Thursday
I promised last week to say more about Terry Prachett’s insights into police going over to the dark side—a not insignificant issue as ICE killings continue to mount—so here goes. First, however, a thought on why Pratchett isn’t taken more seriously as a social commentator, even though I find his thinking to be profound.
I once attended a panel on “Fantasy and Humor” at the annual conference of The International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. There a fantasy author—I didn’t recognize him—observed that, while he had won more literary awards than Pratchett, Pratchett was by far the superior author. The reason, he said, is because fantasy enthusiasts have problems mixing fantasy with humor. They prefer the high seriousness of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, not the hilarious wit of Discworld.
I think the same holds true when it comes to Pratchett addressing social problems, especially in the novels featuring Commander of the Watch Sam Vines. Because Pratchett is constantly joking about what the police must do to maintain order in crime-ridden Ankh Morpork, which resembles Dickensian London, we can miss his deeper message. For instance, at times he appears to fantasize about police violence reestablishing the peace, as in the following scene in The Fifth Elephant.
Watchman Detritus, a dim-witted but likable troll, has used his muscle to sort out a bar fight. Concerned, Commander Vines warns him that he must start using tact and diplomacy to keep ancient rivalries between trolls and dwarfs from getting out of hand:
“You have come to der right troll for that, sair,” said Detritus.
“You did push that man through that wall last week, Detritus.”
“It was done with tact, sir. Quite a fin wall.”
Vimes let it go at that. The man in question had just laid out three watchmen with a club, which Detritus had broken in one hand before selecting the suitably tactful wall.
For those cheering Detritus’s use of force, I note that the City Watch also has DEI policies, which make it far more effective than if it were made up only of male humans. After all, it must deal with a multicultural population. Along with the troll there is a female dwarf, a man raised among dwarfs (Captain Carrot), a zombie, a golem, a female werewolf, a female vampire, an “Igor” (think Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein), a gargoyle (Constable Downspout), a gnome, a fundamentalist (Constable Visit-the-Infidel-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets), and Corporal Nobby Nobbs, who needs a certificate to prove that he is human.
Vimes himself has a history of violence—as a child he needed his fists and feet to survive the Ankh Morporkian backstreets on which he was raised–and he shakes his head when the noble Carrot attempts to follow the Marquis of Fantailler Rules in a fight with a rogue werewolf. As Pratchett explains in a footnote,
“The noble art of fisticuffs” mostly consisted of a list of places where people weren’t allowed to hit [the Marquis]. Many peole were impressed with his work and later stood with noble chest outthrust and fists balled in a spirit of manly aggression against people who hadn’t read the Marquis’s book but did know how to knock people senseless with a chair. The last words of a surprisingly large number of people were “Stuff the bloody Marquis of Fantailler—”
[Side note that is of interest to me: This is a reference to the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, formulated by the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, which formed the basis of boxing. If my great-great-grandfather William Scott was, as our family believes, the natural son of Charles William Henry Montagu-Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch—after Charles died William would go on to manage the estate of Buccleuch’s best friend, Lord Bunbury–then he would have been second cousin twice removed of the Marquess. Unofficially, of course.]
So far, it appears that Pratchett is appealing to our testosterone-charged manosphere, the one that cheers Trump and Hegseth when they bomb fishing boats and indiscriminate Iranian targets.
But if Vimes sometimes fights outside the rules, he does so only when necessary and he draws the line at killing. In a conversation with professional assassin Inigo, who has been sent to protect him, he objects to his palm knife:
“This is not a weapon. This is for killing people,” [Vimes] said.
“Uh…most weapons are,” said Inigo.
“No, they’re not. They’re so you don’t have to kill people. They’re for…for having. For being seen. For warning. This is for hiding away until you bring it out and kill people in the dark.
Vimes, we learn, has never deliberately killed anyone. He knows he has a dark side, however, and when he has just managed to subdue a werewolf that has been going for his throat, he experiences the primal fury that may have overcome various ICE agents in Maine, Minneapolis, and elsewhere:
Make them stay wolves, said a little inner voice. The more time they spend on four legs, the less bright they’d become.
A deeper voice, red and raw, from much, much further inside, said: Kill ’em all!
The rage was boiling up now, fighting against the chill.
Time and again, however, we see Vimes suppressing this impulse. The struggle is most acute when, in the later novel Thud!, Vimes is a father who sees his beloved son threatened. In that novel, he is in danger of being taken over by a dwarf curse that unleashes out-of-control rage in whomever it touches. Known as “the Summoning Dark,” it goads Vimes to enact extreme vengeance on those who would harm his loved ones. Here’s the scene where we watch him overcome it:
[Vimes] said: “What are you?”
The entity stirred, like an old fish in a deep pool. It was too tired to flee.
“I am the Summoning Dark.” It was not, in fact, a sound, but had it been, it would have been a hiss. “Who are you?”
“I am the Watchman.”
“They would have killed his family!” The darkness lunged, and met resistance. “Think of the deaths they have caused! Who are you to stop me?”
“He created me. Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Me. I watch him. Always. You will not force him to murder for you.”
“What kind of human creates his own policeman?”
“One who fears the dark.”
“And so he should,” said the entity, with satisfaction.
“Indeed. But I think you misunderstand. I am not here to keep darkness out. I’m here to keep it in.” There was a clink of metal as the shadowy watchman lifted a dark lantern and opened its little door. Orange light cut through the blackness. “Call me . . . the Guarding Dark. Imagine how strong I must be.”
The Summoning Dark backed desperately into the alley, but the light followed it, burning it.
“And now,” said the watchman, “get out of town.”
The Summoning Dark, goaded by the president, has taken over various ICE agents and spread to a segment of the population, with tragic consequences. Vimes, however, models a heroic alternative. I like what reviewer Andrew Brown wrote of Pratchett after he died tragically at 66:
Pratchett wrote some memorable villains, but his heroes were much more vivid. What makes them so unusual is their unheroic and everyday quality, even when they are being heroic or, if necessary, saving the world. Sam Vimes may be the most fully realized decent man in modern literature. He’s not a saint, but there are some things you know – and he knows – he will never do, and some temptations he will never yield to.
As we witness the assaults on our democracy, we must access our inner Sam Vimes, standing strong while not yielding to overpowering rage.
