Degree Project Level: Bachelor Who Watches the Watchman?
Terry Pratchett and the Postmodern Hero
Author: Johanna Pethö Supervisor: Carmen Zamorano Llena Examiner: Billy Gray Subject/main field of study: English Course code: EN2028 Credits: 15 Date of examination: 28 May 2020
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Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………….1
The Classic Hero vs. The Postmodern Hero………………………...6
To Critically Engage with Narrative: Meta-narratives and the
Truth………………………………………………………………....9
Choosing to do Good ………………………………………………17
Heroism in the Epic Quest or in Everyday Life?...... 20
Conclusion………………………………………………………….23
1
Introduction
The genre of Modern Fantasy is generally defined by its focus on story, and the presence of elements that are unlikely, or even impossible in our world. There is a large variety of sub-genres within Modern Fantasy, which can differ substantially from each other in terms of style, tone and setting. For example, there is a sub-genre called Urban Fantasy which introduces fantasy elements such as magic and supernatural creatures into the urban setting of the 21st century city, or Steampunk, a genre generally set in a Secondary World where modern technology never moved on from the steam power used in Victorian times. The sub-genres of Modern Fantasy relevant to this analysis, however, are Heroic Fantasy and Comic Fantasy.
The term Heroic Fantasy was coined by Lin Carter, and "emphasizes the conflict between good and evil, and often casts a reluctant protagonist in the role of champion’’ (Flynn 1). This sub-genre takes place in a Secondary World, that is a world or universe separate from our own, where impossible elements such as dragons and magic are not only entirely possible, but often even commonplace. This
Secondary World also often has its own history, climate and landscapes, and natural laws. These often partially resemble the equivalent in our own world, with some notable exceptions (Pringle 35, 37).
Moving on to Comic Fantasy, there is a common misconception about the genre, and indeed comedy in general, namely that there are no rules. Upon further inspection, however, it becomes clear that all authors in this sub-genre have established their own set of rules and dynamics in their respective universes.
Comedy is, by its very nature, subversive, and most authors within the genre of
Comic Fantasy create comedy by subverting common tropes and archetypes in other, often more established, genres of fantasy. Comic Fantasy originated in the 2
late 20th century, with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series being one of the most successful and influential in the genre. Pratchett uses the Heroic Fantasy sub-genre as a foundation for his own writing, as well as subject for parody and subversion of its most common tropes (Luthi 3).
Discworld is a long-running fantasy series that consists of 40 stand-alone novels, beginning with The Colour of Magic in 1983 and ending with Raising Steam in 2013, which have sold over 75 million copies worldwide. In line with the main features of Heroic Fantasy, the Discworld is a Secondary World, named as such because it is a flat disc on the back of a giant tortoise swimming through space. The
Discworld series does not share a common narrative, or protagonist, and is only a series in the fact that all the stories are set in the same world. There are, however, several sub-series in the Discworld series that do follow a specific protagonist and an accompanying cast of characters, such as the subject of this thesis: The City
Watch Series. The City Watch Series follows the policemen of Ankh-Morpork, the
Discworld’s largest city, in their attempts to solve crimes and police the notoriously chaotic and crime-ridden city. The main character of the Watch series, Samuel
Vimes, is also the main focus of this essay. In the first novel of the series, Guards!
Guards! Vimes is introduced as a washed-up, alcoholic Watch Captain who has all but given up on policing the city. When a dragon threatens to destroy the city, Vimes is eventually forced to sober up and save the day. Throughout the novels, Vimes reluctantly rises through the ranks of the Watch until he eventually becomes
Commander of the Watch, and manages to cultivate a reputation for honesty and justice that stretches far beyond the borders of Ankh-Morpork.
There are eight novels in the City Watch series. This essay, however, will primarily focus on two of them: Night Watch, and Thud!. These two novels 3
were chosen because, although the themes studied in this essay are present in all
City Watch novels, they are most obvious in Night Watch and Thud!. Furthermore, earlier novels in the series, and Guards! Guards! and Feet of Clay in particular, have already been subject of quite a few critical essays, whereas the Night Watch and
Thud! have not been studied as much. By choosing these two novels, this essay will provide new insights into the series.
Night Watch is the sixth novel in the City Watch series, and its main theme is how political and social conflicts are manipulated by powerful people. The main conflict in Night Watch is a people’s revolt against the corrupt leader of the city, Ankh-Morpork. However, this essay will mainly focus on how public perception and propaganda are used by Vimes, and several other characters, to control the turn of events. This ties into the postmodern idea that words and narratives have power. Jean-Francois Lyotard identified meta-narratives, as over- arching narratives of ideas and rules that most people in a society unconsciously accept. If we accept that meta-narratives exist, the ability to create or manipulate meta-narratives to control public opinion, and by extent people’s way of thinking, becomes immensely important and powerful.
