All The Tropes

Thud!: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Thud! (view source)

Revision as of 00:02, 9 April 2014

127 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Dai-Guard moved page Discworld (Literature)/Thud to Discworld/Thud: Move to correct namespace)
m (Mass update links)
Line 26:
* [[Battle Butler]]: Willikins, who was once a member of a street gang, helped to calm the riots, and stabbed a Dwarf with his ice knife. [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|Which he happened to be holding, having been cutting ice in the cellar.]]
** A.E. Pessimal is similar -- although he's a Battle ''Bureaucrat''... wannabe. {{spoiler|At the end of the book, Vimes makes him a watchman with a desk job, but stipulates he needs to go onto patrols two nights a week to make sure he understands the job fully. This is the stuffy, short office worker's dream come true--although Vimes is quick to point out that anyone who would go after a troll ''bare handed, quite literally tooth and nail'' to protect his commander has ''earned'' his place in the Watch...as well as the right to call His Excellency His Grace Commander Sir Samuel Vimes "Mister Vimes".}}
* [[Battle in Thethe Center of Thethe Mind]]: The Summoning Dark vs {{spoiler|The Guarding Dark, Vimes' inner Watchman.}} ''Quis custodiet ipsos custodes'' indeed.
{{quote| {{spoiler|"He created me. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Me. I watch him. Always." [...] "But I think you misunderstand. I am not here to keep darkness out. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|I'm here to keep it in.]]"}}}}
** Also therefore a rather literal example of [[What You Are in Thethe Dark]].
* [[Berserk Button]]: {{spoiler|The Summoning Dark searches for these in its victims to use as a portal into the world. See above for what happens in Sam Vimes' mind when it tries the same thing on him.}}
* [[Beyond the Impossible]]: A temperance [[Blatant Lies|definitely-not-a-vampire]] has learned how to roll his w's.
* [[The Brainless Beauty]]: Tawneee Mobil. Thicker than a yard of lard, but it doesn't really matter.
* [[Brick Joke]]: Koom Valley was mentioned back in ''Men at Arms'' as the only battle in history where both armies ambushed each other. {{spoiler|It turns out that was a misunderstanding.}}
** Additionally, during Vimes' '''[[This Is Sparta|THAT IS NOT MY COW]]''' battlecry he goes [[Discworld (Literature)/Maskerade|up by one exclamation-mark]] each word.
* [[Calling Card]]: Supernatural variant, as scattered objects near the Dark-inhabited Vimes keep arranging themselves into the Summoning Dark symbol.
* [[Cerebus Retcon]]: Vimes' previous joke that he used to be "blackboard monitor" in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]'' suddenly isn't so funny any more when he ends up dealing with some ''very'' fundamental dwarves, who attach the same stigma to someone wiping out words as, say, a human would to someone who [[Eats Babies]].
** Also, the revelation of what actually happened at Koom Valley. What was once a humorous [[Noodle Incident]] (both sides somehow ambushed each other) is now {{spoiler|a tragic mistake and conspiracy that led to centuries of needless deaths.}}
* [[Character Development]]: Vimes is forced to compromise on two of his most strongly held principles, which go back to ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Men At Arms|Men At Arms]]'' and have been referenced in nearly every Watch book since: his particular hatred of vampires and refusal to employ them in the Watch, and his reluctance to ask the wizards for help.
** Also, paralleling the way computer technology has gone from a gimmick to mainstream use in police work, he finally learns how to use one of his Dis-organizers and puts it to good use. Granted, he finds a person to do the same work for him, but he seems quite fond of Gooseberry.
** More likely, Gooseberry will read whatever Pessimal deems important and give a summarized account to Vimes.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: In the barricade scene, when the Watch stands its ground between two mobs of battle-crazy dwarfs and trolls, Fred Colon asks Vimes if he remembers 'another barricade.' Colon is of course referring to the barricades erected by the Watch and the citizenry of Ankh Morpork on the night of the Glorious Revolution, at which both Colon and an 18-year old Vimes had been present. Colon also mentions Sergeant Keel, who 'pulled a trick or two that night'. The 'Sergeant Keel' Colon refers to was in fact Vimes himself, who traveled back thirty years into his own past during the events of ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Night Watch|Night Watch]]'' due to a major time anomaly that was the focus of ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]''.
