Disturbing Trend in UA and Snuff: **Major Spoilers**

[BaldFriede]

Come on, guys, this is hardly unprecedented! What about "Men at Arms"? Or "The Fifth Elephant"? Why did you not complain about those?

[Tonyblack]

I agree! I have no idea why people find this so questionable.

Good to see you again Friede!

[DaveC]

Welcome back!

Have you been a constant browser or have you been away for a while?

[BaldFriede]

Jean and I have been working on a book of our own. It is finished now, and we are looking for a publisher. The book is about Greek Gods who live in human form these days and have become capitalists. Hermes, for example, owns a telecommunication company, Zeus owns a power company, Hephaistos produces weapons of mass destruction, Poseidon owns a shipping company and so on. There is a lesbian couple who just met, and they don't know they are Goddesses too, Hecate and Persephone; in fact the other Gods did everything to keep them apart because they are known to be allies of Gaia, and they fear Gaia would return if they meet.. But they happened to meet, and now something has to be done, so Hermes comes up with a complicated scheme. Next morning one of the lesbians will find one of the little folk inside her breakfast egg who claims he is gay, and he and his lover were banned onto eggs by the other gnomes because they are homophobic. This little guy only survived because one of the lesbians drinks a raw egg for breakfast, else he would have been cooked. Now the girls set out to find his lover. And that is only the beginning...

[Tonyblack]

Sounds interesting! Good luck with getting it published.

[BaldFriede]

Thank you very much! There will be some kinky lesbian sex in it too, by the way; while searching for the lover of that little man they crack open thousands of eggs into the bathtub and finally take a bath in it and make love, for example.

[windscion]

Come on, guys, this is hardly unprecedented! What about "Men at Arms"? Or "The Fifth Elephant"? Why did you not complain about those?

Good question, actually.

In MaA, Headbanger slew Cruces while he was resisting arrest and pointing the gonne at Vimes. Clear case of defense of a fellow officer.

Fifth Elephant, however, is very much like Snuff, except that Vimes did his own dirty work. Unlike Stratford, however, the mad dog that Vimes put down was untouchable.Technically some law applied in town, but it would never be applied to Wolfgang. Death penalty? The accommodation currently in effect disallowed it. Under the Lore which Wolfgang was abusing, there was no redress. Sam did the only thing he could, much like Stoneface Vimes, who put down the animal Lorenzo the Kind. (The one who was fond of children.) No law would bless his actions, either.

More importantly, all of these actions were done in front of witnesses. Those in UA and Snuff occur at night and in secret. Even in the absence of a well defined set of laws, people who slay others publicly will be judged by others as to the suitability of their actions. Those who the law cannot touch (Gravid Rust) can be damaged by scandal. Obviously, that's not as good as a public trial, etc. But it's still a difference.

[BaldFriede]

I disagree about "Men at Arms". The killing was hardly necessary; he could at least have tried something like "I want to finish him off myself; hand the crossbow to your King"!

[raisindot]

Fifth Elephant, however, is very much like Snuff, except that Vimes did his own dirty work. Unlike Stratford, however, the mad dog that Vimes put down was untouchable.Technically some law applied in town, but it would never be applied to Wolfgang. Death penalty? The accommodation currently in effect disallowed it. Under the Lore which Wolfgang was abusing, there was no redress. Sam did the only thing he could, much like Stoneface Vimes, who put down the animal Lorenzo the Kind. (The one who was fond of children.) No law would bless his actions, either.

SPOILERS SPILLERS

Except for the fact it wasn't a vigilante killing. Vimes was applying the rule of Hot Pursuit, based on the legal concept that an Ankh Morpork lawman had the right to arrest a criminal who had committed a crime on Ankh Morpork soil (the embassy, where Wolfgang killed Igor).

Although he knew that an actual arrest would be impossible, he went by the book throughout his attempt to apprehend Wolfgang. He told the Bjonk captain what he was doing. He gave Wolfgang several chances to surrender. Only when Wolfgang clearer stated that he would not submit to the Law did Vimes kill him. And, technically, Wolfgang killed himself--he had the choice not to leap for the firework.

Even after he did it Vimes knew that what he had done might have been technically legally correct but, morally, it was murder.

Willikens has no such moral problem in Snuff, and Vimes chooses his loyalty to his butler/sidekick over seeking justice for Stratford's killer. It's just one of the many moral ambiguities that makes the Vimes of Snuff a far more problemmatic characer than the Vimes of previous books.

[windscion]

raisindot,

An embassy is not foreign soil. In the book, I'll grant that Vimes believed that it was AM soil, but in actual law this is not the case. Besides, I'm not concerned with whether a lawyer could find a justification for Vimes action. I want to discuss whether or not his actions were right. When the actions are public, people can so judge. When secret, no.

[BaldFriede]

But it is not Vimes who does the killing, nor did he order it. His butler acts on his own accord. What's more, Vimes has no clue at all that his butler did the killing; he just "knows"..

[LilMaibe]

I disagree about "Men at Arms". The killing was hardly necessary; he could at least have tried something like "I want to finish him off myself; hand the crossbow to your King"!

What king?

[BaldFriede]

Oh, come on; the reason why Cruces acts like he does is because he wants Carrot as king, and Carrot just read the documents which prove that he is the legal heir to the throne.

[LilMaibe]

Well, let's see, carrot doesn't see himself as king and Vimes is not really a fan of monarchy...

But on the topic:
Unlike UA's bit of arbitary law, MaA's scene there made sense.

[BaldFriede]

You are missing the point; this is not about Carrot seeing himself as king. This is about how Carrot could have solved the situation without killing Cruces, and for Cruces Carrot IS the king, so he would probably accept an order from Carrot.