Thud! directly follows Night Watch in the series, and contains many similar themes, although this time the main conflict involves growing racial tensions between two minority groups in Ankh-Morpork: the dwarves and the trolls. In the
Discworld universe, dwarves and trolls have historically been mortal enemies, and as the anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley is approaching, tensions arise between the two communities in Ankh-Morpork.. At the start of Thud! new information about Koom Valley is discovered which would turn the long rivalry on its head. To cover up this new information, several dwarves are murdered.but one 4
manages to survive long enough conjure an old dwarven spirit called The
Summoning Dark. This spirit possesses Vimes in order to bring vengeance on the ones who killed the summoner.
The vast majority of the scholarly work concerning the Discworld novels involve Pratchett’s post-modern subversion of fantasy tropes. For example, in “Toying With Fantasy: The Postmodern Playground of Terry Pratchett’s
Discworld Novels” Daniel Luthi considers Pratchett a post-modern writer, as his novels contain many aspects of post-modernism, such as intertextuality, simulacra, meta-narratives and how they continually subvert some of the most common fantasy tropes (3). In said article, Luthi endeavors to discover how the Discworld series can be so successful despite Terry Pratchett violating a great deal of the rules of the fantasy tradition laid out in Tolkien’s On Fairy-stories, and concludes that it is
Pratchett’s concept of narrative imperative that is the key. ‘’Tell It Slant: Of Gods,
Philosophy and Politics in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld’’ by Gray Kochhar-Lindgren argues that the power of stories and language is central to the Discworld, as it has a profound influence on everything from politics and religion to scientific discovery
(81-82).
The scholarly work on the Watch series mainly focuses on the earlier installments in the series. For example, “At Times Like This It’s Traditional That a
Hero Comes Forth’: Romance and Identity in Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!” by Emily Lavin Leverett analyses the Vimes’ emergence as a heroic character in the very first Watch novel, and argues that Pratchett subverts typical narrative convention by not adhering to the typical heroic archetypes the narrative offers him by setting him up to save the city and his love interest from a dragon. This essay will, at least in part, further explore how Vimes continues to challenge the typical 5
narrative archetypes in the later novels, when his character has had time to evolve even further.
Some scholarly work has also been written on the two novels subject to this essay: ‘’The Watchman and the Hippopotamus: Art, Play, and Otherness in
Thud!’’ by Caroline Webb examines how Pratchett writes about racial conflict, and how the power of art, and stories, plays a large part in both perpetuating and solving the conflict in Thud!. In the article “Civil Discobedience or War, Terrorism and
Unrest In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld” Eve Smith uses Night Watch to demonstrate how Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory regarding the carnivalesque can be applied to the breakdown of law and order in the novel, and also argues that the concerns presented in Night Watch regarding said breakdown of law and order, as well as individual responsibility, reflect similar concerns in our real world (30). As demonstrated, all of these scholarly articles and academic essays analyse Discworld novels and even novels from the City Watch sub-series, but they all lack any sort of in-depth analysis into the characterization of Sam Vimes, which is what this essay will attempt to do.
In the article “Honesty Trumps Cleverness: Sam Vimes and
Commonsense Philosophy” Matthew Skeene argues that the character Sam Vimes embodies several aspects of commonsense philosophy and should thus be considered a follower of this school of thought. This article analyses the character
Sam Vimes, but the theoretical framework and approach is rather different from this essay’s, as this essay’s theoretical framework is postmodernism whilst Skeene’s article uses commonsense philosophy.
This essay will argue that the main character of the City Watch novels
Samuel Vimes is a postmodern version of a hero. This essay will, like several of the texts mentioned above, utilize ideas from postmodernism but will focus on 6
analyzing the character Samuel Vimes and how he, specifically, is constructed to be a postmodern hero. Thus, this essay strives to provide further and more insight into the Discworld series and its postmodern features through an in-depth analysis of
Sam Vimes as a postmodern hero. As demonstrated in the literary review, this is a largely unexplored subject matter, not only in regard to the works of Terry Pratchett, but also in regard to the concept of the postmodern hero.
The Classic Hero vs. the Postmodern Hero
In fantasy fiction, the main character is often the heroic archetype kind of hero, which means that they are a force of good in their world. They rescue people, vanquish evil and slay dragons without asking anything in return. They are simply inherently good people (Lissauer 87).
