“‘I know that one,’ said Vimes. ‘Who watches the watchmen? Me.’”
January 28, 2021 3:26 AM Subscribe
While Vimes’s “Free Republic of Treacle Mine Road” – a fantasy version of the DMZs we saw in cities across America in 2020 – cannot last, the novel asks the question: why aren’t the police on the side of ordinary people and keeping the peace? What would happen if they turned the light of justice on corrupt leaders? Why can’t we hope for “Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably Priced Love and a Hard-Boiled Egg?”Hannah Copestake looks at Terry Pratchett as an antidote to copaganda.
While Vimes’s “Free Republic of Treacle Mine Road” – a fantasy version of the DMZs we saw in cities across America in 2020
You do know that Night Watch is in part a sendup of Les Miz, that's why there are barricades, one fiery revolutionary character, a street urchin... and a cop who is determined to catch a criminal, right? It's not 2020, it's referencing 1832, two steps removed.
posted by sukeban at 4:29 AM on January 28, 2021 [10 favorites]
You do know that Night Watch is in part a sendup of Les Miz, that's why there are barricades, one fiery revolutionary character, a street urchin... and a cop who is determined to catch a criminal, right? It's not 2020, it's referencing 1832, two steps removed.
posted by sukeban at 4:29 AM on January 28, 2021 [10 favorites]
If you actually read the article, yes it is clear that the author understands that Night Watch is not referencing events that occurred several years after Pratchett died. But maybe, just maybe, it's still legitimate to draw parallels between events in the book and current events, in an essay that's talking about re-reading a book in light of current events.
But no, you found the inconsistency in the two sentences that OP quoted and got to snark about it and show off your tremendous historical knowledge. Congratulations, here's your gold star. We're all very impressed.
posted by firechicago at 5:45 AM on January 28, 2021 [42 favorites]
But no, you found the inconsistency in the two sentences that OP quoted and got to snark about it and show off your tremendous historical knowledge. Congratulations, here's your gold star. We're all very impressed.
posted by firechicago at 5:45 AM on January 28, 2021 [42 favorites]
Given that Night Watch was published in 2002, and given that the author makes mention of 2020 events inspiring them to reread the book, I don't think it is at all a reasonable interpretation of the quoted text that they thought Night Watch was written in response to 2020, and nor do I think that pointing out its original intent is a particularly strong argument against drawing parallels to more current events. And nor again do I think it is fair to Pratchett to think that he wrote a book drawing from Les Mis for inspiration without considering what parallels there are to be drawn in the modern context. Hell, that was his whole jam.
posted by solotoro at 5:46 AM on January 28, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by solotoro at 5:46 AM on January 28, 2021 [15 favorites]
Let me rephrase: it's not strange that Night Watch reminds the article writer of current-ish events in the USA because it's in part a sendup of a world-famous musical about a world-famous French novel about older historical events in France, so no wonder it sounds plausible or realistic. Barricades, what a concept.
posted by sukeban at 5:59 AM on January 28, 2021
posted by sukeban at 5:59 AM on January 28, 2021
You do know that Terry Pratchett’s Antidote to Copaganda is in whole a critique of the entire police genre, that's why there are plot summaries, one takedown of CSI: Miami breaking the law, a Brooklyn 99 of cute police officers… and a writer who is determined to centre humane policing, right? It's not a middle school book review, it's dismantling pro-policing drama, two steps removed.
But apart from missing the point of the article, the important thing about the Night Watch isn't that it's a sendup of Les Misérables, because it isn't. It pays homage to Les Misérables but it's not mocking, because the themes it's communicating about how society works are almost as key to the story as Victor Hugo's themes of a couple of centuries earlier are. It's the quintessential Vimes novel, because it's Vimes making the decisions to work hard and do what's right for the people who depend on him.
It's the only work in the essay where I'm aware that a police officer risks a lot to prevent police brutality or corruption, and it's the only one where it tells it as being as brutal as it is, and how the police that perpetrate the brutality are such sheer cowards.
It's a good book, and great fun to read, and this essay describes it well.
posted by ambrosen at 6:28 AM on January 28, 2021 [29 favorites]
But apart from missing the point of the article, the important thing about the Night Watch isn't that it's a sendup of Les Misérables, because it isn't. It pays homage to Les Misérables but it's not mocking, because the themes it's communicating about how society works are almost as key to the story as Victor Hugo's themes of a couple of centuries earlier are. It's the quintessential Vimes novel, because it's Vimes making the decisions to work hard and do what's right for the people who depend on him.
It's the only work in the essay where I'm aware that a police officer risks a lot to prevent police brutality or corruption, and it's the only one where it tells it as being as brutal as it is, and how the police that perpetrate the brutality are such sheer cowards.
