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This guy has never been serious about anything ever
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They avoided one another’s faces, for fear of what they might see mirrored there. Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I’ll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I’m not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard . . . But no-one said anything. The cowards, each man thought.
-- Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
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Guards! Guards! was not the first Discworld book I read but it is the one that punched my angsty, edgy thirteen-year-old self in the face. I have never had a book hit me like that since. Nothing has ever picked me up by the scruff of the neck and shown me my own face in the mirror that way.
I was angsting around, all “the world is terrible” and “people are evil” and “humans are a blight upon the earth” and “everyone is stupid” and Vimes showed up and said, “Yeah, and?”
So what? So they’re stupid and petty - save them anyway. So they’re selfish - save them anyway. So it’s all fucked and there’s never going to be a happy ending - save them anyway. Do it anyway. You don’t get to opt out of caring just because they’re grubby and ignorant and reactionary and petty because so are you and that’s all we’ve got.
No other book has ever changed my worldview in one blow before or since. I reckon that’s something that can only happen to you when you’re a teenager anyway. But I’ve never quite gotten over it.
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Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
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It was clearly the room of a woman, but one who had cheerfully and without any silly moping been getting on with her life while all that soppy romance stuff had been happening to other people somewhere else, and been jolly grateful that she had her health.
-- Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
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The Patrician disliked the word 'dictator.' It affronted him. He never told anyone what to do. He didn't have to, that was the wonderful part. A large part of his life consisted of arranging matters so that this state of affairs continued. Of course, there were various groups seeking his overthrow, and this was right and proper and the sign of a vigorous and healthy society. No-one could call him unreasonable about the matter. Why, hadn't he founded most of them himself? And what was so beautiful was the way in which they spent nearly all their time bickering with one another. Human nature, the Patrician always said, was a marvellous thing. Once you understood where its levers were.
Terry Pratchett / Guards! Guards!
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recently i read Guards!Guards! by Pratchett and it brings me great joy to draw out the characters, i will now proceed to throw these at you
Colon!
Sybil,,, i love her, how can i not love a crazy dragon lady ((thats also a big lady))... I like the idea that her brows are tiny because they get burnt by dragons so often
Carrot i also love him
+Big woman Sybil with no wig
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In the night’s damp cloak assassins assassinated, thieves thieved, hussies hustled and so on. And drunken Captain Vimes of the Night Watch staggered slowly down the street, folded gently into the gutter outside the Watch House and lay there while above him strange letters made out of light sizzled in the damp and changed colour.
“The city was a... was a... was a... waz name... thing. Woman. That's what it was. Woman. Roaring, ancient, centuries-old. Strung you along… let you fall in uh… thingy… love with her. Then kicked you in ya thingy… in ya mouth… tongue… tonsils… teeth! That’s what it… she… did. She was ah… thing… you know… lady… dog… puppy… hen… bitch. And then you hated her and just when you thought you’d got her…. it… out of your… yeah… whatever… then she’d open her great booming rotten heart to you… caught you off bal- bal- bal…ah… thing… -ance… that’s it… yeah. Never knew where you stood… lay. Only thing you were sure of… you couldn’t let her go… because… because… she was yours… all you had… even in her gutters.”
-Samuel Vimes's entrance scene in Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!
.....
IT'S SO GOOD. Vimes being heartbroken and maudlin over his beloved city.
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'You, er, want us to attack him?' said the guard miserably. Thick though the palace guards were, they were as aware as everyone else of the conventions, and when guards are summoned to deal with one man in overheated circumstances it's not a good time for them. The bugger's bound to be heroic, he was thinking. This guard was not looking forward to a future in which he was dead.
'Of course, you idiot!'
'But, er, there's only one of him,' said the guard captain.
'And he's smilin',' said a man behind him.
'Prob'ly goin' to swing on the chandeliers any minute,' said one of his colleagues. ' And kick over tables, and that.'
'He's not even armed!' shrieked Wonse.
'Worst kind, that' said one of the guards, with deep stoicism. 'They leap up, see, and grab one of the ornamental sword behind he shield over the fireplace.'
'Yeah,' said another, suspiciously. 'And then they chucks a chair at you.'
Guards!Guards! by Terry Pratchett
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Why does Vimes being short seem to come as a surprise to some people?
Remember that not only is he called Vetinari's Terrier (terriers tend to be small dogs), but in The Fifth Elephant, Vimes initially fails to recognize the irony during a rant in which he mentions "Eight-stone" (112 lb. or 50.8 kg) fighters and uses the term "bantamweight". Even if his genetics would have allowed him to be taller, his background does not support the idea of him being anything but short.
Sam Vimes grew up not just in the Shades, but on Cockbill Street, a place where people couldn't afford to eat regularly. He and his mother probably faced hunger more frequently than some of their neighbors (though perhaps not as frequently as larger families) because Mrs. Vimes wouldn't accept money that was made immorally and because she was a single mother who didn't have the income of a husband to help cover expenses.
Consider how, in Night Watch, Vimes (as Keel) was shocked to see how skinny his younger self was, and that his younger self said that he joined the watch because a friend had told him that there was free food, a uniform, and that he could occasionally make an extra dollar. This shows a surprising difference between adult and young Vimes: with his adult and soon-to-be-father self being taken aback by the sorry sight of himself as a kid as well as his younger self openly and readily talking to a near stranger about how, at 17 years old, he's just now starting to get a sense of food security. Furthermore, in Guards!Guards!, it is stated that "He couldn't help remembering how much he'd wanted a puppy when he was a little boy. Mind you, they'd been starving - anything with meat on it would have done", which shows the extent of the hunger he faced in his youth.
Sam Vimes isn't someone of an average height that seems short simply because he spends so much time around tall people (such as Carrot, Sybil, and Vetinari), he is short. Vimes grew up without access to healthy or adequate quantities of food, therefore his growth was stunted by malnourishment, which likely means that he would be below the average height of a human citizen of Ankh-Morpork.
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the beginning of a beautiful friendship
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this is their first date
scorpion pit doesn't actually belong to vetinari: CONFIRMED (maybe) (it's only his when it's funny)
disney princess. look at this shit.
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livetweeting my re-listening to Guards! Guards! audiobook.
lady sybil is my hero
and vetinari and his rat allies … i .. am obsessed with everything that man does
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read Guards, Guards! and had some Impressions
plainoldsamvimes-deactivated202
Oh this is precious... and so, so accurate
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A lump of rock ricocheted off his breastplate.
‘Who did that?’
The voice lashed out like a whip. The crowd went quiet.
Sybil Ramkin scrambled up on the wreckage, eyes afire, and glared furiously at the mob.
‘I said,’ she said, ‘who did that? If the person who did it does not own up I shall be extremely angry! Shame on you all!’
She had their full attention. Several people holding stones and things let them drop quietly to the ground. The breeze flapped the remnants of her nightshirt as her Ladyship took up a new haranguing position.
‘Here is the gallant Captain Vimes–’
‘Oh gods,’ said Vimes in a small voice, and pulled his helmet down over his eyes.
‘–and his dauntless men, who have taken the trouble to come here today, to save your–’
Vimes gripped Carrot’s arm and maneuvered him down the far side of the heap.
‘You all right, Captain?’ said the lance-constable. ‘You’ve gone all red.’
–Terry Pratchett, “Guards! Guards!” (Hey if King Carrot can’t shame a crowd into not throwing rocks, Our Queen Sybil is there in reserve. Meanwhile Vimes is like ‘There’s nothing between us’ while blushing like an apple. Because I mean who wouldn’t love her?)
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read Guards, Guards! and had some Impressions
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just a war counsel for the local rat militia