But Vimes arrived in Discworld fully formed, and so this acts as a kind of retrospective origin story. Pratchett isn’t unaware of the problems of police officers, but he sees in the act of policing something that can be fundamentally noble even amid its ugliness, a necessary function that is idealised in the figure of the very unideal Vimes, the man who can do the things no-one else can. Of Pratchett’s many characters, Vimes is easily the most interesting and complex, especially because he’s a cop. But faced with the option of seeing history continue the way it’s meant to, or finding a way to save the men who died in the service of their city, Vimes has a greater crisis of conscience than ever before. When Vimes arrives, he finds himself having to take the place of the historic (and very dead) Sergeant Keel after Carcer kills the iconic martyr of the revolution. But when the two fall from the top of one of the Unseen University’s towers, they find themselves decades back in the past, on the eve of a major battle within Ankh-Morpork itself, during which a popular uprising coincided with the overthrow of the old Patrician. Carcer is all that is evil – an entirely psychopathic, polite villain who poses a genuine threat to all around him. In a Les Miserables-like riff, Vimes is chasing the thoroughly twisted Carcer through Ankh-Morpork.
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