It's a good book, and great fun to read, and this essay describes it well.
posted by ambrosen at 6:28 AM on January 28, 2021 [29 favorites]
The one thing I love about Night Watch and not mentioned here: while the revolution fails, it directly inspires the very person who will eventually take power and dismantle the police state, reducing it to the few decent cops who, natch, took part in the right side of the revolution. The graveyard scene is like the signature in a painting.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 6:45 AM on January 28, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 6:45 AM on January 28, 2021 [16 favorites]
Mod note: Hi, folks. If you missed it, worth looking at the recent Metatalk discussion about how constant dismissive or sarcastic comments can discourage participation on the site, and it's worth keeping that in mind when framing one's comments. Please skip the needlessly dismissive sarcasm, kneejerk well-actually reactions, etc; overall they're hurting the site. If you want to actually discuss the link or the books/show, great, carry on.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:49 AM on January 28, 2021 [39 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:49 AM on January 28, 2021 [39 favorites]
It's also worth pointing out that, beyond Night Watch specifically, the Watch books do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of depicting police as they are, and as they could be. Some of the other long-serving Watchmen are Colon and Nobby, who despite the overhauls in the Watch over the course of the series, are consistently depicted as unheroic, unimaginative and unpleasant (although useful to have around; at one point they're described as 'natural sergeants'); Carrot, who has a long stretch where he's depicted doing 'community policing' - putting together sport leagues for At-Risk Youth, talking to people having trouble at home, being present in the community - you know, all those things you never see TV cops doing; and Angua, a werewolf (or I guess a wyfwolf), is the first subject of a long-running plot thread in the Watch books of the Watch needing to be representative of the community and having to take on new minorities as they become more common in the city (which ends with Vimes, who has been through several cycles of having his prejudices dismantled, ends up becoming a champion of goblin rights). The Watch in the books is positioned by the ruler of the city as being a check on power rather than a defender of it; Commander Vimes is given a Lordship partly to annoy Vimes, and partly because giving him a title would give him, and his Watch, equal standing to the elite of the city.
There's a throwaway joke that Vimes' style of policing is inspiring other watch houses in the region, who are referred to as Sammies; while it's a clear play on Bobbies, it's also a sign that Pratchett did his homework, and was aware of Robert Peel's Principles. One of Pratchett's strengths as a satirist is unpacking assumptions, including his own; because he spent so much time writing fantasy cops, he spent a lot of time picking at how cops should operate, and how they might let the communities they're supposed to be serving down.
posted by Merus at 6:58 AM on January 28, 2021 [57 favorites]
There's a throwaway joke that Vimes' style of policing is inspiring other watch houses in the region, who are referred to as Sammies; while it's a clear play on Bobbies, it's also a sign that Pratchett did his homework, and was aware of Robert Peel's Principles. One of Pratchett's strengths as a satirist is unpacking assumptions, including his own; because he spent so much time writing fantasy cops, he spent a lot of time picking at how cops should operate, and how they might let the communities they're supposed to be serving down.
posted by Merus at 6:58 AM on January 28, 2021 [57 favorites]
It's the only work in the essay where I'm aware that a police officer risks a lot to prevent police brutality or corruption
Certainly in B99 there is an arc about police corruption which has real consequences for the ones trying to stop it, although there is a happy ending in the end... I've been really looking forward to seeing what they do with their response to everything that has happened recently.
posted by fizban at 7:57 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Certainly in B99 there is an arc about police corruption which has real consequences for the ones trying to stop it, although there is a happy ending in the end... I've been really looking forward to seeing what they do with their response to everything that has happened recently.
posted by fizban at 7:57 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
Some Night Watch quotes:
It wasn’t that the city was lawless. It had plenty of laws. It just didn’t offer many opportunities not to break them. Swing didn’t seem to have grasped the idea that the system was supposed to take criminals and, in some rough and ready fashion, force them into becoming honest men. Instead, he’d taken honest men and turned them into criminals. And the Watch, by and large, into just another gang.posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:10 AM on January 28, 2021 [43 favorites]
--
‘The riot was over the price of bread, I understand.’
No. The protest was over the price of bread, said Vimes’ inner voice. The riot was what happens when you have panicking people trapped between idiots on horseback and other idiots shouting ‘yeah, right!’ and trying to push forward, and the whole thing in the charge of a fool advised by a maniac with a steel rule.
--
None of them had ever been taught anything. They’d learned, to a greater or usually a lesser extent, from one another. And Vimes knew where that road went. On that road coppers rolled drunks for their small change and assured one another that bribes were just perks, and it got worse.
--
He had been a military man before being given this job as a kind of pension, and that was a bad thing in a senior copper. It meant he looked to Authority for orders and obeyed them, whereas Vimes found it better to look to Authority for orders and then filter those orders through a fine mesh of common sense, adding a generous scoop of creative misunderstanding and maybe even incipient deafness if circumstances demanded, because Authority rarely descended to street level.
--
The city was run by a madman and his shadowy chums so where was the law?
Coppers liked to say that people shouldn’t take the law into their own hands, and they thought they knew what they meant. They were thinking about the normal times [...] But at times like this, who did the law belong to? If it shouldn’t be in the hands of people, where the hell should it be? People who knew better? Then you got Winder and his pals, and how good was that?
I've probably re-read "Hogfather" more often (hey, it's the only holiday book I can stomach, plus Susan Sto Helit), but "Night Watch" is a close second, it's such a good book. The thing about Vimes, as Vetinari observes, is that, by nature, he's a thug, but that Vimes knows that and doesn't give into it.
