Snuff

[Exp. Date, the rat]

Ahh, but don't forget that Vimes has A. E. Pessimal now to help with the paperwork so Vimes and hopefully the rest of the Watch's upper ranks don't need to do the paperwork. I think A. E. would love to do that type of work. He is a copper like he always wanted to be, but also doing the paperwork which seemed just right for him.

So I think that Carrot is still doing the paperwork and Vimes made Angua a Captain to replace Carrot most of the times when not much is happening, and even more so when 'times are happening'.

No matter what I still want to be arrested by Angua!

[CJDobs]

Bah, Watch Schmatch! We want Witches! In Lancre! Doing Witch stuff!!

. . but of course I'll take a Watch book as a very good substitute. hehehe.

[One Man Bucket]

Ahh, but don't forget that Vimes has A. E. Pessimal now to help with the paperwork so Vimes and hopefully the rest of the Watch's upper ranks don't need to do the paperwork. I think A. E. would love to do that type of work. He is a copper like he always wanted to be, but also doing the paperwork which seemed just right for him.

So I think that Carrot is still doing the paperwork and Vimes made Angua a Captain to replace Carrot most of the times when not much is happening, and even more so when 'times are happening'.

No matter what I still want to be arrested by Angua!

With Vimes, Pessimal, the Disorganiser and Carrot dealing with everything related to running the Watch there must have been one hell of an increase in the size of the force to justify having another Captain.

[Exp. Date, the rat]

Ahh, but don't forget that Vimes has A. E. Pessimal now to help with the paperwork so Vimes and hopefully the rest of the Watch's upper ranks don't need to do the paperwork. I think A. E. would love to do that type of work. He is a copper like he always wanted to be, but also doing the paperwork which seemed just right for him.

So I think that Carrot is still doing the paperwork and Vimes made Angua a Captain to replace Carrot most of the times when not much is happening, and even more so when 'times are happening'.

No matter what I still want to be arrested by Angua!

With Vimes, Pessimal, the Disorganiser and Carrot dealing with everything related to running the Watch there must have been one hell of an increase in the size of the force to justify having another Captain.

I have been thinking about a similar thing. Supposedly the Guilds take care of their own crime and those who are not part of their guilds and if this is so then why is there an increase in crimes that the Watch needs to investigate. It was stated early in the DW stories that this was the reason of the creation of the Guilds to cut down on crime, but they don’t seem to be doing their job.*

Plus it was Vetinari who made the Guilds and he could have foreseen that this would not work out and needed the Watch as a back up plan if the Guilds ‘policing’ didn’t work out, as it seems it isn’t.

*I know what the answer to this argument is. When Terry wrote this bit of history he was a young writer and the DW was still being hashed out and that idea didn’t work

[Doughnut Jimmy]

I think its part of the development of Ankh Morpork from a Medieval-ish city to a Victorian-ish one. The guilds were probably ok at making sure their members didn't get too far out of line but there's still all the domestic squabbles, traffic control work and "political" crimes that fall outside the guilds responsibilities - plus as far as I can remember none of the dwarves or trolls are guild members, so who's responsible for them?

And dare I suggest once you have policemen looking into crime they'll find more and more of it and so need more people?

[One Man Bucket]

I expect policing the city was using more resources than the Guilds found profitable so with the increasing role of the Watch they likely stopped dealing with certain things in the hope the Watch would pick up the slack. Take thieves for example we used to hear about unlicensed thieves suffering unpleasant fates from the Guild but these days whenever we hear about unlicensed thieves they're in the hands of the Watch

[Dotsie]

It's also been mentioned (I forget in which book) that the Shades no longer exist (not in their previous incarnation at least).

[One Man Bucket]

It's also been mentioned (I forget in which book) that the Shades no longer exist (not in their previous incarnation at least).

Wouldn't that cap the growth of the Watch rather than increase it. I feel I'm missing what you're trying to say

[Dotsie]

It's the growth of the Watch that has enabled the Shades to no longer exist, so even though Vetinari initially wanted the watch to atrophy & disappear, they have been of great benefit now that they have swelled in numbers. If the growth of the Watch was capped before time, the Shades might come back.

[One Man Bucket]

I see now. The Watch would actually be a whole lot bigger if it wasn't for other cities luring away freshly trained recruits and veteran officers with high ranks and generous payments. Vimes might hate politics but he's pretty much created a spy network without even wanting to.

