Snuff
- Thread starter poohcarrot
- Start date
But when you see Vimes in other non Vimes stories he is not portrayed as the all powerful force, so I think that the watch has been in balance all the time. I don't believe that the Patrician would let the Watch become too powerful or all powerful. Isn't there the comment made (in The Fifth Elephant I think) that where you find policemen you generally find a crime?
Vetinari, in some ways, has curtailed Vimes by giving him each successive title. What Vimes really enjoys, we are told, is being on patrol in his cheap, cardboard soled boots. The titles take him away from that and make him an administrator - he doesn't like it which is why he refuses to do paper work. To him this is not real policing.
I think that Vetinari is a closet Hegelian and likes to keep the oppositions in balance. Who does he make the Duke? Someone who hates the aristocracy and who in his heart is a mister. Who does he get to fix the banks? A confidence trickster.
Vetinari, in some ways, has curtailed Vimes by giving him each successive title. What Vimes really enjoys, we are told, is being on patrol in his cheap, cardboard soled boots. The titles take him away from that and make him an administrator - he doesn't like it which is why he refuses to do paper work. To him this is not real policing.
I think that Vetinari is a closet Hegelian and likes to keep the oppositions in balance. Who does he make the Duke? Someone who hates the aristocracy and who in his heart is a mister. Who does he get to fix the banks? A confidence trickster.
Well, in "The Truth" the Watch was powerful enough to arrest Vetinari for the attempted murder of Drumknott. Had Wm. De Worde not intervened, the Watch may never have gotten to "the truth of the matter." Whether Vetinari was prescient enough in allowing The Times to continue to operate before the crime was committed because he knew, somehow, that the newspaper would be his ally in such a situation is a matter of speculation.
Absolutely right. Vetinari has said, over and over, that he is not a "blood of a thousand men" type of ruler like his archaic predecessors. He is a string puller, carefully playing the various guilds and aristocrats off each other and then elevating those outside the established order (Vimes, De Worde, Moist) to shake things up. He realizes that the only way AM can continue to progress and maintain its economic leadership in the world is to embrace change, risk-taking, and challenges to the existing power structure. And he's willing to tolerate (to a degree) challenges to his own authority if they're being done for the good of the city, even if they're being done by crooks (why else would have he offered both Moist AND Reacher Gilt very high profile positions in the city's economic vortex?).
J-I-B
Absolutely right. Vetinari has said, over and over, that he is not a "blood of a thousand men" type of ruler like his archaic predecessors. He is a string puller, carefully playing the various guilds and aristocrats off each other and then elevating those outside the established order (Vimes, De Worde, Moist) to shake things up. He realizes that the only way AM can continue to progress and maintain its economic leadership in the world is to embrace change, risk-taking, and challenges to the existing power structure. And he's willing to tolerate (to a degree) challenges to his own authority if they're being done for the good of the city, even if they're being done by crooks (why else would have he offered both Moist AND Reacher Gilt very high profile positions in the city's economic vortex?).
J-I-B
I agree, the Watch doesn't solve the mystery- De Worde does -as The Truth isn't a Watch book. We have seen in Jingo that the Patrician is quite capable of taking his own action if the need arises and in Feet of Clay Vetinari makes the comment 'if the poor man [Vimes] took any longer [to work out how he was being poisoned] he'd had to start giving him hints.' Vetinari allows others to act but he is in control.
(I think that that it is why it is so funny in Unseen Academicals when the Patrician gets excited by the pie and even though he lets Lady Margalotta divide the pie he gets to choose the piece. It seems so incongrous).
My Hegel is a little rusty but when one part of the dichotomy becomes more powerful and the balance is disturbed the whole intrinsically moves to compensate for it. The world wants to be in balance. I see Vetinari acting as a fulcrum and so the Watch can arrest Vetinari but there is also the intrinsic usefulness of having another bunch of nosey buggers running around!
(I think that that it is why it is so funny in Unseen Academicals when the Patrician gets excited by the pie and even though he lets Lady Margalotta divide the pie he gets to choose the piece. It seems so incongrous).
My Hegel is a little rusty but when one part of the dichotomy becomes more powerful and the balance is disturbed the whole intrinsically moves to compensate for it. The world wants to be in balance. I see Vetinari acting as a fulcrum and so the Watch can arrest Vetinari but there is also the intrinsic usefulness of having another bunch of nosey buggers running around!
Jan Van Quirm said:
It's still at proofing stage, or was at the end of August, as Terry and Rob were reading it and editing as they went at the DW convention, so won't be out for a while yet - 2011 some time though I should think
Sam Vimes is my favourite character in DW. I love all the Watch books, but I would happily read a book with Vimes in it and the Watch relegated to background noise. Sorry, but there it is. In TFE, I found on subsequent re-readings that I was skipping the Colon and Nobby scenes to get back to what was happening in Uberwald.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the finalists in the DW World Cup Night Watch and Thud? With Thud winning in the end? So it would seem to be a favourite with PTerry fans. Night Watch was just about perfect, but I loved Thud, too. As with TFE and, to an extent, Jingo and Monstrous Regiment, I find Vimes' growing influence in foreign affairs rather than domestic policing fascinating.
