Sam Vimes - Character

Character

Vimes is a very conflicted character: An incorruptible idealist with deep beliefs in justice and an abiding love of his city, he is also a committed cynic whose knowledge of human nature constantly reminds him how far off those ideals are. A member of the upper classes, he still has an innate dislike of hereditary wealth and a horror of social inequality. The Patrician observes that Vimes is anti-authoritarian even though he is, himself, an authority figure, which is "practically Zen". The conflict within Vimes is between his virtuous nature ("the Watchman") and what he calls "the Beast". In The Art of Discworld, Pratchett explains that Vimes protects himself from the Beast with the symbol of his own badge, which prevents him from becoming the criminal he despises, at least in his own mind. Although in Guards! Guards! Vimes is all-but-shocked at Vetinari's disturbingly cynical (and probably disturbingly accurate) view of the world, he in turn has been called "the most cynical bastard that ever walked under the sun" (in Going Postal). Although widely differing characters, Vimes and Vetinari can be called similar in that they both have very cynical worldviews, but fairly idealistic aims.

Vimes has once been described as a speciesist, though only from an "old school" mindset. He will warm up to "good coppers", regardless of their unusual backgrounds and has allowed the Watch to become one of the most species-blind employers in the city. Most of his officers rationalize his bias as simply not being particularly fond of anyone; initially, Vimes is jokingly described as fond of rural dwarfs and wizards, primarily because most do not cause crimes relevant to him. A notable exception is his explicit dislike of vampires. He explained to Lady Margolotta in The Fifth Elephant, this is because, teetotal or not, 'a vampire will always seek to dominate a human being'.

Despite being viewed by many of the Discworld's more Machiavellian power brokers as easy to fool, Vimes is in fact much more cunning than he appears. His years of practical experience give him a foundation of hard-headed realism on which he bases much of his more idealistic beliefs. A running gag in the series is his thwarting of several attempts on his life by the Assassins' Guild, due to his knowledge of their rigid code of conduct. Thanks to the funds now available to him, through marriage, his mansion is set with numerous traps, so that the Assassins, who must always offer a sporting chance, cannot get close to him without suffering a severe mishap. Traps include greased rails, sawn roof joists over the dragon pens and bear traps in the shrubbery. Vimes also personally makes sure that all of the brickwork is kept in good repair, with no convenient handholds. In addition, Vimes' office at Pseudopolis Yard has "everything that his ingenuity could devise", including sharp ornamental railings, "which are pretty, and make the house look nice, but are, above all, spiky."

Whenever he thwarts an Assassin in an attempt, he usually lets them go after taking their share of the payment for his inhumation (which he then donates to the 'Watch Widows and Orphans Fund', or to the 'Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick, Abused or Abandoned Dragons'), and subjecting them to a little humiliation. Though he finds it to be annoying, Vimes takes these continued attempts on his life as a sign that he's angering somebody, and so must be doing something right. In every book in the series, the fee for his assassination has risen until he has been removed from the Guild register, meaning that contracts on his life are no longer accepted (this was initially literal, as no assassin wanted to take the contract). Vimes was made aware of this by a young female student from the guild, who had been tasked with merely getting a glimpse of Vimes at his home (after she had fallen into one of the "eventually lethal" traps). Vimes is considering appealing the decision. Vimes has also managed to evade, beat off and 'kill' (at least, temporarily disable) werewolves (in The Fifth Elephant), part of a pack of werewolves in "the game"; a werewolf tradition of chasing a human back to civilization that humans did not often win, during a version organized by Angua's brother Wolfgang; Wolfgang insists that the werewolves would just have "nasty headaches later on." Vimes also reflects on killing a werewolf in Night Watch and Vetinari mentions him killing a werewolf in Thud!. He did actually kill Wolfgang.

While not otherwise well-traveled, in the days of Guards! Guards! he could tell exactly where he was anywhere within the city limits of Ankh-Morpork just by the feel of the cobbles beneath his feet, due to the thinness of his boots at the time, having walked the streets of the city for thirty years and a knowledge of the difference of the cobbles therein. When he is returned to the past in Night Watch, he uses this ability to locate a group of monks he needs in-order to return to his present. Later in the series, the expensive, good quality boots his wife persists in buying for him restrict this ability.

Vimes' firm grasp of basic human nature, and of the Ankh-Morpork psyche in particular, led to him spending some years as a drunk, and Sergeant Fred Colon postulates that this was because Vimes' body didn't produce any "natural alcohol", and he estimates that Vimes was about "two drinks below par". This meant that when he hadn't been drinking, he was beyond sober - he was "knurd". Thus he saw reality as it really was ("first sight"); stripped of all the mental illusions that most people construct in their minds to get to sleep at night ("second sight"). This horrifying state of mind caused Vimes to try to balance it out through drinking, but he would get the dosage wrong and would just end up drunk. Vimes gave up alcohol after his marriage to Sybil, and now smokes foul-smelling cigars instead. However he still keeps a bottle of 'Bearhugger's Whisky' in his bottom desk drawer as a 'permanent test'.

