Ankh-Morpork City Watch


The Ankh-Morpork City Watch is a fictional police force appearing in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The Watch is based in the city of Ankh-Morpork, though some stories feature its members elsewhere in the Discworld.
The Watch and its members are the central focus of eight novels and one short story, listed below in order of publication:
  • Guards! Guards! ;
  • "Theatre of Cruelty" ;
  • Men at Arms ;
  • Feet of Clay ;
  • Jingo ;
  • The Fifth Elephant ;
  • Night Watch ;
  • Thud! ;
  • Snuff
The novels generally feature Watch Commander Sam Vimes as protagonist and often draw on the conventions of crime novels. The Watch and its members also appear as secondary characters in other Discworld books, particularly those set in Ankh-Morpork.
The Watch was a loose inspiration for the 2021 fantasy police procedural television series ''The Watch.''

Style

Commentators have noted that Pratchett's depiction of the Watch draws on a longstanding fantasy tradition in which city guards "rush in and die or run away." His treatment of the trope ranges from parody in the early novels to "deeper satire" in later works.

Fictional history (before the time in which the novels are set)

Note: Some of the information repeated below was taken from The Discworld Companion and the 1999 Discworld Diary, which had a City Watch theme, and has not been confirmed in any of the Discworld novels.
"The Ankh-Morpork Watch & Ward" was established in AM 1561 by King Veltrick I. Its members were equipped with full copper armour and a copper shield inscribed with the king’s motto, Fabricati Diem, Pvncti Agvnt Celeriter. Veltrick was assassinated four days later by his son, who became King Veltrick II. The new king showed little interest in maintaining a police force, and the Watch’s equipment quickly deteriorated.
At this time, four distinct organizations operated in the city:
Public opinion of both the Day Watch and the Night Watch was consistently poor. It reached an extreme when a commander, who had urged citizens not to take the law into their own hands, was drowned in the Ankh by a mob shouting, "If it’s not in our hands, whose hands is it in?" By this time, the city’s guilds were largely responsible for policing their own members, and the Watch was increasingly marginalized.
The Watch experienced a brief revival in AM 1688, following the Ankh-Morpork Civil War, when Commander Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes and his Ironheads assumed control of the city. After his deposition and the restoration of the Patrician system, however, the Watch again declined in influence. Under the Patricians, guild law applied within the guilds while elsewhere the only effective authority was the ruling Patrician.
During the rule of Lord Winder, few Watch Houses remained in operation. The Cable Street Particulars were thriving, however, having morphed from an intelligence agency into a secret police force employing torture with gusto. During the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May, their building was burnt down by members of the Night Watch from Treacle Mine Road. The change in Patricians did not lead to an improvement in the public perception of the Watch, and when Lord Vetinari replaced Mad Lord Snapcase, and even theft was legalised, there seemed to be no point to them at all.
The dysfunctional Night Watch now comprised three men, based in the old Treacle Mine Road Watch House. While the Day Watch had become another of the city's gangs, the Night Watch was just inactive.

History according to plot of novels

The Watch is revitalized when Carrot Ironfoundersson joins as a constable and the Night Watch prevents a dragon from destroying the city. After their original headquarters are destroyed, the Watch relocates to larger premises at Pseudopolis Yard, a name referencing Scotland Yard. Membership expands significantly, with recruits from ethnic minorities including dwarfs, trolls, and undead. The Watch also eventually admits a vampire, a werewolf, an Igor, and a Nac Mac Feegle. After the Watch saves the Patrician’s life he authorizes an expansion of its authority and stature, leading to the establishment of Section Houses throughout the city. The remnants of the Day Watch are incorporated into a unified City Watch under the command of Sam Vimes.
The Watch evolves into a modern-style police force, focusing on crime prevention and investigation rather than traditional thief-taking. New divisions are created, including a forensics unit, a Traffic Division, and a plain-clothes section replacing the Cable Street Particulars. A further addition is the Specials, based on the Watch’s historic right to raise a citizens' militia when required.
Many watchmen trained in Ankh-Morpork later take positions in other cities, where they are colloquially known as "Sammies," a parallel to the British "Bobbies." They maintain contact through the semaphore telegraph system known as the clacks, a satirical reference to international police organizations such as Interpol.
Several real-world species have been named after Watch characters. These include the Cretaceous gymnosperm Czekanowskia anguae, named after Angua von Überwald; Pseudotorellia vimesiana, named after Sam Vimes; and Torreyites detriti, named after the troll Detritus.

