#blackboard monitor vimes

[booksbabybooks]

Anyone else think it's wild that Samuel Vimes not only has an entire Disc-wide network of the law named after him (Sammies, the Old Sam) but also inspired a super popular cocktail and a best selling book? Not to mention that time "Vimes the Butcher" helped stop a war. Again.

Honestly I would read innumerable books / fics on the widespread influence across the Disc of Lady "I have a hospital named after me honk if you love dragons of course Havelock is my friend" Sybil, high mistress of correspondence, and Blackboard Monitor Vimes.

[klinefelterrible]

These were there too, hidden in the vegetation (all squished on one not very tall tree, to be honest). Alongside Commander Vimes and his Dark Friend.

Links to all of the dragons here

[violet-yimlat]

Behold, my two favourite fictional police! I have no clue how they’d get on but my Mam thinks that Angua would probably eat Judy.

[sainamoonshine]

Having a lot of fun thinking about Vimes being made officially Blackboard Monitor by the king of dwarves (as mentioned in Snuff) because « the one who erases the words that are there so new words can be taught » is exactly what he did by opening the Cube at the end of Thud! He « erased » the inaccurate version of The Things Tak Wrote and he revealed the real version, and now the dwarves can learn that one instead. The deep-down dwarves were scared of the « erasing » part of the title but the king, in fifth elephant, seemed more intrigued by the part where it makes place for new words. A new lesson. New teaching. And how someone would have to be very trusted to be allowed to decide what words need to go so that something else can replace them.

(Also: monitor = guarding. Who is the blackboard monitor, if not the guarding dark?)

And the king of dwarves, who knows enough about Anhk-Morpok to competently put a spy in the watch, probably a) knows its not an actual human title but also b) knows how much Vimes hates getting titles.

So the king probably looked at the opportunity to make this a real dwarf title and foist it upon Vimes and thought « oh this is gonna be so funny »

Plus there is the whole thing about how you need to reward a hero at the end of the story so people can feel like something important happened but also reassure them that it stopped happening now, it’s over. All the problems have been solved. Vetinari explained it at the end of Guards! Guards! and this is why Vimes keeps getting new titles lol. King Rhys probably thought along similar lines.

[pourablecat]

Hark! His Grace, small, shiny and heroic in his small, shiny and heroic ceremonial armor.

(How long am I supposed to stand here sucking my gut in, Sir?)

[magpiesketchins]

The lil' guy-ification of His Grace Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, Duke of Ankh¹.

He's a transparent png, just fyi.

¹ And Blackboard Monitor²

² And Vetinari's Terrier

[telekinetic-hedgehog]

"some cops are good people" factoid actualy just statistical error. commander samuel vimes of the anhk-morpork city watch, duke of anhk, blackboard monitor, who lives on the discworld & resists over 10,000 temptations each novel, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[muskoxen]

Just realized that in addition to having his role as Blackboard Monitor avert a civil war, Sam Vimes also used a steel straight rule to kill a torturer-phrenologist-chief-of-secret-police in a sword fight.

I mean, I like office supplies as much as the next nerd, but Sir Samuel really takes it up a notch.

[notonlyshortbutshorttemperedtoo]

It's Glorious 25th of May and I made a meme

Welcome to Discworld Fandom!

City Watch Edition vol. 1

We have:

His Grace his Excelency the Duke of Ankh Commander of the Night Watch sir Samuel Vimes

-throws axes when rich bitches annoy him

-doesn't like dwarfs

-but that's ok bcs he doesn't like humans and trolls either

-lights his cigarette using dragons and trolls

-was a blackboard monitor

-hunts assassins for sport

-is two drinks below normal

-gentleman gentle man

Carrot

-2 meters tall dwarf

-always nice

-loves museums

-u would literally die for him

-but he would never ask for it

-he is that nice

The Tyrant

-gives right people right jobs

-mind so sharp you could shave with it

-made the city work

-dog person

-instinctively knows how to juggle

-probably sleeps sometimes but no one knows for sure

Enjoy!