Unfortunately we end up with a lot more Carcers than Vimes in our forces, here in reality.
posted by maxwelton at 8:39 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
Unfortunately we end up with a lot more Carcers than Vimes in our forces, here in reality.
posted by maxwelton at 8:39 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
One thing that has always rather fascinated me about Night Watch and Pratchett's Discworld books about the Watch more generally is that there are a number of afterwords and discussions of the books in the texts that mention them being popular specifically with real-life policemen, who would bring them to signings and comment about how realistic they were. But Pratchett's Watchmen, and very specifically the changes brought to the Watch by Vimes' taking over the Night Watch and expanding them to cover daylight hours and the whole city, do not ever attempt to argue for police solidarity against public criticism. There are two scenes I recall that come closest to approaching a "thin blue line" of police solidarity against outsiders, and Night Watch is one of them: the moment when a mob of angry citizens, furious at police brutality and an unjust curfew, show up at the Watch House after a protest over bread prices has devolved into a riot (in the quote TheophileEscargot excerpted above):
Apologies it's not a shorter scene, but Vimes is so carefully and explicitly doing things in that scene. It's an important scene about how you respond to people in a tense situation as a peace officer: you talk people down. You make absolutely sure everyone sees that you have no weapons. You make sure that you are seen as a member of the community, and you immediately humanize everyone who is angry at you. You de-escalate. If violence breaks out anyway, you call for medical aid and you make sure anyone who gets hurt has their friends around them to watch and make sure nothing bad happens. It is a textbook depiction of how to build community trust at a moment when that trust is completely extinguished.
It makes me wonder. Who are these policemen who are such fans of these books? Are they purely a British phenomenon? Have they all retired and gone away? Did they all miss the point?
posted by sciatrix at 8:39 AM on January 28, 2021 [85 favorites]
Corporal Colon nodded. “Yessir. Sarge, Snouty says that up at Dolly Sisters—”
“I know. Now here’s what I feel is necessary. Take the shutters down, unbar the door, leave it open, and light all the lamps. Why isn’t the blue lamp over the door lit?”
“Dunno, Sarge. But what if—”
“Get it lit, Corporal. And then you and Waddy go and stand guard outside, where you can be seen. You’re friendly-looking local lads. Take your bells, but, and I want to make this very clear, no swords, right?”
“No swords?” Colon burst out. “But what if a bloody great mob comes round the corner and I’m not armed?”
Vimes reached him in two swift strides and stood nose to nose.
“And if you have got a sword, what will you do, eh? Against a bloody great mob? What do you want ’em to see? Now what I want ’em to see is Fatty Colon, decent lad, not too bright, I knew ’is dad, an’ there’s ol’ Waddy, he drinks in my pub. ’Cos if they just see a couple of men in uniform with swords you’ll be in trouble, and if you draw those swords you’ll be in real trouble, and if by any chance, Corporal, you draw swords tonight without my order and survive, then you’ll wish you hadn’t done either, because you’ll have to face me, see? And then you’ll know what trouble is, ’cos everything up until then will look like a bleedin’ day at the soddin’ seaside. Understand?”
Fred Colon goggled at him. There was no other word for it.
[...]
“We’ll get into trouble!” Knock shouted.
Vimes let Knock wait until he’d lit a cigar. “We’re in trouble anyway, Winsborough,” he said, shaking out the match. “It’s just a case of deciding what kind we want. Thanks, Snouty.”
He took the mug of cocoa from the jailer and nodded at Sam.
“Let’s take a stroll outside,” he said.
He was aware of the sudden silence in the room, except for the whimpering coming from upstairs and the distant yelling from the privy.
“What’re you all standing around for, gentlemen?” he said. “Want to ring your bells? Anyone fancy shouting out that all’s well?”
With those words hanging in the room all big and pink, Vimes stepped out into the evening air.
There were people hanging around out there, in little groups of three or four, talking among themselves and occasionally turning to look at the Watch House.
Vimes sat down on the steps and took a sip of his cocoa.
He might as well have dropped his breeches. The groups opened up, became an audience. No man drinking a nonalcoholic chocolate drink had ever been the center of so much attention.
He’d been right. A closed door is an incitement to bravery. A man drinking from a mug, under a light, and apparently enjoying the cool night air, is an incitement to pause.
“We’re breaking curfew, you know,” said a young man moving with a quick dart-forward-dart-back movement.
“Is that right?” said Vimes.
“Are you going to arrest us, then?”
“Not me,” said Vimes cheerfully. “I’m on my break.”
“Yeah?” said the man. He pointed to Colon and Waddy. “They on their break too?”
“They are now.” Vimes half-turned. “Brew’s up, lads. Off you go. No, no need to run, there’s enough for everyone. And come back out when you’ve got it…”
When the sound of pounding boots had died away, Vimes turned back and smiled at the group again.
“So when do you come off your break?” said the man.
Vimes paid him some extra attention. The stance was a giveaway. He was ready to fight, even though he didn’t look like a fighter. If this was a barroom, the bartender would be taking the more expensive bottles off the shelf, because amateurs like that tended to spread the glass around. Ah, yes…and now he could see why the word “barroom” had occurred to him. There was a bottle sticking out of the man’s pocket. He’d been drinking his defiance.
“Oh, around Thursday, I reckon,” said Vimes, eyeing the bottle. There was laughter from somewhere in the growing crowd.
“Why Thursday?” said the drinker.
“Got my day off on Thursday.”
There were a few more laughs this time. When the tension is drawing out, it doesn’t take much to snap it.
“I demand you arrest me!” said the drinker. “Come on, try it!”
“You’re not drunk enough,” said Vimes. “I should go home and sleep it off, if I was you.”
The man’s hand grasped the neck of the bottle. Here it comes, thought Vimes. By the look of him, the man had one chance in five…
Fortunately, the crowd wasn’t too big yet. What you didn’t need at a time like this was people at the back, craning to see and asking what was going on. And the lit-up house was fully illuminating the lit-up man.
“Friend, if you take my advice you’ll not consider that,” said Vimes. He took another sip of his cocoa. It was only lukewarm now, but along with the cigar it meant that both his hands were occupied. That was important. He wasn’t holding a weapon. No one could say afterward that he had a weapon.