Terry Pratchett noted the following about Vimes on the Usenet: "Vimes is fundamentally a person. He fears he may be a bad person because he knows what he thinks rather than just what he says and does. He chokes off those little reactions and impulses, but he knows what they are. So he tries to act like a good person, often in situations where the map is unclear." This, along with the Discworld habit of pushing any theory as hard as it goes, appears to have culminated in Vimes' psyche creating its own 'internal policeman' to "Guard the Guardsmen", (cf. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?), and Vimes' own sense of justice being so strong that, in Thud!, it was even able to fend off the attempts to possess him by a 'quasi-demonic thing of pure vengeance'.

Vimes often has to go to report to Lord Vetinari, although most of the time he keeps a poker-face and answers very simply to avoid Vetinari's probing questions. When given bad news, he has a tendency to, on his way out, pound his fist against a certain spot of wall near the office door. Though he sometimes has to call in a plasterer when Vimes is particularly angry, Vetinari doesn't worry about it—a sign that he intentionally angers Vimes so as to goad him into a desired action. In fact, when Vimes was temporarily relieved of command in Men At Arms, the fact that Vimes didn't pound the wall led Vetinari to realize that he 'may have gone too far'.

It has also been noted that, in personality and mental setup, Vimes bears some similarity to Granny Weatherwax. Both are effectively 'good' characters, who nevertheless both secretly fear the darkness inside themselves, and constantly strive to control the darker sides of their nature.

Sometimes this darker side comes out when Vimes loses control of his anger and he effectively 'goes spare'. In Men at Arms, he temporarily gains possession of the Gonne, a malevolent firearm which drives him to violence, but he restrains the urge to "make things right", enough to eventually let it go without seriously hurting anyone. In Feet of Clay, Corporal Nobby Nobbs refuses the position of King of Ankh-Morpork, primarily due to the fear of incurring Vimes's general wrath and hatred of royalty.

In Thud!, after an attempted assassination of his family, Vimes becomes furious at the 'deep-down dwarves', a problem only made worse by the presence of a dark entity of pure vengeance within his mind. Both of those factors, and a near-Death experience that forced him to miss his 6:00pm story-time with his son, culminate in him snapping and temporarily losing over to "the Beast", going insane/berserk and single-handedly storming the deep-downers responsible, all-the-while roaring out the lines to Where's My Cow?; ("...IS THAT MY COW? IT GOES, 'MOOOOO!'...") with such ferocity and madness that their personal guard come to the conclusion that "they had sworn to fight to the death, but not to this death," and run away. As he is about to massacre the now-defenceless deep-downers, he hesitates thanks to "the Watchman" in his head and begins to struggle with himself, which buys enough time for Sergeant Angua to arrive at the scene and force him down. He never completely loses control, and always manages to restrain himself (or have someone around to restrain him) in the end.

Revealed in the events of Thud!, after years of night-time patrols, Vimes' mindscape is described as the city of Ankh-Morpork-itself, streets and all, in the dead of night, whilst the rains are bucketing-down over your head. Whenever Vimes is angry, doors of some of the houses open (the more angry he is, the more numbers of doors will open). While the Summoning Dark had trespassed into his mind, needing a host in-order-to track-down the Deep-Downer Dwarves, would try to enter through one of the doors that opened when Vimes became angry, only to be pulled away at every time. It is later revealed that the force that was preventing the Summoning Dark from making any progress in possessing Vimes was Vimes' own 'inner guardsman', who patrols the streets of his mind.

Vimes is an effective and brutal hand-to-hand fighter, who specialises in "dirty fighting". He also prefers non-lethal takedowns whenever possible.

During heightened states of mind, such as when confronting his darker side and/or when near death, he is able to see Death, (this happened in The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch and Thud!). Death-himself is unsure whether Vimes should die or not in these cases, citing "quantum" as an explanation. At one point Death notes that if Vimes is having a 'near-Death' experience, Death is also forced to have a 'near Vimes' experience (as of Thud! Death has started bringing books to read during these occasions).

On rare occasions, Sam Vimes has been described as completely happy, even if it's only for a brief period; such occasions include alone time with his wife, the birth of his son, and whenever a case has reached a satisfactory conclusion. At the end of the events of Snuff, Vimes was also genuinely amazed to learn that a new book, "Pride and Extreme Prejudice", had been dedicated to him.