Thud!/Heartwarming


 * Commander Vimes anticipates A.E. Pessimal's wish to be in the Watch and grants him a lifelong desire.
 * Also in allowing A.E. Pessimal the right to call him "Mister Vimes" on the grounds that he's earned it, not over years as others have, but all in one go.
 * A.E. Pessimal, recovering bemusedly following his attack on a troll (with his teeth) being congratulated by his fellow watchmen.
 * When Vimes, confused, lost and alone,.
 * While not as intense or heartbreaking, my heart grew three sizes when everyone was sitting around the fire reading to Sam Jr.
 * Actually, every scene where Vimes is with his son, or even thinks about him and his own feelings and responsibilities as a father, could qualify. Seeing my favourite ex-depressed drunken hard-boiled misanthropist being all awed by this new-found happiness makes me beam each time.
 * Carrot.

"What dey had been doin down dat hole was makin' der worl' a betterer place, Sergeant Detritus had said. And it seemed to Brick, as he smelled the food, that Sergeant Detritus had got dat one dead right."
 * Related to this is the way Vimes thinks about his wife and baby son, and how he loves them so much and is so happy with them and with the way his life has turned out that he's afraid the universe will do something cataclysmically awful to him in order to balance the books. It's typical of Vimes to be so cynical... but think about the worst catastrophe you can imagine in your life, and then realize that he considers his home life to be the exact opposite of that, because he loves his family that much, and it swings right back into CMOH territory.
 * The rendition near the end just before they reach Koom Valley with everyone gathering around and joining in was a particular crystallizer of pretty much every bit of heartwarming in the book. "Show Of The Year," indeed.
 * The bit when Brick, the junkie, the lowest of the low, raises his hands in a gesture which implies the whole universe was against him. "Well, Detritus was on his side now. That evened the odds a little bit."
 * Another Brick one:

"'Then Tak looked upon the stone and it was trying to come alive, and Tak smiled and wroten: "all thyngs strive," ... And for the service the stone had given, he fashioned it into the first Troll, and delighted in the life that came unbidden...'"
 * The cavern under Koom Valley, and the kings' message on the Device.

"Brick lurched out of Dolly Sisters Watch House, clutching his head with one hand and, in the other, holding a bag that contained as many of his teeth as Detritus had been able to find. The sergeant had been very decent about dat, Brick thought. Detritus had also explained to him exactly what would have been happening to him had his second blow hit the human, graphically indicating that finding Brick's teeth would have been secondary to finding a head to put them in."
 * Vimes notices you can tell when Carrot is walking down the street by the way Angua looks at the door.
 * Also when Sally says everytime Angua sees Carrot her heart skips a beat.
 * And Carrot's speeds up.
 * It's weirdly moving to see such a clear representation of the fact that Vimes isn't kidding when he answers the "Who watches the watchman?" question with "Me." He means that absolutely literally, every moment of his life.
 * Heartwarming, violent troll style, because it's always nice to see that the Watchmen are as loyal to their Commander as he is to them.


 * From the first scene where Vimes reads to Young Sam, mention is made that the family's pet, VERY elderly, toothless, raggedy-winged dragon pads up the stairs every night and takes up position beneath Young Sam's crib. No one seems to know why. Quite heartwarming for a pet-owner.
 * At first I thought it was a missed Chekhov's Gun during the scene when Vimes was looking for a weapon in Sam's room, that the old dragon still has fire to protect its family. Damn.
 * Flameless, too. Otherwise, even Sybil would never have let the soppy old thing anywhere near the baby.
 * Against seemingly all reason, the
 * Bear in mind, it doesn't need Vimes' family alive. In fact, their deaths would probably  And yet...it protects them. For some reason, that really does it for this troper.
 * The truth of Koom Valley.


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