“I’m no friend to you people!” snapped the man and smashed the bottle on the wall by the steps.
The glass tinkled to the ground. Vimes watched the man’s face, watched the expression change from drink-fueled anger to agonizing pain, watched the mouth open…
The man swayed. Blood began to ooze from between his fingers, and a low, thin animal sound escaped from between his teeth.
That was the tableau, under the light—Vimes sitting down with his hands full, the bleeding man several feet away. No fight, no one had touched anyone…he knew the way rumor worked, and he wanted this picture to fix itself in people’s minds. There was even ash still on the cigar.
He stayed very still for a few seconds, and then stood up, all concern.
“Come on, one of you help me, will you?” he said, tugging off his breastplate and the chain-mail shirt underneath it. He grabbed his shirt sleeve and tore off a long strip.
A couple of men, jerked into action by the voice of command, steadied the man who was dripping blood. One of them reached for the hand.
“Leave it,” Vimes commanded, tightening the strip of sleeve around the man’s unresisting wrist. “He’s got a handful of broken glass. Lay him down as gently as you can before he falls over but don’t touch nothing until I’ve got this tourniquet on. Sam, go into the stable and pinch Marilyn’s blanket for the boy. Anyone here know Doctor Lawn? Speak up!”
Someone among the awed bystanders volunteered that he did, and was sent running for him.
Vimes was aware of the circle watching him; a lot of the watchmen were peering around the doorway now.
“Saw this happen once,” he said aloud—and added mentally “in ten years time”—“it was in a bar fight. Man grabbed a bottle, didn’t know how to smash it, ended up with a hand full of shards, and the other guy reached down and squeezed.” There was a satisfying groan from the crowd. “Anyone know who this man is?” he added. “Come on, someone must…”
A voice in the crowd volunteered that the man could well be Joss Gappy, an apprentice shoemaker from New Cobblers.
“Let’s hope we can save his hand, then,” said Vimes. “I need a new pair of boots.”
It wasn’t funny at all, but it got another of those laughs, the ones people laugh out of sheer frightened nervousness. Then the crowd parted as Lawn came through.
“Ah,” he said, kneeling down by Gappy. “You know, I don’t know why I own a bed. Trainee bottle-fighter?”
“Yes.”
“Looks like you’ve done the right things but I need light and a table,” said Lawn. “Can your men take him into the Watch House?”
Vimes had hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Oh well, you had to make the best of it…
He pointed randomly at figures in the crowd. “You and you and you and you and you, too, lady,” he said. “You can help Fred and Waddy take this young man inside, okay? And you’re to stop with him, and we’ll leave the doors open, right? All you lot out here’ll know what’s going on. We’ve got no secrets here. Everyone understand?”
Apologies it's not a shorter scene, but Vimes is so carefully and explicitly doing things in that scene. It's an important scene about how you respond to people in a tense situation as a peace officer: you talk people down. You make absolutely sure everyone sees that you have no weapons. You make sure that you are seen as a member of the community, and you immediately humanize everyone who is angry at you. You de-escalate. If violence breaks out anyway, you call for medical aid and you make sure anyone who gets hurt has their friends around them to watch and make sure nothing bad happens. It is a textbook depiction of how to build community trust at a moment when that trust is completely extinguished.
It makes me wonder. Who are these policemen who are such fans of these books? Are they purely a British phenomenon? Have they all retired and gone away? Did they all miss the point?
posted by sciatrix at 8:39 AM on January 28, 2021 [85 favorites]
I've been really looking forward to seeing what they do with their response to everything that has happened recently.
The only copaganda I still watch is The Rookie, and boy howdy they charged _right at_ police brutality issues this season. One of the rookies is dealing with an obviously racist training officer, and the other TOs are explaining that unfortunately so much of the system is set up to protect cops that it even protects the bad / dirty cops. There's a few other things where they're highlighting where policing is done wrong that I'm forgetting, but it's... Interesting. Is it successful? Are they just making excuses, or are they doing a good thing by maybe teaching people who haven't been exposed to it a lesson? I'm torn, but I'm glad they aren't just ambling along in the usual pattern of cop = good, citizen = bad that so many cop shows fall into.
posted by Kyol at 8:40 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
The only copaganda I still watch is The Rookie, and boy howdy they charged _right at_ police brutality issues this season. One of the rookies is dealing with an obviously racist training officer, and the other TOs are explaining that unfortunately so much of the system is set up to protect cops that it even protects the bad / dirty cops. There's a few other things where they're highlighting where policing is done wrong that I'm forgetting, but it's... Interesting. Is it successful? Are they just making excuses, or are they doing a good thing by maybe teaching people who haven't been exposed to it a lesson? I'm torn, but I'm glad they aren't just ambling along in the usual pattern of cop = good, citizen = bad that so many cop shows fall into.
posted by Kyol at 8:40 AM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
I remember that from the perspective of characters in Unseen Academicals, street kids and below-stairs servants, the Sammies are definitely dreaded, and they are expected to dole out violence as a solution to any problem.
sciatrix, I have thought a lot about that scene, especially this past year. It works, as you say, because Vimes is silently appealing to community -- to himself and the other men being peers to the people in the crowd. It's hard to imagine American city policemen even thinking about such a thing, and that is, of course, because of racism.
