Cheery Littlebottom

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Cheery
Cheery, as drawn by Matt Smith
Name Cheery Littlebottom
Race Dwarf
Age
Occupation Watchman
Physical appearance unusually feminine
Residence Ankh-Morpork
Death
Parents Jolly Littlebottom
Relatives Grandfather Beaky Littlebottom, Brother Snorey (d.)
Children
Marital Status
Appearances
Books Feet of Clay
Jingo
The Fifth Elephant
Thud!
Cameos The Truth


The first, and for quite some time the only, member of the forensics department in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Originally trained as an alchemist, Cheery left the Alchemists' Guild to join the watch after an incident which forced her to leave the guild (she blew up the entire leadership of the guild - people tend not to forget such trivia...). Cheery came from Überwald, found her first city friend in Angua, and as a result became the first openly female dwarf member of the Watch and, for that matter, of the whole dwarfish race. This caused a cultural revolution and a notable degree of unrest among the dwarfs. Another non-dwarfish trait is her relative indifference to gold, seeing it as just another, not especially reactive or intrinsically interesting, chemical element.

She begins her career in the City Watch working in an old privy, but rapidly earns Vimes' trust and respect (and there's not many that do that!) and is given what she needs when she needs it. In Thud! she is promoted to sergeant. Commander of the City Watch Sam Vimes thinks an awful lot of her - which is more praise than you could believe. She started inauspiciously, but then with a name like Cheery... (this is a p***-take of the Roundworld tradition [started by Walt Disney] that dwarfs needed silly names such as Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy et cetera).

She causes all kinds of grief when she goes back to Überwald as an open female. Imagine shouting obscenities whilst naked in a church during the Victorian times and you have some idea of what wearing a skirt in traditional dwarf areas is like. However, she begins a cultural revolution and introduces two new pronouns - "she" and "her" - to the dwarfish language. Many detest her, calling her "Ha'ak", which is an extremely derogatory word in Dwarfish. She goes pale the first time she hears it, and both Detritus and Vimes (technically her superiors) are ready to begin war with those who utter the word in their presence: Detritus with an army of dwarfs on the way to Uberwald and Vimes with the whole of Dwarfdom when it's uttered by Albrecht Albrechtson deep in the mines of the Low King. On the other mailed fist, many dwarfs are finding that their 'sons' are dabbling in make-up and heeled boots; indeed, are beginning the journey to "coming out" (this is really not too far-fetched a comparison) as female thanks to her.

She pronounces her name "Cheri".


Annotation

It is just possible that her name derives from the British nonsense phrase "Cheery Bum," a common misunderstanding of the refrain of the kitsch Italian song "Ciribiribin" (made famous by a 1934 Grace Moore recording).