mmmmmmm can't wait to see who #1 is!!
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Age: "Dare you ask?" (70s-80s)
Source: Discworld series
Created by: Terry Pratchett
Points: 177, Votes: 6, Highest: Torzelbaum
Lokii said:Cantankerous fount of practical wisdom. Grandmaster of both witchery and headology. A wonderful character for the ages.
Agreed on both counts! Thank your partner again for coming up with this idea and thank you for running it.Oh that’s right. You guys like Discworld a lot. Some day I’ll read these I swear
This was a neat list, thanks Kirin!
Having "Granny" in your character's name is a marked advantage for this list.
If you liked Equal Rites, you REALLY should try out the later Witches novels (and general the later Discworld books), they only get better. Especially Granny in Equal Rites is not really worked out, she is more of a mix of Nanny and Granny in there.I totally forgot about Granny Weatherwax, though I did read Equal Rites a few years ago and I remember it being good.
It's not a classical series, more a world that you learn more about with these 50 books. No need to read them in order - actually, starting in the middle is likely a better choice. And you can start ANYWHERE. They are all standalone (except, funnily enough, the second book), and you can choose any single one you want.There are times when I think about reading Discworld, and then I remember that it's got fifty books and everyone recommends reading them out of order, and I give up before I start.
Rank | Name | Media | Notes |
1 | Jeri Blank | Strangers With Candy | Technically starts the series at 46, but I'm fine stretching it here. Jeri Blank is the high school freshman I learned the most from. |
2 | Vivian Bearing | Wit, by Margaret Edson | A powerful study of a woman coming to terms with death and her career. She's got 4th stage metastatic ovarian cancer and has studied the sonnets of John Donne all her life. Now she's got to reconcile that with actual death. |
3 | Lillian Kaushtupper | Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt | Perfectly lucid when she has to be, and living it up the rest of the time. |
4 | Nurse | Romeo and Juliet | The iconic confidant to a youthful Juliet, the nurse is never listed at a specific age in the script but often cast as a woman well into middle age. |
5 | Ruth Fisher | Six Feet Under | The matriarch of the Fischer family. Still discovering herself throughout the series, she mixes compassion with firm, uncrossable lines beautifully. |
6 | Lucille Bluth | Arrested Development | A sharp satire of the out-of-touch wealthy, but believable enough that you're willing to go along with her self-serving nature. |
7 | Joanne | Company | Joanne has discovered, discarded, and manipulated the value of marraige throughout her life. It's a great lark, as long as it feels great. Here's to the ladies who lunch. |
8 | Mimi Kanassis | Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt | Sniveling desperation at its finest. |
9 | Maytera Marble | The Book of the Long Sun, Gene Wolfe | Marble is an amazing human being despite being a robot, and she makes amazingly human decisions. |
10 | Emily Gilmore | Gilmore Girls | This series is wonderful for helping all of its characters move beyond stereotypes (despite reveling in those stereotypes stylistically). Emily is especially notable for being three-dimensional and capable of adapting, despite her exterior resistance to the process. |
11 | Fräulein Schneider | Cabaret | So What is a jam. |
12 | Thessaly | The Sandman, Neil Gaiman | Technically portrays herself as a young adult as a facade when it suits her, but makes no bones about her actual status as a witch who has lived thousands of years. She is old, experienced, and the most effective kind of dangerous. |
13 | Mag Folan | The Beauty Queen of Lenane, by Martin McDounagh | Funny and cruel simulatneously, a woman you don't want to cross. |
14 | Lucille Austero | Arrested Development | Surprisingly honest and vulnerable, she trusts the bluths to a fault. A serious fault. |
15 | Shi-Won Kim | The Great Pretender | A great con lady who doesn't care about much but having fun. |
16 | Endora | Bewitched | If you're going to go with "witchy mother in law" you may as well pick the woman who created the archetype. |
17 | Colleen Donaghy | 30 Rock | One of the only people capable of throwing off Jack Donaghy at will. Entitled, unflappable, and unappeasable. |
18 | Olivia Weer | Peace, Gene Wolfe | Hard to find a more disturbing aunt. |
19 | Sara Blank | Strangers With Candy | This may be a slight stretch on age (She's portrayed as just as old as her stepdaughter Jeri, if not a bit younger), but it's worth it. An amazing foil to Jeri Blank, and a perfect undercut of the June Cleaver mother type. |
20 | The Witch | Into the Woods | Amoral and haughty to a fault, she's never wrong about what she says. |
21 | Catherine Martell | Twin Peaks | I bet she knows a lot about logs, even though she's not a log lady. |
22 | Abuela Claudia | In the Heights | "Paciencia y Fe" is an incredible musical number and Abuela could be in here for this alone. She's also the emotional core of the show, and Usnavi's main moral support. |
23 | Ms. Havisham | Great Expectations | Ironically, there are hints in this book that Ms. Havisham is only in her late 30s, but she definitely (and very intentionally) presents herself as aged and decrepit! |
24 | Maude | Harold and Maude | Older folks often want to have fun too. A movie that would never be made today. |
25 | Toph Baifong | Avatar: The Legend of Korra | Still sassy even at the end of her life, Toph knows who she is and has not problem showing that identity to the world. |
Aw, she was one of my last cuts!16. Mrs. Hudson (Sherlock Holmes) - Mostly from the TV series Sherlock. But it is an overall use of the character.
