“Vimes sank gloomily into his armchair. It was, he felt, a persistent flaw in his wife’s otherwise practical and sensible character that she believed, against all evidence, that he was a man of many talents.”
“She sat on the bed and stared at the wall until the shouting started, and when the shouting started she knew Sam was alive and well, because only Sam made people that angry.”
“Andthen he realized why he was thinking like this.
It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, then what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”
sooo after about 3 years of not posting art on here I think it’s time I start again! I’ve dove head first back into one of my first fandom loves - discworld! and I think tumblr is the best home for all my conceptual scribbles, so this is just a bit of a warning for those following me of what content to expect for the foreseeable future (though I’m sure fantasy gays will still be dotted around). if that’s not your bag that’s totally understandable, and if it is well enjoy the next wee while of me slowly uploading the last few months worth of discworld fan art! here’s a sketch dump from across a handful of the books to get us started.
Because it’s the Glorious 25th, I am of course thinking of Sam Vimes today.
And the thing about Vimes as a hero is that he’s so extreme in personality, but also so deeply relatable.
Carrot, for example, (and of course it’s not an accident that Carrot is there as comparison) is your typical fantasy hero. And he’s not relatable at all. He’s Good in a way that most people will never be, can never be. There’s something God-touched about his goodness. And his goodness isn’t…super effective. I mean, it is a little. But no, who is it that really creates and continues the sweeping change of Discworld, over and over again? It’s Sam Vimes.
Sam Vimes, who spent most of his life drunk and in a gutter. Who burnt out from his unfair job, unjust world, and unappreciated caring and gave up. For YEARS AND YEARS he gave up.
Until he finally met a situation that was so intense it forced him to care again.
And lord, that is so COMFORTING. That you can fuck up your whole life for a couple decades and then still answer the call when it comes. Save the day and push for changes. Be the sand in the gears of industry, fight impossible odds and win over and over, while complaining about having to do it the whole time.
Vimes as we mostly know him is a character our world desperately needed. Someone who keeps pushing and pushing against overwhelming injustice, even when it seems like the powers that be are stacked so high against you.
But also how much more powerful to say “this character was once a total waste of space.” He was ground down by daily life and constant injustice. But he didn’t stay that way forever.
Vimes glared at the crowd again. It was mostly human. There was one troll, although, admittedly, the troll had probably joined in on general principle, simply because something was happening. A vampire would need a masonry drill and a lot of patience before it could put a troll to any trouble. Still, there was one good thing, if you could call it that—this little sideshow took people’s minds off Koom Valley. “It’s strange that they don’t seem to mind you, Otto,” he said, calming down a little. “Vell, I’m not official,” said Otto. “I do not haf zer sword und zer badge. I do not threaten. I am just a vorking stiff. And I make zem laff.” Vimes stared at the man. He’s never thought about that before. But yes… Little fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow’s peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on whom he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people. Make them laugh, and they’re not afraid.
is there any official description of Samuel Vimes’s height, or has the entire Discworld fandom just mutually agreed that he’s a short lil guy who can kick your shins into the stratosphere???
In The Fifth Elephant, we get the line “Vimes wasn’t a very tall man.”
Does “not very tall” = “short” or does it equal “average height, i.e., simply not notably tall”? There is no way to know for sure… other than the knowledge deep in my heart that he is definitely short.
Samuel Vimes, who had never gone into a place of worship with religious aforethought, worshipped Lady Sybil, and not a day went past without his being amazed that she seemed to do the same to him
“‘Anyway, I’m a wolf living with people, and there’s a name for wolves that live with people. If he whistled, I’d come running.’ Vimes tried not to show his embarrassment. Angua smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Vimes. You’ve said it yourself. Sooner or later, we’re all someone’s dog.’”
Thinking about discworld at this point is just *brain making teakettle noises* but the way vimes sees himself as a grungy pathetic crotchety suspicious bastard AND YET the way the first few stories end with him kicking himself for his own blind prejudice! like!!!!!! his whole genre-aware hardbitten detective act is played for funny haha but, like literally everything else in discworld, that’s not all - vimes is aware that he’s grumpy, and sarcastic, and apathetic, and in some ways mean and small-minded, but he is alwaysready to learn.
not happily. not necessarily willingly. a lot of his more negative traits are learned through repeated exposure to terrible things (vampires) or just because for so long he’s been fighting this slog against the worst of humanity. but he learns despite himself.
he doesn’t just say “well, this is just who i am, it’s too late to change and what would be the point anyway,” he just thinks himself around to overcoming his prejudices one at a time and is immediately ashamed (privately, not performatively, not as a martyr) of the way he behaved - a way that he, himself, does not approve of behaving. the very moment he accepts golems as “alive,” he thinks about how he’s been saying that “you can’t take away something they haven’t got,” and he thinks that that’s exactly the way that rich people, powerful people, the people that show up in books for owning streets of slums, the people that he fucking hates, think about everybody below them. that’s one of the key reasons whyhe hates them, that they can look at another human being and say “well, why not take away their life, their livelihood, their comfort, their safety? they can’t miss what they haven’t got”
vimes knows he’s not a person with the moral high ground. that is something, i think, that i love the most about him. he doesn’t have it, he doesn’t pretend to have it, he doesn’t agonize over not having it, he doesn’t faff about in mangst about it when he takes another quiet - or not so quiet - step over his own ignorance.
most importantly, he doesn’t need it. he’s an officer of the law. the law comes up through his boots. nobody is outside the law, it’s just that some people are out of his reach for now. it doesn’t matter how dirty or dingy or battered he is, some things are just wrong, and some things he can make right. if some of those wrong things are in his own head, he’s going to fix them and carry on because he has work to do.
Something something vimes and carrot as foils the descendant of kingslayers and the descendant of kings the man who sees clearly the truth of evil and the man who sees clearly the truth of good the man who’s being pulled up from the gutter and the man being pulled down from his near miss with glory and both of them being made better for it the man whose apathy covers deep personal care versus the man whose boundless kindness covers personal disconnection the man who lives so mired in the world at it is and the man who lives almost entirely in the world as it could be the way they could never understand each other and the way they understand each other better than anyone else