The classic hero archetype has arguably existed in fiction for centuries but was popularized by Joseph Campbell in his book A Hero with a
Thousand Faces. In this text, Campbell introduces the classic heroic archetype, and describes the classic hero: “a man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms”
(19). This means that the Classic Hero is someone who has managed to transcend and overcome their own flaws and the circumstances of their origins. Everyone can relate to, and look up to, the Classic Hero, regardless of one’s background. They are role models and slayers of monsters. Well-known examples of the Classic Hero in mainstream media would be characters such as Harry Potter, King Arthur or Frodo
Baggins. Furthermore, the Classic Hero’s story generally involves some sort of extraordinary circumstances which enable the hero to act heroically. Campbell summarizes the Classic Hero’s story: “A hero ventures forth from the world of 7
common day into a region of supernatural wonder” (27). This means that the Classic
Hero does not commit heroism in their mundane, everyday life; rather, the hero must leave their ordinary lives, embark on some sort of journey and be entrenched in extraordinary circumstances in order to perform heroic acts (Yorke 24-28). As previously said, the Classic Hero has been prevalent in literature for centuries, but in the late 20th century a new heroic archetype has emerged – the postmodern hero.
What defines the postmodern hero is, like all things postmodern, notoriously hard to pin down, and there does not seem to exist a widely accepted definition of a postmodern hero. In “A Paradox: The Harry Potter Series as Both Epic and
Postmodern’’ Mary Pharr argues that one of the elements that is typical for the postmodern hero is a contentious relationship with the concept of truth (10). The postmodern hero may, initially, believe there is an objective truth and strive to discover it, but will towards the end of the narrative come to the conclusion that objective or absolute truth is either unimportant or does not exist at all (20).
Jean-Francois Lyotard argued that an ambivalent relationship to truth is a common postmodern element, and that rather than there being an objective truth in the world, and in literature, there was such a thing as meta-narratives. Lyotard coined the term meta-narrative in the 60’s to describe culturally accepted texts that, often subconsciously, justify a certain way of thinking and acting. People follow these meta-narratives not because they are true, but because we have been raised to adhere to a certain type of pattern in our behavior and thoughts. Lyotard writes in
The Postmodern Condition, “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives” (2). This means that for the postmodern hero it is crucial not only to be aware that meta-narratives exist, but to also be skeptical of them. The rejection of meta-narratives, however, does not prevent them from 8
existing and being used, which is particularly evident in arenas such as politics or marketing. It simply means that postmodernist literature and philosophy hold that meta-narratives are not objective truths but rather a tool that people or organizations can use to achieve their own ends, and thus one should always be critical of anyone who demands deference to some kind of grand, unifying truth (2-3). The ability to critically engage with the idea of truth is therefore a crucial part of literary postmodernism, and thus it follows that the postmodern hero should be able to critically engage with the idea of truth, and how narratives can be used to manipulate perception.
Another important element in postmodernism is the subversion of previously established literary tropes. The literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin was not himself a postmodernist philosopher, but his writings have been influential in many postmodernist literary analyses. In Rabelais and his world Bakhtin writes that the carnivals of medieval Europe traditionally contained elements of subversion in that they allowed the general population to, if but for a brief time, question and make fun of established cultural and religious norms. Whilst these types of transgressions were only allowed in practice during the duration of the carnival, Bakhtin argues that the effects of the carnival still lingered in people’s minds, and in the long run were integral to clearing the path for innovation and emancipation (Bristol 637).
Arguably, the subversion of common literary tropes has the same goal. By subverting common and established tropes readers are introduced to different ideas and thoughts that will in turn encourage innovation within literature and possibly also within society itself.
Luthi writes that Pratchett ‘’challenges the notion of what it means to be a hero’’ by casting people with few heroic characteristics as heroes (8). Whilst 9
Campbell’s Classic Hero is a role model, an individual who transcends their origin and “a person of exceptional gifts” (31) Pratchett’s heroes are cynics, criminals, cowards and misanthropes of the highest order. Furthermore, Pratchett’s heroes are heavily shaped and dependent upon their origins and the circumstances they live in, and very rarely do they have any exceptional gifts. From this, one could argue that for a hero to be considered postmodern they must naturally subvert established literary tropes concerning the characteristics of a hero. The purpose of subverting established hero characteristics is the same as the purpose of subverting literary tropes in general. Namely that by doing this, readers are introduced to alternative ideas of what it means to be a hero, which may in turn usher in a greater diversity of literary heroes and protagonists. This section has previously established that the defining tropes of the Classic Hero is that they are inherently good, and that they embark on some sort of heroic journey, which Campbell defines as the need to leave their mundane, ordinary life to go on an journey where extraordinary circumstances will enable the hero to commit heroic acts. If Vimes is written as a postmodern hero, he should thus subvert these tropes.
