“Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae Laird! Nae Master!” Childhood agency in Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men

Abstract

In this article a psychodynamic perspective informs the discussion of the ambivalence associated with individuation and growing up which manifests during middle childhood (from approximately six years of age to eleven). I contend that Terry Pratchett explores this ambivalence in his young adult novel The Wee Free Men in which his young, female protagonist, Tiffany Aching, must resolve the fears and anxieties that stem from her ambivalence in order to claim agency and complete the process of individuation from her childhood home. I argue that her ambivalence is most clearly reflected in her relationships with the two primary adult females in the novel, Granny Aching and the Fairy Queen, and I suggest that the resolution of her ambivalence models resilience strategies for Pratchett’s young readers who may be navigating this same problem in their own lives.