In an earlier book, Pratchett wrote that in the Discworld, "black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green." He later adjusted that to reflect reality -- there's always enough racism to go around. But his setting remains an antediluvian British one, in which people from the same area, including cops, can be expected to know each other and, if human, treat each other as roughly human. This may or may not be the case with British policemen more than otherwise; I cannot say.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:02 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
sciatrix, I have thought a lot about that scene, especially this past year. It works, as you say, because Vimes is silently appealing to community -- to himself and the other men being peers to the people in the crowd. It's hard to imagine American city policemen even thinking about such a thing, and that is, of course, because of racism.
In an earlier book, Pratchett wrote that in the Discworld, "black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green." He later adjusted that to reflect reality -- there's always enough racism to go around. But his setting remains an antediluvian British one, in which people from the same area, including cops, can be expected to know each other and, if human, treat each other as roughly human. This may or may not be the case with British policemen more than otherwise; I cannot say.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:02 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
Also, since so much of my brain is full of Pratchett bits, I remember that in Snuff, Vimes uses the threat of prison brutality, including sexual assault, on a reluctant informant. Rough stuff for light fantasy, but not an inaccurate portrayal.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:09 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 9:09 AM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
In an earlier book, Pratchett wrote that in the Discworld, "black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green." He later adjusted that to reflect reality -- there's always enough racism to go around.
I mean, I had also sketched out and deleted a commentary on the racial politics he embedded in the trolls--consistently Black or Latine-coded--and the dwarves (more complicated), and on the troll/dwarf Koom Valley riot in Thud!, which was the other scene I was thinking of. It is maybe notable that while community policing is also a heavy component of Vimes' method of dealing with being undermanned and pinned between two enormous and angry populations of, hm, call them ethnic groups, it's much less foregrounded and Vimes himself takes much less of a personal role in that negotiation (which makes sense as he's part of neither community; Carrot and Cheery deal with the dwarves and we see Vimes assisting Detritus in talking to trolls). Pratchett did a lot of things well but racism is consistently one of the things he's a little well-meaning but on. And perhaps that is also a factor among Discworld fans missing some of the more, hm, police-critical readings, given that racial and cultural conflict is nearly always foregrounded in the allegory of trolls or dwarves and sometimes Uberwaldean horror-B-movie monsters in the books.
posted by sciatrix at 9:26 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
I mean, I had also sketched out and deleted a commentary on the racial politics he embedded in the trolls--consistently Black or Latine-coded--and the dwarves (more complicated), and on the troll/dwarf Koom Valley riot in Thud!, which was the other scene I was thinking of. It is maybe notable that while community policing is also a heavy component of Vimes' method of dealing with being undermanned and pinned between two enormous and angry populations of, hm, call them ethnic groups, it's much less foregrounded and Vimes himself takes much less of a personal role in that negotiation (which makes sense as he's part of neither community; Carrot and Cheery deal with the dwarves and we see Vimes assisting Detritus in talking to trolls). Pratchett did a lot of things well but racism is consistently one of the things he's a little well-meaning but on. And perhaps that is also a factor among Discworld fans missing some of the more, hm, police-critical readings, given that racial and cultural conflict is nearly always foregrounded in the allegory of trolls or dwarves and sometimes Uberwaldean horror-B-movie monsters in the books.
posted by sciatrix at 9:26 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
sciatrix, I really found myself tearing up reading that scene and your commentary. Definitely have to go back and read Night Watch again.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 9:37 AM on January 28, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 9:37 AM on January 28, 2021 [10 favorites]
One thing my quarantine has not involved is rereading any Discworld. Perhaps it’s time.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:59 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:59 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
Pratchett definitely used Robert Peel's principles of policing as a basis for Vimes.
For those not too familiar, well worth a read. In fact, It would be awesome if law enforcement in general read and embraced these.
posted by Lord_Pall at 10:43 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
For those not too familiar, well worth a read. In fact, It would be awesome if law enforcement in general read and embraced these.
posted by Lord_Pall at 10:43 AM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
ugh. I love Pratchett. But, I've come to see Vimes in particular as a colonialist hero fantasy. The governor respected and loved by the natives who gets it and protects them against the people he works for.
As for what real police would recognise in Discworld police, Pratchett himself said that they noted "every police station has a Colon", who we agreed upthread is an old monster. And Discworld police, like real police, aren't really into law, it's just one of their improvisational tools for maintaining the tenuous status quo.
Also I have police connections in my country. I'm not a fan of our police. But there are well-meaning, earnest people who become cops and they mostly get socialised into becoming worse people, or chewed up and spat out. A very good part of the Vimes story is how he almost against his will learns good lessons from his experiences and stays connected to some deep sense of values.
Finally the unstated but most important part of Discworld police: they're a fantasy.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:45 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
As for what real police would recognise in Discworld police, Pratchett himself said that they noted "every police station has a Colon", who we agreed upthread is an old monster. And Discworld police, like real police, aren't really into law, it's just one of their improvisational tools for maintaining the tenuous status quo.
Also I have police connections in my country. I'm not a fan of our police. But there are well-meaning, earnest people who become cops and they mostly get socialised into becoming worse people, or chewed up and spat out. A very good part of the Vimes story is how he almost against his will learns good lessons from his experiences and stays connected to some deep sense of values.
Finally the unstated but most important part of Discworld police: they're a fantasy.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:45 AM on January 28, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's nice to have the fantasy as a model to aspire to, though. The Watch books make it feel so clear and so straightforward to do good police work, the kind that you actually want and need in a community. The real world is never so easy, but I think it's good to have Vimes as one of the spirits living in the collective unconscious. If only all of our police fantasies were so helpful.
posted by Scattercat at 10:54 AM on January 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 10:54 AM on January 28, 2021 [8 favorites]
I really need to re-read/listen to the entire Discworld series.