[Jan Van Quirm]

Vetinari always had spies even before he let the Watch revive

[One Man Bucket]

Vetinari always had spies even before he let the Watch revive

Well Vetinari will certainly benefit from Vimes inadvertent spy network but I was considering it's benefit to Vimes. It's not like Vetinari would give Vimes access to info his spy network discovers especially when Vimes is in a position to learn this information on his own

[pandasthumb]

But when you see Vimes in other non Vimes stories he is not portrayed as the all powerful force, so I think that the watch has been in balance all the time. I don't believe that the Patrician would let the Watch become too powerful or all powerful. Isn't there the comment made (in The Fifth Elephant I think) that where you find policemen you generally find a crime?

Vetinari, in some ways, has curtailed Vimes by giving him each successive title. What Vimes really enjoys, we are told, is being on patrol in his cheap, cardboard soled boots. The titles take him away from that and make him an administrator - he doesn't like it which is why he refuses to do paper work. To him this is not real policing.

I think that Vetinari is a closet Hegelian and likes to keep the oppositions in balance. Who does he make the Duke? Someone who hates the aristocracy and who in his heart is a mister. Who does he get to fix the banks? A confidence trickster.

[raisindot]

But when you see Vimes in other non Vimes stories he is not portrayed as the all powerful force, so I think that the watch has been in balance all the time. I don't believe that the Patrician would let the Watch become too powerful or all powerful. Isn't there the comment made (in The Fifth Elephant I think) that where you find policemen you generally find a crime?

Well, in "The Truth" the Watch was powerful enough to arrest Vetinari for the attempted murder of Drumknott. Had Wm. De Worde not intervened, the Watch may never have gotten to "the truth of the matter." Whether Vetinari was prescient enough in allowing The Times to continue to operate before the crime was committed because he knew, somehow, that the newspaper would be his ally in such a situation is a matter of speculation.

I think that Vetinari is a closet Hegelian and likes to keep the oppositions in balance. Who does he make the Duke? Someone who hates the aristocracy and who in his heart is a mister. Who does he get to fix the banks? A confidence trickster.

Absolutely right. Vetinari has said, over and over, that he is not a "blood of a thousand men" type of ruler like his archaic predecessors. He is a string puller, carefully playing the various guilds and aristocrats off each other and then elevating those outside the established order (Vimes, De Worde, Moist) to shake things up. He realizes that the only way AM can continue to progress and maintain its economic leadership in the world is to embrace change, risk-taking, and challenges to the existing power structure. And he's willing to tolerate (to a degree) challenges to his own authority if they're being done for the good of the city, even if they're being done by crooks (why else would have he offered both Moist AND Reacher Gilt very high profile positions in the city's economic vortex?).

J-I-B

[pandasthumb]

But when you see Vimes in other non Vimes stories he is not portrayed as the all powerful force, so I think that the watch has been in balance all the time. I don't believe that the Patrician would let the Watch become too powerful or all powerful.

Well, in "The Truth" the Watch was powerful enough to arrest Vetinari for the attempted murder of Drumknott. Had Wm. De Worde not intervened, the Watch may never have gotten to "the truth of the matter." Whether Vetinari was prescient enough in allowing The Times to continue to operate before the crime was committed because he knew, somehow, that the newspaper would be his ally in such a situation is a matter of speculation.

J-I-B

I agree, the Watch doesn't solve the mystery- De Worde does -as The Truth isn't a Watch book. We have seen in Jingo that the Patrician is quite capable of taking his own action if the need arises and in Feet of Clay Vetinari makes the comment 'if the poor man [Vimes] took any longer [to work out how he was being poisoned] he'd had to start giving him hints.' Vetinari allows others to act but he is in control.
(I think that that it is why it is so funny in Unseen Academicals when the Patrician gets excited by the pie and even though he lets Lady Margalotta divide the pie he gets to choose the piece. It seems so incongrous).

My Hegel is a little rusty but when one part of the dichotomy becomes more powerful and the balance is disturbed the whole intrinsically moves to compensate for it. The world wants to be in balance. I see Vetinari acting as a fulcrum and so the Watch can arrest Vetinari but there is also the intrinsic usefulness of having another bunch of nosey buggers running around!