The very last cut of mine and really wish I had kept her in, bah. Sorry to whomever else listed her!Grendel'S Mother 1 33
Yzma -The Emperor's New Groove | It is absolutely criminal that her song was removed from the movie (yes I know it was written before the plot changed but I don't care): |
Mallory Archer -Archer | She's horrible but I love her |
Slappy Squirrel - Animaniacs | A lot of "cranky old lady" tropes rolled into one character, but does so much more and isn't limited by being "old". One of my favourite recurring characters and I'm very bummed she's not in the reboot. |
Prof McGonnagel -Harry Potter | I still love the "I've always wanted to use that spell" when she awakes the statues right before the final battle. It's adorable. |
Ye Wenjie -The Three Body Problem | Not going into too much detail because knowing more about her (both young and old as she's shown in multiple life stages) spoils a lot of the book, but she's incredibly complex and the reason the entire story is occuring. |
Rafiki -Lion King Stage Musical | Reimagining the character to be a sangoma and effectively requiring it to be played by a South African woman is an exciting change. You can argue that this recruitment strategy is negative or positive and I accept both but personally think this character's reimagining gave lot of opportunities to South African women. |
Ursula -The Little Mermaid | My favourite character in this movie, hands down. |
Hisae Kakei (Shiro's Mom) -What Did you Eat Yesterday Manga | Over the series Shiro's mom and Shiro and still guarded but do interact with each other more pleasantly than in the first book. While this list is going on Volume 17 will come out and I think this volume will involve the parents moving into assisted living which is likely to add even more to her character. |
Jessica Fletcher -Murder She Wrote | Mystery novels aren't my thing, but my understanding is that she encapsulates tons of the "older lady solving crimes" tropes. I havne't seen this show in years but have so many fond memories of it. |
Teersa - Horizon Zero Dawn | Matriarch Teersa takes the All-Mother and the rules of the Nora seriously, but also has the wisdom to know when to bend the rules. I'm hesitant to call her a stand-in for a mother figure for Aloy because of her rank and lack of interaction with her for so long, but she's definitely an Aunt-like figure. |
Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey -Halo | In the main games unless you really dig into things you mainly just learn that she developed Cortana and feels guilt for her involvement in the Spartan program. But she's far more complicated than that, she gave up her adoptive daughter, she can fight like hell and she has incredibly strong beliefs. |
Matriarch Aethyta -Mass Effect | A fantastic half-Krogan Asari Matriarch bartender. |
General Organa -Star Wars | It hurts she isn't higher on my list. I know if Carrie Fisher hadn't died there would have been a lot more for the character in the third movie and I wish I could have seen that. |
Oona - Neocab | New Life Goal after seeing this character: Be a Quantum Witch. |
Queen Mother Ramonda -Black Panther | I'm still catching up on the newer Shuri comics but Ramonda has a lot of back room politics stuff going on. Already wonderfully done by Angela Bassett in the movie but the comics give her even more. |
Mrs Skinner -the Simpsons | Every "overbearing cranky old lady" trope rolled into one character. She's not that high on my list because she doesn't often go beyond just those stereotypes but man can she be funny. |
Niime -Fire Emblem Binding Blade | Her supports with Hugh are fantastic and she does not put up with his shit, it's great. |
Ursula Iguarán (100 Years of Solitude) | Arguably the moral compass of the novel. While she starts out a young woman she lives to a ridiculously old age and her matriarch role is what I remember the most of. |
Alice (Spiritfarer) | The ending of her arc is damned heartbreaking. In a game with a lot of highly emotional moments she hit incredibly hard, mainly because I saw similar degradation in older female family members. Oof. |
Guru Andma - Ring Fit Adventure | A surprising amount of characterization for a fitness game! Seeing her normal stage, corrupted stage and afterlife builds on her a lot and I love it. Also definitely wasn't expecting an older character in an exercise game so lots of points for that. |
Samara (Mass Effect) | I hate her outfit but love the character. She's such a badass and on such a shocking and upsetting quest. |
Mirabelle Ervine (Skyrim) | *Pours one out for every woman who has had to do the work of a higher ranking man but never got any credit for it* |
Impa (Legend of Zelda) | Varies by characterization but I like how much flexibility the character has |
Granny Riddleton (Professor Layton series) | A goofy recurring character that tracks your lost puzzles for you. Also she sasses Luke which I enjoy. |
Mrs Hall (James Herriot book series) | While in the newer TV series she's redone to have involvement in the war which required her to be younger (and I like what they'd done with that honestly), the original character has some great moments too: "Oh, yes, everybody likes him. You have to like him. That doesn't mean I have to approve of him, does it?" |