To Critically Engage With Narrative: Meta-narratives and the Truth
Humans are, as Jonathan Gottschall notes, “addicted to stories” in all shapes and forms, be it in daydreams, fantasy fiction or science (3). We seem to automatically like something more if there is a good story attached to it. Politicians, rulers and marketing agencies have often used this susceptibility to a good story to 10
manipulate people and public opinion. In postmodernism these over-arching stories and the rules are referred to as meta-narratives. Postmodernist thinkers, such as
Lyotard, have cautioned us to be inherently suspicious of narratives that abide by set storybook rules and grand narratives, as reality is often much more complicated. Thus, it follows that a postmodernist hero such as Vimes must be demonstrably skeptical of meta-narratives, something which the following section will demonstrate.
Thud! contains several such examples of how narratives and words have power, as different rulers are shown to manipulate history in order to gain power. The main social function of these narratives of legitimation is to provide the underlying common ground on which a sense of stable collective identity is constructed by the two rivaling minorities. The search for truth, both of what happened at the battle of Koom Valley and who murdered the dwarves, is the novel’s main theme. The rising tensions between minority groups in Thud! are caused by the fact that the historical battle of Koom Valley has been recounted by both sides of the conflict in so many different ways that it has become impossible to achieve any kind of consensus about what happened. Vimes himself says ‘’Pick own stupid history, a snip at ten pence’’, about the fact that an Ankh-Morpork museum sells postcards depicting the battle and its outcome in various different ways (Pratchett
39). The battle of Koom Valley is used by both dwarves and trolls to justify any acts of violence against each other, no matter how insignificant: “Where any dwarf fough any troll, there was Koom Valley. Even if it was part of a punch-up in a pub, it was
Koom Valley” (36). When several dwarves are brutally murdered close to the anniversary of the battle, it seems obvious that the trolls must be at fault, despite very little tangible evidence pointing in that direction. If the dwarves had met their 11
deaths at the hands of their long-standing mortal enemies, the trolls, it would have narratively made the most sense. If the trolls were responsible, then the deaths of this group of dwarves would simply be a few more in the long line of heroic martyrs their rivalry has created throughout history. This is a narrative that both groups find easy to accept, as it echoes the narratives about the rivalry that both groups have been taught for generations. However, no such easy narrative can fit into the actual events and motive of the crime. The dead dwarves are no longer martyred heroes, and the trolls are no longer bloodthirsty villains, rather both are simply unwitting pawns in a scheme to contain political and religious power with the status quo
(Pratchett 414-416). The truth is thus far more complicated and it will also force people to come to terms with the idea that the stories they have been told about
Koom Valley and the rivalry are at least partly false, which is much more difficult to accept.
The trolls’ and dwarves’ behavior in this conflict echoes some of
Lyotard’s concerns regarding meta-narratives. Lyotard writes that “(…) the goal is no longer truth, but performativity – that is, the best possible output/input equation’’
(46). This means that people no longer seek out knowledge in order to discover truths about, for example, historical events or the world we live in. Instead, they use the pursuit of knowledge to achieve power, and thus knowledge only has value if the amount of power gained exceeds the effort made to attain it.
Thud! highlights the unreliability of metanarratives and, consequently, the way objective knowledge is understood as a fallacy that is replaced by a multiplicity of micronarratives of events that render single narratives impossible. In this sense, both the trolls and the dwarves have spent hundreds of years and countless resources on trying to definitively establish a single narrative of the events 12
of The Battle of Koom Valley, a single narrative that each group intends to use to legitimate their position of power and dominance over the other group. However, when a group of dwarves finally actually discovers what happened the evidence is immediately discarded as it cannot be used to gain power, given that the evidence shows that the battle was not actually a battle, but a meeting to sign a peace agreement. Thus, the main conflict in Thud! is postmodern in nature as it emphasizes how stories and narratives are used to create and manipulate power, which Pratchett then sets up his protagonist Vimes to react to and try to solve by not only revealing the objective truth, but also revealing it in such a way that it has to be believed.
Campbell points out that if a hero is dishonest or breaks a pledge they will suffer grave consequences later on in the story (16-19). Thus, the Classic Hero must be an honest character, or the narrative will punish them for their dishonesty.
In contrast, Vimes is not a very honest or just person by nature. In fact, he seems perfectly fine with lying and obfuscating information if the situation calls for it, and yet the narrative never punishes him for it. Rather, it almost seems to reward him.
