Terry Pratchett was a fantasy author in that he wrote about magical, fantastic, and impossible things, like good policemen and benevolent dictators.

Sure, in a fantasy world where academics are allowed to do basically whatever they want by those in charge because it's widely understood that knowledge = power. https://twitter.com/Myrmecos/status/1273338786806628352

Somebody replied to this with "What about Nobby?" as though that disproves the point that Pratchett wrote about impossibly good cops. Yeah, Nobby wasn't one of them. Neither was Moist, or Rincewind, or Granny Weatherwax. Most of the characters he wrote weren't good cops.

Buut since the topic was raised, I'm going to point out that all four of the main original Night Watch characters going back to Guards! Guards! are in fact part of the fantasy version of policing. Even Fred and Nobby.

"But how can that be? Nobby is hopelessly corrupt, a petty thief who uses the badge as an excuse to loiter and 'investigate' doors in case they've been left carelessly unlocked."

Yes, and for that, he's presented as harmless at worst and basically good at heart.

Fred Colon is a lazy obstructocrat, hopelessly mired in his own personal biases, more interested in collecting the "perks" that go with the badge than upholding the law. He gets his McMuffin for free *and* on time.

But again: this is played off as harmless.

Vimes's internal monologue in various books basically plays it off that the grift and graft of Colon and Nobbs is like a tax the city pays to have their skills available when they're needed. He relies on Fred's intuition as a veteran cop more than once.

Vimes? Vimes is a character like Veterinari or Moist Von Lipwig in that the basic concept is not "What if the civic leaders weren't corrupt?" but "What if they were corrupt *in our favor*?"

Vimes is a very particular twist on the Cincinnatus myth, which Pratchett was a sucker for (and so am I, hence my fanning): he is a self-regulating cop. He watches the watchmen, and he watches himself, and he watches himself watching himself.

Vimes's self-regulating urge is so strong it is a legitimate supernatural force in the Discworld, capable of foiling dark gods and transcending time and space. It's a literal fantasy element, the watchman who watches the watchmen.

And his self-regulating urge is explicitly tied up in the narrative with his alcoholism, which... hoo. There's a dangerous message if we take this as literal reality and not fantasy. The Watchman Who Watches The Watchman is only able to do so because he wrestles with addiction.

Then we come to Carrot, the golden boy, the never and ever king of Ankh-Morpork, who's not just a fantasy version of a cop but a fantasy of a predestined monarch: no interest in the crown, decided to become a public servant, a Polis-Man, a man of the people.

Eeeeeeeeexcept the simple-doesn't-mean-stupid Carrot has absolutely no problem invoking the power of the throne when it suits him, does he? He leans on the patrician, he created Vimes a duke (which was okay because Vimes doesn't want to be nobility, Cincinnatus strikes again!)...

And the fact that Carrot *works*, that he's able to do the stuff he does, that he can walk the streets as A Man of the People, is still tied up with a very bloodlines-and-destiny view of monarchy. It works because he IS The Rightwise King.

And a good deal of the early (in publication or Trousers of Time terms) Watch stories contrast these colorful figures with much, much worse people to emphasize how basically decent all four of them, Fred and Nobby included.

And Fred Colon... Fred Colon is an old racist with a badge. Not just the fantasy type! Even as the series insists that racism is largely absent on the disc because speciesism is such a more prominent division, Colon's twee Pratchettian grousing about "foreign" is still racism.

But this old racist with a badge is portrayed as being basically good, basically decent, and indispensable to the operation of the police force.

Carrot is very obviously and over the top of a fantasy figure, Vimes is somewhat more quietly so, but even Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs present a fantasy where the old guard is just a little set in their ways, where bigotry and corruption are just harmless peccadilloes.

(And Vimes's status as a fantasy figure is not at all subtle by the end, when he's Batman and Dirty Harry rolled into one, a legend in every culture in the Disc, the dominant host of a supernatural being with actual magical powers, etc.)

I think I'm seeing the leading edge of other Pratchett fans starting to find this thread, not understanding that I'm writing it as a Pratchett fan and eager to defend Sir Pterry's honor from the threat of cancellation, so I'm about to mute it.

But just to swing back to Nobby, even if though he's not portrayed as a "good cop", his existence (nor that of all the Evil Cops throughout the series) doesn't change the point that Pratchett wrote a fantasy version of policing and fantastic good cops.

The rosy view of policing he portrays isn't that All Cops Are Heroes or that Carrot and Vimes are representative of the watch. But think about the first watch book (Guards! Guards!) introducing Carrot.

What happens? One good apple unspoils the bunch.

But even ignoring the effect that Carrot has on Vimes or Vimes and Carrot on the rest of the guards... just their own existence within the system is still a fantasy. The heroic Good Cop is fantasy enough.