total capacity of the glass before determining whether the remaining liquid constitutes half of-
Ridcully: IT WAS THE DEAN WASN'T IT
Can Vetinari please be in charge of all my meetings
Mustrum Ridcully I drew for a little collaboration with other fans of Sir Terry Pratchett