Vimes is very aware that, in such a chaotic and polarized city as Ankh-Morpork, where many citizens view the police as an extension of the ruling classes, his reputation as a trustworthy and just Watch Commander is absolutely crucial to complete his task of upholding the law in an effective manner. Therefore, Vimes has carefully constructed a reputation, a narrative of himself, as the most honest man on the Disc. For example, in Thud! Vimes meets an informant in a large cold storage room. The informant is a crime boss who lends Vimes an expensive fur coat to wear as they speak. When Vimes turns to leave, the informant suggests that Vimes gives the coat to his wife: “It was beautifully warm, but not as warm as the rage rising within him. He’d nearly walked out wearing it. He’d come that close’’ (139). Vimes 13
is angry at the informant’s attempt to bribe him, but he is even more furious with himself for not having enough self-control to stop himself from walking out with the coat. This further suggests that Vimes exercises a large amount of control to stop himself from giving in to his naturally more unsavory character. The importance of
Vimes’ incorruptible character is further reflected by what the character Vetinari says to Vimes:
We need to know the truth, Vimes. Commander Sam Vimes’s
truth. It may count for more than you think. People know about
you, commander. Watchmen across half the continent will say
that Sam Vimes is as straight as an arrow, can’t be corrupted,
won’t be turned, never took a bribe. (228)
Thus, Vetinari makes it clear that it is of the outmost importance that both the perpetrators of the murders and the events of Koom Valley are revealed by Vimes.
If it came from someone without his reputation, the knowledge would easily be discarded as attempts at propaganda and thus there would be no chance at peace between the dwarves and trolls. It is distinctly implied that Vetinari, the leader of
Ankh-Morpork, already knows or strongly suspects who is responsible for the murders in Thud!, but he chooses not to say anything, as he knows that his truth will not be believed by most of Ankh-Morpork (343-344). This further emphasizes how important this meta-narrative Vimes has constructed around himself is, not only to himself, but to the city and world around him.
Throughout the series, Vimes has achieved a great number of victories at almost impossible odds and has gained quite a reputation for it, which Vetinari summarizes in Thud! “Sam Vimes once arrested me for treason. And Sam Vimes 14
once arrested a dragon. Sam Vimes stopped a war between nations by arresting two high commands. Sam Vimes killed a werewolf with his bare hands, and carries law with him like a lamp.” (228). As previously stated, the general belief that Vimes is a paragon of honesty and justice is integral to his ability to achieve his goal of policing Ankh-Morpork. This belief creates a sort of feedback loop between Vimes and the general population as Vimes’ achievements fuel the public perception of him as the ideal policeman, an unstoppable, incorruptible force of law. Their belief, in turn, fuels Vimes’ willpower, which allows him to achieve more and add further to the legend. Vimes can successfully resist the spirit of vengeance called The
Summoning Dark, at least partly, because people believe that it is something he is capable of doing. Vetinari even says as much in this conversation with his assistant:
“Given a contest between an invisible and very powerful quasi-
demonic thing of pure vengeance on one hand, and the commander
on the other, where would you wager, say…one dollar?”
“I wouldn’t, sir. That looks like one that would go to the judges.”
“Yes. Yes, indeed.” (344)
Vimes’ awareness of how his reputation gives him power echoes
Michel Foucault’s theoretical articulation of discourse in relation to power. In
Power/Knowledge Foucault argued that discourse, that is, the manner in which things are described or talked about, can be used to shape and create power.
Discourse and language are created as reflections and expressions of the context in which it is formed, and what is considered accepted knowledge in one historical and geographical context may not be in another. Therefore, discourse and the language used to express that discourse are also an expression of attitudes and norms which 15
do shape the acceptable way to in turn express new knowledge and discourse (109-
110).
Vimes seems to be very aware of how our choice of words can shape thought. That is why he, in several of the Watch novels, including Night Watch, corrects watchmen who refer to the citizens of Ankh-Morpork as civilians: “What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only thing they could be was soldiers” (200). He argues that it is dangerous for watchmen to create this sort of linguistic divide between themselves and other people in the city, as this encourages a sort of militaristic thinking were the police may come to view people as ‘’others’’ and thus may be less likely to uphold their duty to defend the citizens (57).
Furthermore, Vimes has a very negative reaction to the suggestion that the City
Watch is a part of the military:
“I am not a military man”
“Well, commander, the helmet and the armour and everything…It’s
really all the same in the end, isn’t it?”
“No, it is not.” (22)
The fact that Vimes so strongly rejects the suggestion that the police and the military are ‘really all the same in the end’ is because he believes, as Foucault does, that discourse can shape reality and the way people act. If both the state and the policemen themselves start to consider law enforcement equivalent to the military then the general population is no longer there to be protected and served, but rather to be defeated in a violent and possibly deadly manner.
Foucault also wrote that: ‘’Power is not one individual’s domination over others or that of one group or class over others […] Rather power must be analysed 16
as something that circulates’’(175). This means that the possession of power is far more complicated than the idea that some people have it, whilst others do not.
Rather, power can be described as having a ‘net-like’ function in which people can simultaneously exercise power and have power exercised upon them. In Thud!
Vimes describes the power relationship between the Watch and the people of Ankh-
Morpork:‘’Coppers are alive by trickery. That’s how it worked. (…) You relied on people giving in, knowing the rules” (72-73). Vimes’ reflection of how the Watch manages to police the city shows that his understanding of power is not unlike that of Foucault, in that power circulates. The Watch has the power to police the city is not given to them from a higher authority, but rather from the citizens themselves who allow themselves to be policed.