Other people have mentioned it further up, but law enforcement in Ankh-Morpork/The Watch in it's entire history needs to be considered when looking at how it changed under Vimes as an antidote to Copaganda. We start with an extremely corrupt setup, and he improves it. It doesn't become perfect, but it becomes better in stages. Same happens with Vimes. He's not a fantasy 'perfect cop', he's human, he learns, changes and becomes a better person and cop.
One thing Countess Elena said above struck me:
posted by MattWPBS at 11:22 AM on January 28, 2021 [6 favorites]
Other people have mentioned it further up, but law enforcement in Ankh-Morpork/The Watch in it's entire history needs to be considered when looking at how it changed under Vimes as an antidote to Copaganda. We start with an extremely corrupt setup, and he improves it. It doesn't become perfect, but it becomes better in stages. Same happens with Vimes. He's not a fantasy 'perfect cop', he's human, he learns, changes and becomes a better person and cop.
One thing Countess Elena said above struck me:
But his setting remains an antediluvian British one, in which people from the same area, including cops, can be expected to know each other and, if human, treat each other as roughly human. This may or may not be the case with British policemen more than otherwise; I cannot say.If I'm right in this, we're talking about the difference between societies which mainly draw from Peel's Principles and policing by consent and those which have come more from a policing by force background. This isn't an entirely archaic setting in places like Britain. Situation with the police is not perfect by any means, and there's arguments about the 'warrior cop' culture from places like the US, but the entire basis of law enforcement here stems from community policing.
posted by MattWPBS at 11:22 AM on January 28, 2021 [6 favorites]
Just to check - everyone is aware there is a Sam Vimes miniseries on air right now, right? Last episode drops this weekend I believe. It's set in a delightful cyberpunk setting. Quite enjoying it!
posted by rebent at 1:52 PM on January 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by rebent at 1:52 PM on January 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
You do know that Night Watch is in part a sendup of Les Miz, that's why there are barricades, one fiery revolutionary character, a street urchin... and a cop who is determined to catch a criminal, right? It's not 2020, it's referencing 1832, two steps removed.
Cops being fascist abusive murderers who reinforce the power of the wealthy ruling class didn't start in 2020. There are clear parallels between our economic conditions now and 1832 France with respect to wealth inequality. It's not an unreasonable comparison by any stretch.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:07 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
Cops being fascist abusive murderers who reinforce the power of the wealthy ruling class didn't start in 2020. There are clear parallels between our economic conditions now and 1832 France with respect to wealth inequality. It's not an unreasonable comparison by any stretch.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:07 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
What Sam Vimes miniseries are you talking about? Links, please!
posted by wenestvedt at 3:16 PM on January 28, 2021
posted by wenestvedt at 3:16 PM on January 28, 2021
[BBC America's The Watch. At FanFare.]
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:50 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:50 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
The show features still-drunk Vimes from 'Guards! Guards,' mostly, so not much exploration of good policing. Its fantasy 80's Crustpunk setting is visually interesting.
posted by porpoise at 4:21 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by porpoise at 4:21 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
The show shares character and location names but is otherwise not really related to the books. It's a very loose adaptation.
posted by Merus at 4:25 PM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Merus at 4:25 PM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
ugh. I love Pratchett. But, I've come to see Vimes in particular as a colonialist hero fantasy. The governor respected and loved by the natives who gets it and protects them against the people he works for.
This is a confusing take.
How is Vimes colonialist? He's born and bred in Anhk Morpork, from a long line of Morporkians. He doesn't steal land or impose his power on other people outside his jurisdiction.
Working class fantasy, I could see. Born poor, in a low status job, marries into wealth, gains power, control, status and uses it to makes things better for the little people - whom he always priorities over wealthy established interests.
But colonialist? The entirety of Jingo is a condemnation of racism and colonial military adventurism:
This is a confusing take.
How is Vimes colonialist? He's born and bred in Anhk Morpork, from a long line of Morporkians. He doesn't steal land or impose his power on other people outside his jurisdiction.
Working class fantasy, I could see. Born poor, in a low status job, marries into wealth, gains power, control, status and uses it to makes things better for the little people - whom he always priorities over wealthy established interests.
But colonialist? The entirety of Jingo is a condemnation of racism and colonial military adventurism:
“Why are our people going out there,” said Mr. Boggis of the Thieves’ Guild.Vimes specifically hates the concept of some people being considered 'better' than others. Consider his hatred of kings:
"Because they are showing a brisk pioneering spirit and seeking wealth and … additional wealth in a new land,” said Lord Vetinari.
“What’s in it for the Klatchians?” said Lord Downey.
“Oh, they’ve gone out there because they are a bunch of unprincipled opportunists always ready to grab something for northern,” said Lord Vetinari.
“A mastery summation, if I may say so, my lord,” said Mr. Burleigh.
The Patrician looked down again at his notes. “Oh, I do beg your pardon, I seem to have read those last to sentences in the wrong order…”
"“No more kings. Vimes had difficulty in articulating why this should be so, why the concept resonated in his very bones. After all, a good many of the patricians had been as bad as any king. But they were...sort of...bad on equal terms. What set Vimes's teeth on edge was the idea that kings were a different kind of human being. A higher lifeform. Somehow magical."Also, from Feet of Clay:
“Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:28 PM on January 28, 2021 [15 favorites]
“Sir?”