[ineffable-sideburns]

so the more I think about the Book of Life, the more I think that it might do something, but it probably doesn’t work exactly the way Heaven claims when using it as a threat.

my two little theories are that it’s what Heaven uses to erase memories, and the person still exists, but they have a new name and identity.

or, it works like how it does in the actual BoL lore, and it only contains the names of the people destined for Heaven and salvation - the names of the wicked, adversaries of God, and the ones destined for the lake of fire aren’t included and sometimes get their own book (the Book of the Dead/Damned)

if theory two ended up being true, that would mean the fall is related to the demons being erased from the Book of Life already, and Heaven in the present is threatening them with an empty gun. maybe something about the demons being bad at spelling/not good at reading is related to the BoL. idk. just some early morning thoughts

not Good Omens, but i just finished Thud! and in Discworld, the dwarves believe the world was written into existence, and words have so much power that it's actually blasphemous to erase them. later on Vimes gets the title "Blackboard Monitor Vimes" - originally it starts like an insult, but it later signifies the dwarves recognizing his right to erase words

mentioning this because there are similarities and shared ideas from Good Omens throughout the Discworld books. Death (and some other characters) can stop time similar to how Crowley does, Death also has a library full of the books of people’s lives that write themselves, Discworld hell is full of paperwork and bureaucracy, the Auditors, Headology and belief having enough power to alter reality (and, in Discworld, create and destroy Gods)…I like thinking about Good Omens when I read Discworld and wondering about how Terry might have come about the GO sequel, maybe from pieces of concepts that made it into the Disc.

also something something about Michael’s comment about Gabriel not having a desk. something something about Michael being the one to make the BoL threats. not sure what thoughts I have there

[isleofapplepies]

I'm having a thought about Terry writing about new technologies in Thud, and how it was about the rise of cell phones at the time the book was released (Gooseberry), and I'm thinking of how interesting it would be to see his Discworld take on AI, especially text generators.

Now consider that whole thing with dwarfs valuing written world in a spiritual, religious sort of way. Throwing newspaper away is a sin to deep-downers, discarding words once they stop being useful. Blackboard Monitor Vimes was a despicable life form to them.

How would they react to the idea of words being reused, reshuffled, Igor-ed into a new form? Is there anything holy in that? Or is it an abomination? Would they consider it an outright crime, theft?

Big thoughts.

[klinefelterrible]

“Now, I’ve told you about the miracle of Koom Valley before, my lad, but you haven’t seen this iconograph of me and Smack. It was took at the time just after we realized we weren’t going to be fighting that day and we all went in ones and twos into that cavern and saw the two kings: the king of the dwarfs and the king of the trolls, entombed in shining rock, playing Thud! And we saw it! And it was true! They’d been friends in death. And that gave us the signal that we needn’t be enemies in life.

(...)

The boy coughed and said, ‘If you saw them playing Thud, Dad, can you remember which one was about to win?’

The old dwarf laughed. ‘I asked that when I met Commander Vimes, and he wouldn’t tell me. We reckoned he probably broke a few pieces off so no one knew who the winner would be so some curious little fellow like you wouldn’t go off and try to start the whole damn war again.’”

Terry Pratchett "Raising steam"

[jothehat]

Happy birthday Pterry! (This is possibly my favourite drawing of Sam 'Blackboard monitor' Vimes, by zazB)

[theotheristhedoctor]

Who Diamond?

Him who mountain crush him no

Him who sun him stop him no

Him who hammer him break him no

Him who fire him fear him no

Him who raise him head above him heart

Him Stoneface?

In Thud!, Vimes:

Flows through the mountain on the river and survives

Works multiple days and nights in a row without rest

Gets clubbed by Brick and keeps going

Defeats the flamethrower wielding dwarves

Holds back an ancient malevolent creature that pulls on emotion just with the rules in his head

Thus I posit: Vimes may be Blackboard Monitor to the Low King, but he also meets the requirements to be King of the Trolls (in spirit at least).