The way Night Watch is felt in Thud!
Since it's the glorious 25th of may and people are posting about Night Watch, I wanted to point out a part in Thud! that really shows how much the events of Night Watch shaped Vimes.
'May I be there when you question him?' said the grag.
'Why?'
'Well, for one thing, it may prevent rumours that he was mistreated.'
'Or start them?' said Vimes. Who watches the watchmen? he asked himself. Me!
Bashfullsson gave him a cool look. 'It could calm the situation, sir.'
'I don't habitually beat up prisoners, if that's what you're suggesting,' said Vimes.
'And I am sure you would not wish to do so tonight.'
Vimes opened his mouth to shout the grag out of the building, and stopped. Because the cheeky little sod had got it right slap bang on the money. Vimes had been on the 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 all this [?] this [?] this thisness, and it didn't need to be a screwed-up bit-player like Helmclever.
And he was not certain, not certain at all, what he'd do if the prisoner gave him any lip or tried to be smart. Beating people up in little rooms⌠he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you'd do it for a bad one. 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.
Justice has to be seen to be done, so he'd see it done up good and proper.
This is so well done because we the readers are fully primed to be on Vimes side here, he was just attacked in his home by Grags and they attempted to kill his wife and child and now one is accusing him of police brutality. He is on a razors edge right now and the oblong demonic entity from before time began in his head is certainly not helping him stay calm.
But he (twice technically) has seen what happens when coppers aren't held accountable, when they feel like they can do whatever they want in the name of justice. Findthee Swing followed that mentality, and he knows how tempting it is. Vimes cannot let the personal become the important, he cannot let his desire for justice become a desire for revenge and let every dwarf he sees become an acomplice to wrong he's trying to right.
And this is shown perfectly by the next line:
'Gentlemen,' he said, keeping his eye on the grag but talking to the room at large, 'I know all of you, you all know me. You're all respected dwarfs with a stake in this city. I want you to vouch for Mr Bashfullsson, because I've never met him before in my life. Come on, Setha, I've known you for years, what do you say?'
'They killed my son,' said Ironcrust.
A knife dropped into Vimes's head. It slipped down his windpipe, sliced his heart, cut through his stomach and disappeared. Where the rage had been, there was a chill.
'I'm sorry, commander,' said Bashfullsson quietly. 'It's true. I don't think Gunder Ironcrust was interested in the politics, you understand. He just took a job at the mine because he wanted to feel like a real dwarf and work with a shovel for a few days.'
'They left him to the mud,' said Ironcrust, in a voice that was eerily without emotion. 'Any help you need, we will give. Any help. But when you find them, kill them all.'
Vimes could think of nothing more to say than 'I will catch them.'
He didn't say: Kill them? No. Not if they surrender, not if they don't come at me armed. I know where that leads.
And here all the "righteous fury" dies in 4 words, Vimes thought he might lose his son that night, it was the most angry and terrified he ever felt in his life, and to hear from one of the people he was internally blaming for that, that they had actually lost their son it just shatters all the delusions.
I think this moment was super important in letting Vimes overcome the summoning dark, it reminded him that giving into you anger and letting your assumptions become your view point was what being a copper is all about.
