I could see watchmen running over rooftops, Rosie and Sandra, the basement in Cable St, Downey and Vetinari in the dining hall of the Assassin’s Guild, all of it. When I read Night Watch, for the first time they looked like real people. In the Discworld they were always just voices, the characters looked like caricatures, like cartoons or claymation. Since I was a kid (I was an early and furiously prolific reader) I used actors I liked from tv and movies to help me see the characters. It felt “real” in a way that the earlier books hadn’t. The less satisfying (though truthful) answer is “it just hit difficult”, and my attempts to quantify it always fall short. You can't rely on revolution, there's no such thing as glory, and promises are made to be broken.īut you can believe in a hard boiled egg.

It also appeals to the cynic in me, as I get older and more disillusioned with politics, and failed rebellions, and leaders full of promises who turn out to be exactly the same as those they replace.

You do the job in front of you, and it's a shitty job, and theres no glory on the barricade, and no one will remember, but there's no one else and if you don't do it, its your lads, your mates, your people who will suffer. It always makes me think of the film 'Zulu' where a terrified soldier standing on the barricade watching the overwhelming enemy approach asksĪnd his grizzled old Colour Sergeant replies in a steady voice Because it has to be done and someone has to do it and there's no one else. He'll sacrifice everything for people he hardly knows. but he can't turn his back on his people. There's just something about Vimes, with all he's been through, with an opportunity to escape. This, it's Vimes, and Terry, at the top of their game for me.

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