This idea is reinforced further in Night Watch, where Vimes tells a group of Watchmen that they would be morally right to join a people’s uprising against the government, rather than aiding the government and the military: ‘’You took an oath to uphold the law and defend the citizens without fear or favour. (…)
You’re an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government’’ (310). Vimes states that the Watchmen’s duty is to the people of Ankh-Morpork, and to the law, not to the ruling powers. This is because the Watch derives their authority to uphold the law from the people, not from the government, which is also reminiscent of
Foucault’s theory about discourse and power in the fact that the power between the
Watch and the people of Ankh-Morpork is transactional, and circular. The people of Ankh-Morpork allow the Watch to exercise power over them, in exchange for general safety and protection from crimes.
This section has demonstrated that Pratchett’s Discworld and the conflicts within easily lend themselves to postmodern analysis, particularly in regard 17
to how language and narratives can be immensely powerful in their influence of society and its people. Thus it follows that Vimes must be a postmodern character, as he shows great awareness of how language and narratives are wielded to exercise power, and how he himself uses these ideas to achieve his goals. Another important staple of postmodernist literature is the subversion of established literary tropes, which will be the subject of analysis in the next section.
Choosing to Do Good
A common trait of postmodern literature is the practice of challenging and subverting previously established literary tropes (Makaryk 612). If Vimes is indeed, a postmodern hero, he should thus subvert at least some of the major tropes of the
Classic Hero. Campbell writes that mythology considers virtue a crucial quality in the Classic Hero, as it is the prelude to insight: ‘’virtue quells the self-centered ego and makes the transpersonal centeredness possible’’(36). Lissauer also writes in The
Tropes of Fantasy Fiction: ‘’Heroes are the characters that seem to shine and do good because it is the right thing to do’’(89). From this, one can conclude that virtue, or goodness, is an important part of the Classic Hero archetype.
Vimes is decidedly not an inherently good person, of which he is himself very aware. Vimes spends a lot of time struggling with his inner darkness, which he generally refers to as “the beast”:
There was a small part of him he’d heard sometimes during
strenuous arrests after long chases, the part that wanted to punch and
punch long after the punching had already achieved its effect. There
was a joy to it. He called it the beast. (79) 18
This beast makes an appearance several times, and always encourages
Vimes to inflict pain and violence on those that he deems deserving of it. As previously mentioned, the main conflict in Thud! involves a dying dwarf summoning a demonic entity referred to as The Summoning Dark, to seek revenge against his murderers (Pratchett 383). The Summoning Dark subtly influences
Vimes to amplify his worst qualities and erode his normally strong self-control. As the narrative progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult for Vimes to control his rage: “Vimes had been on edge since leaving the house. He’d felt a tingling across his skin and a tightness in his gut and a sharp, nasty little headache. Someone was going to pay for this…this…this thisness” (Pratchett 299). The Summoning Dark fuels Vimes’ propensity for rage and violence to make him kill the people responsible for his summoners’ death, rather than arresting them and giving them due process. When several dwarves break into Vimes’ home and attempt to attack him and his wife and son the influence of The Summoning Dark is very noticeable:
“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you-‘ The terrible fury choked him, the rage and dreadful fear set his lungs on fire’’ (270). Vimes seems fully prepared to kill all of the intruders without hesitation, and is only stopped by outside circumstances.
Whilst The Summoning Dark may work to erode Vimes’ self-control and give in to his baser instincts, it is still obvious from these examples that Vimes is not an inherently good person, and could be capable of great cruelty if he ever allowed himself to exercise it. In creating Vimes, Pratchett does not seem to consider virtue to be crucial to the postmodern hero. Rather, Vimes is capable of performing acts of heroism because he forces himself to be a good person. In one of the early chapters of Thud! Vimes has a conversation with the government inspector A.E
Pessimal which summarizes Vimes’ personal code of conduct: 19
“Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes? Your grace.”
“I know that one,” said Vimes.” Who watches the watchmen? Me,
Mr Pessimal”
“Ah, but who watches you, your grace?” said the inspector with a
brief smile.
“I do that. All the time,” said Vimes. “Believe me.” (Pratchett 29)
Vimes is essentially performing honesty in his role as commander of the City Watch.
The only reason that Vimes is a good man is because he is forcing himself to be, and keeping his darker instincts under tight control. This idea is repeated at several times in both novels, such as in Thud! where Vimes is on the edge of beating up a suspect:
“You couldn’t say we’re the good guys and do bad-guy things. Sometimes the watching watchman inside every copper’s head could use an extra pair of eyes.”
