Snowflake 6 - 2025

[flamingsword]

Snowflake Challenge #6:
Share your favourite piece of original canon.

I have no idea? 🤷 I have terrible episodic memory, plus I’ve been in fandom so long that it’s changed how I watch media. The creators just want to tell a story (usually about a white guy), and meanwhile I’m busy tilting my head at the marginalized character whose backstory and screen time got cut and trying to figure out why they made this choice. I know other fans will come up with more satisfying answers, but it’s more fun and interesting to think about than whatever is happening onscreen to Hollywood Chris #4 or whoever the main character is supposed to be.

🤔 Hmm. My semantic memory for things that I read is significantly better than what I watch. Maybe … I like Sam Vines and his wife, Lady Sybil. I like how they love each other without trying to change each others joys. Lady Sybil breeds tiny dragons, which are a constant danger to her, but Vimes gets it because he runs the Ankh-Morpork City Watch with the kind of aggressive integrity that makes rich nobles try to assassinate him repeatedly and he just considers that the normal cost of being a good copper, takes it as a sign he’s doing something right. He actually is the kind of person all real-world cops think they are but never live up to. Most real cops are Sergeant Colon, if they aren’t worse. 😒 And the series of Discworld books about the Watch make that very clear.

So I guess that one scene in the beginning of Night Watch where he [redacted] and his response is just eye-rolling aggravation that, today of all days, the Assassins’ Guild thinks they can [redacted]. He is not a training dummy, damn it! But he never considers being any other sort of cop, because he’s seen what the other kind of policing can do to a city.

Comments

[mekare]

Ah thanks for the reminder about the Discworld books. I‘ve only read a couple and none featuring the Watch, but this makes me want to read them this year!

[flamingsword]

The Watch books are my favorite of the Discworld books, and the first one is where Pratchett really started finding his authorial voice. The first few Discworld books are … I’m just gonna say it plainly, not very well written. But they get So Much Better. The first time I read the central pun in Going Postal I yelled out loud and threw the book across the room (at 2AM, and woke up my mother). That’s some deeply immersive writing. If you like satire, if you like social commentary, the Discworld books are my recommendation for reading, even if they take a while to find. (For some reason they’re always checked out at the library, I wonder why😉)

[tellshannon815]

I haven't read Discworld as yet, but I do like the sound of Sam Vimes!

[flamingsword]

Come to the Flat Side! We have cookies!

[gingicat]

Oh wow yes.

[gingicat]

One of my favorites too! And of many others... if you go to Tumblr and search "sam vimes" there are amazing things.

Here's a beautiful drawing of the Boots Theory:
https://www.tumblr.com/higgsbison/718331175538737152/happy-glorious-25th-of-may

[flamingsword]

Have you read any of the #GNU Terry Pratchett or #pterry tags? I only recommend it if you need to cry a little bit at how good humanity can be.

[gingicat]

Regularly, though particularly in May.

[flamingsword]

We had the memorial for my friend Bat on the 25th this year, and I brought some fake-silk lilac boutonnières for some folk. Because I was there.

[trepkos]

I totally love Sam Vimes. I think the best Watch book was "Jingo". I enjoyed seeing Nobby get in touch with his feminine side.

[flamingsword]

Oh gosh I haven’t read The One About War in like 15 years. It’s definitely time for a re-read!

[greetingsfrommaars]

oh, Vimes is great. (I'm actually halfway through reading Guards! Guards! for the first time right now, so it's very funny to me that I happened to read this post in the middle of it.)

[tielan]

I love that scene. Gives us an insight into both Vimes' character and the situation so beautifully.

[minoanmiss]

That was a GORGEOUS description of a favorite piece of canon. :)