Cheery's What-if's

[Cheery]

As I reread the watch books, I find I have a lot of headcanons and "what if" scenarios that pop up in my head. And I thought it might be a fun idea to share them.

Like the thought I had when Ridcully walks up to Vimes in Jingo and addresses him with his first name. To be fair, Ridcully is the sort of person to address anyone with their first names, but it still conjures up some fun ideas:

Like them gravitating towards each other at official gatherings because they actually enjoy each other's company.

Or maybe Mustrum is a friend of Sybil's and he comes to visit every now and then.

Or the idea of Ridcully and Vimes having an amiable game of snooker or cards, as they have a private laugh at someone else's expense.

 

[Cheery]

Idea for the Bucket: There's an unwritten rule that you don't sit at the Commander's table unless you are one of the people who address him with "Mister Vimes". Took a while for Vimes himself to notice it and he begrudgingly had to accept that as Commander, he's not part of "the lads" anymore.

 

[RathDarkblade]

******WARNING: LONG POST; SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS AHOY!******* =D

Like the thought I had when Ridcully walks up to Vimes in Jingo and addresses him with his first name. To be fair, Ridcully is the sort of person to address anyone with their first names, but it still conjures up some fun ideas:

Like them gravitating towards each other at official gatherings because they actually enjoy each other's company.

Hmm, the only person I've seen who calls Vimes "Sam" (other than Ridcully) is Sybil. Everyone else calls him one of these names:

- "Sir" (Carrot, Angua, Nobby, Willikins the Butler)
- "Commander" (most of the rest of the way watch)
- "Vimes" (mostly the nobility, especially Lord Rust)
- "Sir Samuel" (Vetinari and Lady Margolotta)
- "Mister Vimes" (Colon and a select few)
- "Your Blackboard Monitorship" (some dwarfs)
- Something unprintable (most of the grags)

Plain old "Sam" doesn't seem to crop up, except for Sybil (and Ridcully, this one time).

I don't think Vimes actually enjoys Ridcully's company socially - he's too suspicious - but he definitely has nothing against him or any of the other wizards. As Pterry points out, Vimes likes the wizards because they don't commit crimes that cause him any headaches. They might blow up the universe or summon eldritch horrors, but it doesn't lead to paperwork.

Or maybe Mustrum is a friend of Sybil's and he comes to visit every now and then.

A definite possibility. Sybil is more known for hosting the nobility of A-M, though.

I think it's more likely that Sybil knows Mustrum Ridcully through Vetinari. Sybil hobnobs with the Patrician quite a bit, and so does Ridcully (see, e.g. the start of "Interesting Times", where Ridcully is asked to find "The Great Wizzard"). Maybe they became acquainted that way.

Or the idea of Ridcully and Vimes having an amiable game of snooker or cards, as they have a private laugh at someone else's expense.

I find it hard to imagine Vimes playing snooker in UU. He'd find it hard to make any shots around Ridcully's piles of paperwork on the snooker table -- not to mention the balls exploding or turning into doves.

We rarely ever see Vimes paying anyone a social call (except when he pays them to Sybil in Guards! Guards!). He's usually all business.

Idea for the Bucket: There's an unwritten rule that you don't sit at the Commander's table unless you are one of the people who address him with "Mister Vimes". Took a while for Vimes himself to notice it and he begrudgingly had to accept that as Commander, he's not part of "the lads" anymore.

I'm not sure there even is a Commander's table at the Bucket. We rarely see Vimes at the Bucket -- we assume he's there, but assumption isn't the same as truth. When the rest of the Watch are in the Bucket, we usually then cross-cut to a scene of Vimes at his desk, working on a case.

(An exception is when a bunch of thieves break into the Bucket, and desperately -- and very foolishly -- try to take Angua hostage. Just before they do, we see Vimes growl something like: "Won't somebody shut the bloody door?"

I love this scene, especially when someone tells Angua not to play with her food, and Carrot shoots them a look of pain, and Angua thinks that she doesn't mind comments like that, but she knows he doesn't like it ... so she'll have to leave A-M at some point).

To sum up, we rarely (if ever) see Sam Vimes 'off-duty'. Guards! Guards! has a few moments like this -- when he leaves a pub at the start and tells the landlord where to stick his beer, or when he pays Lady Sybil a social call, or when the Watch goes off-duty to prepare for the new king's coronation etc.)

But after that, the only time Vimes is truly 'off-duty' is during Men At Arms, when he is preparing to get married. And - oh yes - that dreadful (for him) dinner party, when most of the nobility talk about how the trolls and the dwarfs are ruining Ankh-Morpork. It's so unbearable, he has to be sarcastic to the various Lords etc. I love how Pterry skewers racism there.

