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Sam Vimes
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==Character== Vimes is a very conflicted character.<ref name="nightwatch"/> An incorruptible [[idealist]] with deep beliefs in justice and an abiding love of his city, he is also a committed [[Cynicism (contemporary)|cynic]] whose knowledge of human nature constantly reminds him how far off those ideals are.<ref name="nightwatch"/> Having married into the upper classes, he still possesses an innate dislike of inherited wealth and an instinctive revulsion towards social inequality. The Patrician observes that Vimes is anti-authoritarian even though he is, himself, an authority figure, which is "practically [[Zen]]".<ref>''[[Feet of Clay (novel)|Feet of Clay]]'', page 275, {{ISBN|0-575-05900-1}}</ref> The conflict within Vimes is between his virtuous nature ("the Watchman") and what he calls "the Beast". In ''[[The Art of Discworld]]'', Pratchett explains that Vimes protects himself from the Beast with the symbol of his own badge, which prevents him from becoming the criminal he despises, at least in his own mind.<ref name="thud"/> Although in ''[[Guards! Guards!]]'' Vimes is all but shocked at Vetinari's disturbingly cynical (and probably disturbingly accurate) view of the world, he in turn has been called "the most cynical bastard that ever walked under the sun" (in ''[[I Shall Wear Midnight]]''). Although widely differing characters, Vimes and Vetinari can be called similar in that they both have very cynical worldviews, but fairly idealistic aims.{{cn|date=November 2024}} Vimes has once been described as a [[speciesism|speciesist]], though this habit slowly dies away; most of his officers rationalize this bias as simply not being particularly fond of ''anyone''. However, he will warm up to anyone he considers a "good copper" regardless of their unusual background and has allowed the Watch to become one of the most species-blind employers in the city. Initially, Vimes is jokingly described as only fond of rural dwarfs and wizards, the former who only commit crimes underground and away from him and the latter ironically sharing his respectful distaste for using magic irresponsibly. A notable exception is his explicit dislike of vampires. He explained to the abstaining vampire Lady Margolotta in ''[[The Fifth Elephant]]'', this is because, [[teetotalism|teetotal]] or not, 'a vampire will always seek to dominate a human being'. Despite being viewed by many of the Discworld's more Machiavellian power brokers as easy to fool, Vimes is more cunning than he appears. His years of practical experience give him a foundation of hard-headed realism on which he bases much of his more idealistic beliefs. A running gag in the series is his thwarting of several attempts on his life by the [[Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild|Assassins' Guild]], due to his knowledge of their rigid code of conduct. Thanks to the funds now available to him through marriage, his mansion is set with numerous traps so that the Assassins, who must always offer a sporting chance, cannot get close to him without suffering a severe mishap. Traps include roof tiles set on greased rails, sawn roof joists over the dragon pens and bear traps in the shrubbery. Vimes also personally makes sure that all of the brickwork is kept in good repair, with no convenient handholds. In addition, Vimes' office at Pseudopolis Yard has "everything that his ingenuity could devise", including sharp ornamental railings, "which are pretty, and make the house look nice, but are, above all, spiky." Whenever he thwarts an Assassin in an attempt, he usually lets them go after taking their share of the payment for his inhumation (which he then donates to the 'Watch Widows and Orphans Fund', or to the 'Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick, Abused or Abandoned Dragons'), and subjecting them to a little humiliation. Though he finds it to be annoying, Vimes takes these continued attempts on his life as a sign that he's angering somebody, and so must be doing something right. In every book in the series, the fee for his assassination has risen until he has been removed from the Guild register, meaning that contracts on his life are no longer accepted (this was initially literal, as no assassin wanted to take the contract).<ref name="Night Watch page 8">''[[Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'', page 8, {{ISBN|0-385-60264-2}}</ref> Vimes was made aware of this by a young female student from the guild, who had been tasked with merely getting a glimpse of Vimes at his home (after she had fallen into one of the "eventually lethal" traps). Vimes is considering appealing the decision.<ref>''[[Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'', page 10, {{ISBN|0-385-60264-2}}</ref> In ''[[The Fifth Elephant]]'', Vimes managed to evade, fight off, and 'kill' part of a pack of [[Werewolf|werewolves]] in "the game", a werewolf tradition of chasing a human back to civilization that humans did not often win. ([[Angua von Überwald|Angua]]'s brother Wolfgang denies that the werewolves died, as they can only truly be killed by silver; they would just have "nasty headaches later on.") Vimes also reflects on killing a werewolf in ''Night Watch''<ref name="Night Watch page 8" /> and Vetinari mentions him killing a werewolf in ''Thud!''.<ref name="thud" /> He eventually did actually kill Wolfgang (with a firework, it having been previously established that werewolves can be killed by fire as well as silver.) While not otherwise well-traveled, in the days of ''[[Guards! Guards!]]'' he could tell exactly where he was anywhere within the city limits of Ankh-Morpork just by the feel of the [[cobbles]] beneath his feet, due to the thinness of his boots at the time, having walked the streets of the city for thirty years and a knowledge of the difference of the cobbles therein. When he is returned to the past in ''[[Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'', he uses this ability to locate a group of monks he needs in order to return to his present. Later in the series, the expensive, good quality boots his wife persists in buying for him restrict this ability. Vimes' firm grasp of basic human nature, and of the Ankh-Morpork psyche in particular, led to him spending some years as a drunk, and [[Fred Colon]] postulates that this was because Vimes' body didn't produce any "natural alcohol", and he estimates that Vimes was about "two drinks below par".