** Vimes also mentions, sardonically, that [[Discworld (Literature)/The Colour of Magic|it's been a long time since the city burned down]].
** Mention is also made of Detritus's girl, [[Discworld (Literature)/Moving Pictures|Ruby]], now his wife.
** Mr. Pony is mentioned briefly as the head of the Guild of Artificers, quite a step up since ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Going Postal|Going Postal]]''
* [[Cowboy Cop]]: Vimes refuses to become this, and it is ''awesome.''
{{quote| "Because you can't call yourself a good guy and then do bad guy things."}}
Line 79:
{{quote| ''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.''}}
** Though Vimes is a [[Deconstruction]]: the reason he is incorruptible is his constant vigilance against his dark side.
* [[Innocent Swearing]]: Sam Vimes reads his son his own version of ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Where's My Cow|Where's My Cow]]'' with the [[Catch Phrase|Catch Phrases]] of prominant Ankh-Morporkians instead of animal noises, including Foul Old Ron's "Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!" The next day Young Sam announces "Buglit!" to his nanny, and from then on Vimes sticks to the written version.
* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Vimes can tell the difference between "Mr. Vimes" and "Mister Vimes" and only allows people who have fought alongside him to call him "Mister".
** Judging from the audiobook, the issue seems to be not so much that Vimes can hear the difference between Mr. Vimes and Mister Vimes as that in the original manuscript, Brick accidentally called him Missus Vimes, and somewhere along the line an overzealous copyeditor "fixed" the "typo."
Line 85:
{{quote| ''He'd learned, then, not to use his little lantern. Light only ruined your vision, it blinded you. You stared into the dark until it blinked. You stared it down.''}}
* [[Ironic Nursery Tune]]
* [[ItsIt's Not Porn, ItsIt's Art]]: Spoofed in both directions: Colon reasons that a picture's in a museum and has an urn, a plinth, or a cherub somewhere in it, it must be art; Nobby rationalizes Tawneee's job as "artistic."
** Subverted with Tawneee as she honestly believes men come to watch her dance because she's really good at dancing. Some of what she does is quite difficult, see?
* [[Useful Notes/The Laws and Customs of War|The Laws and Customs of War]]
Line 91:
* [[Noodle Incident]]: Non-comedic example in the Battle of Koom Valley. All they know is that dwarves fought trolls and vice-versa.
** Also non-comedic example: Mrs. Oldsburton, whom Vimes remembered fell into the [[Despair Event Horizon]] after the death of her baby and began compulsively cleaning the house non-stop, in a mobile version of an [[Angst Coma]].
* [[Malevolent Architecture]]: Anything designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson, such as Empirical Crescent, which continues his [[Discworld (Literature)/Going Postal|newly-revealed]] ability to turn simple stupidity into [[Alien Geometries|mind-bending horror]].
* [[The Men First]]
* [[Nightmare Fuel]]: In-universe, Vimes quietly thinks this of his butler. He defended himself against an assassination squad in the cellar using an ice knife. A knife used for cutting foot-wide blocks. It's a foot and a half of steel.
Line 147:
** Subverted in that {{spoiler|Vimes does, in fact, manage to stop it when it comes to the moment of glowering over the cowering dwarfs with an axe in his hand. Far more awesome than it sounds since in stopping himself he was putting a ''lot'' of strain on his body, as in he was tearing himself apart. Thank whatever gods look out for coppers that Angua was about.}}
{{quote| '''Angua:''' You resisted for about four seconds, and then I brought you down.}}
* [[What You Are in Thethe Dark]]: Vimes finds himself alone in a cave with the dwarfs who have instigate the entire mess. {{spoiler|Egged on by the Summoning Dark, he nearly kills them... but his own will to ''not cross that line'' overcomes it}}.
* [[Who Watches the Watchmen?]]: Vimes claims that they watch each other. But when he's alone {{spoiler|his own inner watchman, the Guarding Dark, watches him}}.
{{quote| I watch him. Always.}}
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/913112"