Good Cops and Where to Find Them
Food for Thought
Things are afoul in The Streets of Ankh-Morpork. An evil tyrant rules the city, thieves prowl around in broad daylight unhindered, and you can't be quite sure what's in those sausages Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler sells. Don't worry, that's normal there. What is even more concerning is the attempt to bring order and reason through the use of fire. A cabal of conspirators and sorcerers aims to deliver an age of reason and progress, but the unelected patrician of Ankh-Morpork stands in the way of the puppet king they graciously advise.
Havelock Vetinari does not have many things going for him, but at least he is not a monarch—he worked to earn his place. To sour-faced and embittered watchman Vimes, that's enough. Sure, the patrician also cut a deal with the thieves guild that made the entire city into their protection racket and the guard superfluous, but all non-sanctioned crime stopped. Now a relic of a bygone age, the watch is underfunded and corrupt to the core, and Vimes drinks each day away.
Then, Carrot Ironfoundersson comes along! Both named, shaped, and just as upright and bright as an orange pointy vegetable, the young dwarf-raised, sword-wielding orphan with a mysterious birthmark and a poor grasp of grammar sets out to reform the watch, one quelled race-riot and survived a dragon attack at a time. The cabal is getting better at the whole "summon a threat to have our puppet defeat it" thing with every burned house and beggar.
The stays are getting longer, the dragon more real. Like in all stories, act one can not be stopped. The beast is brought forth and promptly defeated, the new dragonslaying crowned king and the patrician are then promptly locked up. So far, so good—there is just one problem.
Dragons are magical; too big to fly, too fiery not to combust, and wholly defiant of silly concepts like the square-cube law. Once they are there, they will not budge. The whole fantasy of a better world gets out of control. Within days, the king and his cabal are toppled, and the dragon takes a crack at the whole "evil overlord" thing.
They happen to be good at virgin sacrifices, the mobilisation of a dark conquering army, and also naturally inciting shock and terror. Soon, Vetinari's reign of terror seems much more preferable again. One brave man makes his stand. "The people united will never be ignited." Turns out, he's alone, the dragon’s policies are exceedingly popular, and he gets turned to ash for his troubles.
Can the watch save the day when the cabal can not dispel the spirits they summoned? Spoiler alert: nope. Cops are, in fact, actually useless when it comes to stopping a monster; an allegory to oppressive tyranny. Vimes confronts the cabal leader alone, and is locked up, with his daring escape crashing down as well… Carrot misses the shot with impossibly low odds.
The day is instead saved by an inbred distant relative of the dragon who achieves flight through explosive flatulence and good tyranny returns. Vetinari knew he was the best and the people of Ankh-Morpork would, in the long term, not accept any substitutes. The watch gets a raise and a new house. The magic sneaks off into an uncharted corner, and the slow, imperfect march to progress resumes as the right tyranny returns.
Now, the discerning reader might object: isn't all tyranny bad? Not in this book. As Vetinari explains to Vimes, ruthless, anti-democratic realpolitikers are needed in his view to prevent worse men from taking charge. And humans, the worst kind of monster in both fiction and reality, need someone to reign them in. Good people exist, but as the useless protester and the watch demonstrate in the story, they are too short-sighted and naive to understand what reality is really like.
Pratchett stabs with clear sight and mind at Tolkien and The Hobbit. The trope of a nobody turning into a King through a heroic deed is lambasted as a sentimental and romantic notion on several levels. The inexperienced king would not only be a puppet to his advisor, as the Order had planned. He would also reign not with common sense but with ideas out of tune with reality. Even a benevolent king would be blindsided by people's cynical opportunism.
A claim asserted by force of arms can be contested by arms; the result is an out-of-control tyrant who rules through fear and selfishness, like the dragon. Does the long forgotten heir really want to fulfill his destiny? Carrot, who is strongly implied to be the actual heir to the throne, is much happier as a reformist policeman under the evil tyrant than as a king. Because of all of these reasons, the evil tyrant Vetinari, not the good king, is the one the story believes should be in charge.
This is not just a takedown of monarchist sentiment, but stabs right at the heart of fantasy and some of the retrograde, musty tropes of it. The royal virgin damsel in distress is not some trophy to be conquered, but her individual person. She has a personality and hobbies, is middle-aged, feisty, and anything but lithe and thin. The dragon is nothing but a speaking animal and, though pretty evil, holds no water against human depravity.
The day is saved not by heroism but with science, police action, and pragmatism. The next natural question is: why write fantasy at all, when you can't find anything worthwhile in it but to lambast its readers for their idealist follies? This is an angry book written by an angry man. Like any good satirist, Pratchett did not write like this only to illustrate reality as it was, but also to scold people into doing better.
While there are witty lines and great wordplays to be found in the book, I found our time and circumstances too somber to get a good laugh out of it. At its best, the novel exposits the flaws and hypocrisy of the human psyche. At worst, it furthers power-serving myths. Police, minus some minor corruption, serve as a force of justice with good people taking it in a better direction if they can only get a little bit more funding; an "it takes two to tango" approach to race relations.
The evil enlightenment thinkers and faux-french revolutionaries say they want equality and justice, but in truth are only in it for themselves. The anti-democratic Machiavellians are suddenly a force for good. The average person is painted as too dumb, selfish, and helpless to be allowed a say in things.
Ultimately, this reveals the greatest problem with the story. The ideal of our constitution is an egalitarian democracy. That necessarily means that, yes, even those society sees as "out of touch", "dumb" or "uneducated" deserve a say—and also a proper education. The beloved author should certainly not be accused of technocratic sentiment, but there is an admiration for ruthless operators and well-meaning experts running as an undercurrent throughout all of the novel.
Despite Pratchett's penchant for crushing any sentimental notion with a sobering dose of reality, the protagonists, flawed but well-intentioned, experience a flawed but steady career. Vimes marries into the aristocracy, Carrot climbs the ranks, Vetinari, imperfectly but steadily, transforms and cleans up the city into something less depraved.
It's mostly the other people, those naive, egoistical fools, who dare to dream and are irrelevant to the narrative, to which the bad things that stick happen, who have their hopes and dreams cruelly crushed. For those of us who have lived even a little with open eyes, the myth of steady progress in exchange for loyalty to the anti-egalitarian status quo against radical, democratic organizing has already been all but shattered.
Is it a bad book? Not by far. Get it from your local library or independent bookstore as soon as you’re done reading this. Pratchett's writing talent is better applied to pick apart fantasy than politics, however. While he prods the pulse of many problematic fantasy story devices, a look at LeGuin for a more radical and symbolist can show how to salvage fantasy and not just demolish it.
