“You make enemies like a craftsman.”

All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because *they are mine!* *I have a duty!*

/end id]

The “treating people like things” is how you treat people when you are interacting with them, or having an impact on their lives.

The Tiffany quote is about motivation, not interaction.

So Tiffany’s motivation isn’t treating people as things, (no witch who wasn’t already predisposed to cackling could do that) it’s about treating everything as your responsibility, as being under your protection as their witch, and so being motivated to action by that responsibility.

You don’t even have to like them, or think them good people, but if they are your repsonsibility, you help them.

“Oh, no,” said Miss Level, genuinely shocked. “You can’t not help people just because they’re stupid or forgetful or unpleasant. Everyone’s poor around here. If I don’t help them, who will?”

He tossed away the stupid pompous megaphone. He cupped his hands. "Some of you know me!" he shouted. "I'm Sergeant Keel, currently in command of the Treacle Mine Road Watch House! And I order you to dismantle this barricade--"

There was a chorus of jeers and one or two badly thrown missiles. Vimes waited, stock-still, until they'd died away. Then he raised his hands again.

"I repeat, I order you to dismantle this barricade." He took a breath, and went on: "And rebuild it on the other side, on the corner with Cable Street! And put up another one at the top of Sheer Street! Good grief, you don't just pile stuff up, for gods' sake! A barricade is something you construct! Who's in charge here?"

There were sounds of consternation behind the overturned furniture, but a voice called out: "You?"

But in this book, he's almost an antagonist to William, at least initially. He's resistant and hostile to William's journalistic efforts, it seems like William is making his job harder, and my instinct was to be irritated with William about this. But as I've progressed through the book, I've realized that I fell into the Protagonist Trap with Vimes.

I, the reader, love Vimes. I trust Vimes. I want Vimes to succeed. But Vimes doesn't get to do whatever he wants just because I love him. William isn't doing anything illegal and he isn't doing anything wrong. And Vimes, irritated as he is, recognizes this.