<ref>''[[Men at Arms]]'', page 215, {{ISBN|0-552-14028-7}}</ref> This meant that when he hadn't been drinking, he was beyond sober - he was "[[knurd]]". Thus, he saw reality as it really was ("[[Witches (Discworld)|first sight]]"); stripped of all the mental illusions that most people construct in their minds to get to sleep at night ("second sight"). This horrifying state of mind caused Vimes to try to balance it out through drinking, but he would get the dosage wrong and would just end up drunk. Vimes gave up alcohol after his marriage to Sybil, and now smokes foul-smelling cigars instead. He still keeps an unopened bottle of 'Bearhugger's Whisky' in his bottom desk drawer as a 'permanent test'. Terry Pratchett noted the following about Vimes on Usenet: "Vimes is fundamentally a person. He fears he may be a bad person because he knows what he thinks rather than just what he says and does. He chokes off [[Shadow (psychology)|all of those little reactions and impulses]], but he knows what they are. So he tries to act like a good person, often in situations where the map is unclear."[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_thread/thread/a5de20423da837a5/acfb8cc6c17a4e7b?lnk=st&rnum=2#acfb8cc6c17a4e7b REVIEW: "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett (no spoilers)] This, along with the Discworld habit of pushing any theory as hard as it goes, appears to have culminated in Vimes' psyche creating its own 'internal policeman' to "Guard the Guardsmen", (cf. ''[[Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?]]''), and Vimes' own sense of justice being so strong that, in [[Thud!]], it was even able to fend off the attempts to possess him by a 'quasi-demonic ''thing'' of pure vengeance'.<ref>''[[Thud!]]'', page 328, {{ISBN|0-385-60867-5}}</ref> It has also been noted that in personality and mental setup, Vimes bears some similarity to [[Granny Weatherwax]].{{cn|date=November 2024}}Both are effectively 'good' characters, who nevertheless both secretly fear the darkness inside themselves, and constantly strive to control the darker sides of their nature. Vimes often has to go to report to Lord [[Lord Vetinari|Vetinari]], although most of the time he keeps a poker-face and answers very simply to avoid Vetinari's probing questions. When given bad news, he has a tendency to, on his way out, pound his fist against a certain spot of wall near the office door. Though he sometimes has to call in a plasterer when Vimes is particularly angry, Vetinari doesn't worry about it—a sign that he intentionally angers Vimes so as to goad him into a desired action. When Vimes was temporarily relieved of command in ''[[Men at Arms]]'', the fact that Vimes ''didn't'' pound the wall led Vetinari to realize that he 'may have gone too far'. Sometimes this darker side comes out when Vimes loses control of his anger and he effectively '[[rage (emotion)|goes spare]]'. In ''[[Men at Arms]]'', he temporarily gains possession of the Gonne, a malevolent firearm which drives him to violence, but he restrains the urge to "make things right", enough to eventually let it go without seriously hurting anyone. In ''[[Feet of Clay (novel)|Feet of Clay]]'', Corporal Nobby Nobbs refuses the position of King of Ankh-Morpork, primarily due to the fear of incurring Vimes's general wrath and hatred of royalty. In ''[[Thud!]]'', after an attempted assassination of his family, Vimes becomes furious at the 'deep-down dwarves' responsible for the attack on his family - a problem only made worse by the presence of a dark entity of pure vengeance within his mind. Both of those factors, and a near-Death experience that forced him to miss his 6:00pm story-time with his son, culminate in Vimes snapping, temporarily losing control to "the Beast", and single-handedly storming the deep-downers responsible, all the while roaring out the lines to ''[[Where's My Cow?]]''; ("...IS THAT MY COW? IT GOES, 'MOOOOO!'...") with such ferocity that their personal guard come to the conclusion that "they had sworn to fight to the death, but not to ''this'' death," and run away. As he is about to massacre the now-defenceless deep-downers, Vimes hesitates thanks to "the Watchman" in his head and begins to struggle with himself, which buys enough time for Sergeant Angua to arrive at the scene and force him down. Even under the worst provocation Vimes is shown to never completely loses control, always managing to restrain himself (or have someone around to restrain him) in the end. Revealed in the events of ''[[Thud!]]'', after years of night-time patrols, Vimes' mindscape is described as the city of [[Ankh-Morpork]]-itself, streets and all, in the dead of night, whilst the rains are bucketing down over your head. Whenever Vimes is angry, doors of some of the houses open (the angrier he is, the more numbers of doors will open). While the ''Summoning Dark'' had trespassed into his mind, needing a host in order to track down the Deep-Downer Dwarves, would try to enter through one of the doors that opened when Vimes became angry, only to be pulled away at every time. It is later revealed that the force that was preventing the ''Summoning Dark'' from making any progress in possessing Vimes was Vimes' own 'inner guardsman', who patrols the streets of his mind. Vimes is an effective and brutal hand-to-hand fighter, who specialises in "dirty fighting". He also prefers non-lethal takedowns whenever possible. During heightened states of mind, such as when confronting his darker side and/or when near death, he is able to see [[Death (Discworld)|Death]], (this happened in ''[[The Fifth Elephant]]'' and ''[[Thud!]]'', although he was unable to do this in ''[[Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]''). Death himself is unsure whether Vimes should die or not in these cases, citing "[[quantum]]" as an explanation. At one point Death notes that if Vimes is having a [[near-death experience|'near-Death' experience]], Death is also forced to have a 'near Vimes' experience (as of ''[[Thud!]]'' Death has started bringing books to read during these occasions). On rare occasions, Sam Vimes has been described as completely happy, even if it's only for a brief period; such occasions include alone time with his wife, the birth of his son, and whenever a case has reached a satisfactory conclusion. At the end of the events of ''[[Snuff (Pratchett novel)|Snuff]]'', Vimes was also genuinely amazed to learn that a new book, "''[[Pride and Prejudice|Pride and Extreme Prejudice]]''", had been dedicated to him.
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