(299) The battle between The Summoning Dark and Vimes self-control comes to a head at the end of Thud!. The Summoning Dark has almost completely taken over Vimes, as he swings an axe at the suspects, seemingly fully intent on killing them. But then, at the last second, Vimes stops, and the following takes place:
“I am the Summoning Dark.” … “Who are you?”
“I am the Watchman. 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. 20
“Indeed. But I think you misunderstand. I am not here to keep the
darkness out. I am here to keep it in. Call me the Guarding Dark.”
(397)
The entity that calls itself the Guarding Dark is described as wearing a standard- issue Watchman’s uniform, and shares Vimes’ cigar smoking habit, which hints at the fact that the Guarding Dark is a facet of Vimes’ psyche that he has constructed in order to control himself. The Guarding Dark also explicitly states that it is there to keep the darkness in, not out, which tells us that Vimes subconsciously created this facet of himself to prevent himself from ever giving in to his darker instincts, and the fact that it is also able to withstand the Summoning Dark is simply collateral.
This is a clear subversion from the Classic Hero archetype, which stipulates that the hero must be virtuous or good. Vimes is still a heroic character, who is a force for good in his world, but he is constructed in a way that departs from the established tropes of the Classic Hero, defined as being inherently virtuous (Campbell 221-222).
Vimes represents the postmodern hero, who chooses to be good, rather than to simply have been born or raised good.
Heroism in the Epic Journey or In Everyday Life?
In A Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell stipulates that the archetypical hero must, in the beginning of the narrative, leave their ordinary life and circumstances and embark on an epic journey. Campbell writes that “a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder” (27), this means that the Classic Hero does not commit heroism in their mundane everyday life.
Rather the Classic Hero must leave their ordinary lives, embark on a journey and be 21
entrenched in extraordinary circumstances in order to perform heroic acts (Campbell
29). This last section of the analysis demonstrates how Pratchett subverts the Classic
Hero archetype by framing the heroic acts of Vimes, and to some extent the other watchmen, not as extraordinary feats of heroism on epic journeys, but rather as a part of their everyday duty as policemen.
The vast majority of the City Watch novels are set in the city of Ankh-
Morpork, which is also where Vimes grew up and has lived for his entire life. It can thus not be said that Vimes ever really embarks on an epic journey in order to become a hero. Although Vimes does leave Ankh-Morpork in three of the eight novels in the City Watch series, specifically Jingo, The Fifth Elephant and Snuff, these novels cannot be used as examples of the Classic Hero’s journey. Campbell states that leaving the mundane life and going on a journey is strictly necessary to transform the potential hero into an actual hero (41-44). The three novels in which
Vimes leaves Ankh-Morpork all appear quite late in the City Watch series; fourth, fifth and eight respectively. By the time Vimes embarks on any sort of journey outside of his birthplace and hometown Ankh-Morpork, his status as a heroic character is thus already quite firmly established.
The heroic actions of Vimes are always framed in the context of his job as a watchman, rather than as some sort of extraordinary feats. One of the clearest examples of this is how Vimes generally defeats his nemeses. Campbell writes that the Classic Hero generally defeats his enemies by killing them or out-smarting them in some manner (58-62). Vimes, however, is first and foremost a policeman, and thus he defeats his enemies like a policeman should: by arresting them and then letting legal procedure run its course. Arresting the villain at the end of the story might be commonplace in other genres, such as detective and mystery novels, but it 22
is a highly unusual method in Heroic Fantasy (Lissauer 257). By having Vimes arrest his enemies rather than killing them, Pratchett puts the extraordinary and heroic act of, for example, defeating a dragon into the context of the mundane duties of a city watchman. This emphasizes the fact that extraordinary feats of heroism do not take precedence over the everyday duties of the policeman, which involve making legal arrests and then letting the villains be charged in a court of law.
In Night Watch, Vimes is transported back in time to an event called the Glorious 25th, a people’s uprising against the tyrannical government in Ankh-
Morpork, which soon turns into a violent conflict which does ultimately depose the dictator, but not before killing a large number of civilians. Vimes is highly skeptical of this uprising, and initially even tries to stop it because, as he says to one of the ringleaders: ‘’Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again.
That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." (85) Despite having very little trust in revolutions, Vimes eventually not only joins the revolution, but becomes one of its leaders. His reason for doing so is that he feels that he, as a policeman, has a duty to keep the peace and protect the people of Ankh-Morpork, and helping the people against the Patrician’s military is, in these circumstances, the best way to do this. This is also what he tells the other Watchmen to do: ‘’What we’re going to do is keep the peace. That’s our job. We’re not going to be heroes, we’re just going to be…normal’’ (272). This is another instance in which the duties of the Watchman take precedence over any form of heroism, to the point where
Vimes explicitly denies that his actions should be construed as heroic. At the end of the novel, Vetinari suggests that a statue or monument should be made to commemorate the fallen heroes of the uprising to which Vimes says: “What good would a statue be? It’d just inspire new fools to believe they’re going to be heroes. 23
They wouldn’t want that. Just let them be.” (469-470) This quote further demonstrates that Vimes does not consider heroics something to aspire to or to encourage others to do.
