Colon and Nobby question: was Colon always the stupid fat one...?

[RathDarkblade]

... or was there ever a time when Colon and Nobby were more-or-less interchangeably stupid?

I'm thinking of Colon in "Feet of Clay" and "Jingo", and especially "The Fifth Elephant" - where he is stubborn and stupid, not to mention tiresomely racist. (It's the kind of attitude he grew up with, as we learn in NW, so I'm not surprised when he comes out with "lawn ornaments" etc.)

Still, I think I remember a time when they were both basically the same level of intelligence (even as late as FoC, when they go to the pub, get drunk, and get thrown out). When did Nobby start becoming the smarter one, I wonder? Was it in "Jingo", when he started cross-dressing -- or was it before even that?

What do you think, hmm?

 

[Quatermass]

When character development set in. Plus, Nobby's still stupid, he's just more perceptive and cunning than Colon. He's basically somewhere between series 1 and series 2 Baldrick, IMO. Hmm, which makes you think, is Nobby some sort of bud off Baldrick?

Also, lawn ornaments? I don't remember that bit. Are we talking the sort of lawn ornaments Ted Bullpit would adorn his lawn with?

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm ... well, Nobby first appears in "Guards! Guards!" (first published 1989). Baldrick first appeared in "The Black Adder" (1983) and then "Blackadder II" (1986), so there may be something there. Not sure, though.

"Lawn ornaments" is the Ankh-Morpork insult for "dwarfs". Only a very stupid and/or suicidal Ankh-Morporkian would say it these days, though. So when Colon (in TFE) kicked everybody out and started shouting about "lawn ornaments and rocks and loonies in the Watch" etc., you knew he'd seriously gone off his rocker.

 

[Quatermass]

I meant transdimensional metaphysical bud. For all we know, Baldricks reproduce by mitosis. Or maybe they're like xenomorphs or mindflayers, starting off as a parasite implanted in a host.

I knew that was an in-universe slur, but I though you meant he literally brought out actual lawn ornaments.

Also, no comment on Ted Bullpit? Pickle me grandmother!

 

[Tonyblack]

Colon (and Nobby) were the sort of characters who would have stuck with the Watch when everyone else got fed up at what the Watch had become, and left. It's a bit like Groat and Stanley in Going Postal. They were all plodders, who were happy to earn a regular buck as long as nobody made them do any more. I don't think Fred was ever a good policeman - he was just what was left after everyone else left. I have known real people like this when I worked in the Post Office - people that were promoted to a job that no one else wanted, or to get rid of them from another branch of the company. Fred was always stupid - he just managed to gain rank while being stupid.

 

[Quatermass]

That does actually make sense. Though is it the Peter Principle in action, or the Dilbert Principle?

But don't forget, it seems likely that a lot of people buggered off for the Day Watch, before the two Watches were united later in the series. It seems like the Day Watch was the more 'prestigious' organisation, if I recall correctly. I don't remember when the two organisations were fused, though (and the wiki isn't very helpful, though it does clarify something I forgot, that the Day Watch was a somewhat separate organisation to the Night Watch), but it was at least after Men at Arms.

And now, for some weird reason, I've got visions of Colon and Nobby meeting Ornstein and Smough from Dark Souls. Or just Smough. Smough makes Colon and Nobby look like paragons of virtue by comparison. He makes Colon look anorexic, Nobby has never knowingly (to my knowledge) eaten human meat, and both don't really think much of the honour and prestige (or lack thereof) of knighthood, unlike Smough...

 

[RathDarkblade]

A lot of people buggered off for the Day Watch? I don't know about 'a lot'. All we know about are Cpl "Mayonnaise" Quirke and Sgt Winsborough Knock. (Both of them are mentioned throughout the series, and in "Night Watch" we see how it happens).

Yes, the Day Watch and Night Watch are amalgamated at some point during (or just after) MAA. And yes, in G!G! we learn that the Day Watch guards tend to look down on the Night Watch.

 

[raisindot]

Vetinari basically decimated an already threadbare Watch as a whole when he allowed the Guilds to "police" their associated crimes. One can assume that the Day Watch of GG is as lightly-manned, demoralized and ineffectual as the Night Watch. The only people the Day Watch can feel superior to is the Night Watch.

Fred and Nobby are the cliched "career holdouts" you also see in police departments (or at least in police procedural books and shows). They're the lifers, the ones who have been there so long that no one has the heart to fire them. They're dinosaurs, but every now and then they contribute something useful.

 

[Quatermass]

A lot of people buggered off for the Day Watch? I don't know about 'a lot'. All we know about are Cpl "Mayonnaise" Quirke and Sgt Winsborough Knock. (Both of them are mentioned throughout the series, and in "Night Watch" we see how it happens).

Yes, the Day Watch and Night Watch are amalgamated at some point during (or just after) MAA. And yes, in G!G! we learn that the Day Watch guards tend to look down on the Night Watch.

Ah, now I remember Quirke! I was trying to remember who the character was, but all I could think of was some vaguely snot-nosed twit of a copper that would have been played by either Hugh Laurie or Tim McInnerny.

Vetinari basically decimated an already threadbare Watch as a whole when he allowed the Guilds to "police" their associated crimes. One can assume that the Day Watch of GG is as lightly-manned, demoralized and ineffectual as the Night Watch. The only people the Day Watch can feel superior to is the Night Watch.