Members

The primary members of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch are :

His Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes

Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, learned dirty tricks as a street copper and passed them on to new recruits. Under him, the Watch strengthens its position, and while he makes many enemies, the Assassins' Guild has stopped accepting contracts for his assassination.
He marries Lady Sybil Ramkin, the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork, and together they have a son, Young Sam.

Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson

Adopted by dwarfs as an infant, Carrot grew up in the mines of the Copperhead mountains. He is "six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders". His dwarfish name is Kzad-bhat, which, roughly translated, means "Head Banger", a logical nickname for a man living in a mine built by dwarfs. He was surprised to learn that he was human. His adoptive father thought it best that he goes live among humans and found him a job in Ankh-Morpork with the Night Watch, believing them respected and respectable. Carrot was "barely 16 years old".
Carrot joins the Night Watch when it is still a small group of misfits who run from criminals rather than arrest them. His old-fashioned view of justice leads him on his first day as a constable to arrest the leader of the entirely legal Thieves' Guild, but he later understands the city better.
Captain Carrot rapidly and easily comes to know the city's one-million population by name and tax status, and is big on paperwork and organization. He always takes the time to see all sides of a story before acting. When Sam Vimes plans to retire after marrying Lady Sybil Ramkin, Carrot is promoted to the captaincy. Carrot becomes famous enough for action figures of him to appear.
Carrot's main talents are his charisma and "supernatural likability". He genuinely likes people, in contrast to Vimes, who "doesn't like anybody". He is often shown getting people to do things no one else could force them to do, simply by assuming that they will: for example, his outreach programs for at-risk Ankh-Morporkian youth treat them like boy scouts. When he directly commands someone, they find it very difficult to disobey. Even Vimes is susceptible to this power. Carrot prefers not to use this except in dire emergencies.
Carrot often seems unthreatening, a dangerous conclusion if one is unlucky enough to disappoint him. People think Carrot is simple, and the narrator occasionally points out that while that is true, people often mistake "simple" for "stupid". Carrot's simplicity is cunning. In Soul Music, Carrot adds questions to the quiz machine in the Mended Drum, asking players who was responsible for recent crimes and frequently makes arrests as a result. In Theatre of Cruelty, lacking any living witnesses to a murder, he interviews Death as part of his investigation.
Carrot sees the bright side of life. When Angua, a werewolf, tells him that her brother Andrei is stuck in wolf form and lives as a champion sheepdog, Carrot notes that he is a champion. Carrot has also promised Angua, at her request, that if she ever follows in her brother Wolfgang's murderous footsteps, he will be the one to stop her.
It is commonly suspected that Carrot is the true heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, but he does not acknowledge it, and has even hidden evidence of his royal heritage. Havelock Vetinari considers him useful, as he makes any attempt to claiming to be the true heir impossible, and any complaints that only a king has the authority to do something can simply be deferred to Carrot.
Carrot himself never uses his royal powers or acknowledges his royal heritage. After he learns about it in Men at Arms, he confides to Vetinari that he wants people to obey the law because it is the law, not because "Captain Carrot is good at being obeyed". He says he is content to ring a bell and yell all's well, "provided of course that 'all is well".
Carrot on rare occasions does use his royal powers to make things happen. In Jingo, Vetinari made Vimes a Duke, something only a King can do, while Carrot was present—noting that he "had been reminded" that Vimes could have the title. In The Fifth Elephant, faced with the defection of most members of the Watch under Sergeant Fred Colon, Carrot puts his plain and battered royal sword on a desk in plain sight and reminds Watch members that they took an oath to the King, and the King had not relieved them of it.
Carrot is the stereotypical "perfect" policeman: totally honest, law-abiding, and determined to be friends with everyone. People of all species can't help but want to behave well in his presence. His love for everyone distresses Angua, who worries that he loves her no more than he loves anyone else. He puts the welfare of the public above both hers and his own, but when she was in danger, he traveled to the rim of the Disc to save her.
In Jingo, Angua is kidnapped on a Klatchian ship and The Watch pursues it. Carrot does not worry, but sensibly, gets some sleep to be ready to rescue her. Sam Vimes and the ship's captain see the sense of this, but cannot believe that someone in love can be so sensible.
In The Art of Discworld Pratchett says that Carrot has a bright future, "should Lord Vetinari not survive the next assassination attempt", and notes that although most people envision Carrot as Arnold Schwarzenegger, he is actually more like Liam Neeson. In both the Discworld computer game and the BBC Radio production of Guards! Guards!, he speaks with a Welsh accent.