“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”
“Sir?”
“That’s practically zen.”
I am thinking of his relations with the trolls and dwarves exemplified in Thud, the goblins in Snuff, but also elsewhere. I probably do need a better word though.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:40 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:40 PM on January 28, 2021 [1 favorite]
This thread is an abomination unto Nuggan!
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 8:50 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 8:50 PM on January 28, 2021 [2 favorites]
This thread is an abomination unto Nuggan!
Nuggan is dead! Nuggan remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?
Eh. it's been a long day. Go put the kettle on, and you can go have a wash after.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:55 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
Nuggan is dead! Nuggan remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?
Eh. it's been a long day. Go put the kettle on, and you can go have a wash after.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 8:55 PM on January 28, 2021 [4 favorites]
I am thinking of his relations with the trolls and dwarves exemplified in Thud, the goblins in Snuff, but also elsewhere. I probably do need a better word though.
Anti-racist? He's a middle aged cis white man who, as the article points out, faces his prejudices and conquers them, several time throughout the series. He's an authority figure that is committed to acting in the public interest, and matures and grows as a person.
It's what we wish cops were - which is the whole point of the article.
The Watch in Guards Guards is a drunk and two corrupt petty thieves with a badge. Then Vimes is basically prodded into reforming it by Carrot, who arrives with a seemingly naïve dream of justice which he wills into reality - not though wishing or magic, but through hard work. The Guards books are not about pretending that all cops are great or perfect. They're about showing how they could be.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:23 PM on January 28, 2021 [13 favorites]
Anti-racist? He's a middle aged cis white man who, as the article points out, faces his prejudices and conquers them, several time throughout the series. He's an authority figure that is committed to acting in the public interest, and matures and grows as a person.
It's what we wish cops were - which is the whole point of the article.
The Watch in Guards Guards is a drunk and two corrupt petty thieves with a badge. Then Vimes is basically prodded into reforming it by Carrot, who arrives with a seemingly naïve dream of justice which he wills into reality - not though wishing or magic, but through hard work. The Guards books are not about pretending that all cops are great or perfect. They're about showing how they could be.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 9:23 PM on January 28, 2021 [13 favorites]
I am thinking of his relations with the trolls and dwarves exemplified in Thud, the goblins in Snuff, but also elsewhere. I probably do need a better word though.
Paternalistic, perhaps? There is a strong undercurrent that Vimes is doing them a favour by treating them as people, one that I think is an intentional character flaw on Pratchett's part. Pratchett kept going back to that well as a conflict for Vimes, and then eventually built Snuff around Vimes having learned to do it for himself without external forces prodding him.
posted by Merus at 11:11 PM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
Paternalistic, perhaps? There is a strong undercurrent that Vimes is doing them a favour by treating them as people, one that I think is an intentional character flaw on Pratchett's part. Pratchett kept going back to that well as a conflict for Vimes, and then eventually built Snuff around Vimes having learned to do it for himself without external forces prodding him.
posted by Merus at 11:11 PM on January 28, 2021 [5 favorites]
>Just to check - everyone is aware there is a Sam Vimes miniseries on air right now, right? Last episode drops this weekend I believe. It's set in a delightful cyberpunk setting. Quite enjoying it!
Many Pratchett fans are refusing to acknowledge its existence because of the futuresmash setting -- "Discworld is fantasy satire from the get-got, amirite?"
But like a mob having the intelligence of its least-smart member divided by the size of the mob -- and here opens my contribution to the thread -- this response misses that we each have to render stories and art (and particular the technological journey that the Discworld takes with imp-powered personal messengers, moving pictures, space travel, the Clacks transcontinental messaging system, the wizard university's computer Hex, money supply, mail and railways) into things relative to our experience so that we can reflect on our experience via the story we're told.
So the TV miniseries probably roots Pratchettean satire in whatever visual presentation its team went for. Some of the fans' outcry is over how-we-understood-dwarves-to-present-gender having to change so it satirises the boy-girl binary that might still persist in the minds of its audience -- which comes with the caveat that I'm all manner of default cis-white-male(-presenting*)-educated and have yet to set aside my precious mental rendering of the books to let someone else share theirs on screen.
In that light, the Disc is a fantasy and we each carry our reflections, the satire needs us to match some of our categorisation to the ones mocked in the books so that we can learn from the mistakes that characters' prejudices can make. Sam Vimes of Guards, Guards! isn't the Sam Vimes of Night Watch or of Thud! ("Where's my cow? That's not my cow!") but the core of Vimes throughout is someone seeking to be responsible in contrast to those around him who take power.
Additionally, thank you for the link, MartinWisse.
*: in a comment about boy-ish/girl-ish/be-yourself, it's presentation and performance given that I'm not and don't want to be some of my society's markers for masculinity
posted by k3ninho at 1:26 AM on January 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
Many Pratchett fans are refusing to acknowledge its existence because of the futuresmash setting -- "Discworld is fantasy satire from the get-got, amirite?"
But like a mob having the intelligence of its least-smart member divided by the size of the mob -- and here opens my contribution to the thread -- this response misses that we each have to render stories and art (and particular the technological journey that the Discworld takes with imp-powered personal messengers, moving pictures, space travel, the Clacks transcontinental messaging system, the wizard university's computer Hex, money supply, mail and railways) into things relative to our experience so that we can reflect on our experience via the story we're told.