Fred and Nobby are the cliched "career holdouts" you also see in police departments (or at least in police procedural books and shows). They're the lifers, the ones who have been there so long that no one has the heart to fire them. They're dinosaurs, but every now and then they contribute something useful.

I was under the impression that the Day Watch wasn't as undermanned or underfunded as the Night Watch, albeit to a small degree, simply because they didn't rock the boat as much. I mean, not that Nobbs or Colon or a pre-Guards! Guards! Vimes would do so, but still...or else there was a vague sense of prestige to the Day Watch compared to the Night Watch. Keep in mind, it's been over a decade, I think, since I've read the novels of Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms, so I could be mistaken.

I'd imagine Jack Frost from A Touch of Frost would be a more successful and competent version of that sort of career holdout you mentioned, raisindot. I don't watch police procedurals per se, but my mother loves them. I'm actually struggling to name any real examples from these shows, partly because the characters I can think of actually take a more proactive and central role, like, for example, the members of UCOS from New Tricks, or Morse from the original Morse series (and honestly, I actually prefer Shaun Evans as the young Morse in Endeavour compared to John Thaw in the original series: Morse in the original series is pretty bad towards poor Lewis, and I actually prefer the dynamic Lewis and Hathaway have in Lewis).

I think another thing that should be brought up with Nobby and Colon is that they're a classic double act. I've been a fan of these partly thanks to Doctor Who, with many of the stories written by Robert Holmes having wonderful double acts. Garron and Unstoffe in The Ribos Operation, Irongron and Bloodaxe from The Time Warrior, Spandrell and Engin in The Deadly Assassin, Sabalom Glitz and Dibber in The Mysterious Planet, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang...I could go on.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Ah, now I remember Quirke! I was trying to remember who the character was, but all I could think of was some vaguely snot-nosed twit of a copper that would have been played by either Hugh Laurie or Tim McInnerny.

Yep -- as Angua says about Quirke in MAA, "Mayonnaise? Let me guess ... rich and thick?"

And Colon (or Nobby) chimes in with "And smelling faintly of eggs."

We also learn, much later (in NW), that Keel/Vimes kicks Quirke off the Night Watch for taking bribes -- and that he mumps free food from the street vendors. An all-round very unpleasant copper.

I think another thing that should be brought up with Nobby and Colon is that they're a classic double act. I've been a fan of these partly thanks to Doctor Who, with many of the stories written by Robert Holmes having wonderful double acts. Garron and Unstoffe in The Ribos Operation, Irongron and Bloodaxe from The Time Warrior, Spandrell and Engin in The Deadly Assassin, Sabalom Glitz and Dibber in The Mysterious Planet, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang...I could go on.

You're right. I'm sure they've reminded me of other double acts: Wooster and Jeeves (I'll leave you to decide which is which), Laurel and Hardy, Hacker and Sir Humphrey (without Humphrey's smarts but with a lot more of Hacker's cunning), etc.

 

[Woofb]

Nobby’s less of a plodder. He slopes off for a quick fag with Sergeant Colon; he steals tiny amounts from anything/anyone not nailed down; he makes small bets (“Find out who is sètting these bets, and when you have found out that it is Nobby, take it off him.“)

But even with all this, he can effortlessly puncture Sergeant Colon's pretensions to be more capable than his notional inferior by sliding the perfect clarifying question into one of Colon's speeches.

 

[raisindot]

I think another thing that should be brought up with Nobby and Colon is that they're a classic double act. I've been a fan of these partly thanks to Doctor Who, with many of the stories written by Robert Holmes having wonderful double acts. Garron and Unstoffe in The Ribos Operation, Irongron and Bloodaxe from The Time Warrior, Spandrell and Engin in The Deadly Assassin, Sabalom Glitz and Dibber in The Mysterious Planet, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang...I could go on.

The classic double act is as old as literature itself. One might argue that the most famous early double act where the two characters provide comic relief but wander around the edges of the main plot not doing anything particularly worthy are Rosencranz and Guildenstern from Hamlet.

 

[Woofb]

The classic double act is as old as literature itself. One might argument that the most famous early double act where the two characters provide comic relief but wander around the edges of the main plot not doing anything particularly worthy are Rosencranz and Guildenstern from Hamlet.

Didn't you hear? Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead (see Tom Stoppard)

 

[RathDarkblade]

The classic double act is as old as literature itself.

Did anyone say Gilgamesh and Enkidu?

 

[Quatermass]

Did anyone say Gilgamesh and Enkidu?

Heh heh, good one...

 

[=Tamar]

Nobby developed into the smarter one of the two, but I vaguely recall that very early on, sometimes Colon would have a moment where Nobby was the stupider one. It's been a while since I've reread the Guards books.

 

[Tonyblack]

They always remind me of Laurel and Hardy - especially Colon as Hardy.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm, I haven't seen too much Laurel and Hardy. But they remind me of Jeeves and Wooster, since Wooster is the (rather stupid) master who always gets wound up by the (much smarter) Jeeves.

The first series of "Blackadder" also rings a bell, seeing as Blackadder is pompous and stupid, and Baldrick is smarter and cunning. Baldrick got more and more stupid as the series went on, though, and Blackadder got smarter and smarter.

 

[Tonyblack]

 

[RathDarkblade]

*laughs* Thanks, Tony