Snuff sounds like a continuation of that theme, and the introduction of Uberwaldian orcs in UA adds to the interesting mix of that area. With the trolls and dwarves finding an uneasy peace as a result of the Koom Valley accord, anything that might tip that balance would provide an interesting plot. Plus Nutt is a wonderful new character and I want to see more of him.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the finalists in the DW World Cup Night Watch and Thud? With Thud winning in the end? So it would seem to be a favourite with PTerry fans. Night Watch was just about perfect, but I loved Thud, too. As with TFE and, to an extent, Jingo and Monstrous Regiment, I find Vimes' growing influence in foreign affairs rather than domestic policing fascinating.
Snuff sounds like a continuation of that theme, and the introduction of Uberwaldian orcs in UA adds to the interesting mix of that area. With the trolls and dwarves finding an uneasy peace as a result of the Koom Valley accord, anything that might tip that balance would provide an interesting plot. Plus Nutt is a wonderful new character and I want to see more of him.
I would actually like to see more of Salacia von Humpeding: I think there are interesting possibilities in her relationship with Angua. How about a little lesbian love affair between Sally and Angua? After all they started out like many odd couples from Hollywood movies. Or perhaps a ménage à trois between Sally, Angua and Carrot.
Thanks for the welcomes. You say you can't see it happen, but I think the situation between the two is very much like it is, for example, for Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn at the beginniing of "African Queen". I don't think it would be an easy relationship, either as ménage à trois or a lesbian affair, and as a lesbian affair it would always be a side affair for Angua. But how would Carrot react?
And a ménage à trois can happen more or less accidentally. Have you ever read "Castle Gripsholm" by Kurt Tucholsky? In that book a ménage à trois comes to pass because the two women lie in bed solving a crossword puzzle, and the man, who is in the adjoining bedroom, comes over to help when the two women start arguing about solving the puzzle.
"Castle Gripsholm" is a recommended read, by the way; a very funny book (Tucholsky was one of the leading German satirists of his time), but with serious parts too. I read it in the original German, but I know there is an English translation around.
And a ménage à trois can happen more or less accidentally. Have you ever read "Castle Gripsholm" by Kurt Tucholsky? In that book a ménage à trois comes to pass because the two women lie in bed solving a crossword puzzle, and the man, who is in the adjoining bedroom, comes over to help when the two women start arguing about solving the puzzle.
"Castle Gripsholm" is a recommended read, by the way; a very funny book (Tucholsky was one of the leading German satirists of his time), but with serious parts too. I read it in the original German, but I know there is an English translation around.
Hi there BaldJean and welcome to the forum Are you the lady in the blue or the pink? 
We've been having a debate in another thread about Terry's not being too comfortable with romantic aspects - all his successful couples seem to settle very quickly into the sustainable phases of lurve and the flirty passionate side of things soon seems to fizzle. He's gradually been moving into same gender relationships so it's certainly possible that he might go for that but atm I think he's more interested in cross-racial love affairs with Glenda and Mr. Nutt which is also connected with Margalotta and Vetinari's long-standing 'arrangment'.
I can't see it happening for Angua and Salacia TBH. In Uberwald the werewolf-vampire configuration is too laden with opposing needs and attitudes and it's Angua who'll be wholly antagonistic to the menage a trois scenario. Sally will threaten her position as alpha female to Carrot's alpha male and Carrot himself is so straight in every respect I very much doubt he'll see an affair with Sally as possible. It wouldn't even cross his mind to look at Sally as a possible lover unless Angua's rejects him entirely and even then I think the bond would be too strong as their love is based on a pack mentality not a human one (in terms of how it's left between them in Fifth Elephant).
Possibly the lesbian configuration would be OK as there's no conflict as such there for Angua, but again it'd have to be pack related (and also by Watch rank with Angua as Captain now) so Sally would have to take a subsiduary position which I think wouldn't be at all acceptable to her.
Are you the lady in the blue or the pink? We've been having a debate in another thread about Terry's not being too comfortable with romantic aspects - all his successful couples seem to settle very quickly into the sustainable phases of lurve and the flirty passionate side of things soon seems to fizzle. He's gradually been moving into same gender relationships so it's certainly possible that he might go for that but atm I think he's more interested in cross-racial love affairs with Glenda and Mr. Nutt which is also connected with Margalotta and Vetinari's long-standing 'arrangment'.
I can't see it happening for Angua and Salacia TBH. In Uberwald the werewolf-vampire configuration is too laden with opposing needs and attitudes and it's Angua who'll be wholly antagonistic to the menage a trois scenario. Sally will threaten her position as alpha female to Carrot's alpha male and Carrot himself is so straight in every respect I very much doubt he'll see an affair with Sally as possible. It wouldn't even cross his mind to look at Sally as a possible lover unless Angua's rejects him entirely and even then I think the bond would be too strong as their love is based on a pack mentality not a human one (in terms of how it's left between them in Fifth Elephant).
Possibly the lesbian configuration would be OK as there's no conflict as such there for Angua, but again it'd have to be pack related (and also by Watch rank with Angua as Captain now) so Sally would have to take a subsiduary position which I think wouldn't be at all acceptable to her.