I think we see Vimes 'off-duty' during Feet of Clay, too - when he goes along to Dragon, King of Arms, only to find out that he has no official coat of arms because it's been excritus ad altitudone (or something like that - 'expunged from the record books, anyway). It needles him, because although he never wanted a coat of arms, now Nobby is getting 'particularly fine one'. NOBBY, of all people. The world is upside down!

Anyway, sorry to rant so much. Please feel free to ignore my ramblings

 

[=Tamar]

I get the impression that Ridcully and Sybil are about the same age, though he's a bit older. So when Sybil was a shy debutante, possibly being ignored in a corner at parties, she saw a young Ridcully who had just finished exams and had permission to go out on the town instead of sneaking out the over-the-wall route. He was perhaps still pining for youthful Esme Weatherwax but not so much that he couldn't appreciate a sweet young lady whose family were definitely among the powerful. Later he went off to his family's place in the country, and who knows, maybe there were some country hunting-and-shooting events where they may have mingled. Anyway, they may have had some old memories to build on when he came back to Ankh-Morpork as Archchancellor and both were in high society. Between dragon attacks, incursions from the Dungeon Dimensions, music fads, and other public events, there may have been some quiet house parties.

 

[RathDarkblade]

There is certainly something in that. We're building on a lot of "may have been", though ... Pterry's books haven't shown us any proof to this, but we can infer it.

Where does Vimes come into the picture, though, =Tamar? Cheery's question mentions him, but you haven't. Cheery was asking:

Like them gravitating towards each other at official gatherings because they actually enjoy each other's company.

Or maybe Mustrum is a friend of Sybil's and he comes to visit every now and then.

Or the idea of Ridcully and Vimes having an amiable game of snooker or cards, as they have a private laugh at someone else's expense.

So let's see: when Sybil is a very young girl (perhaps about 10?), Vimes is a young lance-constable -- possibly somewhere in the region of 14-16. (See Night Watch). That means that when Sybil becomes a shy debutante (at 18 or so?), Vimes would be 22-24, and probably a corporal or (more likely) a sergeant.

They wouldn't have met socially, I presume, except -- perhaps -- if Vimes would have accompanied a more senior sergeant to Sybil's house (at her request) to remove one of her more, er ... 'objectionable' guests.

Even if we presume that Ridcully would've been in his late teens or early 20s (or even later), there is no reason to believe that he and Vimes would have become friends. Ridcully would see a gangling, tall, somewhat morose sergeant telling one of Sybil's guests to go home, and possibly arresting him. Ridcully would have approved, but not so far as to invite the sergeant to a game of cards.

So, I think Ridcully and Vimes would mix and become friendly after Vimes joined the ranks of the rich and powerful. Probably not before.

What do you think?

 

[=Tamar]

Yes.
Vimes was a drunken nobody, and wizards were not often involved with the Watch, before the events of Guards! Guards!. They must have met after Vimes and Carrot brought the Watch back to respectability. Vetinari's tacit approval and, later, active enlarging of the Watch would have brought Vimes to Ridcully's attention - Ridcully is a politician of sorts.

Still, the marriage to Sybil seems to be the most likely connection for them to have actually met socially. Ridcully's position as the prime wizard on the Disc (as far as A-M is concerned) would give him social standing, and free big dinners are always a draw for a wizard, so he would have attended those large gatherings that Vimes dislikes. Ridcully would then have had a chance to observe Vimes in a non-Watch situation, and he would have appreciated Vimes's comments.

Edit to add: I changed my mind about Ridcully's age. He is roughly the same age as Esme, and I'm pretty sure she is noticeably older than Sybil, who was still able to bear a child by the time Vimes is Commander. Now I would say that Ridcully might have met a very young Sybil, and had a more uncle-level response. Maybe he did some silly magic tricks to entertain her, and then years later in the countryside someone introduced them at a hunting social.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Good point on Ridcully's age - although it seems to me that, at the time of ER (Equal Rites), Esme is roughly in her seventies. By comparison, when we first see Ridcully (in Soul Music, I think??), he strikes me as roughly 10 years younger - in his sixties, maybe? If he was in his seventies, he wouldn't have the energy to go running, boating, duck-hunting, bird-shooting etc.

As for Sybil: in NW (which is 30 years before the current A-M day), she is roughly 10-12. That makes her about 40-42 in Guards! Guards!. She marries Vimes one Watch book later, and we count three Watch books - FOC, Jingo, and TFE - before Vimes and Sybil have a child. So ... let's just suppose that one book is one A-M year; by that math, Sybil is 47 when she has Young Sam. It's just possible. I googled it, and the USA National Institute of Health advises:

"Pregnancy after age 45 years is infrequent and the mother and baby should be considered as a high risk."

This chimes in with Sybil's difficulties during NW, and Vimes having to call in Mrs Content and Dr Lawn.

Anyway, if Sybil is 47 during NW, then Ridcully would be approaching 70. So, I agree that he would have an uncle-level response to her.

By the way, what happened to Cheery? I suppose RL intervened.