So the TV miniseries probably roots Pratchettean satire in whatever visual presentation its team went for. Some of the fans' outcry is over how-we-understood-dwarves-to-present-gender having to change so it satirises the boy-girl binary that might still persist in the minds of its audience -- which comes with the caveat that I'm all manner of default cis-white-male(-presenting*)-educated and have yet to set aside my precious mental rendering of the books to let someone else share theirs on screen.
In that light, the Disc is a fantasy and we each carry our reflections, the satire needs us to match some of our categorisation to the ones mocked in the books so that we can learn from the mistakes that characters' prejudices can make. Sam Vimes of Guards, Guards! isn't the Sam Vimes of Night Watch or of Thud! ("Where's my cow? That's not my cow!") but the core of Vimes throughout is someone seeking to be responsible in contrast to those around him who take power.
Additionally, thank you for the link, MartinWisse.
*: in a comment about boy-ish/girl-ish/be-yourself, it's presentation and performance given that I'm not and don't want to be some of my society's markers for masculinity
posted by k3ninho at 1:26 AM on January 29, 2021 [3 favorites]
This isn't an entirely archaic setting in places like Britain
Vimes reads as an archetypical British copper to me. Cynical, pragmatic, decent, small "c" conservative (so initially suspicious of diversifying the Watch), clever. I read somewhere there's been a bit of a crackdown on British coppers' blogs but you certainly used to be able to find examples of the type writing in modern times.
This seems like a good place to drop Mister Vimes'd Go Spare!, as it's good fanfic which I don't think I got from Mefi in the first place.
posted by pw201 at 2:38 AM on January 29, 2021 [7 favorites]
Vimes reads as an archetypical British copper to me. Cynical, pragmatic, decent, small "c" conservative (so initially suspicious of diversifying the Watch), clever. I read somewhere there's been a bit of a crackdown on British coppers' blogs but you certainly used to be able to find examples of the type writing in modern times.
This seems like a good place to drop Mister Vimes'd Go Spare!, as it's good fanfic which I don't think I got from Mefi in the first place.
posted by pw201 at 2:38 AM on January 29, 2021 [7 favorites]
This seems like a good place to drop Mister Vimes'd Go Spare!, as it's good fanfic which I don't think I got from Mefi inthe first place.
That is really rather good. Recommended that people read.
posted by MattWPBS at 5:47 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
That is really rather good. Recommended that people read.
posted by MattWPBS at 5:47 AM on January 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
Many Pratchett fans are refusing to acknowledge its existence because of the futuresmash setting -- "Discworld is fantasy satire from the get-got, amirite?"
I think this is selling a lot of the criticism short - Discworld fans would be well aware that Ankh-Morpork goes from fantasy to steampunk over the course of the series. The issue was more that the way they talked about the show in the leadup to the show's released seemed like they made changes without understanding any of the jokes.
This seems like a good place to drop Mister Vimes'd Go Spare!, as it's good fanfic which I don't think I got from Mefi in the first place.
I worked out where this was going about halfway through and it was delightful.
posted by Merus at 7:55 PM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
I think this is selling a lot of the criticism short - Discworld fans would be well aware that Ankh-Morpork goes from fantasy to steampunk over the course of the series. The issue was more that the way they talked about the show in the leadup to the show's released seemed like they made changes without understanding any of the jokes.
This seems like a good place to drop Mister Vimes'd Go Spare!, as it's good fanfic which I don't think I got from Mefi in the first place.
I worked out where this was going about halfway through and it was delightful.
posted by Merus at 7:55 PM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
So the TV miniseries probably roots Pratchettean satire in whatever visual presentation its team went for.
Well, according to people who've seen it, sadly it doesn't. It abandons Pratchettean satire and replaces it with something else; Helen Lewis says it well:
What has been lost is not just Pratchett’s voice, but his way—Vimes’s way—of looking at the world. In the overwrought maelstrom of outrage culture, I long for his wry, forgiving humanism, and his sly amusement at human foibles.
posted by vincebowdren at 3:01 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
Well, according to people who've seen it, sadly it doesn't. It abandons Pratchettean satire and replaces it with something else; Helen Lewis says it well:
What has been lost is not just Pratchett’s voice, but his way—Vimes’s way—of looking at the world. In the overwrought maelstrom of outrage culture, I long for his wry, forgiving humanism, and his sly amusement at human foibles.
posted by vincebowdren at 3:01 PM on January 31, 2021 [6 favorites]
Talking about adaptations, Troll Bridge (the moving picture) is up on YouTube.
Faithful film of the short story, with Cohen the Barbarian reminiscing with a troll.
posted by MattWPBS at 9:15 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
Faithful film of the short story, with Cohen the Barbarian reminiscing with a troll.
posted by MattWPBS at 9:15 AM on February 1, 2021 [2 favorites]
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I really enjoyed Brooklyn 99, at least the first season and a bit before the cop related shenanigans in the real-world gained so much world-wide attention. I am based in Europe, our cops aren't great, I always knew that US cops were especially terrible, but there came a point early last year where zoning out to a sit-com based in a police station that was full of good(ish) people became impossible for me.
I'm not sure that the centring of the conscience of the good world-weary cop completely subverts any claims of copaganda in the Watch books. However the fact that Pratchett's police are set in a different world, and the keen way Pratchett interrogates (hah) the set-up of policing and it's interaction with other powers, means that hopefully I will still be able to enjoy the Watch books when I come to re-read them.
posted by Gratishades at 4:07 AM on January 28, 2021 [8 favorites]