Moving Pictures characters

First appears in chapter 5

A student wizard at Unseen University who has spent years deliberately not graduating. His late uncle's legacy pays his fees only for as long as he remains a student, so he must score high enough in his examinations to avoid being thrown out and low enough to avoid passing, and he has worked out precisely which mark achieves both. The effort of maintaining this has left him extraordinarily fit, well read and quick-witted, and entirely without ambition. When a strange restlessness begins pulling people toward a stretch of coast called Holy Wood, he goes.

First appears in chapter 8

An alchemist of Ankh-Morpork whose experiments with octo-cellulose produce the first moving pictures on the Disc. Enthusiastic, technically minded and not remotely interested in stories, he sees the invention as a scientific achievement and is baffled and then sidelined when other people see it as an industry.

First appears in chapter 16

The keeper of Unseen University's library and an orangutan, a shape he acquired in a magical accident and has firmly declined to give up. He reads the University's instruments, notices that something is badly wrong with the magical background of the world, and is one of the few who take it seriously. He communicates in a single syllable and is enormously strong.

First appears in chapter 14

A very old wizard of Unseen University, kept alive largely by habit, whose memory reaches back further than anyone else's on the faculty. Deaf, cheerful and easily distracted, he nonetheless remembers fragments of things the University has forgotten.

First appears in chapter 16

The newly elected Archchancellor of Unseen University, brought in from a country estate where he had spent decades hunting, fishing and shouting at things. Loud, hearty and physically robust in a way the faculty finds deeply upsetting, he has no patience with committees, ceremony or the University's tradition of murdering its way up the hierarchy, and he takes an interest in whatever is going on outside the walls.

Also known as Ginger

First appears in chapter 22

A young woman from a small town who has come to Holy Wood determined to become a star, and who has more drive and more raw talent for the work than anyone else there. Sharp, ambitious and impatient, she uses the name Ginger rather than the one she was born with.

Also known as CMOT Dibbler

First appears in chapter 26

Ankh-Morpork's most persistent street trader, seller of sausages of uncertain composition, who follows the crowd to Holy Wood and reinvents himself as a maker of moving pictures. He understands nothing about the craft and everything about an audience, and he grasps faster than anyone that the point of the business is not the pictures but what can be sold alongside them.

First appears in chapter 32

A small, filthy, disreputable mongrel with a permanent cough and an extremely low opinion of humanity. The strange magic around Holy Wood has given him speech, and he has worked out that being a talking dog is worth far less than being a dog people underestimate. He is cynical, self-interested, and rather more decent in practice than he would ever admit.

First appears in chapter 38

A large troll who comes to Holy Wood looking for work, having previously made a living removing unwanted customers from taverns. He thinks slowly in warm weather and finds the picture business confusing, but he is reliable, literal and immensely strong, and he takes to the trade of being hit by things for money.

First appears in chapter 44

A landlady in Holy Wood who rents rooms to the new arrivals and is entirely unimpressed by any of them. She is practical, blunt and full of firm sayings about hard work and thrift, which she delivers to anyone standing still long enough.

First appears in chapter 48

A handsome, golden, magnificently stupid dog who is made into a canine star, performing rescues and heroics for the cameras. Every clever thing he appears to do is worked out for him in advance by Gaspode, who resents the arrangement considerably.

First appears in chapter 54

A troll singer working in Holy Wood, large, glittering and possessed of a voice that stops rooms. Detritus is entirely undone by her, and she is prepared to be patient about it.

First appears in chapter 60

Dibbler's nephew, who does the actual work of organising and directing the pictures while his uncle handles the selling. Younger, more capable and far more interested in the craft, he keeps the productions running in spite of the promises made on their behalf.