Furthermore, the sentence “do the job you have to do’’(107, 167, 254 306,
461) is repeated at several points in Night Watch, and almost seems like a mantra to
Vimes. Vimes desperately wants to return to his own time, and his family, but he chooses to stay in the past because he needs to finish the job in front of him. By always framing Vimes’ heroism in the context of his everyday-job, and also letting the duties of said job take precedence over heroism, Pratchett subverts the Classic
Hero archetype. In his novels, heroism is often done in the context of the main characters’ normal, everyday life, rather than under extraordinary circumstances.
Pratchett also adapts the heroics to fit in with the everyday duties people have. This suggests that for the postmodern hero, heroism can be heavily dependent on the circumstances of the character, and that simply doing one’s job and duty to the fullest, even in the most dire situations, can be just as heroic as dragon-slaying.
Conclusion
How does one construct a postmodern version of the literary hero? This essay has argued that Terry Pratchett has done just this in the creation of the character Sam
Vimes. First of all, Vimes demonstrates a keen knowledge of postmodern ideas and shows an awareness of how language, discourse and meta-narratives have power.
The power of stories, and narratives, is a central point in most of the Discworld novels, and they are often used as tools to gain power and influence. In a society 24
where this happens, knowledge and truth are by extension only valuable in how they help further the narrative. Samuel Vimes is not stronger than the average person, nor is he more intelligent, a better fighter or have any sort of magical abilities and yet throughout the City Watch novels he is able to achieve victory against seemingly impossible odds. He is able to do this by manipulating the narrative to his own advantage. Vimes is able to do a lot of extraordinary things because people believe that he can. He also uses narrative to his advantage in consciously cultivating a reputation as the most honest and just character on the Disc, which enables him to achieve his goals of upholding the law as even the most anti-authoritarian elements of society consider Vimes the one uncorrupt and trustworthy authority in the city, and as such trust his judgement.
Vimes also seems to agree with Foucault that language and discourse has power, as he aggressively corrects anyone who uses language that would suggest that Watchmen are a type of soldiers for the ruler because this may alter the
Watchmen’s perception and treatment of the citizens of Ankh-Morpork from citizens to an enemy force.
Subversion of established literary tropes is a common staple of postmodern literature and thus the postmodern hero should, at least in part, subvert common staples of the Classic Hero archetype (Luthi 2). The text has established two crucial aspects of the Classic Hero, the most popular heroic archetype in fantasy, based on Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces and has demonstrated the manner in which Vimes is a subversion of these two tropes. The first trope concerns the idea that the Classic Hero should be an inherently good person, and a role model to their peers. Vimes is frequently shown to be battling with his own 25
corruption and instinct to commit unsavory and even criminal acts. Sam Vimes is also more complicated than the Classic Hero, in that he is, in many ways, very similar to the criminals and villains he pursues and it is only through an immense amount of self-control he manages to remain good. When The Summoning Dark possesses Vimes in Thud!, and starts to both tear down his self-control and also fuel his darker side, it becomes very clear that Vimes would be capable and willing to commit acts of great cruelty without this rigid self-control. To combat his darker side, Vimes has even subconsciously constructed an inner Watchman, The Guarding
Dark, that prevents him from ever giving in to his baser instincts. Vimes observes himself.
The second trope concerns the idea that the Classic Hero needs to leave their mundane, ordinary life to go on an epic journey where extraordinary circumstances will enable the hero to commit heroic acts (Campbell 27). Vimes never embarks on an epic journey in order to become a hero, and in fact rarely leaves his place of birth at all. Unlike the Classic Hero, all of Vimes’ heroic acts are committed in the context of his everyday life and job as a policeman. Pratchett subverts the hero archetype by presenting Vimes and the other Watchmen’s heroic acts as a part of their duties in their profession, rather than as heroic act made under extraordinary circumstances.
All of these factors combined make Vimes quite different as a hero from the Classic Heroes of traditional fantasy and, as Luthi points out, this should make the reader lose interest or sympathy for Vimes. Yet, Vimes is probably the most popular protagonist amongst readers in the entire Discworld series (Martin).
This success might be attributed to the fact that Vimes’ ability to analyse the rules of society and the narratives that rule them, and his frequent struggles with his own 26
darker instincts make him a far more relatable and human character than the extraordinarily gifted, larger than life Classic Heroes otherwise often found in fantasy fiction. If aspiring authors today look to Pratchett in how to construct their heroic characters, the evolution of the fantasy hero may probably result in more complex and humane future fantasy protagonists.
27
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